Technology system refresh: An evaluation guide to replacing the key software to power your organization

In today’s fast-paced business environment, the need for speed and flexibility is paramount. Organizations face a rapidly changing business climate, unique industry challenges and an ever-evolving digital landscape. These factors elevate the strategic role of technology systems in managing operations and delivering the right level of products and services to customers.

The importance of technology systems

Technology systems are the backbone of modern organizations, helping to make sense of the key data that fuels their operations. Just like an operational department or assembly line, these critical organizational systems need to be upgraded, serviced or replaced to optimally support your organization. As the technology landscape evolves, the pressure to quickly understand system advancements and decide whether or not to deploy them increases exponentially. If an organization is still using the same system it put in place 10 or 20 years ago, it may no longer support business objectives and organizational leaders will likely need to consider replacing it.

Organizations continuously grow and change; evaluating their software ensures they can scale and adapt to future needs, including the ability to customize the software and integrate it with other systems. A software evaluation helps ensure the selected solution supports the organization’s strategic objectives, whether those are improving efficiency by modernizing legacy systems, centralizing data and streamlining processes, enhancing services or scaling operations.

Making an informed decision: Key considerations

A thorough software evaluation highlights the total cost of ownership – including licensing, implementation, maintenance and support – while helping to prevent organizations from overspending on unnecessary features or capabilities or overlooking essential requirements. Key considerations include:

1. Scalability: Ensure the software can grow with your organization
2. Customization: The ability to tailor the software to meet specific needs
3. Integration: Seamless integration with existing systems
4. Cost: Understanding the total cost of ownership to avoid overspending
5. Support: Availability of ongoing support and maintenance

The right technology system can deliver value beyond operational efficiencies. Forward-thinking, growth-minded organizations consider solutions that increase effectiveness and open opportunities for their employees to deliver greater value. Improving employee morale, delivering better customer experience, enhancing sales team performance and improving net promoter scores (NPS) all lead to booking more net new revenue.

Learn more

With the knowledge gained from a thorough evaluation, organizations understand the commitment needed in people, time and resources for a successful software evaluation and vendor selection. This e-book is designed to help an organization determine if it is time to replace their technology systems and provides a broad overview of the software evaluation process. With this knowledge in hand, your organization can make an informed decision about whether to tackle a system replacement on their own or with the help of outside professionals.

How we can help

Baker Tilly’s digital strategy team has the unique ability to identify the intersection of your organizational requirements with the technical capabilities of a variety of technology systems. Our software evaluation assessment takes a process-driven approach that maintains vendor independence to align the appropriate custom technology solutions to fit your specific needs - offering supporting project management, organizational readiness and project health monitoring services to support your success.

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