You’ve got options. Take your time because only one option is not failure.
Who acquired whom? How will this affect me? Like the vaudeville comedy routine “Who’s on First?” made famous by Abbott and Costello, you will be scratching your head wondering who is where when the current merger and acquisition flurry ends. That is IF it will end.
If you are uncertain on the future of your LOS and vendor partners and feel like you are navigating a landscape that you can barely recognize, you are not alone. Keeping up with your current LOS and vendors is tough enough. Add mergers, acquisitions and the entrance of new players into the mix and you will surely be sent into a tailspin. The good news is that you have options and now is the time to exercise them.
Option No. 1 is doing nothing, overlooking the cracks in your foundation and relying on the old adage of “If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.”
Option No. 2 is to fall prey to flashy salesmen and buzz words that suck you into the perceived latest and greatest all-in-one super solution. This may work. It may not. If it’s the later, you will be left with an underperforming and unfamiliar system and you only have one vendor to help dig you out.
Option No. 3 is to slow down and complete a comprehensive review of your operations and the vendors and technology that supports each step. By comprehensive, I mean having all parties involved.
What works for your sales team may not work for your back office and vice versa. Do not overlook your service providers that are integrated with your current solution. Determine what currently works well and what does not work well.
Then, categorize each vendor and supporting technology platform into buckets such as “We cannot accept any lesser functionality for this,” “This needs to be replaced,” and “We can do without this.” Only after this assessment should you prepare your RFP and begin researching new LOS providers.
If you end up at a crossroad where you are considering accepting less than the perfect solution that still does not satisfy all of your needs and is padded with a bunch of “stuff” that you don’t need, stop. Reread Options No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 above and keep looking.
Making the wrong, uneducated decision could take years and a lot of cash to unwind.
