A balanced self training self project management implementation strategy can cut implementation costs for some sites

Owned by John Nairn
Last updated: Jun 04, 2020 by Sharon Harden (Unlicensed)
11 min read

Overview

If your team have time and the right skills, you can cut your implementation costs by taking on more self training and project management.  The project still works as a partnership with the Readysell team providing some training and project management:

  • The key is to agree a plan at the start
  • Quality rather than timing is the key to success
  • Readysell will give you a list of checklist to complete.  Only after all those checklists are signed off can you go live.

Some sites can spend less on Readysell assistance by using the self managed small site implementation methodology. But if you don't do enough to prepare, you will have a difficult conversion experience.  You will eventually get Readysell going, the program works. But you could cause difficulties for your customers and your team.  If you decide to use this approach you can cut costs and it can work well.  But you are increasing the risk of a difficult transition to Readysell 8, especially in the first week or two.  You have to put more of you and your teams time into the project in order to make it work.  If you are short of time you should use the full implementation strategy and pay for more of Readysell's time to help you with your project.


Readysell is a large and powerful program.  There is a substantial cost if you try to implement most of Readysell's features in your site.  You get the same program as everyone else, but for smaller sites the cost of implementing Readysell can be much greater than you expect. 

The work involved with setting up your Readysell system is about one third planning, one third data tidy up/checking and one third training. 

How can you reduce the implementation cost? If your business has up to five users, we can aim at NOT trying to do the best Readysell implementation possible. Instead Readysell can save you a lot of money by:

  • expecting to implement less of Readysell's benefits on the first day
  • focus more on quality rather than an implementation date
  • pick a list of basics to implement on the conversion weekend when building your project plan before starting any training and stick to those priorities only
  • get help from other dealers by sending your staff to learn at other sites for a few days


But this will only work if you stick to the small set of features we agree on.  Readysell has piles of features that can help your site.  The temptation to run with more of the features is hard to resist.  But if you can't do so the small site approach will not work.  It is a lot easier if you have another Readysell user you can visit.

To use the self managed/self training implementation strategy:

  • Your team has the time and skills to use the resources provided by Readysell manage and train your own team
  • A detailed implementation plan must be agreed between you and Readysell before the project starts.  The project plan is more important when using a self training approach
  • You get a better idea of the project budget 
  • Readysell works with you to help improve our training material where you identify any reasonable gaps in the online training material
  • Readysell provides more remote support via tickets as per our support policy instead of spending as many ours on face to face or remote training
  • Remote and face to face training is still part of the mix.
  • Even the basics will make you business run a lot better
  • Don't expect to implement everything Readysell can do or everything you want.  Stick to the basics, save money on the implementation but work harder later if you want to implement more features.
  • Get help from other Readysell users by sending your staff to work in their site

The key to making the self training strategy work is self discipline and planning!  More planning needs to be done up front and your team need the time and skills to implement the more self training/self management oriented plan.  You may have to decide to run with just a few key features and ignore a lot of features that could help your business.  If you can do this and resist asking for help implementing ANY feature beyond the basics.  Then you can save time and money at the time of implementation.  You can't keep implementation costs down, ignore the online training resources and implement a lot of features at once!

Model balanced self training/self management Readysell implementation strategy

Agree a project plan:

  • Assess if you have the time and skills to take on more of the project management and self training
  • Can you get mentoring assistance from a local dealer already using Readysell.  A site visit to an existing Readysell site can really help push your project along.
  • Agree on the budget for training including:
    • Remote training
    • Face to face training during site visits before implementation and/or over the conversion weekend
    • Financial implementation assistance post implementation
  • Agree on the checklists and milestones to be completed before your site is regarded as ready for live implementation

Tips

  • Only use the self managed implementation strategy if
    • You have staff with the time and skills to perform the management and self training functions
    • You are switched on to learning new computer software skills
      • Assess if you and your team have the learning skills required to do more of the work yourself.  You have to have someone that can learn new software easily.Be honest with yourself, some dealerships just don't have anyone with the skills to learn the system through self training
    • You have spare time to put into self training instead of having Readysell train you
      • Assess if you have time to do self training. By cutting down on Readysell training, you have to replace it with self training. This only works if someone has a few hours every day during the project to work on self training. You can't just cut out Readysell training and do nothing. You have to have the time and discipline to run self training every day for a few hours.
  • Make and STICK TO  priority list of the few features that are most critical to your business.  A few tips that may not suit every business, but should be considered include:
    • Automatic purchasing
      • Requires a few hours training but has huge benefits in time saving and improved stock accuracy
      • Skip this if you do not have good stock on hand values
      • You have to have complete:
    • Web site integration
      • Don't use contract prices if you can help it
      • Sale orders can be set to integrate before the go live date if you don't currently import sales orders from the web site into your existing system
      • You have to complete some of the following, depending on your requirements:
    • Scan stock in and out
    • Financials basics for suppliers and customers
    • Full financials
      • There are a lot of details that just have to be right with financials. 
      • There is no way to substantially reduce the implementation cost. 
      • This is one area where the small site strategy can't reduce implementation costs
      • To get started with your preparations, you have to conduct a Readysell Financials Engagement Meeting for Full Financials for around two hours over the phone
    • Reports
    • Readysell staff on site at the start of the project
      • Readysell's staff on site can kick start your training.  It is over ten times more effective to train standing in your store than over the phone.
      • Read the project engagement plan before you decide to skip on site training the start of the project.  See Readysell Project Engagement Meeting.
    • Make sure you go to another dealers site before your go live date
      • . Especially if you are not having Readysell on site at the start of the project
    • Readysell staff on site for the go live weekend
      • Readysell's implementation team are experts on tidying data, training your team and helping people manage the move to live operations
      • Readysell can give you checklists of what do do.  But you don't have the experience to correctly interpret the list and apply it in your business.  It is like any do it yourself project.  Even with the best instructions.  You need experience to use the instructions, it is harder than it looks, and quick response is critical.  Taking time to work out the answer on your first day can result in getting behind and errors effecting your customers.
      • If you don't have Readysell on site your go live weekend will be a lot harder.  Expect to spend more time fixing things after you go live
      • Make sure you have spent time at another Readysell 8 site for a few days before implementation if you are thinking about this approach

