That's a painful truth that most software solution implementers encounter when carrying out implementation projects for their customers. According to statistics, more than 50% of ERP implementation projects are unsuccessful and only 18% of small and medium enterprises have successfully deployed integrated management software. That means 18% of businesses have overcome the difficult and challenging implementation phase.
Returning to the problem at the beginning of the article, we have gone through many projects, with many customers from ideal to utopia and failed in the implementation phase. But that is an opportunity for us to learn that the important thing to make a project successful is to understand and manage customer expectations well with the project.
Managing customer expectations well allows us to optimize budgets to provide customers with a more competitively priced service, while limiting costly customizations to focus on generating profit margins. High profits for customers' ERP projects.
So what is the key to effectively managing customer expectations?
Don't make customers think "The project is simple"
Deploying business management software has never been easy. Each business has its own, very complex operating process and when applying software to management, there will certainly be many changes. And one of the mistakes developers make when starting a project is making customers misunderstand how simple it is - perhaps for the purpose of closing orders with customers.
That is also the reason why ERP projects do not fail at the start-up phase but fail at the implementation phase. Because at that time, the complexity of the business's operations was truly revealed, and the project became much more complicated than both sides imagined. Or it is inherently complex but unpredictable.
With these unforeseen developments, businesses will often have to bear customized costs but not have enough resources to pursue the project, leading to a "dilemma".
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