In developing a business case for Customer and Marketing Communications Management, there are some significant consideration in developing the overall Total Cost of Ownership elements of the business case. There are many aspect to a client communication possibility solution that will need measuring in different ways.
A full implementation of Customer Communications Management will demand hardware, package and human imagination. The differential in costs could be significant between the various sellers.
There is no single seller that can deliver every aspect of your Customer Communications Management infrastructure although there are one or two that get fairly close. In designing you implementation scheme you will need to entertain whether a best of breed approach with integration is better or, a borderline seller approach is desirable.
Lets get a load at some of the key focal points for you client communication possibility direction infrastructure:
Customer Communications Management Support & Maintenance for Software, Printers and Inserters.
Support and maintenance contracts with sellers will apply crosswise the full spectrum of products. Within the package arena, It is likely that sellers will offer similar contracts terms and terms of service. But do check the terms of service. If the business is a 24hr operation, you are going to need 24hr support. Also examine the level of support offered in the regions in which you may install the package systems. If you are based in France and all support operations are based out of the US, how quickly can people get on site to support you if matters go critical?
The package elements of the Customer Communications Management infrastructure should also be examined. Will major upgrades come unhampered charge, or will there be an expectation that more money is spent to continue the upgrade path?
Also, the upgrade insurance should be examined in context with the development plans of the seller. Does the seller guarantee backward compatibility between point releases of the package or will the document applications have to be re-written to match the upgrade? This could be a very significant cost if you run a number of document applications. If your company is not able to swallow this, are you comfortable being left with a technology that will at last idle over a period of a couple of years?
There are at to the last-place degree two significant hardware components inside a client communication possibility direction infrastructure. These are high volume printers and the mail finishing devices or inserters. Both of these items will have significant capital outlay and will require regular servicing. You will need to ensure that engineers are available locally and quickly.
1. Hardware seller service contracts. Look carefully at service contracts between sellers, as they can vary importantly.
2. Printer and Inserter Replacement Component Costs. Also look at the cost of components if they need to be replaced. How do they compare between sellers?
3. Print and Inserter Servicing. Are their charges for out of normal hours servicing?
4. Print and Inserter Component Inventory. To guarantee normal operations, it may be valuable to hold an inventory of hardware components at your own document production facility. What does the manufacturer recommend that you hold, and what are the costs of holding and maintaining this inventory?
5. Printer and Inserter Power Consumption. High speed colour printers and inserters are power hungry devices. What is that power likely to cost the company?
6. Building Environment Costs -A few printers require specialised working environments. They may require climate controlled environments. What are the costs of the space to provide this environment. What are the costs of adapting a building to deliver this climate managed environment. What are the acquisition and running costs of the climate control equipment.
7. Headcount Requirements - Realistically, how many people are going to be required to operate the inserters and the printers? Take on experienced document production managers when assessing the hardware equipment required and be pragmatic in that assessment.
8. Growth in document output volumes. Carefully consider current and future ouput volumes. If you anticipate a growth in output volumes, then plan this. Will the equipment that you buy now be able to meet those volumes? Will you need to invest in extra printers or inserters in the sure future? Will the space you have be able to accommodate any growth in capital equipments.
9. Printer and Inserter Replacement costs. Unlike package, machines will eventually become ineffective and unproductive to maintain and operate. How long does the hardware seller anticipate the equipment will last under your production loads? What is the expected replacement costs in the future? Take these figures, build in some contingency and plan for this.
10. Leveraging bequest equipment. You may already have printers and inserters that may be suitable for much of the output that you plan to undertake. What are the costs of acquiring this equipment suitable for participation in the process and how old is the equipment? Is it worth upgrading?
Speed of Customer Communications Management Software Installation, Configuration and Development
Not all package products are borne equal. Whether we are look data, authoring, composition, channel distribution, print direction or print stream engineering the products differ. Some products are built upon ageing platforms whilst others employ the latest technologies focused upon speed of deployment and overall cost of possession. The differences can affect Total Cost of Ownership in a number of ways.
11. Development Costs. Development and / or configuration of some kind will need to hap crosswise all of the package components being installed. Document Composition comes with its own development environment and data products will require elaborate configuration and embedding into the environment. Applications will also need to be developed if you plan on exploitation print stream engineering technology.
12. Skill Levels. Depending upon the seller, some applications may still require heavy IT skill to develop inside whereas others will offer a strong GUI (Graphical User Interface) environment that take much of the rough work out of developing applications and linking systems together. Look carefully at this as long term cost of possession could rise importantly if the package requires.
