Intro/Outro (00:01):
Welcome to TEKTOK Digital Supply Chain podcast, where we will help you eliminate the noise and focus on the information and inspiration that you need to transform your business impact supply chain success, and enable you to replace risky inventory with valuable insights. Join your TEKTOK host Karin Bursa, the 2020 supply chain Pro to know of the year with more than 25 years of supply chain and technology expertise and the scars to prove it. Karin has the heart of a teacher and has helped nearly 1000 customers transform their businesses and tell their success stories. Join the conversation, share your insights, and learn how to harness technology innovations to drive tangible business results. Buckle up, it’s time for TEKTOK, powered by Supply Chain Now.
Karin Bursa (01:13):
Well welcome back Supply chain Movers and shakers to Thet Digital Supply chain podcast. Karin Bursa here to help you replace risky inventory with valuable insights. Today we’re gonna discuss some important questions you should be asking during the customer reference process. Now this occurs when you’re selecting a new digital supply chain platform. If you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe to TEKTOK and leave a review. And do not forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter, you know, supply chain movers and jakers. I love my job as a supply chain technology industry advisor and a fractional cmo. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I work with a variety of supply chain practitioners and leaders, innovative supply chain technology providers that are interested in driving exponential growth and even interested investors that are looking to better understand the opportunities that exist in this supply chain arena.
Karin Bursa (02:28):
So clearly each of these audiences has a very different point of view, but they all seek to understand and to be more engaged in a variety of supply chain topics. So one area that impacts them all is choosing. Selecting a digital supply chain platform. That’s right. Choosing a new partner for your business. You know, everything hinges on the successful supply chain transformation, and I wanna talk about going through an evaluation process that fits your needs, your market and your culture. That’s right, your needs, your market, and your culture. It’s a critical part of your supply chain transformation initiative. And it can be really time consuming and a bit overwhelming as you try to figure out which vendor is the right supply chain technology partner for your business needs today, as you know them to be today, as well as where your business may go or may grow over the next 10 years.
Karin Bursa (03:38):
In fact, it takes some companies as much as 18 months. That’s right, 18 months or more to select a new solution. And depending upon the partner you choose, you could be looking at anywhere from another six months to maybe another 24 months to actually deploy an onboard before you start seeing that tangible roi. Yikes. Have it got your attention now? That’s right. These are long lead time discussions and finding a partner that’s a good fit for your business today as well as where you see your business evolving to over as much as a 10 or 12 year horizon is really challenging. So your team is likely to go through a 10 to 12 step process to identify, engage, evaluate, select, contract, and actually deploy a supply chain planning platform. Now, this team should be comprised of both and users, folks that are going to use the solution suite as well as IT professionals that’ll be engaged in some of the enablement conversations.
Karin Bursa (04:56):
And of course you need to have oversight by your executive team. They’re the ones that are setting the strategy and have actually prioritized this investment and they’re doing it for a reason. That reason is in fact, to drive transformational business performance over time, not to generate a report, not to do the same old thing you have been doing for the last five years, just do it faster. This is to drive transformation and be a platform for growth. So remember, you’re not just trying to do the same thing faster, right? Not just the same thing. Faster is is the step in the right direction, but that is not the end game. You wanna take this opportunity to truly transform the way you plan your business. Now to do this, you’re gonna have to be open minded. You’re gonna have to be, be willing to embrace some new approaches to better planning and ways that you can harness new data, new technology, to not just do the same thing faster, but to really transform and put your business in a leadership position for years to come.
Karin Bursa (06:16):
So one critical part of your evaluation will be speaking with customer references. Now, keep in mind that the solution provider is gonna select these references from some of the best of the best in their customer base. They want to align those customers with your market, with the functional footprint that you’re considering with company size or global reach that has similarities to what your business is today and where your business is going. Okay? So be sure you hurt me. They’re gonna select the best of the best. So you should expect customer references to be very positive. You might also want to request references that are on your specific e R P platform. This is gonna give you the opportunity to understand what the integration effort entails and how sustainable the solution providers integration approach is over time, not just at initial onboarding, but what does that look like as you continue to evolve your needs, grow your business, bring in new data over time.
Karin Bursa (07:28):
So that’s gonna be critically important. Now the best time to conduct reference calls is once you are down to a short list of two or three finalists. Hear me, hear me on that one more time. The best time to conduct your reference calls is once you’re down to a short list. And that short list is only gonna have two or three solution providers as finalists. At that point. You’re gonna have enough exposure to the solutions in the marketplace. You will have refined what your needs are. You’ll have a couple of things that you’re really excited about and you verified some of the functional capabilities in your steps to get to this reference point. So the customer reference step should happen late and that late is usually when you’re down to two or three finalists. This is also gonna help you assess if you’ve got a good cultural fit with the solution provider.
