COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) Implementation Mistakes

Now that Labor Day in the USA has just passed us by, it seems that there are customers out there who realize they need to get their software implementations done by year-end and trying to find ways to get a little extra staff to get this done. By the rates they're offering, my guess would be that: A) They have already spent too much on their project and are trying to cut corners in the money they pay for services; and/or, B) With it sounding like a good time to get cheap people, they are seeing how rock bottom they can get someone for.

Let's put that aside, for a moment. I'll come back to that.

In any case, where software projects remain troublesome, in general, that includes the COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) system projects. A COTS system is one that you purchase that is basically pre-built, but which you then configure to meet your needs. It does not mean that there will be no extra programming, nor that it will be fast. These systems include but are not limited to LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System), CRMs (Customer Relationship Management), MES (Manufacturing Execution System), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and many of the other pieces of software that we buy, these days. COTS projects require skills and expertise in project management and resources just as the custom software projects do.

Selecting a COTS System Is The Initial Problem, Not the Last

This Summer, I wrote an article focusing on those of you who think you made the wrong selection of software. Let us take a different twist on the selection process, for a moment.

I happen to know this about many areas of COTS systems and can guess it for the others, but in any area of software there tend to be certain brands typically used for certain situations. It could be based on functionality, technical needs, how nice the sales rep seems (those of us in the industry know this is true and most customers probably do, too!), and the target market for the industry and size of customer that the COTS system is focusing on selling to.

Now, I will tell you this - if there are three brands that you might have picked that are suitable to your own situation, in many cases, all three brands are probably not terrible. Whether one of them is really great is not the point I'm going to make. I am not going to say that if you didn't pick the "great" one that you are doomed.

What I am going to tell you is that if they are all pretty decent that they should be able to be implemented for the customer and to provide whatever it is that software does about as well as the next one, on average. Once you buy something that is "decent" you learn to live with the negatives and exploit the positives.

The Problems of Implementation

Now that the customer has selected the system, they prepare for implementation and the issue becomes one of two true problems:

• The customer is not ready to implement the system.
• The implementation team is not appropriate for the implementation.

On the customer side, they know they need the software but they don't have all the key elements to make it happen. It could be that management claims to support the implementation but doesn't know how to give the right type of support. One key issue and the one that most vendors mention when they talk about failed projects, is that customers don't give enough of their resources to the project. The old LIMS saying goes like this, "When you have a LIMS project, you will spend 100% of your time on the LIMS project and 100% of your time on your regular work." This applies to MES, ERP, CRM and the others, as well.

However, let us focus on the implementation team that should get this COTS system operational for this customer.

The Implementation Team

Too often, COTS implementations seem trivial. They are not. However, with the idea that they are trivial, customers believe or are led to believe that there are plenty of great teams out there to do this work. That is true but you might not get one of them.

Let me start with some thoughts on this:

• Fall is a busy time for projects to try to get back on-track and meet their end-of-year deadlines.
• Some products have sold really well in any given year, despite the economy. The bottom line is that for customers who desperately need to manage their data, many of them will find the money for a system they believe can achieve that.
• The better implementation teams sometimes are sent to key accounts. It's not uncommon that a really good team ends up with a key customer who does not want to let go of them, for example. The worst teams are not asked for by name the way the best teams are. Ongoing customers get to know the names of the people they want, and the customers with the most pull occasionally get their way, depending on the vendor and the situation.

Note: On that last point, when I worked for software vendors and consulting companies before I went off to consult on my own, I can tell you that some of them have no hesitation at pulling a consultant/contractor off one project they care less about to put the person on a potential big sale. Other services groups hesitate to do that. How would a customer know which ones will do that to them and which ones won't? They usually don't until it happens to them or they have the help of someone who knows that space extremely well helping them.

Going Back to the Services and Rates Comments From Above

Every year, we have projects in any industry that run over schedule. As a result, we have customers who want their projects to hit some end-of-year deadlines and are looking for a few extra people to try to make up at least some of that schedule gap. We also have software vendors and consulting companies looking for people to get their own customer projects to hit some of these deadlines. As usual, they are all in competition for the same pool of people.

This year, with so many layoffs in biotech, there might or might not be a larger pool of great people to select from. I say "might" because there are some areas where there are still real shortages of people with strong skills who can help you get to that finish line.