      • You can book a Readysell team member to help you remotely over the go live weekend

        Readysell's implementation team do this all the time, they have many years of experience.  There is no substitute for having a Readysell team member on site when you go live.  You can save money by skipping this assistance, but your go live will be a lot harder.  You may end up spending more on assistance after you go live helping with issues than the cost of having someone on site.

Get help from other Readysell 8 customers

  • Make sure you line up more than one day of site visits to an existing Readysell 8 dealer's business!

No other single measure will save you more costs or make the small site strategy work for you more than sending your staff to work for a few days in another Readysell 8 customer's business:

  • You need someone on your team who has good learning and communication skills.  The site you visit will not have professional trainers, you need to pick things up yourself
  • Give something back to the dealer that is helping you by actually doing work in their business
  • A visit of a few hours to look at the business might be the best you can arrange, this would be a small benefit
  • The huge benefit comes when you have someone that learns quickly working in the other dealers business for a few days. Actually doing the work.  This can save you thousands in training time.
  • You need to gain a lot of experience as economically as possible, the cheapest way to do this is to work at another Readysell 8 store.  Just pick stock, enter sales, anything you do will be a huge benefit.  Going to other sites and watching what they do will not work.  You have to stay there and help them process work in order to learn.  You have to do the work at the site you visit for the knowledge to sink in.  But if you can't do that, sit and watch what the other Readysell 8 customer does for a few days.  One day will not be enough.
  • Find another Readysell user near your business and agree to send a key staff member to that site to work in their business for a few days
  • Get a key team member trained in an outline of those basic features you need.  Then send them to another dealer to help that dealer with their day to day work for a few days.  By the time you team member returns.  They will know a lot of what they need without having to pay as much for Readysell training
  • Follow the standard "fail safe implementation strategy", but cut down the features covered.

You still have to do the project engagement meetings early in the project

You need three two hour blocks of time to complete the following meetings over the phone as within a week of the project start date:

Readysell Project Engagement Meeting

Readysell Financials Engagement Meeting for Full Financials

Readysell Training Engagement Meeting 

Make sure you understand what you get for your investment in implementation assistance

You get a fixed number of free training hours. Readysell can charge for any other time we spend assisting you.  Assistance during implementation is charged as per our standard support policy. 

We normally throw in a few free hours at our discretion around showing you the implementation procedure.  But don't assume everything is free, it is not!  We will help you, but it is your responsibility to understand which assistance work is being charged.  For example engagement meetings even when over the phone are charged.


See: 

Readysell Support Policy

How To Run Your Readysell Training Program

Why agreeing on your training budget learning skills training expectations and self training are critical

What do I get for my training and financials budget

Making your internal week by week Readysell 8 conversion project

What do I get FAQ

You still have to sign off the customer sign off checklists at the correct dates in the project

You have to sign off one checklist now, two more before the conversion weekend and one on the conversion weekend.  See: Readysell approval checklists

Handy hints and warnings

Office Brands runs a comprehensive Readysell 8 mentoring program a few times a year.  Contact Office Brands IT and see if you quality to participate in the mentoring program.

Readysell runs regular free web training sessions on some Thursdays.  Find out about the next web training sessions and sign yourself up to attend.  To do this you need a webcam, USB headphones and a test run at joining a meeting.  Readysell can supply the equipment and help you set it up.

Above all else, don't expect to save on implementation costs and to also get everything you expect . Have the discipline to resist learning more or implementing more than you need to get started.  It is a bit like being on a diet. Readysell has all those goodies, but you have to resist going for them all, otherwise your costs will blow out.

The most common reason why the small site strategy does not work you not being able to limit your expectations.  It requires the discipline to expect NOT to implement Readysell in the best way you can.  The best way is the most expensive way.  We are trying to control implementation costs.  There will constantly be ways in which you can do better.  Once you start trying to add one more thing to the list of features you are using.  You will find there are thousands of extra benefits beyond the basics.  The project will grow if you let it and costs of implementation assistance will expand. Stick the the priorities agreed at the start of the project.

There is no way to implement all Readysell's features without eventually investing the training time.  Expect to budget for ongoing self training or training provided by Readysell.  If you don't do this your Readysell implementation will get frozen in time.  With many of the potential benefits never implemented.

Push as much as you can into post implementation to cut costs for your small site implementation.  Then implement best practice over time after you go live. See Implement Readysell best practice