Karin Bursa (08:30):
Are you aligned? Do they understand your specific market segment? Do they prove an expertise? And are there partners that can help you with the deployment or does the solution provider do the deployment and onboarding themselves? So as a result of being later in your evaluation process and selection process, you’re likely gonna have a few real or perceived strengths and weaknesses for each solution provider. So keep those handy. Your real or perceived strengths and weaknesses for each of the solution providers that are on your shortlist. Also, doing it later in the cycle really helps the solution providers to respect their customers. Very valuable time, right? So we wanna reserve those customer interactions for the most qualified prospective buyers. We don’t wanna burn them out by using them very early in the process. So we wanna be for the solution providers, we wanna be late in the selection process.
Karin Bursa (09:39):
We wanna confirm the fit and intention to move forward, and we’re using and leveraging these customer references as proof points and the opportunity for you to have interaction with somebody who’s been there and done that. So you are gonna talk to both supply chain executives and users, or you should be requesting that. So as you engage with the references, let’s be sure that you’re speaking with a user representative that is responsible for the functional capabilities you are considering. What I mean by that is don’t talk to somebody who’s in a demand planning role. If your focus is gonna be on supplier enablement and production planning and scheduling, let’s make sure we’ve got good alignment so that they understand the challenges that you are facing or areas of your excitement or concern with a particular vendor. You also want to, if possible, have engagement at the executive level.
Karin Bursa (10:44):
You wanna talk about what their strategic initiatives were and why they believe this solution provider was the right solution provider for their business at the time they were selected. So where possible, I want you to ask for really specific examples or facts or data points rather than just their opinion. For example, if a reference tells you, Hey, this vendor has been a really good partner, you need to dig in a little deeper and ask what factors have they excelled at? Do you consider them especially innovative? Is it functional depth in a particular area? Is it that they provide exceptional customer support? Was their training fantastic? Whatever it might be. Just dig a little deeper, don’t settle for good, right? If at all possible, try to get some numeric ratings. So on a scale of one to five, how would you rate this provider in these areas?
Karin Bursa (11:51):
Make sense? And then you wanna get some color commentary on that. Okay, so let’s talk about some of the important questions to ask customer references, right? And you’re doing this when you’re selecting supply chain technology. I’ll give you a little behind the scenes insight as well on what you might wanna dig into or listen for as you ask these questions. So the very first question I’m gonna recommend to you is probably one that’s not on your list. In fact, it’s one I wasn’t even aware we should be asking for probably 10 years in my own experience in the supply chain industry. And it’s a simple one. Here’s the first question, and I want you to ask it first because I wanna be sure you cover it and it doesn’t get timed out, or you don’t find that you’re at your time and you never got to ask it.
Karin Bursa (12:43):
So here’s the first question. Do you or your company receive anything from being a reference? That’s right. Do you or your company receive anything as an incentive to be a reference for this solution provider, right? We wanna ask that up front and you wanna understand what their response means. So many vendors actually will offer a free or discounted training or customer conference tickets or other incentives, like discounts on user seats or upgrade services. You get the idea. This will give you some context to compare the references from multiple vendors. I’m not telling you to exclude them if they answer yes and they give you a candid open response to that, you just wanna note that, that the vendor is rewarding them for their time, which is valuable and this is how that reward is transmitted or that effort is recognized. Are you with me? Okay, I know that seems like a tough one to start the conversation, but if you get it outta the way, you’ll be able to kind of check that off.
Karin Bursa (13:56):
You’ll have a basis for comparison. And then we wanna start digging in to some of the really important and insightful questions. So secondly, I would start the conversation with something really simple like why did you choose this particular solution provider? What business problems were your highest priorities, right? You can see that that’s a really open-ended question. It gives them a great opportunity to talk about things that were important to them and why the vendor was a good fit for their business. Another question. When did you first deploy or onboard? How long did it take and what was the biggest challenge? It’s kind of three questions rolled into one, but you get where that natural dialogue is going. So your solution providers will probably give you a variety of references, some that have been long standing, successful customers and others that are more recent or earlier in their supply chain transformation.
Karin Bursa (14:57):
Again, you are trying to compare apples to apples and it becomes important as you look at things like return on investment or expertise or the time and requirements necessary to really maximize the benefits of the solution. Make sense? Okay, next question. Question four, how frequently do you upgrade and what is that experience like? Now, if they’re in the cloud environment, we need to be hearing that those upgrades are happening with some frequency because part of being in a true cloud architected environment is that your business will be an evergreen environment, right? We will be ever current on the solution and therefore the solution provider should be pushing updates or requiring a minimum update at least on an annual basis. So you wanna know not just how easy it is to do the initial implementation, but what is that upgrade process like? Is it a big deal or is it easy as a non event?
