Why Companies Purchase a Particular Manufacturing Package -- Results of Fall 2010 Survey Reveals Surprising Results

By Sheldon Needle

Many business reasons drive companies to select new manufacturing software, including the need for greater efficiency and the desire to gain a competitive advantage. If your company is in the market for new software, it is helpful to understand why other companies chose various solutions, and the positive or negative outcomes of those choices.

This report summarizes the results of a recent CTS Software Selection Survey, and reflects the opinions of 150 survey participants who visited www.CTSGuides.com, and registered for our free distribution, Manufacturing Software Selection Kits. Each kit includes software reviews, ratings and selection tools, along with a 10-minute Smart Shortlist™ consult with software expert and CTS President, Sheldon Needle, designed to help identify the best software options for the registrant’s shortlist. Under Needle’s leadership, CTS has been publishing business software evaluation materials since l983.

The results of the CTS Software Selection Survey are surprising at times and reaffirm that, despite the challenges in our economy, many companies are implementing new mrp software. A summary of the survey results follows.

Why Software Buyers Choose a Particular Product

In the CTS Survey, 78% of respondents bought new software in 2010. When asking respondents why they chose a particular product, our survey listed four possibilities: Best Function, Best Price, Brand Recognition and Sales Presentation.

As Exhibit A illustrates, 60% of the respondents cited Best Functionality as a reason for choosing a particular product. (We were extremely happy to discover this because our CTS comparative ratings charts help direct buyers toward the products that have the best functionality for their needs.)

Price was the second most mentioned reason for choosing a solution. However, while 44% of the respondents cited Best Price as one of their software selection factors, only 9% chose a solution based on price alone. These price-driven buyers were generally less happy with their purchase than other software buyers we surveyed. In fact, one-third of the price-alone respondents reported being Very Dissatisfied with their software choice. This finding demonstrates that, while it’s important to consider price when choosing software, buying on price alone is certainly not the best approach.

Our survey indicates that a solid sales presentation was often an important factor in the buyer’s decision: 27% of respondents cited this as a factor in their decision-making process. Interestingly, 19% of respondents claimed that their choice was made based on Sales Presentation alone – and every one of these respondents report that they are generally happy with their decision. The takeaway here is that a well-informed sales presenter carries a lot of weight with buyers. Brand Recognition only played a role in 9% of the software selection decisions.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A

What’s to Like (and not Like) About New Software

While pre-defined response choices, such as Somewhat Helpful and Very Happy, helped us spot trends and establish percentages, the free-form pick-list comments gave us a deeper understanding of why a company was happy or unhappy with their software purchase.

Comments like “flexibility” and “user friendly” were fairly common among happy buyers. Good support and training, and the ability to customize the software, were other factors that routinely lead to happy buyers. Also on the positive side, integration capabilities and technology platform were mentioned as reasons for choosing a solution and reasons why a company reported being happy with their choice.

Some of the happy software buyers reported struggling with complex implementation or functionality issues. But with strong vendor support, these issues seemed to get resolved over time.
Among the unhappy buyers, “We should have done more research,” was a fairly common response. In addition, poor training and support were contributors to overall dissatisfaction. Also on the minus side, a number of respondents were surprised by the complexity of setup and use of the system they chose, and felt that more testing should have been done before the purchase. Several respondents commented that having an internal champion to manage the evaluation process and software implementation would have improved their company’s outcome.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B

A Note about the Non-Buyers

Our survey revealed that 22% of the respondents haven’t purchased software. While 15% of these respondents reported that economic reasons put their purchases on hold, 40% indicated that lack of interest or lost momentum among upper management stalled their technology initiative. This confirms that buy-in from top management is vital to the successful execution of a technology initiative.

CTS: A Valuable Software Selection Resource

A cautious and thorough approach to evaluating software products and vendors is the best recipe for a successful software purchase. While it is the software buyer’s responsibility to perform the necessary due diligence to make an intelligent purchase, expert guidance and quality research materials are valuable tools that lessen the chance of choosing a solution that doesn’t fit your organization’s needs and expectations. Utilizing CTS’ free published information and Smart Shortlist consult to narrow your company’s choices is an excellent step toward a positive outcome.

Free Manufacturing Software Selection Kit

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