13 Pitfalls to Avoid When Acquiring an Order Management System

Selecting and implementing a new order management system can be a daunting process. After all, this is a mission-critical suite of applications that can make or break your business. There are dozens of potential solutions and never enough time — or so it seems — to attend to all the details.

There’s also the issue of technophobia. And sorting out the real from the hype in your technology options is unquestionably a tough challenge, even if you’re trying to keep up with the changes in this fast-paced field.

Often the best way to achieve a successful outcome is to learn from the mistakes of others. Following are 13 pitfalls to avoid when shopping for and installing a new order management system.

1. Fighting the last war. When searching for a new system, don’t focus on just the things your current system can’t do. If you turn this project into finding “not X,” you’ll miss the opportunity to take a great leap forward with the new system.

Of course, you can go overboard and get inordinately ambitious. If you decide to re-engineer every business process in your company while also installing a new order management system, you likely will introduce too much change too rapidly to your organization. It’s a shock from which you might not recover.

Only you can tell how much change your company can take. Changes that make current methods more efficient will be easier to digest than changes that introduce entirely new business methods.

A safer type of change focuses on what you can do for your customers, rather than operational changes, per se. The ability to implement a loyalty program, provide more robust product information in the contact center and on your Web site, offer installment billing, or manage promotional campaigns more efficiently are good types of change. Have your team brainstorm its wish list in these areas to get you on the right track.