Hi to all in the List,
I have been reading the discussion on EDRMS prices with great interest. At
risk of appearing to "sit on the wall" I have real sympathies with both
sides of the debate. This is probably because of my facilitating role
between suppliers and clients. I work with clients to establish their
information (my catch-all for data, information, records and knowledge)
management needs prior to creating a specification leading to invitations to
tender and then project managing the subsequent implementation all the way
through to the business support required as the initial project phase gives
way to change management and system/process maturity and evolution in line
with the ever developing and changing needs of the client.
The reality of the client's starting position currently is a need to provide
ball park figures to their finance team and board. I always suggest that an
initial budget should be approved to properly undertake an audit and
assessment of requirements. Those who hold the purse stings in the SME
market place (public and private) to which I deliver my services are not yet
well enough informed to understand the value of this phase. The finance
department/board would appear to be more comfortable to deal with overspent
budgets based on unrealistic ball park figures and the related juggling of
different budgets - especially the training budget which can swallow up a
multitude of activities - rather than understand that a realistic assessment
of the costs to deliver what they really need must be based on a phased
implementation that takes account of available funds over several years.
I believe that comprehension of the real value that can be reaped from a
truly successful implementation is currently a slow dissolving pill
comprising a series of "lightbulbs". By the time the initial, demanded ball
park figure has been recognized as insufficient to meet the ongoing costs to
manage the incredibly important change management and "tweaking" phases, the
organization will have realized the value of additional investment and are
prepared, as I mentioned before, to find the additional funding to support
this.
While professionally I find this frustrating - as a consultant I find it
difficult to accept the hard fact that approaching projects from this "ball
park figure" will inevitably lead to project overspend - it is currently the
reality that I have to operate within.
My hope is that as organizations slowly improve their interdepartmental
communications and begin to operate as much from a process driven rather
than departmentally driven basis, they will adopt more realistic methods of
approving projects rather than isolating the "costs" of a project because of
its concrete, direct, quantitative nature. Hopefully at the same time the
ratio of reported "successful" projects with realistic ROI figures and
stories, will begin to outweigh the widely reported "failed" IT projects and
lead to a sea change in how records management and other projects are
initially approved and budgeted for.
While this records management forum is a brilliant talking shop for those
immersed in the records management discipline, the debate and awareness of
the direct connection between effective information management and bottom
line, quality service delivery, target achievement etc.. needs to be taken
to those individuals and teams - finance, board room etc.. who may not have
the same insights and understanding of the records management discipline but
who hold the purse strings and have themselves to juggle a series of
priority operational areas, some of which they currently have greater
familiarity and understanding. It is hard to move people from their comfort
zone of familiarity but it is a key role of records managers, individually
and as a group to pursue if we are to properly achieve our goals.
As more emphasis is put on planning integrated business intelligence reports
from records management and related business systems at the system planning
stage, and ensuring that the output of these reports is presented to the
right people in the right terminology, this will become an easier exercise.
We have to translate our appreciation of benefits into their language.
The challenge is there for in-house records management teams, suppliers and
consultants alike - lets take those bulls by the horns!
Heather
Heather Jack
Director
HJBS Ltd
Unlocking the Value of Your Information
07753740109
0141 423 6555
This email is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual
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have received this email in error please contact Heather Jack by replying to
this email
Heather Jack
Director
HJBS Ltd
Unlocking the Value of Your Information
07753740109
0141 423 6555
This email is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual
to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised
that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination,
forwarding, printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you
have received this email in error please contact Heather Jack by replying to
this email
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Headey
Sent: 09 September 2005 16:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: EDRMS prices
Jan,& Forum
I think there is a danger in revealing the response to your RFP to Claire,
Your RFP is based on your unique business requirement and therefore I fail
to see any relevance in your actions. Firstly your application will be
wildly different to Claire's, other than in common departmental environments
that may have similar record types, such as Finance, HR etc. However the
records in both your respective core competencies will be wildly different,
with a varying degree of numbers of record types, retention and disposition
cycles, and therefore I fail to see how this will help Claire. All the
suppliers with a bit of qualification will part with the cost of their
software , but the software is the least of your worries without a full
understanding of the effort required to define the File Plan to it's final
cut.
I understand that you are trying to help in the spirit of the forum, as am
I, but I advise Claire to be aware this may not be the best way to get an
accurate estimation for the budget. A sympathetic University with similar
issues that has successfully rolled out EDRMs may be a more appropriate
model, however those that have successful EDRMS are few, although many are
in the same dilemma.
There are numerous software Vendors willing to shoe-horn projects into tight
inadequate budgets, to them it's about selling licenses. However to me it's
about delivering successful projects and all I'm saying is that some
consultancy investment up front to define the scope provides a more accurate
cost projection, and a rather easier contract negotiation that isn't heavily
caveated to de-risk suppliers from a bunch of potential unknowns.
The final thing about revealing pricing is the element of confidentiality
that you have with your supplier, who fortunately subscribes to the list. I
would be alarmed to find my customers divulging implementation costs despite
the sanitization of the response. It's not difficult to find out who's using
what. Despite RRP's of software inevitably suppliers granted the period of
exclusivity to negotiate a final contract will take a view on the whole
project and negotiate elements of software, implementation and support to
provide a final cut of the contract. This is sacrosanct confidentiality and
should be treated as such.
