Whenever more than one organization needs to come together to get something done (e.g. implementation of a web-to-print solution), the “project” is led by someone. All too often, the customer takes the lead because the printer’s implementation resources fail to assume the leadership role they should hold.

Let’s start back where it all begins: with sales. The printer’s sales team has successfully sold a customer-facing technology (web-to-print) into their customers presumably as part of a print program sale. For our discussion purposes (try to imagine this), the sales representatives know nothing about the software, they are not focused on it (no commission tied to it), they reluctantly included it in the deal because the customer required it. I know it’s hard to imagine any of that.

The sale is consummated. Sales representative is calculating commission check. Customer is ready to start using the web-to-print system. Because of what has transpired up until this point, we are not exactly set up for success here. The parties have not really discussed the implementation as any discussion of the “details” was spurned by the sales representative as “slowing the deal down.” So now we’re in the “honeymoon” phase of the sale and we must establish expectations and dive into the details of a software implementation. We are transitioning from a “sales relationship” where “yes” was the default answer and overpromising might have been habitual into a software implementation relationship where two organizations must collaborate to successfully deploy the software and dive into the details.