Making the Decision to Hire or Train NetSuite Team Members
Let’s say you’re implementing NetSuite, or maybe that you had your implementation last year and this year you need to transition away from your initial project and place your NetSuite system in the hands of an ongoing team.
You can hire in new specialists, who already know NetSuite but don’t know your organisation. Or you can choose some of your existing team, who know your organisation and whose areas of work align with NetSuite, and get them the training they need to do what you want from them – whether that’s implementation or ongoing work.
When I first spoke to that client I mentioned earlier, he viewed this as a decision on two key factors – budget versus time. It was his belief that allowing a longer deadline before the go-live and setting up training for existing employees would have a lower time cost than the equivalent budget cost of bringing in new professionals.
I don’t believe it’s that simple. First of all, I believe it’s all too easy to under-estimate time budgets in a way we don’t tend to do with financial budgets. This internal team – how many of them really have the time to carry out NetSuite specific tasks on schedule? How many of them will be able to complete their training fast enough to do the work ahead of a go-live date? What happens if one of the team falls ill – or, worse, leaves?
Just as importantly, this viewpoint is a bad one for an implementation, because the focus is on cutting costs, not on getting it right. Obviously, you want to get it right as cheaply as possible – but getting it right is the real essential.
In my experience, NetSuite projects perform best when you’re supported by a team who know NetSuite and learn your processes, rather than the other way round – or at least when experts are brought in to form the core of your NetSuite team, training a few others along the way.
Whatever the case, if you have NetSuite requirements, I’d be happy to discuss them. Instead of moving your go-live backwards, let’s see what we can do to get a perfect implementation delivered on time. Contact us today.
