What Does an Implementation Engineer Do?

The work of a software implementation engineer is a decisive link in the main line of software product services, and the success of software cannot be achieved without implementation. Mainly responsible for project implementation: Including common operating system, application software, software installation, debugging, maintenance developed by the company, as well as a small amount of hardware and network work; Responsible for on-site training: On-site software application training; Assisting project acceptance; Initial confirmation; control project progress; communicate individual needs with customers; be responsible for project maintenance.

Software implementation engineer

Software products, especially industry solutions Software products are different from general products. After users purchase software products, they cannot be used immediately. Technical staff of software companies are required to perform system debugging and software functions in software technology, software functions, and software operations. Implementation, personnel training, software on-line use, and post-maintenance. We call this series of work software implementation. A large number of software company project implementation cases prove that whether the software project is successful, whether the user's software usage is smooth, whether the user's work efficiency and management level are improved, depends not only on the quality of the software product itself, but also on the quality of the software project implementation The situation of later user applications plays a very important role. The project implementation specifications mainly include the project start-up phase,

Software must meet and adapt to business needs

This is the most critical part of the success of the entire project. Many companies have suffered in this regard. The software that they saw during the selection process had many functional modules, and the data could also run in the model enterprises. But when the software was bought back, they found many software features and functions. The reality of enterprises is very different, so they are not needed at all. The management processes and data requirements of different enterprises are very different. Basically, two identical enterprises do not exist. There is absolutely no one-size-fits-all software in the world that can meet the needs of all enterprises. When selecting software, enterprises must fully consider the characteristics of various management processes, the source of data, the relationship between different functional modules of statistical reports, the acceptance of employees, and the interface with other systems. Therefore, the choice of the enterprise must be Developed by software providers for enterprises. If the software provider does not do preliminary requirement analysis and custom development for the enterprise, but sells the existing software to the enterprise, its implementation success rate is almost zero. If it is such a service, the enterprise might as well buy a set of pirated software. So we can come to the conclusion that it is not the software that an enterprise buys a software provider, but its development capability.

Whether the software can be re-developed

Because the company's existing processes are not static and need to be continuously improved and improved, the software's functions also need to be able to be modified accordingly, and some problems may be ignored when the company first makes project requirements, so it must be selected Software has strong secondary development capabilities. If the structure of the software is too rigid or the secondary development ability is not strong, it may become a "chicken rib" in the future, giving the enterprise a "foolish taste, a pity to abandon it". The method to test whether the software has the ability of rapid secondary development is not difficult. When selecting a type of enterprise, not only should the software provider demonstrate how to demonstrate it, but also put forward some personalized requirements to see if the other party can develop it quickly.

Software and implementation costs should be relatively cheap

Due to the lack of experience in the first implementation of an enterprise, the risks are not without it. Indeed, there are many excellent enterprises that have achieved success through the second implementation. Therefore, when choosing software for the first time, do not only pay attention to the brand and scale of the software provider, because the higher the price, the higher the risk of the enterprise itself. We suggest that companies are better to buy those cheap products, that is, when the selected software can meet the actual needs of the company and can be re-developed, it is best for the company to choose the one with the cheapest price, as if one had just learned When you drive, you have to buy a Mercedes-Benz car. Whether or not this person is really rich is not a wise choice. A platform-based software product has emerged. It can quickly develop software according to customer needs through modeling tools. This greatly saves software development cycles and costs, and the secondary development work becomes very simple. It is best to choose such a product.

Software operation should be simple and easy to learn

Because many enterprises have no experience in information construction in the past, employees must change from manual work to computer work in the past. There must be an adaptation process. If the software organization and operation are too complicated, it will definitely increase the difficulty of training and implementation.

Fourth, the successful way of data integration project implementation

Metro Software Engineer

Consumers who shop at Metro know that they need to bring a loyalty card, but almost nothing about the role of loyalty cards. In fact, the biggest beneficiary of membership cards is Metro. When consumers check out with a membership card, a detailed consumption profile is left behind. According to Hailifo, general manager of Metro China, the company's specialized network must integrate and analyze these data every day. It not only analyzes the hot and slow sales of the product, but also analyzes the purchasing power of the target customers. Break down the product structure adjustments and changes in promotional methods.

Software Implementation Engineer Sinopec

Sinopec began to formulate the overall plan for Sinopec's ERP in early 2000, striving to build a strategy for the integration of Sinopec's ERP system from top to bottom. Sinopec Group has completed nearly 70% of the implementation of the ERP system. At the end of 2004, CNOOC announced that the group's overall implementation of the SAP ERP system project was officially launched. China National Petroleum Corporation, which had proposed the "six unifications" of informatization construction very early, also started the bidding for ERP system. It can be seen that the three major oil giants in China have a deeper understanding and more urgent requirements for management informatization, and the work of establishing and improving their respective management informatization systems is vigorous and orderly.

