Accelerators are an unregulated term for implementation projects, and when it comes to D365, an accelerator might be the very thing you are trying to avoid (especially when it comes to F&O but this is also relevant to CECustomer Engagement is the collective title of D365 first party apps built on CRM technology (Sales, Service, Marketing, etc). More), using customized and proprietary IP that ties you to a single vendor.
This series of posts will explore the different ways the term accelerator is used, and provide you with the knowledge to ask the right questions, being fully informed of your decision when comparing what an accelerator really means for your overall solution.
Why are you looking for an accelerator?
Operating at the selection and evaluation side of a project, I often get introduced to prospective clients with this initial statement.
“We are looking for a partner with an accelerator in [insert industry here] for our [insert CRMCustomer Relationship Management is a technology used to manage interactions with existing and potential customers. More/ERP Scope here] project”.
Whilst initially this seems a perfectly sensible (if not preferable request), it is often driven by an outcome and a desire, which may not be delivered by an accelerator.
Clients looking back are often wanting to avoid issues experienced from previous implementations, such as heavy customisation, vendor lock in, high upgrade costs and long time to value.
Clients looking forward at future state needs are often wanting to adopt more vanilla software avoiding customization, adopt industry standard practices and provide quicker time to value (more about Embracing the “Adopt not Adapt” approach in ERP implementation by Mike).
Unfortunately, the accelerator you’re looking for might put you right back where you don’t want to be, if you are not in a position to ask the right questions and deduce exactly what type of accelerator a partner is suggesting to you.
It’s therefore worth taking some time to define (even at a high level) what you are anticipating as the outcome of using an accelerator, and what is mort important to you. This might fit into the following categories:
- Driving best practice adoption: Are you relying on an accelerator driving the adoption of best practice and standards?
- Delivering faster time to value: Are you needing to deliver rapidly, or implement an MVP approach and then build on the initial delivery in ongoing phases?
- Reducing overall implementation costs: Are you looking to reduce the overall cost of the project, and over what timeline / area (CapEx, OpEx, timeframe etc).
- Partnering with industry expertise: Are you looking for partners with dedicated focus or consultative expertise in your industry?
- Benefiting from ongoing industry developments: Are you looking for an evolving product that will not only offer you the benefits of SaaSSoftware-as-a-Service is a subscription-based model for accessing software applications over the internet, hosted on remote servers. More, but also bring tailored industry capabilities on top of the Dynamics platform?
Depending on how you are prioritising the objectives (or combinations) above, an Accelerator may not provide the value you initially anticipate. For example there may be a trade off between achieving shorter time to value with an initial MVP deployment, and total overall implementation costs of the resulting solution when all phases are concluded.
It is therefore better to explicitly state your prioritised objectives, and intention to achieve these with an Accelerator to ensure costly assumptions are avoided during partner engagement.
There are several types of accelerators on the market and because this is not a standardised term, it’s become more of a marketing buzzword rather than a consistent type of solution offering. The buyer therefore needs to be aware of the different types of accelerators that might be on the market, and if that particular variety is going to provide you the benefits you are looking to receive.
Overall there are 3 different types of accelerator on the market; configuration based, software based and methodology based. In my next post (Part 2), I’ll be explore these different types of accelerators in more detail.