Challenges in Implementing a New Cemetery Management System

Whether you’ve decided to build or buy your cemetery management software system, it’s important to always bear in mind that you’re looking to deliver exceptional value to your customers quickly and efficiently.  Therefore you’ll need to assess any challenges you’d face when implementing a new system.

In a recent poll, we asked cemetery professionals what would their biggest challenge be in completing a build or buy a project.  The biggest challenges were perceived to be internal resources (85.7%) and security (14.3%). However, no respondents answered ‘availability of data’ or ‘ongoing support’ as being one of their biggest challenges.

So let’s go through each of these challenges in some more detail:

Internal Resources

If you’re building you’ll need:

• Expertise
• Security and compliance
• Project management
• Post-implementation support

If you’re buying, you’ll need to think about:

• Vendor capabilities
• Project management (internal)
  

Further reading:  To Build or Buy:  Four Steps to Cemetery Software Success [E-Book]

Security

Will you have the knowledge to create and maintain a system in line with industry best practices?  Additionally, if you’re thinking of buying a system, remember that some of the smaller vendors might not have enough of their own resources to maintain compliance or have the appropriate privacy or security capabilities.

Availability of Data

• If there are any other purposes for which this data may be used?  This could have a big impact on how you structure your information.
• Whether your data follows best practice.
• If you have the expertise to get your data into a usable state - If the answer's no then you'll need to get it.

Ongoing Support

This includes change management, training for existing and new staff, maintenance of documentation, and support for users who have general ongoing operation questions.

Conclusion

After you’ve assessed the challenges of a potential project, you’ll be in a better place to decide if or how to proceed.  We’re not joking when we say that sometimes the best option is to do nothing! This is an option to consider when:

• The problem isn’t big enough to invest resources
• The resources to convert data aren’t available
• Staff or potential user support is lacking (best to try and evaluate this)
• Cost of conversion is too high to achieve ROI

For a comprehensive guide on making the decision to build or buy your cemetery management software solution, download our latest e-book:  To Build or Buy:  Four Steps to Cemetery Software Success