Procurement consultancy

The purc­ha­se of busi­ness softwa­re, in this case ERP, financial mana­ge­ment softwa­re or a point-of-sale sys­tem, for an SME is somet­hing that few ent­repre­neurs do on an ongoing basis. Or if they do, things have not neces­sa­ri­ly gone well. Moreo­ver, because they are done infrequent­ly, they do not build up expe­rience and rou­ti­ne. Howe­ver, it is a process that should take many fac­tors into account. The first option that comes along may not always be the best.

That’s why I offer a procu­re­ment con­sul­tancy ser­vice to help with the procu­re­ment of busi­ness softwa­re, star­ting with defi­ning your own needs and, if neces­sa­ry, desc­ri­bing your proces­ses or other reviews. Then it’s a mat­ter of explo­ring the options and com­pa­ring them against your needs. The procu­re­ment process itself, with its pre­sen­ta­tion, cost-bene­fit calcu­la­tions and cont­rac­tual issues, is the second part of the pic­tu­re. The ten­de­ring process is a key part of the whole.

Then the­re is the big part of the trans­for­ma­tion, i.e. the imple­men­ta­tion pro­ject itself, with its data trans­fer, trai­ning and con­fi­gu­ra­tion, whe­re it is an advan­ta­ge if not only the softwa­re supplier but also the buyer’s repre­sen­ta­ti­ve has the know-how to imple­ment the­se things in the cus­to­mer’s com­pa­ny. I also offer help with these.

Having been invol­ved as a ven­dor part­ner in nume­rous lar­ge and small ERP and POS sys­tem replace­ment pro­jects since 1993, I am very fami­liar with the dif­fe­rent situa­tions and options that exist in the procu­re­ment and imple­men­ta­tion process, especial­ly in retail, who­le­sa­le, ser­vice and repair and seve­ral ser­vice industries. The lar­gest pro­jects I have been invol­ved in have invol­ved more than 25 sites, a hundred works­ta­tions in the lar­gest sites and offices across the count­ry and in neigh­bou­ring countries.