The Rules of the Games are changing There is beyond a do ubt that the IT Industry is seeing a shift from the traditional approach of Clients when it comes to Enterprise Implementations. For this discussion, The Clients are assumed to be Large Private Groups and few enterprising Government Majors and the IT Industry refers to Tier- I IT organizations. A quick look at the tradition and the earlier conventional approach… When a Client decides to go ahead with an ERP Implementation, he sends an RFP. Clients receive Proposals from Tier I organizations which details the Solution, the Implementation approach, Case Studies and sample profiles of the Project team. A Decision is taken based on the Technical Solution presented followed by Price negotiations and a Lock-In. The price is normally the Total Effort multiplied by the Consultants rate per month with some contingency costs thrown in and at no given time does the Client have an idea ofthe rates and effort for each module. The Tier- I IT organization as p er ‘Industry ‘ norm, gets its 3 - 4 weeks to mobilize a team comprising of the Project manager, the Program Manager and various Solution Leads and Consultants. This is often times extended by a few weeks and a ‘Project Kick-Off’ happens. The Project goes through its various cycles, challenges before the final Testing and GO- LIVE. The Rules today are changing The Client today is careful, well informed and knows and demands exactly what he wants. For several of these Large Clients, Price is never an issue and before they decide to LOCK-IN with a specific vendor, their Expectations (which co uld be seen as somewhat unrealistic from the IT vendors perspective) need to be met. The Client today demands and exp ects the IT vendor to mobilize Project teams, complete with SME’s (subject matter experts) in a few days. They would meet and interview the full Project team. The key users within the Client form a committee and ‘test’ the project team for their‘functional’ and Business knowledge and go the extra length to ensure that they are fully convinced that they can deliver. It won’t be surprising for the Client companies to rope in external knowledgeable Consultants during the Interview and Testing process of the project team. If there is a mandate for a ERP project in a Coal Power Generation o rganization, Clients not only expect SI’s to have p roven experience in Utilities but specifically Utility Coal power Generation and expe ct SI’s to have ‘templates’ that speed up Implementation times and to demonstrate suitable ‘prototypes’. A decision to LOCK-IN with a specific vendor is only taken after the Key Users within the Client company and of course the CIO and the IT team are fully convinced about the talent, the skill sets, the Business knowledge and not to mention soft skills (which is often found lacking with typical Project Delivery teams) that the Project Team displays. They are not just looking at a Delivery team but they are looking for that certain level of‘comfort’ with the Project team. After all the Project team is going to spend considerable TCS Confidential
