I remember leading the test drive of a popular ERP system for one of my enterprise clients. The salesman had never had a prospect force him into a “test drive”. My number one rule was “Nobody touches the keyboard except me.”
As I entered an order, I asked, “How do I find my Customer Number?”
As I entered a part number, I asked, “How do I see how many are in stock?”
As I scheduled the order, I asked, “How do I see the current factory schedule for this item?”
It drove the salesman nuts. He couldn’t explain how to do anything without grabbing the keyboard.
I asked, “What good is this system if I can’t even enter one order?”
His response…”Are you going to train your people or not?”
That’s pretty much their attitude. He was so upset with me, he went directly to the CEO, who asked me what was wrong. I handed him one of our orders and said, “If you can enter this order into that system, we oughta buy it.” He couldn’t. We ended up buying another system that people could use.
The dinosaur is big, but it is dying. Hack on, and let the one who delivers the value win.