Customer Communications Management Application Component Re-Uspower
13. Service Oriented Architecture. One of the key features of advanced service headed computer architecture based platforms is the power to re-use components crosswise doubled applications in possibly wide different environments. The power for package to integrate effectively into a Service Oriented Architecture model and leverage existing structure components whilst causative valuable new components will have a significant bearing on overall life-time cost of possession.
14. Marketing Communications Vendor Technology Trial. You may want to consider a 'bake-off' scenario once you have a seller shortlist. Establish a set of tasks that test the speed at which an application environment can be brought live - make it challenging but not over complicated. The seller will likely put their best imaginations on this and it will not only be a test of the package but, a test of the sellers power to deliver ball-hawking human imagination when required. Give each seller a level acting field.
Cost of Customer Communications Management Integration
For Customer Communications Management to serve the Marketing function effectively, ease of integration is a key factory. Look at the sellers experience here.
15. Data Integration. Can the data ETL and analysis tool-set integrate easily with your existing systems. Look at the breadth of systems that you are likely to want to integrate with in the future. How easily can the system talk to systems crosswise doubled platforms that may range from z/os to SAP to Siebel to a wide variety of other applications.
It is not just the sellers components that are important, how open are systems containing vital data? Can you get this data out of them easily?
16. Marketing and Customer Communications Design and Authoring Integration. How does you company do this now? What tools are used and, will they integrate easily with the Customer Communications Infrastructure that you have or, will a change to a proprietary seller design and authoring environment become necessary?. Will the sellers design environment meet the needs, goals and objectives of your design and authoring teams and what will the cost of change be?
Perhaps basically will it be possible to push design and authoring resolute the business community? This is a fundamental dogma of client communication possibility direction but some sellers still won't be able to do this very well. Pushing the responsibility back to IT will importantly raise costs and will reduce business and marketing lightness massively.
Also look at work-flows, many companies have deployed standardised work-flow environments. Will your sellers solution be able to integrate here? All these factors have a bearing on cost.
Customer Communications Management Vendor Licensing insurance
17. Customer Communications Management Software Environments.
This is a big one and there are differentials between sellers. As a minimum, you will need development and test environment and a production environment. What are the sellers policies for development licences.
18. Multi Site Licence. The other key factor that may affect you is multi site licensing. If you operate in different places around the world, what are the costs of rolling out mirror environments to new sites? Examine carefully the sellers insurance here.
19. Cost per seat. What is the cost per seat for the elements of the client communication possibility direction infrastructure? Does the seller of bulk purchase discounts. Are the number of seating area likely to grow over time?
20. Operating System. Some sellers charge different prices depending upon the in operation system in use. How do sellers compare?
21. Additional non-seller components - Here we power be look factors such as obtaining mail compliance databases, Websphere components or other factors. What additive package components may you need to source to deliver the application that your business needs?
Management of Legacy Applications
22. Leveraging new and old. Some document applications may not justify redevelopment. However, what is the cost of integration the bequest into the environment to obtain say production wholeness benefits? Can this be done easily or are you going to be running some applications out of scope of the client communication possibility environment?
Customer Communications Management Server and Desktop Hardware costs -
23. Server Requirements. Don't forget your going to need servers to run this all on. Consult with the seller carefully in respect of the required hardware configuration and get costs from your hardware seller early. There will be a difference depending upon the in operation system you are running. Is the desktop configuration suitable? Will you need upgrade licences for the desktop?
Business and Technical Training Costs
24. Training Considerations in Customer Communications Management - At the very to the last-place degree, you will require administrators, some level of application development cappower and training for end users.
What are the seller training costs and, do they offer 'train the trainer' courses to help you reduce overall education costs? What are machine operator training requirements going to be? What level of skills are you going to need crosswise the infrastructure, and what is this going to cost?
Production Mail Health and Safety
25. You will need to ensure health and safety Y2K compliant environments for the physical print and mail elements of the Customer Communications Management infrastructure. What are the costs and training implications. Will you need to adapt the building to meet health and safety guidelines?
As can be seen, there are many factors to be considered in developing the Total Cost of Ownership equation for Customer Communications Management. The multi-point nature of Customer Communications Management means that there is much to be considered and derivation truly accurate figures is likely to be a near impossible goal. However ball park understanding is achievable.
What should be clear from this is that in developing the business case arguments for the implementation of a Marketing and Customer Communications Management infrastructure Total Cost of Ownership should not be neglected as it is a significant element of the overall budget and maybe over a period of a couple of years, far more significant than the first capital outlay.
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