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As the Director of Planning for one of the largest consumer goods companies
told us, "We kind of unwittingly gave ourselves over to the sales people
without even seeing it. We should have driven the whole thing but that's not
what happened. It's like we went out shopping for a car. We should have asked
ourselves questions like, 'Will we use this car primarily for a short commute,
or for a lot of long business trips? Do we value safety over performance or
visa versa? Should we think of ourselves as a single driver, or someone with a
large family?' We didn't do half of that, frankly we didn't know all the
questions we should have been asking. So instead these sales guys came in here
and kept telling us about how many ashtrays their cars had. So we wound up
buying a car with eleven ashtrays, and went around saying, 'My car has eleven
ashtrays, how many does yours have?'"
How This Web Site Can Help You
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Where do you begin the process of selecting a planning/budgeting software
provider? What's the sequence of events? Is there a way to make
the process easier and more effective, are there helpful tools? The Buttonwood
7 Step Process for selecting a software vendor provides the answer to
those and other important questions. |
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| How up to date are you on the issues surrounding the selection of a
planning software provider? Test your knowledge by taking our
Pop Quiz. Here's one example. Vendors typically charge a licensing fee
based on the number of users or "seats" a company anticipates it will
require. On average, what portion of these seats (fully paid for) actually go
unused? To find out, see Question 1 in our Pop Quiz. |
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| Who are the leading vendors? Completing a web search can be
frustrating... type in "Financial Planning Software" for instance,
and you'll find lots of information about 401K plans. Trying to guess at what
search terms to use isn't a productive use of anyone's time, and no matter what
you type you still might not find all the vendors anyway. We've simplified the
search quite a bit by providing - on just one page - all of the most widely
know and implemented enterprise wide planning software solutions. Just visit
our Vendor Page to view them and hyperlink to their
web sites. Easy, huh? We're always looking to keep this page updated, so if you
have a contribution here let us know. We'll screen them for the basics like
financial viability and add them on if appropriate.
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| They say that experience is the best teacher, but the wisest people learn
from other people's experience. Will you make the same mistakes
that other people have in selecting and implementing a planning software
solution? Fortunately the answer is no - if you know what those mistakes are
ahead of time. You might feel a little funny calling people up who have gone
down this road and asking them, "So, what mistakes did you make, what
would you have done differently?" No need to, we did that for you. In fact
some of these mistakes we could relate to because we made them at first too
(and learned enough not to repeat them). Check out The 5
Worst Mistakes you can make and how to avoid them. |
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