The questions are not considered as tiresome as much as the answers. I
sometimes would like to invite the distributors of RFP's to see the effort
that goes into responding to them, and my fellow suppliers will testify to
this, we all do it for the love of business having qualified whether we
think it's a realistic prospect for our products and solutions, always in
the know that there can only be one winner. That's why we ask awkward
questions, and need to have full understanding of the requirement. It's
easier for prospective buyer to be qualified out by the suppliers than
prospective buyer trying to decide between Rolls Royce solutions A-D and
Mid, Low end tier solutions E-Z. Some times some of us just don't belong at
the party and the sooner we know that as suppliers the sooner we don't bore
you with our over accentuated vision of EDRMS/ECM/EDM Hype and Euphoria.
Best Regards to you all in the forum.
Paul Headey
Deltascheme Ltd
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jan Hargreaves
Sent: 08 September 2005 11:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: EDRMS prices
That's all very well, Paul, but when you work for a public body, where your
funding streams are dictated by the governing body's Finance Department,
sometimes you need to give them a rough idea of how much money they're
likely to need to set aside for a specific project, or by how much your
funding stream for that year might need to be increased.
Not all public sector organisations are in the position where they can wait
and see how much the ideal package for their RM needs is going to cost
before allocating the money. Sometimes you get your costings in for your
ideal package, only to be told that the organisation can't commit the funds
that year.
A year ago, we obtained costings for the system that would have met our
needs, taking into account all the points you raise about investing to
achieve long-term improvements and not seeking a "quick fix" system that
would require subsequent modifications. By the time the costings came in,
our funding stream for that year could not support such an investment. I had
obtained ball-park figures from other organisations prior to approaching
companies, which enabled our Finance Department at the start of the
financial year to say that I could go ahead with obtaining specific costings
(which ended up being in the same area as the general figures I had
obtained).
That's why we ask for an idea of how much something is likely to cost.
Perhaps suppliers of systems need to pay more attention to the very real
limitations public bodies have in terms of spending, and be a bit more
understanding when we ask these obviously tiresome questions.
I'll be sending details of the costings we received to Claire, since it
probably will be of use to her.
Jan Hargreaves
Senior Archivist
Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Paul Headey
Sent: 08 September 2005 11:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: EDRMS prices
From an EDRMS suppliers' perspective we obviously get asked this question
all the time and usually far too early in the procurement cycle for it to
have any relevance to the reality of the total cost of a successful EDRMS
project. When we are asked this too early it immediately rings alarm bells
as to what the driver and justification behind the investment will be based
on. i.e. we need a system to get a tick in the box to show we have made some
sort of effort to enhance our information management position, therefore
will choose "best value" or the "the cheapest proposal", where as the
emphasis we look for as a supplier to respond to an RFP is whether we feel
the prospective organisation is really interested in providing a massive
difference to their organisations information life cycle management and thus
make a better return on their capital investment by making better use of
their information, reducing storage overheads, providing immediate an secure
access to information, driving cost out of our business processes etc.
I emphsasise successful implementation because as a supplier we come across
numerous RFP's many which we respond with a "no bid" response because of the
obvious lack of commitment in the change management, an overwhelming under
estimation of the preparation required to design departmental file plans,
design disposition schedules and retention policies and without this
understanding of the requirements it's quite impossible to provide any where
an accurate proposal for the project. Setting up the RM properties is a
fairly minimal task when you do it once with minor changes. However
re-configuring RM properties time and time again due to lack of preparation
and the underestimation of the preparation effort can render the whole
project a total failure through going over budget as the specification keeps
changing. non adoption from users if they haven't a clear understanding of
what the system is supposed to be doing for them, and if they haven't been
provided with the appropriate amount design inclusion and user training, and
there are numerous examples I could cite. Examples that we haven't responded
to I might add!
The danger is that cost becomes the paramount consideration, and not the
return on the capital invested. If the £250,000 proposal is chosen over the
£350,00 proposal you should provide the suppliers the opportunity to justify
what they are supplying for their premium. The £100,000 could be the
difference between the system being delivered successfully or not.
If anyone actually responds by supplying you with the tender costs, beware
that you don't set a precedent on the budget which minimises your scope to
pay for an appropriate amount of fileplan design by your own organisation,
user training and up front fileplan consultancy which tend to be areas where
investment is minimised.
The software cost should be least of your considerations without having made
some progress into the preparation of the business
requirements/specification to provide some chance of the suppliers providing
you with a reasonably accurate project estimation. There is plenty of
shelfware out there gathering dust through non adoption due to lack of
proper planning.
Good luck, hope you take on board the point in making the effort on defining
your own business requirements rather than plagiarizing other organisations
RFP's and supplier responses.
Paul Headey
Deltascheme Ltd.
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Claire
Sent: 07 September 2005 17:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: EDRMS prices
Would anyone be kind enough to share, off-list, tender prices/ quotes that
you've received for EDRMS? I'm trying to get budget allocated for a system
here at Lancaster and therefore need an understanding of the range in which
tenders are likely to fall. We're some way off procurement, so I'm reluctant
to call in potential suppliers just yet.
I'm aware this is something of a 'how long is a piece of string'
question: if you have figures relating to systems for university
administration only, or incorporating academic and other support
departments, all of these would be useful - please could you briefly outline
the applicable circumstances? If you'd like to provide any information in
confidence, I can ensure both the source of the data and the supplier name
is anonymised in my use of the figures.
Many thanks in anticipation
Claire
Claire Moore
Records Manager
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YW
Email: [log in to unmask]
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