Blue Link Newsletter
Top 10 Software Selection Mistakes
April 2008
- Top 10 software selection mistakes
- The Buzz . . . Show Desktop icon
- Excel Training
- Is Route Management important in your business?
- Customer Portal
- Product Tours/White Papers
Top 10 software selection mistakes
For many companies, replacing a system is like going to the dentist: necessary, but potentially painful. Often, you can stave off the need for replacement with preventive action such as upgrades. But if the system is no longer supported, or if there has been a change in the business that renders it inadequate, you have no choice but to go to market. And when you do, it’s easy to make big mistakes. Here are the biggest ones.
- Requirements not defined properly: leading to nasty surprises.
- Scope not defined: could creep or grow unless you define it early and stay focused.
- Lack of buy-in: if the people who are going to use the system are not motivated to make it a success, you’re headed for trouble.
- Involving the wrong people: without highly motivated and knowledgeable people, your project will go nowhere.
- Feature myopia: many companies spend too much time assessing the features of the system and not enough on the implementers.
- The implementers need industry knowledge, project management skills and product expertise.
- Disregarding smaller vendors: there are very good companies that support specific industries. These companies are small but not necessarily risky.
- Not improving business process: implementing a new system is the best opportunity you will ever have to improve your business processes.
- No script: you should provide vendors with a script that documents your business processes, problems to resolve, scenarios and requirements.
- Lack of risk management: don’t avoid the naysayers.
For the full article, go to CA Magazine:
http://www.camagazine.com/archives/print-edition/2007/dec/columns/camagazine6271.aspx
10 Software Selection Mistakes 
Reproduced with permission from CA Magazine, published by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Toronto.
The Buzzzz...
Show Desktop icon
Did you know: the "Show Desktop" icon is a toggle – click it once, it shows the desktop by minimizing all open windows; click it again (before doing anything else), and it reinstates your desktop as it was.
Secondly, there is a keyboard shortcut that does exactly the same: <WindowsKey>+D.
Thirdly, use <WindowsKey>+L to lock your desktop, instead of the more cumbersome Ctrl+Alt+Del, then Enter.
The <WindowsKey> is the one with the Windows logo.
Check it out on your keyboard!
Excel Training
Get beyond the basics – become a power Excel user... and maximize your ability to analyze and report on your Blue Link Elite data.
Why would you or your Excel users attend this training workshop?
- Learn how to use the basic and advanced Excel tools for data analysis
- Save time – learn shortcuts to creating Excel queries and customize your toolbars
- Improve productivity- learn which tools are best to use for different tasks
- Improve reporting and decision making – create more intelligent worksheets that give you better answers and more decision-making ability
- Create eye-catching charts and tables
- Effortlessly link Excel to your Blue Link data to improve the speed of accessing information
Dates: June 4, June 11 and June 18. Three consecutive Wednesday morning sessions.
NOTE: You must attend all three sessions in order to register and graduate. Each subsequent session will build on the knowledge created in the previous session.
Is Route Management important in your business?
For many wholesale distributors, effectively managing their delivery routes is critical to their success, and is often the difference between an acceptable profit or maybe even a disappointing loss on the transaction.
Many of Blue Link's clients face this issue day in and day out. Some of them have decided to take action in order to optimize this part of their distribution.
Here is one example: a company needed to schedule regular deliveries of repetitive items to many customers, separated into routes (one truck per route) over a repeating 4 week cycle. Blue Link provided them with software that provides daily manifests for the trucks, as well as invoices and delivery notes already printed and sorted in the right sequence. This saves a huge amount of time in the preparation of the delivery route, every single day, and eliminates human error through manual preparation and manual repetition.
Do you have similar needs? Email us at info@bluelinkerp.com
Customer Portal
Blue Link's customer portal is now live. Are you a customer? Do you know about this? Do you know it can help you better manage your activities with Blue Link? Email info@bluelinkerp.com if you would like more information.
Product Tours/White Papers
Take a Product Tour of Blue Link Elite and see how features work, and how they can help your business. Click here
Make sure that your business or accounting software delivers trustworthy information and doesn’t go out of balance.
Click here to download a free white paper discussing how integrity and reliability add up to trustworthy accounting.