Whether it is Metro in the case, the three major oil giants, or some other companies, they are actually doing the same thing invariably, that is, information integration. The reason why many companies are keen on this is not to follow the trend blindly, but because of the urgent need to integrate information and eliminate "information silos." This need exists because of the great importance of information transmission systems for the survival and development of modern companies. Inadequate information caused by information economics, such as adverse selection, lemon market, and other issues, will be manifested as imbalanced governance mechanisms, chaotic management, and empty decision-making within the enterprise. Someone once compared the company's information flow to the human nervous system, so it is not difficult to imagine how difficult the company's survival and development would be if the "nervous system" was paralyzed.

Since the market has such a strong demand, the providers of information application technology will naturally not see opportunities as clouds, and will certainly develop corresponding application software systems to meet the market. For a time, various systems emerged endlessly, and technical means became increasingly pure. On the one hand, it is the hard demands of the enterprise, and on the other hand, the eager response from the information technology vendors. It seems that information integration is ready, and the remaining work is to successfully implement the information integration work.

However, this seems to be the simplest link, but it has brought a lot of troubles to the enterprise and the project implementation team at the same time. At the same time, the success of information integration seems to be imminent, but far away. According to a survey conducted by the Economic Information Center of the State Economic and Trade Commission and the weekly computer newspaper on nearly 800 enterprises, nearly 50% of the companies said that the effect of information integration was not obvious.

So what exactly went wrong during the implementation process, letting information integration stop at the last hurdle?

Here, based on our previous experience in information integration implementation, failures are mostly caused by problems or even lacks in the three links of business analysis, benchmarking, and data integration. This article will analyze from the perspective of data integration and list them in the implementation process. Three frequently encountered data implementation problems, and put forward our analysis of the problem and ideas for solving the problem, I hope that colleagues who are concerned about this field can think together. (I) Extensive internal management of the enterprise makes it difficult to find basic data, which makes implementation difficult at the beginning.

1.Problem statement

For any version of the information integration system, basic data must be entered in the first phase of the project implementation (system implementation phase). However, project implementers often accept challenges from this stage. Readers who have experienced integrated implementation are no stranger to the following two examples, as they are very common in project implementation.

Example 1: In the system implementation of production enterprises, the input of equipment coding data must be involved. However, many companies have not statistically coded their equipment, so it is difficult for project implementers to proceed to the next step.

Example 2: In the implementation of any system, it is necessary to first set different permissions for different users. This requires the human resources department of the enterprise to provide the project implementer with a complete staff position allocation table, job description and responsibility description. And when the project implementation party asks the enterprise to deliver these documents, the human resources department's answer is often "We don't have these things, I will give you an employee salary form, and I will use it." In this way, the setting of system permissions is bound to be confusing, and it is bound to affect the final effect of system applications.

There are many more examples like the above in the implementation project. In fact, they reflect the same problem, which is that the basic data to be entered is difficult to find. Without basic data, the first step of implementation could not be carried out, and the project was overshadowed by failure from the beginning.

2. Problem analysis

The problem is always superficial, just like the tip of the iceberg. The reason behind it is deep. This problem is actually a manifestation of incomplete management of the enterprise. The root cause lies in the fact that the company ignored the update and refinement of the management model during the development process, and did not form an institutionalized and standardized management model.

When enterprises are small, management and operations often rely on the personal capabilities of leaders. Most of the daily management work is to solve the problems that have already occurred. When the scale of an enterprise grows, the management often continues the old management ideas and habits. It is not difficult for us to imagine the consequences of using a method and a method of managing a dozen people to manage a company with hundreds or thousands of people. This backward management will manifest itself in all aspects of business operations, and incomplete basic data is one of its manifestations.

3.Solving ideas

The project implementer has indicated the problems and harmfulness of the enterprise to the senior management of the enterprise through fact statements and case analysis.

Recommend relevant training courses to the senior management of the company, and suggest that the company hire a professional consulting company. (II) The chaos of the enterprise management process and the imperfect supervision mechanism result in the inconsistency of the basic data, which leads to the stalled implementation

1.Problem statement

Also in the data entry stage, in addition to the difficulties of incomplete basic data, the implementation team often encounters another type of problem. This kind of problem appears in the channels for obtaining basic data. During the implementation of information integration, the way for the project team to obtain basic data can only be various reports within the enterprise. However, when these reports are delivered to the implementation team, project staff often find that the same data shows different results in different reports. Let's look at the following two examples first.

Example 1: The same is the data of the annual sales of department A, but the implementation project team saw three different results: in the annual performance assessment form submitted by department A, the annual sales was 5.1 million, and in the company's taxation statistical report Mid-year sales were 5 million, and in the next year's departmental sales target analysis report, the data showed 4.9 million.

Example 2: The number of employees is also the same. In the report submitted to the labor management department, it is 50 people, but in the salary distribution form, it is 60 people.

