Thursday, February 6, 2014

Tips For Buying Business Software

By Marion Peters


For any company, purchasing the right business software is very important to its success and future strategies. It therefore becomes very stressful for the person who has been tasked with purchasing this program to make sure that he gets the right product. Failures to do so could see a company not only lose money, but also place its reputation on the line with its partners.

When sourcing for applications, there are key areas that the involved department needs to avoid. These are; contracts that go on for a long time, an architecture that is closed up, upfront investments which come with very high implementation costs. A dept will also need to avoid any architecture that comes in the form of install and maintain.

Cloud computing has been seen as the cheapest solution to meeting system needs for any organization. With this type of system, organizations do not have to spend any amount of money on set up costs. There is no hardware that must be purchased in order to satisfy the system requirements.

An organisation will also need to consider the architecture that is present in each program. The best architectures are often those that are open. With open architectures, it becomes easier to maintain and integrate this system with existing products. The integration will also happen in a seamless manner.

Consider going for products that offer real trials. This is referred to as the real try it before paying for it program. It allows a department to use the program in a real life situation within the company for some period of time before starting to pay for it.

Always consider what type of support will be offered for the applications once they have been purchased. Companies cannot afford to have their systems unreachable for more than a few minutes. Real time support ought to be available which should also guarantee a very fast turn around time.

Contracts that are to be signed should be for a short duration. Any contract exceeding more than a few months is considered a lock in contract. It could prevent a client from moving on to another firm even when it is not satisfied with the services being offered to it.

When shopping for business software, you will need to ensure that the product also allows for social connectivity. More and more firms are realizing on social networks for marketing, advertising and even recruitment. A good product will therefore allow for faster connectivity to all major social networks.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment