e-Procurement: From Strategy to Implementation

Implementation Phase

As with major construction projects that always run long and over budget, underestimating implementation time for e-procurement projects is a chronic problem. One of the most important guiding principles to maintain is to always set proper expectations. It is to a large extent an effective early test of the proposing consultants to see exactly how they approach the issue. Ask them to help you to understand how much time you should allot for implementation, including system installation and training. Software vendors will often wave a dismissive hand and claim that implementation can be accomplished in as little as two months, but they may well be talking about a “slam-in-a-system” approach that will ultimately require a ...