Construction Accounting Software Selection and the Importance of a Software Champion By David Kraft At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

One of the most important things that every company must do when looking for and installing new construction software is to identify a "software champion."

Regardless of the size of your company, you need to have one person designated to lead the quest to improve operations via new software. The software champion for your company must have a specific set of skills for maximum effectiveness.

Here are five traits that you want to look for in your company's software champion:

Experience Implementing New Software - Evaluating and implementing new software is not an easy process and should not be undertaken by a novice with hopes to "learn on the fly." Ideally, you want to find somebody in your company that has been involved in implementing new software. Their experience in the area will strengthen their ability to make good decisions on behalf of your organization. Also keep in mind that experience is somewhat relative. If individuals have experience implementing new software in a small, start up company, they may not be the best choice if you operate a large company that has years of data that must be transferred to the new system.

Familiararity with Company Processes - It is absolutely imperative that a software champion completely understands how your company operates and the processes that are used that will be impacted by the new software. Having this knowledge will allow them to know what kind of questions need to be asked of vendors during software demos and sales conversations.

Management Support - Since the software champion will be making decisions on behalf of the entire company, you must choose somebody that you trust. Selecting new software is a process that involves a lot of time and money. If you have a management team that is indecisive or unwilling to work off the recommendations provided by your software champion, you will be doomed to waste a lot of time and money in selecting new construction software. When the champion has the full support of management, you will not be as tempted to cancel the entire operation when the inevitable bumps in the road come up.

Peer Respect - The construction software champion will need to be able to get cooperation from peers within the organization. If you select somebody that is not respected by his or her co-workers, this process will be difficult if not impossible.

Change Advocate - Many people are averse to change. They try to avoid it when possible. Selecting and implementing new construction accounting software will be a big change and it is important that you select a champion that is comfortable spear-heading one of the biggest changes that the company will ever experience. Beyond the technical abilities to evaluate software, the champion must also possess the ability to work with personnel to make them feel comfortable with the new software. This requires an individual with empathy as well as a team-player mentality. Without a sense of participation and support from decision makers, employees will be hesitant to buy in to the new software and will make the process more expensive and longer than is necessary.

In conclusion, the software champion that you select to oversee your new construction software implementation will be one of the most critical aspects to the project's success. Finding a person with the right background that will get support from management and peers will greatly increase your chances of success and improvement from the new software.

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