If I was a customer…

Not long time back, I was asked by a customer (Mr. Sandeep, Managing Director of P M Engineering), “Sudheer, if given a chance, what would you like to be”. Well, honestly at any given time I would still prefer to be a Computer geek.

But, then, I said, I would want to be “on the other side of the table” …be a customer and feel good about negotiating and making demands.

However, let me also own up that over a period of time I have become more of a sales man. I yet enjoy selling because selling also involves technical skills then just a shear marketing skill. Customers today have become far smarter than they had ever been in the history. Even if they may not have enough budget, yet they would still evaluate all ERP’s including SAP, ORACLE, RAMCO and other brands including ERESOURCE. It just reminds me about a potential prospect that I visited about a week back, the customer had evaluated all leading brands and said that we did liked the features of 2 other ERP’s, but I like your product because of the scalability that it offers. Probably, we demonstrated the scalability of eresource much better than any other ERP vendors.

Eresouce ERP is indeed a scalable ERP and can adapt to any business dynamics without much configuration or customization. Besides, it is a browser based ERP.

Mostly all customers ask me this question “eresource is a web based or browser based ERP” does that mean that Internet connection is required 24/7 to access your ERP. There is a misconception about Web based application that people have in their mind… Then, I have to tell them that the strength of browser based application lies in its flexibility to work on any environment, be it, LAN, WAN, Internet or Intranet.

It is like this, assuming the ERP server is deployed at the customer’s facility, then, the users of that facility would continue to work on LAN, and any other location outside the location of the customer would then access the ERP through Internet.

Well let me come back of what I would do if I was a customer to the ERP vendor. I would Map my business process with the ERP and understand the dynamics of the ERP so that I would configure all by myself to fit to my business function. If I encounter that there is a GAP which would not hamper me to GO-LIVE on the ERP, I would put my best foot forward to make sure that I GO-LIVE on as-is basis. Well, if the GAP is more than 20% then, I would out-rightly decline the ERP vendor and opt for somebody who is 90% close to my business requirements.

And during the GO-LIVE process, I would instruct the Vendor to configure/customize other elements. Given that approach, I know my implementation of ERP would still happen on time. Besides, ERP implementation is a persistent, consistent process over 6 months period. If I as a customer had to wait for 6 months for GO-LIVE or initiate the implementation process, then, I would probably be able to ripe the fruit as in the ROI may be after 3 years.

I believe there is nothing like doing it right… Important is doing it.

For more information kindly visit: http://sudheernair.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/if-i-was-a-customer%e2%80%a6/