Whenever you try to take up a big project such as implementing an enterprise resource planning system or customer relationship management system in your organization, you will need to outsource skills and talent from external sources. That is where implementation partners come into the play.
Implementation partners generally specialize in deploying solutions and bring their experience and expertise to the table to help businesses make the transition smoothly. This can not only save a lot of time and effort but can also minimize the risk of missteps along the implementation journey.
This can not only free you up as an IT leader so you can focus on business critical tasks but can also allow your team members some breathing room as well. With implementation partners doing the heavy lifting, all IT teams have to do is to make necessary changes to the workflow.
Just like with every other aspect of technology, there is also a dark side to implementation partners too. Since you are heavily relying on implementation partners to deploy solutions, their performance heavily impacts your project success or failure. Choose a wrong implementation partner and it can burn your business down.
You might be wondering what I can do to protect my business from burnout. That is exactly what we will discuss in this article. In this article, AntiDos will highlight seven ways you can use to safeguard your business from getting burned out by implementation partners.
How To Protect Your Business From Implementation Partner’s Burnout?
Here are seven ways you can use it to secure your business from implementation partner’s burnout.
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Develop and Communicate a Shared VIsion
Before doing anything else, you must share your vision and goals with your implementation partner. This will give implementation partners clarity into your project expectations. Instead of focusing on building a financial relationship with your implementation partner, your focus should be on building a long term business relationship with them. This would only be possible with trust. The more you trust your implementation partner and the more they trust you, the easier it is for them to help you achieve your goals.
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Create a Team Which is Driven By Purpose
Once your implementation partner understands your strategic goals, the next step would be to form a purpose driven team that can translate your business vision into reality. Is it important for implementation partners to understand how the business processes, models and workflows work? With a deeper understanding of these nuances, implementation partners can deploy a tailor made solution that caters to your business needs perfectly.
With a clear purpose in front of them, your implementation partner is more likely to achieve success. They can make every decision by putting purpose above everything else. Include business analysts who have the functional knowledge and communication skills as well as great system and solution architects who developed enterprise applications in the past. Don’t forget to include some senior designers into the mix.
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Develop a Comprehensive Contract
Most implementation partner issues stem from half baked contracts. If your contract contains loopholes, implementation partners will use it to their advantage. When developing contracts for implementation partners, it is important for businesses to do everything they can to plug in those holes so they can not be misused by implementation partners. Do some research on different vendor options available in the market if you are not satisfied with your current vendor.
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Integrate and Test Slowly
Another mistake most implementation partners make is that they try to integrate and test too many technologies at once. Instead they should take one small step at a time. Try implementing one technology and test it. If that works, you can move on to the next one.
Always opt for an established implementation partner with years of experience instead of opting for a startup. If you go the startup route, you might have to do a lot of hand holding and tell them everything. On the flipside, a reputation implementation partner is fully aware of these things and can do things on their own.
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Design With Change in Mind
Implementing a new technology and solution like DNS DDoS Protection is not like setting it and forgetting it. Things evolve quickly in technology space. As a result, you need scalable solutions that can grow with your business needs. A rigid and stagnant solution will quickly get outdated.
You should have a plan to absorb all these changes without hampering your business processes or financial aspect of the company. Avoid vendor lock-ins with ambitious outcome prediction for the future. If your implementation partner can not support the changes, you are better off looking elsewhere.
- Harness The
Power of Templates
Working with an established implementation problem has its downsides too. Yes, they might have established processes but they are not as agile as their smaller counterparty. This means that it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to sign the non-disclosure agreement depending on the implementation partner.
You can save yourself a lot of time by using a template instead. Just pick a template for creating a non disclosure agreement, make a few changes here and there and you are good to go. Don’t spend weeks finalizing the language of the non disclosure agreement. You can delegate the authority to managers to speed up the process even further.
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Stay In Touch With the Partner’s Management Team
Another great way to resolve most of the issues associated with implementation partners is to have healthy relationships with their top management. You don’t want your implementation partners to change course or shift focus mid way through a project. Maintaining healthy relations with C-suite executives of the implementation partner will give you useful insights into any such plans way before everyone else knows about it. Good relationships can also help you avoid conflicts if the project scope changes frequently. They are more likely to accommodate changes if you have a good working relationship with their top brass.
What steps do you take to protect your business implementation partner’s burnout? Share it with us in the comments section below.
