22 posts on Enterprise.
The complete guide for technology and operations leaders: what enterprise software development costs, build versus buy, how to choose and contract a partner, how to modernize what you have, and how to make the result stick.
Read moreCost bands for custom enterprise systems, the seven drivers that move a project between bands, where the money goes line by line, the running costs after go-live, and how to get a number you can take to finance.
Read moreA five-year total cost of ownership comparison for custom software, SaaS and ERP customization, the hidden costs of each, when each option wins, and a decision rule you can apply to your own process.
Read moreThe three support tiers with their response and resolution times and monthly costs, what is inside and outside a support contract, the 15 to 25 percent rule, and how to read an SLA before you sign it.
Read moreHow to lay out a multi-year software budget by phase, how much contingency to hold and who holds it, what finance will ask, capital versus operating spend in plain terms, and how to present it to a board.
Read moreA weighted ten-criterion scorecard for comparing software development companies, the reference-check questions that get real answers, what a good first meeting looks like, and the things not to optimise for.
Read moreA section-by-section template for a custom software RFP, how long to give vendors, how to score the responses, and what to leave out so the proposals you receive can actually be compared.
Read moreThe three ways to engage an external software team compared on cost, control, risk and ramp-up, with monthly figures, a decision rule by situation, and how to switch models without losing momentum.
Read moreRates by region, the time-zone overlap a New York or London buyer actually gets, the total cost once management overhead is counted, when each model works, and the GDPR and data residency questions to settle first.
Read moreThe questions to put to a software development vendor grouped by area, what a good answer sounds like, which answers are deal-breakers, and how to turn a long questionnaire into something that actually reduces risk.
Read moreWhat belongs in the master services agreement versus the statement of work, the clauses that decide how a software engagement ends up, how change requests should work, and a change request structure you can copy.
Read moreRehost, replatform, refactor, rebuild or replace: what each option costs relative to the others, how long it takes, what can go wrong, and how to decide per system instead of per portfolio.
Read moreThe five integration patterns compared on cost and fit, the system-of-record question that decides most designs, the failure modes we see most, and how to scope an integration before anyone quotes it.
Read moreThe six phases of a legacy data migration, the three-rehearsal rule, who has to sign off, what to do with data that is wrong in the old system, and how to run two systems side by side when you must.
Read moreThe signs that a move to microservices will pay for itself, the signs it will not, a comparison of monolith, modular monolith and microservices, and a decision rule based on team size and release pain.
Read moreWhat a cloud migration costs by scope, which applications should move first and which last, how run costs actually change, the risks that catch companies out, and what to measure once you are there.
Read moreA comparison of off-the-shelf software, configurable low-code platforms and custom internal tools across fit, cost, time, lock-in and maintenance, with the signs you have outgrown what you have and a decision rule.
Read moreWhere manual handoffs hide in an established company, which workflows pay back fastest when automated, how to map a process before you build anything, and how to keep people in control of the result.
Read moreA scoring method for choosing the first enterprise AI use case, what a pilot costs and how long it takes, why most pilots stall before production, and what hardening a pilot for daily use actually involves.
Read moreWhat an enterprise software discovery phase produces, who signs off each deliverable, what it costs, how the estimate changes once it is done, when you can skip it, and what to do with the output if you change vendor.
Read moreThe causes behind failed enterprise software projects, the early symptom of each, the structural fix, and the governance, scope control and vendor arrangements that keep a large build on track.
Read moreWhy internal software rollouts fail after go-live, a rollout plan by phase with owners and measures, how champions and training work in practice, what to do with the old system, and the metrics that tell you adoption is real.
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