Business Software Selection – Technical Assessment and Independent Review

So you’ve done the homework and selected the best available ERP software solution for your business.  The application functionality is grand and the ERP sales rep has indicated that all of the data will be available to you via direct database query or an API.   He assures you that this new software will play nice with the other systems within your organization.

But is that true?

We can help analyze software procurement decisions from a technical perspective by interfacing with the vendor:

• analyzing the age and technology behind the product.  Is the product written in COBOL or Clipper and if so, what does that mean for the vendor’s ability to keep up with current industry trends?
• is the database old such that if you ever decide to leave the vendor in favor of a new product, you will have to pay big money to get your data migrated?
• is the vendor keeping up with current software technology trends?
• is the source code available and what other customization options are available?
• does the vendor support custom database hooks such as database triggers?
• if the product is hosted in the cloud, is the hosting fee fair?
• are the annual support fees commensurate with what is given in return?
• what reporting tools are available and do they look too good to be true in the demo?
• are excessive hardware resources required to run the application because the code was not written with performance considerations in mind?
• is the advertised API able to deliver as promised and what coding skills will it require for a developer to interface with the API?

In the end, the ability to satisfy business requirements with appropriate functionality is the most important consideration in software selection.  However, an inferior or underdeveloped technology stack underlying the application can result in lack of integration, mitigated data access, and lack of options for the vendor to enhance the software moving into the future, and thus, can negatively affect your business.

In the end, from a technical perspective, no software is perfect, but the vendor should be able to justify, when appropriate, what the potential flaws of their system are, what options are available to work around them.  Also, the vendor should be able to supply a technical road map to demonstrate the direction the software will take into the future.

We can investigate and give an independent analysis of a software product’s technical strengths and weaknesses, advise on custom solutions and highlight the potential impact for your business.