Buying Software Before You'll Use It

Want to save thousands on your software implementation? A guest blogger who prefers to remain anonymous (let's call him or her the Masked Adviser!) had a great suggestion:

Organizations often go through the process of deciding on software, finally make a decision, and get so excited that they sign contracts immediately. Many, many times, they aren’t able to use it for months while they are transitioning from other systems or don’t have capacity to manage or get trained on the new system. The whole time they are paying for it.

I see many groups paying for expensive systems like Convio or Kintera spending thousands or tens-of-thousands on systems that are laying fallow while they get up to speed. Even if they are migrating, they often don't need services while they're doing discovery and design, and they may not need, for instance, email delivery and fundraising services until right before switch over. I know one organization who paid for nearly 6 months, and could have saved well over 25k had they waited.

Thanks, Masked Adviser!