Karin Bursa (16:10):
Make sense? Next question. Question five. If you were deploying today, would you make the same decision on the same solution provider? Right? So waving the magic wand, you get to do a doover, would you select the same partner? If so, why Question six, How does the system perform with regards to your planning and processing needs? What you’re really asking there is did it meet your expectations? Did the provider, did the technology meet your expectations? And does it process in a reasonable period of time? This is gonna help you in a variety of ways and it’ll check the box for some of your IT engagement from your team. So speaking of it engagement, one of the, the criteria that’s always important in the selection process is scalability. So my business today is not as complicated as it’s gonna be 10 years from now, right? Cuz there’s gonna be growth, there’ll be new markets, I’ll have a different product portfolio.
Karin Bursa (17:17):
So you wanna ask a question. Question seven is, can you share an example of how scalable the solution has been for your business needs? And have they changed over time? Right? So remember I told you it can take 18 months to go through a selection process and then you could be looking at another six to 24 months before your company is live with the transformation partner you choose. So together you are looking at anywhere from three years to four years before you’re fully up and running. Running your business will be different in three years or four years. The market will be different in three years or four years. So part of that agility and resilience over time is that you can change and you can adapt to new market conditions. Question eight, what do you consider the best features of the solution? And question nine, what limitations have you encountered?
Karin Bursa (18:18):
Question 10, what feedback do you get from the user community? What do they have to say about the solution, the solution provider? Next question. Does your executive team engage with the solution where they simply using output from the solution? If so, what is their feedback? Now, I fully expect if you are selecting a solution that is gonna be part of your transformation initiative, I expect your executive team to be using the information or their executive team to be using the information to look at scenario comparisons or trade offs that occur in their network. But ask the question, see how they respond. Question 12, were there any surprises? Now be prepared. Those surprises can be good or they might be bad. And sometimes they’re more internal facing about their organization and where they thought they were than they are about the solution provider themselves. And question 13, who was your primary implementation partner?
Karin Bursa (19:26):
Did you leverage the solution provider? Did you work with a third party implementation, uh, consultancy? Was it a combination, et cetera. You’re trying to understand, you know, were you getting the best architected guide in the process and what’s that experience like? Question 14, what was your biggest lesson learned? Again, I I hear time and time again a pretty simple response here. I hear our biggest lesson learned was that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, right? This is coming from the practitioners, this is coming from folks who have been in the same situation you’re in and have gained new insights about their business and it’s exciting. What is the biggest lesson learned? Question 15. What’s been the return on investment to date or where have you seen the most compelling improvements in your key performance indicators? Right? That is one thing that I love about the supply chain industry is that when we make changes in process or technology, it’s tangible.
Karin Bursa (20:39):
We are changing our businesses and we are having an impact on overall performance and the way we serve customers, the way we work with suppliers, the way our employees engage on a day to day basis. It is transformational. What you do is important. Question 16, what would you change if you had the opportunity to do it all over again? What would you change if you had the opportunity to do it all over again? And question 17, can you share any insights on your total cost of ownership? So when companies talk about total cost of ownership, this is their subscription fees or their licensing, the training, the onboarding and configuration process, any hardware that they needed to purchase in order to support the initiative. So ask a question about can you share any insights on your total cost of ownership? Did it map to your plan?
Karin Bursa (21:45):
Meaning was it on target or did you go over budget or were you under budget? That’s always a great question. And question 18, did you have any prior experience with the solution provider you selected? Right? So they may have used them at a prior employer, they may have followed them for years. They may have worked with a different business unit. So that’s a really insightful question because it can be that there was a bias in the selection process. And again, you just wanna be aware of that as you are evaluating your shortlist. You just wanna understand the context of the references that are provided. Make sense? And then finally, last important question is asking the question, have I missed something? Is there an important question that we’ve missed in the discussion today? All right, I hope that helps you. That’s it for today. So that’s a a long list of questions.
Karin Bursa (22:55):
I’ll tell you what, we will put that list of questions in the show notes. So if you’re interested in doing a download and kind of keeping that either to conduct your references today or the references when you’re ready in your digital supply chain transformation initiative, I think that’ll be a great thing just for you to have in your library. And of course, be sure to reach out to me if I can be of help with your company and your supply chain initiative, your sales and operations planning process, market research or the strategic positioning that you may be doing for high growth supply chain technology providers. Love to, uh, share some additional insights with you and help you differentiate your businesses. So thanks for tuning in and be sure to drop me a note with your favorite questions to ask in the customer reference checking process as you select a new supply chain technology platform.
Karin Bursa (23:53):
Until next time, remember, this show would not be possible without your support. So thank you very much to every supply chain mover and Shaker listening to this particular session. If you’re a fan of the show, please leave a review and subscribe and follow TEKTOK, the Digital Supply Chain podcast on LinkedIn and Twitter or wherever you get your podcast. Our goal with TEKTOK is to help you eliminate the noise and focus in on the information, an inspiration you need to transform your business and replace risky inventory with valuable insights. We’ll see you next time on TEKTOK powered by supply chain. Now.
