Digital White Papers

October 2014: Business and Financial Management

publication of the International Legal Technology Association

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18. Identify Your Consultant: You have the right to identify in advance the exact consultant who will manage your implementation. The project lead can have a have a tremendous impact on the quality and schedule of your implementation. The vendor should provide you with the name of the consultant in advance, and you should have the right to interview that consultant. 19. Control the Reference Checks: In a typical reference check scenario, your firm asks for references and the vendor will gladly provide you with three to four firms for reference calls. If a vendor has sold 50 copies of a module, why should you be restricted to talking to the three or four firms handpicked to give glowing references? You deserve better than this, and you can demand it. If a vendor believes in the quality of its products, you should get access to every firm that has ever purchased the vendor's products. Keep in mind, vendors also have the right to control customer lists, so it is not reasonable to request that they give you a list of their clients. 20. Resolve Your Old Pain Points with Your New Solution: If you are already running a BI solution and you are not satisfied, you need to be sure your new solution will address ALL of your current pain points. Make a detailed list of your slowest queries, slowest dashboards, unimplemented customizations and profitability issues. ILTA WHITE PAPER: OCTOBER 2014 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 55 A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE BILL OF RIGHTS: 20 CRITICAL FACTORS FOR SELECTING YOUR BI SOLUTION TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS: • What are their qualifications? • How many times have they implemented this product? • Can they provide a list of clients for which they managed the implementation for more reference calls? • What is their current backlog? TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS: • Here is my list of current pain points, and there are a lot of them. Can you prove these will not be issues with your solution? TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS: • Please set up a WebEx so that you can show me the list of all your clients, ranging from "in production for 10 years" to "just signed the contract last week." Can I select any five of those clients for my reference checks? • Why do your marketing materials state you have 80 clients, but the list you are showing me only contains 65 firms? TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR VENDORS: • While our first goal is dashboards for the partners, ultimately we want to publish the dashboards to all 300 attorneys in our firm. What will be the total (or additional) cost of that deployment? YOUR CALL TO ACTION Most likely, you will have your BI solution for five to 10 years, so choose wisely. Every extra hour you spend defining requirements or making extra reference checks will be paid back many times over selecting the best solution for your firm. Stand up for your rights, ask the vendors the tough questions, and get the quality BI solution your firm deserves.

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