Common Pitfalls - Look Before You Leap

• STORAGE – A major consideration is storage. Some companies may offer cheaper packages with lower bandwidth. You will most likely end up exhausting it, and paying extra for more. Upgrading to greater storage may cause “spike pricing”, a sudden spurt in costs as we increase storage space. Therefore, our storage needs and cost of extra storage is very important.

• SCALABILITY – Scalability is another major issue. You have to be farsighted enough to know the size your organization could grow to. Does their solution allow for scaling up? Check out their plans for larger user numbers.

• SUPPORT – Support level is important. Some providers only provide email support which involves a lag. Look for phone support as you might need instant support in times of emergency. So they make tall claims about their support? Check their record. Better still, give them a trial. Call in and find out.

• TRAINING – Do they provide training on their product? Is it free? For example, HyperOffice professes to provide free training.

• SECURITY – Security is of course critical, since data important to your company will reside on their systems. Do a background check. Do they document their security setup and systems? Take a look.

• BACKUPS – Gotta comply with Sarbanes-Oxley don’t we? Documents need to be kept around for more. Do they do regular backups? How often?

• USER-FRIENDLYNESS – Ease of use is important. Short learning curves ensure that returns start coming in soon after the software investment as well as lower training costs and lesser user frustration. End users should be able to use the solution rather than requiring administrator help. Over complex solutions are a no-no. All the features need to be well integrated, rather than a confusing mash up of different tools.

• FLEXIBILITY – Look for cross-browser, Mac, PC and mobile device support. You will likely need the solution to work in different customer, partner, supplier and traveling team environments. Moreover, the solution’s feature set should work well in these different environments. Some providers may allow mobile access only for an extra charge.

• LOCK-IN PERIOD – Some solutions offer only tri-monthly or half yearly plans. This ensures that we cannot opt out once we realize were stuck with a lesser-than-optimal solution. Look for monthly plans as they involve the lowest commitment.