o not be put off by the salesman wearing white shoes and dripping in gold chains who assures you that all their projects always run on time and within budget. Sign up immediately. Go home and don’t forget to say goodnight to the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Scenario 2 Speak to a couple of mates and get their recommendations. Phone three companies and have them demonstrate to you and your team. Select one and put them on the short list. Enter into negotiations. Sign up and pay the deposit. Advise your attorneys that you will be spending a big chunk of money with them in future months and you would like a special rate. Scenario 3 Speak to a couple of mates and get their recommendations. Phone three companies and have them demonstrate to you and your team. Thoroughly confused, call a retail consultant or two. One of these firms suggests that rather than speak to software companies, you need to first look at your current processes. If they are all best practice, that is fine but they tell you that this is never the case. Clearly the consultant wants to get more money out of you with such an exercise but you reluctantly agree. The consultants give a tick of approval to 80 per cent of your processes, but recommends that 20 per cent need changing or need to be discarded. You argue that this is how your business has always run and that furthermore some of the processes are unique to your company which gives you a competitive edge. The consultant politely tells you that you are talking nonsense. Reluctantly you stand by as the 20 per cent is trashed/replaced. The work that has been done forms the basis for an RFP (Request for proposal). The consultants know who the “good guys” are versus the “bad guys”. They also know that functionality isn’t everything.  You need a cultural fit with the vendor.  They therefore send the RFP to three good guys. Evaluation criteria are prepared and each response is checked off against this. Demonstrations of the top two vendors are requested. An MOU is prepared by the consultants and signed by you and the vendor. Negotiations commence aided by the consultants who recognise that there are some areas where you can haggle long and hard but others (such as change management) where you need to provide some fat. The deal is signed with penalty clauses for default on either side – in fairness to the vendor who is often penalised through no fault of their own. The project commences project managed by the consultants. The implementation runs slightly over budget and slightly over time but this is insignificant. You phone your attorneys and tell them you won’t be needing them right at the moment. You go home and ignore the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Stuart Bennie is a retail consultant at Impact Retailing www.impactretailing.com.au and can be contacted at stuart@impactretailing.com.au or 0414 631 702