Software for Business: When Not to Buy

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He then should politely tell [employees] to put their heads down, learn what they need to do to get data in the system, and keep their little pet peeves to themselves. My clients who get the most out of the technology they buy do so because they—not their employees—dictate what they need from their systems to run their businesses.

Joe is also putting too much stock in his machines' ability to run the software. He actually believes the software manufacturer's "minimum hardware requirements," such as how much hard drive space, memory capacity, and processor speed their computers should have. This is like believing there's nutritional value in a bottle of Propel water, or that baked chips actually taste as good as regular chips.

There's a difference between the software working on a server and the software working fast on a server. Software vendors keep these minimum requirements insanely low so they can reduce any potential barriers to purchase. But we all know that to really get the most productivity out of a software application you need to be running it on the fastest, most recent hardware available.

Joe doesn't have that. He's got computers dating back to the Bush era—the first Bush era. He has no internal computer guy. He's running outdated versions of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows, both on his server and workstations. Joe's looking at a potential mess the moment the software gets installed. There'll be compatibility issues, performance issues, database issues. And he'll try to fix them with Band-Aids. Until he ultimately throws up his hands and replaces his existing hardware.

Another thing: Joe and I never agreed on specific milestones that need to be reached in order for Joe to deem his project completed and successful.

He's got some idea in his mind what this system will do for him but we haven't actually discussed this—much less come to terms for it. I'm going to go off on a limb here and predict that what we ultimately deliver will differ as much from what he's expecting as The Godfather: Part III differed from the previous two Godfathers. Yes, that bad.

Sadly, Joe's project is going to fail. Miserably. He should be holding off on this software purchase. He's really not ready. But he's determined to do it. And I'm going to try and help him.

Gene Marks, CPA, is the owner of the Marks Group, which sells customer relationship, service, and financial management tools to small and midsize businesses. Marks is the author of four best-selling small business books and writes the popular "Penny Pincher's Almanac" syndicated column. He frequently speaks to business groups on penny-pinching topics. More penny-pinching advice from Marks can be found at www.quickerbetterwiser.com.

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