Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 9.1
Impact of a new introduction.
The architects and designers
. They concentrate on the formal base
product, the underlying technology frameworks, and the custom-
ization tools, but few of them step over to the user side and use it.
. Yes, they see the various
customizations (dialects) and more ground-level reality but can still
be surprised by the way the base product behaves.
Professional services and consultants
. Other players, such as sales and support personnel,
who, at best, have some partial views of the product.
Other players
It should not be surprising that, as a customer, you may sometimes
have felt that the parties you deal with — sales, support, or professional
services — do not know the product as well as you would have expected.
It is difficult for them too.
Reducing Risk of Failure
As a customer, one probably understands one's existing system better than
the vendor from whom one is planning to buy the software. Good ways
to improve the fit and reduce risks include:
Identify key features that a package must support (along with the
key functionalities that it should have)
. These features could be
support for some old hardware terminals, legacy software, data
export requirements, etc. Do not look at business functionality