And here is where I will give you an example of what NOT to do:

I had seen some job and consulting requisitions (reqs) come to me that looked just like what I sell to my customers. These reqs looked like they needed someone with my skill set. Some of the aspects matched my recent W-2 job at Pfizer, which was not a junior-level job, by any means. That is why so many recruiters brought these to me, in the first place.

Yet that is where the similarity ended. They are looking for someone with all these skills but a very junior person, just a couple years of experience, and to pay based on that.

That's fine in theory. But in a couple years, can anyone really get all the experience listed on those job/consulting descriptions? No, they can't. No-one can learn to be a System Analyst, Business Analyst, Change Manager, Solution Architect, IT Business Partner, Regulatory Specialist and more in two years. And where the person writing it would claim they just want a portion of that, still, take a third of what is in some of these, and it's still so unlikely that it's not worth considering.

Does it Hurt Anything to Look for That Unicorn?

In a way, it doesn't hurt to try to find that unusual person who landed in some unique position and got all that experience so quickly in their career. But here are some things to consider:

1. If they are truly that awesome, even in this economy, they could probably find a better position elsewhere.
2. While a customer is looking for this Unicorn, time is going by. If they spend all of September looking for them and not finding them, they have burned yet another month until the end of 2024 without the extra person. And if they find someone by the end of October, they still have to onboard them. GxP or not, that's time-consuming here in biotech and even other areas.

Alternately, Does It Hurt To Take Just Anyone?

On the other hand, if you take someone who really doesn't have any of the skills you need, that person is a drain on the project. They can have a negative effect on your project. Training someone is fine if you plan that you have the time and that they could be a long-term investment.

However, let me give an example using myself:

Here I am, at the far end of the experience level. I waltz into small companies or divisions where they need someone who can do a wide range of work and get up-to-speed in a relatively quick manner. Yet, even I need some of the customer's time to do that. I need the right access, to be pointed in the right direction of what the customer needs. It takes some of your time but that time is an investment when I start producing the work the customer needs.

If a customer brings someone in who just is not the right resource, the customer is already busy (I know this because everyone is busy, these days), and they are are now spending more and more time to help get someone up to speed who does not deliver. The customer gets more behind in their own work AND they longer hours, while they do not get anything out of it.

If the customer believes someone else will get this resource up-to-speed, that is usually a mistake. It is often the case that it is up to the customer, despite anyone's assurances to the contrary.

And Maybe You Think What You're Offering is Competitive

Here is where layers of subcontracting really can hurt you. If you are a customer willing to contract a person for $200/hour, your preferred contracting partner vendor is willing to pay $120/hour but can't find someone, and they find a subcontractor who makes their margin by paying $62/hour, you can see that you won't get a $200/hour person, but a $62/hour person. The skillset truly is not the same.

The gaps aren't USUALLY quite this wide in the rates but you'd be surprised how quickly you get from a rate for a truly senior person to a rate that will get you someone that hasn't yet even learned any of what you need them to know.

My Point

So, here is where I was going with this:

Here we are at the end of the year. Think carefully about this, but why not just move the project deadline into next year. That gives more time to train more junior people or to find exactly that Unicorn you think you'll get. Sometimes, this means someone or another gets fired or leaves in embarrassment or frustration, but since we are supposed to be focused on the health and well-being of the patients, we are supposed to be concerned with that over our own selves (at least, this is what we're told). But having spent most of my life as a consultant, basically looking for work, over-and-over again, it's not really the end of the world.

That is, unless your deadline is based on some type of truly serious issue. If it has to do with health and safety, or there is some type of deadline that would cause you to be shut down, forget about saving money. Just cough up the money it will take to find people to get this done.

From my own experiences with customers and their projects over many years, I can tell you this: where customers take having their manufacturing shut down or prevented from being started as a serious matter, they tend to have a practical approach to all of this.

For the customers who wasted time arguing, posturing, trying to save an extra bit of money on this, or other activities that didn't advance their project, those customers tend to be punished, in the end.

Finally, I just want to say that I'm not trying to tell you you need to always have the most expensive and/or most experienced person (no, they are not always the same person). But if you care about the patients out there, just keep them in-mind before you move forward.