General Consultant Discussion

Had a customer request a list of of all their customizations with descriptions of everything which has sparked the conversation - do we manage our customers customizatons or should customers be managing their own?

Who did the customization? You or them? You - Was it part of the scope of your work? Customer - You can manage for a price?

We have done the customizations, but it has been an array of various consultants as part of a project or documented scope of work.

There is a lot of value to add by us in managing the customer's entire ERP-CRM implementation. They generally don't really know what they have or why. Of course, if you deliver the value, they should pay; describe it right and they'll pay for it.

This particular customer we have had for years and they have a new operations/IT manager who is requesting this. We have a list of custom reports, etc that i can compile and provide to him. However it does make me wonder how other peopel manage customizations for ror clients, old clients, and new implementations?

Keeping in mind the following: If you give them a choice, they may say they will manage it to save money, but they won't, and it will still be your fault if you forget about one on an upgrade...every scope needs to include project management and documentation for the future.

We do it, frankly, poorly. I intend to offer up that packaging as an item on the annual agreement. clarifying what they have and why should be useful to a customer, especially in situations like this. In this case, though, I suggest you arrange a system review meeting with the new IT manager and his/her boss. Walk through their current functionality and their pains and plans. I'd make this one complimentary, if they follow your rules for the meeting (IT Mgr + boss). It might well lead to new projects, and should help prevent the new guy from making excuses and bringing in his own favorite VAR.

I think we need a better approach going forward for documenting customizations. What's interesting is we had already done a system review with this new employee. After providing him with a ""findings and recommendations"" document after the review I would find him asking me questions that were well documented in what i had given him. It seems he didn't find any value in the documentation i gave him....

Or he didn't read it, or read it and didn't understand it.

exactly. but unfortunatley this seems to be the trend, not the expection.

So, I guess you just keep quoting what you wrote already. it can seem rude sometimes to get the point across this way, saying ""in the document I prepared on page x you'll find..."" but they've paid for this document and remind them that they'll be paying twice or more, if they don't read it.