Changing software shouldn’t be scary… 14 March 2017

By Ashley Jones, sales and marketing director, Merlin Business Software.

Changing your business software can be a daunting task and not something any company should undertake lightly. One analogy we have heard is that it can be thought of as similar to changing an engine in the middle of a motor race.

Clearly, careful consideration should be put into all aspects of the change as there are, sadly, all too many examples of companies coming badly unstuck when an IT project gets out of hand. So there are a few vitally important questions to consider: Do you need to change? Is your current software able to cope? What software package is best for your business? Who is going to help you through the transition? What’s their experience in this? How do you get your data transferred over?
One route that many companies take is to simply upgrade their current software package to the latest version or the next one in the range with the hopes that the new version will be better. Whilst this may be the path of least resistance, is it the correct approach for the business? Will a relatively simple upgrade provide a long-term solution to the current and future requirements of the business?
Let’s be honest… nobody likes to change particularly if there are potential risks involved to the business and the well-being of the staff. However, at Merlin Business Software we do our best to ease the fears through our tried and tested implementation process. Using our self developed PRiME methodology (PRojects in a Managed Environment), we are able to assure a transition that is as ‘pain-free’ as possible. Developed and refined over the years, PRiME methodology offers a clear seven step process to achieve a successful ‘go live’ whilst providing total clarity of the project’s progress.
Not only that, our system specialists are on hand to help customers through the early stages when selecting which of Merlin’s software modules are best suited to their requirements, meaning they do not have to pay for expensive elements of software that won’t be used.
As with all things in business, training is key to ensure customers and their staff are getting the maximum value from the company’s investment in a new system. We, therefore, plan a tailored training package for our customers to ensure their staff are familiar with Merlin before the ‘go live’. These training courses are led by our own training team, either on our customers’ sites or at our UK offices in Chesterfield or Hemel Hempstead.
Even when a customer is up and running and using Merlin, we continue to offer competitively priced user training via our ongoing monthly training programme. This proves ideal should customers have any ‘new starters’ or if more refresher training is required. In addition, all customers are invited to sign up for our monthly training webinars, designed to provide users with short snippets of information about key areas of the system. These are run in conjunction with our extensive library of ‘how to’ guides, providing customers with readily available online resources to help plug any gaps in their users’ knowledge.
Our skilled and experienced technical support team are always available to assist with any queries our customers may have and we even have a duty trainer resource available to directly handle training related calls.
In short, all Merlin customers are in good hands when it comes to adopting our software in their businesses; we’ve been doing projects such as this since 1974, so our 40 plus years of experience can be brought to bear to accommodate even the most demanding of requirements in an affordable and extremely cost-effective solution.

www.merlinbusinesssoftware.com

Content Director

Will Lowry Content Director t: +44 (0) 1727 743 888

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Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 15 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe.

Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the Magazine is renowned.