We can imagine that when the project team faces such a report as listed above, it can only look blank. The first step in the implementation of the system was once again facing setbacks. These problems can be summarized into one category, that is, the basic data is not uniform.

2. Problem analysis

There are two main reasons for this problem.

First, it is caused by the inconsistency of the various statistical uses of the enterprise's reports. Due to the different statistical uses, the raw data at the most basic level are often artificially modified by various functional departments or management levels during the transmission process. For example, in the case of inconsistent sales mentioned above, it may be because the personnel of Department A have changed the original data for their own interests in consideration of different reporting purposes. This reflects the loopholes in the company's assessment and supervision mechanism, and the internal audit is empty, which provides the grass-roots personnel with the possibility of "nonsense behavior."

The second reason is due to the inconsistency of the statistical caliber. There are differences in the statistical caliber when different functional departments count the same data. All personnel were counted, while the human resources department that delivered reports from the labor management department only counted contract employees. This situation is mainly due to the imperfect report management system of the enterprise. There is no unified and clear description of the caliber of different reports, and the report system is chaotic. The chaos of the reporting system reflects the chaos of the company's internal management processes.

3.Solving ideas

The implementation project team shall try to obtain the basic data of the enterprise from the front-line business of the enterprise as far as possible to avoid human operations during the upload of the basic data.

The implementation project team may suggest that the enterprise should hire a professional consulting company, and let it sort out the business management process and improve the supervision and evaluation mechanism for the enterprise before the project is implemented. (3) The most fundamental reason is that the lack of awareness of the project among senior management and the existence of interest games between the upper and lower levels of the enterprise makes it difficult for project implementers to obtain the cooperation of all parties in the enterprise, resulting in slow implementation

1.Problem statement

The implementation of the information integration system requires the implementation project team to have a more comprehensive understanding of the enterprise. This understanding needs to be based on good communication with senior and middle-level employees. And during the implementation of the project, data acquisition and other tasks can only be successfully completed with the close cooperation of the company's employees. And friends who have done this kind of project must have encountered this situation:

Example 1: The project team wants to meet with the company's senior leaders to learn more about the company, but it is always rejected because the leader is busy and has no time.

Example 2: The project team needs functional departments to provide all kinds of data and materials, but it is facing the indifference of employees, and it is too late to get the required information.

This situation is common in information integration implementation projects, which makes the work of the project team difficult to carry out, and the implementation of the project is difficult.

2. Problem analysis

We can decompose the analysis of this problem into two levels: the first level is why the senior management of the company does not cooperate; the second level is why the middle and lower level employees do not cooperate.

For senior management, they hope that the project can be successfully implemented. So why don't they cooperate with the project team? In fact, this is mainly due to the deviation of senior executives' understanding of project implementation. For many corporate executives, their view is "I pay you to come, everything is yours, I just need to sit back and get results."

For middle- and lower-level employees in the enterprise, their non-cooperation is mainly due to the result of the game of interests. Since the biggest original intention of an information integration project is to provide management and decision-making information support to the senior management, the ultimate beneficiaries of the project are often the company's senior managers. However, it is difficult for middle- and lower-level employees to obtain benefits in information integration, and because of the implementation of integration projects, the workload of many middle- and lower-level employees has increased, or their interests have been damaged. For example, the financial department may only deliver three large financial tables in the past, and because of the need for the implementation of the information integration project, they may have to deliver more schedules. These schedule data will be more powerful to support high-level decision-making after entering the system. But for employees in the finance department, this just adds to their daily workload and has no other meaning. For another example, after the system is implemented, all analytical data such as sales profits are automatically generated by the system according to the first-line data sources. Functional departments or management at all levels have lost the possibility of human operation data, which may cause damage to their interests. Therefore, the interest game between the upper and lower levels of the enterprise has led to different attitudes of different people towards the project, and has also led to the resistance of the grassroots to the project.

3.Solving ideas

The project team obtains the cooperation of senior leaders of the enterprise through three aspects of work.

A. The project implementer takes advantage of the strong demand of the senior management of the project for the results of the project, and clearly indicates to the senior management the importance of the cooperation of the enterprise for the implementation of the project during the determination of the project implementation plan. Also, they can be advised to participate in related training.

B. In the contract, the project implementer clearly required the senior management of the enterprise to set up an internal project team to cooperate with the implementation of the project and give the internal project team sufficient authorization.

C. According to the specific content of the project, the implementation project team and the internal project team shall formulate performance evaluation standards and submit them to the enterprise for approval. In this way, the implementation project team can get the active support of various functional departments and management at all levels.

Establish a regular meeting system involving system suppliers, implementers, internal project teams and consultants. The project stakeholders cooperate closely to fully understand the company's various processes and grasp the differences in interests between functional departments and management levels. Furthermore, try to provide different points of value for various people in the company as far as possible technically