General Consultant Discussion

I know I'm not the only one who gets sucked into these vortexes. In this instance a customer started the process by asking whether I could generate a simple export file of their employee information for a vendor who is making a connection between their product and MAS90. My observation is: - Most integration products go off the rails unless we're involved from step one - meaning the specification, asking questions. - There's a decent amount of time where we are not contacted until the project is underway, the third party solution purchased (my favorite is the ex-customer who bought a 150k point-of-sale then asked us how it would integrate because the person who sold it told them ""no problem""). - If the integration reaches a point where it's not working -- it usually becomes ""the MAS90 guy's fault"". Here's an example attached of how our minimal involvement has generally crept to the point of where I need to pull the rip cord and start talking with the owners to let them know that they may be traveling down a road that's more than just the basic import which was previously described.

All your points are astoundingly true! The biggest example for me is one in progress. Client paid huge $ for a WMS called Modula which includes a big vertical lift module that saves warehouse space for all their tiny machine parts - www.modula.eu (based in Italy) .THEN they called their reseller to say ""hey guess what we bought Modula and the Modula folks say the integration with MAS or any system is really easy can you set it up for us"". It took a month of discovery and conversations to come up with the final spec which was no tiny integration at all. The other thing uncovered thanks to our involvement was how the client's warehouse staff has to change some of their own MAS picking process to match the very restrictive Modula process.

My pet peeve -- or maybe it's a weakness -- is when the customer asks a ""simple question"" about an integration. They say that you don't need to become involved as it will be easy. Then over the next few days, weeks, months the inquiries keep coming and at some point the tables are turned and somehow the story the customer believes is you sold, recommended and promised that this integrated solution (that the customer purchased on their own) would work.... then it becomes ""why won't you"", ""why doesn't MAS90"", ""don't other people do this"" ...

Some of it is they want to believe the salesperson who tells them it's no problem. They want it to be simple and allow themselves to be suckered in. I have several clients who will call to ask what questions to ask the salesperson to figure out if the integration is real or not.

I have a standing 15 minute routine that explains how ""integration"" means different things to different people. To the Customer: Integration = seamless = push one button = full detail To the Software Company: Integration = Export = CSV = Push it to your MAS person to figure out = pull in a journal entry in summary To the MAS consultant: Integration = No money on the sale of the solution = left holding the bag when the company falls short on the integration. I give this speech (provided I recognize the signals) and it has saved my skin several times over when clients remember my warning...

I had to smile (slightly) the other day. I was on the phone with a notoriously difficult customer the other day (they usually beat us up as Wayne outlines above) and the subject of meeting with their web site developers came up. They trash talked them saying ""They just don't seem to understand the simplest things. They can't make it work like we want. It's so easy."" I just thought to myself ... this sounds exactly like how she speaks to me about my guys while meanwhile giving me a two sentence description of how their system should work and getting upset when pressed for details.

Yeah. You always have to take those remarks with a grain of salt.