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8 Tips for Improving SLM & IWMS Implementations SLM / IWMS Leading Practice: Tip 1 Lights, camera, ACTION! That's what they should say at the start of every software demonstration, because what you're about to witness is akin to a movie with scripted clicks, customer anecdotes, competitor potholes and its very own laugh track. Believe it or not, there is a whole industry around the Art of the Demo – including limbic system techniques (you'll probably need to look that one up). If we had a dollar for every time we heard a client say, "What do you mean it can't do that, I saw it in the demo" we would be sipping a cold drink on a tropical island instead of writing this whitepaper. If done right, a software demo paints a vision of what the world could be like if you license and implement the vendor's software. What a demo is not, is a representation of how the software operates out-of-the-box. And quite frankly, it's not necessarily the way you would want to design it in the first place, let alone use it in a production environment to run your business. The key is to uncover the truth behind the demo – what ships with the software Day 1 versus what needs to be configured or customized. I Saw It In The Demo Demoware vs. Out-of-the-Box Functionality • Be sure to ask the vendor to clearly explain what features / functions come out-of-the box and what requires configuration or customization. Put another way, what does the system look like day one when we turn it on? • Ask probing questions regarding the level of effort needed to implement the capabilities you're seeing. For example, is it a simple set-up where you need to populate drop down values or do you need to write ground-up workflow and define new data sets and forms to manage a process? • Ask if the capability you're being shown is actually used by customers. Often times what looks pretty and easy to use in a demo is different than the realities of what needs to occur on the ground. The devil is in the detail.

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