EHS & Sustainability Software Selection
With so many available options, how do you select the right tool for your needs?
Our passion is to cost effectively help customers choose, and then develop user friendly EHS & Sustainability management solutions focused on supporting the organization.
We help customers understand available options for systems, explain what works well and what doesn’t, guide our customers in interacting with prospective vendors (e.g.; ensure that license agreements cover what our customers need and allow for flexibility) and ensure that the EHS system elements beyond software (i.e. content, work processes, integration, outputs, user adoption, etc.) are taken care of too.
Our selection process is transparent and independent of our relationship with software vendors (i.e. we do not receive commission payments, kickbacks or receive any other financial incentives).
Our Process
Planning
During planning, Huco will help examine existing systems (As-Is state) and work with you to define objectives (To-Be state), requirements and work processes. These will be documented and used to develop “scripts” for software vendors to follow to ensure demonstrations and proposals are targeted for your needs.
Short-list Vendors
Based on your specific needs, industry and budget, we will leverage our market intelligence and 3rd party research to identify a set of vendors to participate in demos.
Host Demos & Help Score
Once vendors are identified, Huco will arrange demonstrations, demo scripts/use cases, and evaluation forms/criteria. After conclusion of all demos, we will compile your teams’ feedback for your review and decision making.
Provide Advice
We will guide you through the process, share our knowledge, compile your team’s insight and help you through negotiations. Our deliverables for a software selection can take many forms ranging from a simple word document all the way to a complete business case and presentation to your C-Suite.
Find out how we can help you find the right tool for your organizational needs.
Our Best Practices
Building alignment can be difficult, particularly in organizations that are large, geographically disparate, or have many business units. Huco will help you create buy-in from all stakeholders by creating consensus on requirements and alignment on your goals.
Charter Creation
All of our selection projects start out with a clearly defined charer that documents your team’s agreement on objectives, scope, timeline and budget.
Goals
Clearly defined goals create a virtual finish line for your project. We will help you align on what constitutes a successful solution.
Expectations
Based on our experience, we will help you determine a realistic timeline for your project and budget (both financial and in terms of resources).
Stakeholders
We offer assistance in determining the best people involved from all aspects of your business – EHS, IT, operations and leadership.
Receive a customized quote for software selection consulting.
Selection Strategy Tailored for YOU.
Envisioning where you want to be, and then building up all the pillars you need to get there is the most important portion of choosing the right solution. Our recommendation is to break your planning up into smaller pieces and hold workshops with relevant stakeholders to determine your needs and requirements that will define a successful solution.
Focus Areas
During initial planning workshops, we will help you determine the areas you should focus on to review. What are your biggest pain points, or needs for your new system:
- Health & Safety
- Reporting & Analytics
- Environmental Compliance
- Task Management
Prioritization
After selecting the domain areas you want to focus on we will help you determine your priorities. Areas that are a “need to have” requirement will be focused on more closely and take precedence over “nice to have” areas.
Workshop Planning
Your priorities and focus areas will determine how many workshops will be needed and who should participate in each, e.g. the SME, IT, consultant and potentially even the existing vendor (this helps you validate what you think you know about their tool)!
If you are centralized or have travel budget, it is advised to do this face to face. Otherwise, this can be broken into a series of web meetings.
Stop & Review
If you have existing tools, after your alignment workshops we will help you pause and reconsider what you already have. Maybe the issue isn't technology? Are you considering all aspects of your current system such as content or work processes. Is your budget (financial & time) best spent buying and implementing a brand new tool (maybe an upgrade will solve your pain points)?
Vendor Demos
If the consensus is that you still need a new tool, Huco will help you schedule and host demos so you can compare apples to apples.
Develop Use Cases
Before talking to vendors we will synthesize all of your collected data, so you are comparing apples to apples. This data will be used to develop use cases. For instance, we might suggest you ask a vendor to show their end-to-end process to log an incident. This could include event logging, creating related records like action plans and evidence, or how incidents can tie to investigations.
Formalize Requirements
We will help you synthesize the requirements created during your workshops along with use cases into a formal requirements document. This will allow to compare apples to apples and help the vendor best prepare to spend their time showing you the functionality your team needs. We can also help you create formal RFI or RFP documents in tandem with this process or after your initial round of demos.
Create Scoring Criteria
The last preparation step is choosing how you will evaluate your short list of vendors. There are many different approaches for that dependent on the breadth and personality of your decision makers. If it is just you, we can advise after demos and help you review. If it is large data driven team, we may build a detailed scorecard where people rank each vendor on a scale of 1-5 against every requirement, and then weight the requirements.
Review Outside Information
We will help you review outside information. What other companies in your industry are using a particular software and how? How do independent research groups rank the system you are considering? We can even help put you in touch with industry peers that are using a particular solution.
Digital Strategy Services
After creating a strategy, how do you choose the right tools for your business, and what is the best way to implement them?
Upgrades to existing systems, and implementation of new software.