Case Study: Systems Evaluation – General Contractor – New Hampshire
Client
Small General Contractor located in New Hampshire
Client Size
$10M to $50M
(Annual Revenue)
Problem
The firm had grown and had been using the same software for over 10 years. Both the software vendor and the construction company have changed substantially over the years and they were wondering if they still were right for each other. There had been a growing use of side systems not linked to the core accounting. The hardware has not recently been upgraded and performance on the system was preventing people from making good use of it. Many users were using their own PCs because they felt performance on the system was prohibiting them from making use of it.
Unique Challenges
Each time the client requested something from the software vendor, the software vendor suggested a study to see what issues needed to be resolved and then promised to address them with additional fee based services. As the contractor hires new project managers who have experience with PC based software, the pressure mounts to discontinue using the existing software and install a PC network based system that has a more graphical user interface.
Approach
Burger Consulting Group met with management personnel and key personnel from various operations areas of the company. It became relatively apparent that replacement of the core accounting software would not solve all the problems and would likely create additional ones. Burger Consulting Group developed a list of issues to raise with the software vendor and also helped the client develop a plan of action to upgrade its hardware and acquire some software components to fill certain gaps. Burger Consulting Group also educated the client’s personnel about competitive software and helped them address the perception that new software would solve all their issues.
Resolution
The client has upgraded their hardware with an approach that will position them so they can either stay with their present software or replace it without needing to redo all the hardware again. By addressing performance issues the company will be able to get users to do more work on the system and reduce the dependence on individual PCs and non-standard software.
Lessons Learned:
- It is important to continually provide training on software to the user community
- Hardware performance is critical to keeping users happy
- Software developers need to do a better job of selling new features to their existing users