I contacted a sales prospect yesterday who told me they had made their accounting software selection. No—I did not win the deal, but I wish I had for the prospect’s sake as well as my own.

The prospect is a small non-profit in a small town here in Colorado. They chose a software product that is very capable and quite expensive but I know is substantially more than they need or ever will need. The software they chose is a well recognized software and is definitely appropriate for this prospect if they were or are going to about 10 times the size they are now. That will not happen and when I quizzed them about their future growth plans they don’t anticipate it either.

So here they are with a well recognized, very capable but very much oversized software product that will bring more complexity into their daily operations than they want or will need. This software will be software that does not fit! Rather than helping their organization and meeting their needs, it will impede their business processes and become a stumbling block. Is this the fault of the software? No the software is good software, just not the correct software for this entity.

How does Njevity make sure that our software products of Dynamics GP, CRM and SharePoint meet our customers needs?

First, we meet with the customer for an introductory, get to know one another meeting to see that our software offerings and implementation capabilitiies align with the customers needs.

Second, we again meet with the customer and particularly the primary users of the software to discover and record their needs and requirements.

Third, after the first two meetings, we then present a customized demo of the software based upon our findings in the first meetings along with a software purchase agreement and an estimate of our services.

What happened with this prospect was that we never got the chance to meet with them. The software selection process was taken out of the hands of the users and an “executive” decision was made. I do wish this prosepct the best but I won’t be surprised at all if I hear back from them in 18-24 months when they are again looking for new software.