Finding someone to do the work

KaziTech is a publication. We write about Leveraging technology and software solutions to streamline administrative tasks and enhance productivity for African entrepreneurs.. We do not sell software, we do not implement anything, and we are not a marketplace with a panel of vetted partners, because we would rather tell you that than imply one exists.

What we do have is a clear view of who is doing credible work in the areas we cover, because researching that is the job. So if you tell us what you need, we will read it and point you at the firms we would ask ourselves, and we will tell you who we passed it to. If we do not know anybody suitable, we will say that instead of guessing.

We may be paid a referral fee by a supplier you go on to work with. That fee never changes what we cover or what we conclude, it costs you nothing, and no supplier can buy a mention in an article here. Our editorial standards page sets out the whole position, including what we will not do.

These are things readers were searching for when they arrived here, taken from our own search data rather than from a list we made up. If yours is not on it, write anyway. The point of the list is to show the kind of work we get asked about.

• business central partner south africa
• business central implementation partner south africa
• business central consultants south africa
• business central implementation south africa
• microsoft dynamics 365 partner in africa
• ai driven dynamics 365 partner in africa
• dynamics 365 business central partner in africa
• dynamics 365 business central partners in africa
• dynamics 365 partner in africa

The single biggest cause of a project that costs twice what it was supposed to is a scope nobody wrote down. You do not need a specification. You need one page that a supplier can read and price without guessing. Five things belong on it.

• The problem in one sentence, written as what is going wrong now rather than as the software you think you want.
• What has to be true for this to count as finished, in terms somebody outside your business could check.
• How many people will use it, and which of them are in the field or on a phone rather than at a desk.
• What data has to move, where it lives now, and how bad it is. This is the item that most often decides the price, and it is the one most often left out.
• Who inside your organisation owns this. A project with no internal owner fails whoever you hire.

Separate what you must have from what you would like. Almost every supplier will quote the whole list, and almost every buyer discovers afterwards that half of it was optional and expensive.

We are not going to quote you a figure, because a real one depends on your scope and anybody who gives you a number before hearing it is guessing. What is worth knowing is the SHAPE of the price, because it is the same almost everywhere and it is where the surprises live.

• Licences or subscription. Usually per user per month, and usually the number everybody compares on. It is often the smallest part.
• Implementation. A one-off charge for setting the thing up, configuring it to how you work, and training people. On business software this is routinely larger than the first year of licences.
• Data migration. Priced separately, and priced from the state of your existing records. Messy data is not a technical problem, it is a bill.
• Support and changes afterwards. Either a monthly retainer or an hourly rate. Ask which, and ask what response time it buys.
• Your own people. Somebody in your business will spend real weeks on this. It is not on any quote and it is not free.

Two things go wrong often enough to be worth naming. A deep discount on licences beside a vague implementation line usually means the discount is being recovered in the part you cannot compare. And a quote that arrives before anybody has asked about your data is a quote that will change.

• Who exactly will do the work, and are they employed by you or subcontracted?
• Show me two clients of about my size in about my market, and let me call one of them.
• What is not included in this price? Ask it in those words and wait.
• What happens if it takes longer than you said, and who pays for that?
• If we part company in two years, what do I own, and in what format do I get my data back?
• What have you got wrong on a project like this before, and what changed afterwards?
• Who do I call when something breaks, and what have you committed to in writing about how fast?
• Is any part of your fee paid by the vendor whose product you are recommending?

The last one is fair to ask of anybody, including us. We answer it above.

A supplier who quotes a firm price before understanding your scope is either going to change the price later or has decided what you need without asking. Neither is a good start.

A reference you are given but cannot speak to is not a reference. Ask for a phone call with somebody who has actually lived with the thing for a year. A supplier who does credible work will arrange it.

Write us a few lines using the page above as a checklist. The more of it you can answer, the more useful the introduction we can make. A person reads every one of these.

We use what you send only to answer you and to make an introduction, we do not add you to any mailing list, and we do not pass your details to anybody without telling you who. You can ask us to delete your enquiry at any time by writing to support@acyera.com, and you can write to that address directly instead of using the form if you prefer.