What is 1C? 1C Franchising. Part 2
About the phenomenon of 1C franchising, you can talk for a very long time. The general principles, advantages and disadvantages of 1C's approach to certification, to working with partner companies, as well as many of the accompanying phenomena, I revealed in the first part of the article “What is 1C? 1C Franchising Part 1 " .
And now I would like to talk about how the franchisees themselves organize their own work, which structure of divisions is formed in companies selling and implementing 1C, which structural divisions are basic, how they work. Understanding these factors will help you to understand more deeply what to look for when choosing artists who will help you implement new software, what is important to pay attention when communicating with a sales manager, and which specialists will be involved in implementing your project.
In order to understand what to expect from the company franchisee 1C, you should also understand their structure. How do franchisees work? What are they made of? Regardless of the size of the company, the number of its branches, the franchisee consists of one unit - it is a kind of legal entity, for example, 1C franchisee LLC.
And from the inside the company usually looks like this:
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In this list, I deliberately moved the personnel department, IT department, accounting department and other departments that may be present in the company, but which the client does not encounter, beyond the description. Here I want to show only those units with which the customer is forced to communicate in the process of cooperation.
And now let's look at the quality of work, on what each of the company's divisions is doing.
A director (company or branch) is, most often, a manager, manager. As a result, this person knows almost nothing about 1C. Often this person once organized and built this business, but he knows almost nothing about 1C, about the technological features of software products, and in these matters he fully relies on his subordinates.
The director is the most advanced sales manager. It is in sales that he is a specialist, his functions are mostly reduced to helping to find a compromise in difficult situations. Neprimer, in the process of project implementation there are problems, the sales or implementation department cannot cope, deadlines are delayed, the client is dissatisfied. It is the director that is the last link, another step that will help “put out the fire” (agree with the client, calm him down, persuade to extend the deadlines, etc., etc.) These are the functions of the director of franchisee companies with whom I faced in practice.
The director almost never deals with the professional development of his employees, he simply performs the functions of an administrator.
The bad thing is that the company works in a professional sense by itself. A director is not a mentor, mentor, he is simply an administrator. This situation is observed in almost all companies, exceptions are extremely rare, and are most often found in small companies consisting of 10 to 15 people. In this case, the director often combines administrative functions with the functions of a 1C specialist, he also works on projects, does not lose qualifications, is constantly aware of all the problems and innovations, develops himself and develops his company. But this, again, is an exception to the rule. Most often, the director is the administrator.
How does the sales department usually work? In the staff, you can most often see young guys and girls (22-25 years old) who know very little about 1C. Most often, they simply completed courses on the sale of 1C, received a certain amount of fragmentary information, memorized several terms. And they are mainly engaged in answering calls, asking questions, finding out the primary needs of customers. If the communication went smoothly, preliminary agreements were reached, after telephone conversations, these young people meet with the client.
As a rule, sales staff do not know anything about 1C. Their level is often so low that they can confuse configuration and platform! As a result, such unfortunate experts sell, they themselves do not know what.
There is one more trouble here. Franchisee companies often position themselves as 1C. But in 1C itself there are a lot of different products. Today there are more than 300 or even 400 titles (to be honest, I don’t remember exactly myself). There are ready-made configurations for beauty salons, for wholesalers and for retail sales, for sales of jewelry and for petrochemistry, for production and the service sector, and a lot of very different products for different business areas and different purposes.
Naturally, at 21, a young man who was trained in 1C sales courses would not be able to figure it all out. Most likely, he will not even remember the list of these products, but in order to understand how they differ from each other, why in one case it is better to choose one name, and in the other quite another, you need 1C knowledge of a completely different level.
But the motivation of these young people is sales. They must sell and nothing else. As a result, the client calls, asks questions, and an employee of the company sells to him, he does not know what, provides a choice of those products whose existence he remembered, and this, in fact, a very short list often does not include that product at all which is really needed by the client.
No matter how ridiculous this may be, but in reality sales often look like this:
What is the result? The client is offered to buy (and often even sell) “Trade management”, “Clothing trade”, and plus to that - “1C Accounting”. But in fact, a person is engaged in manufacturing or tailoring to order. And he does not need any trade documents, analytics, accounting. Often, if you delve into the needs of the client, it turns out that he wanted from the very beginning to get the most ordinary “1C Accounting” and nothing more.
Why it happens? The manager himself does not understand what he is selling, but he knows well that it is necessary to sell as much as possible. The result is obvious: the client either goes away without a purchase at all, or works with this company, remains unhappy, and in the future, if necessary, update the program or make some changes will look for an alternative (franchisee companies or even software). Plus, of course, customer dissatisfaction is always a stain on the company's reputation.
There is another possible way out of the current situation: the manager or the client will directly seek advice from the head of the sales department.
Usually in any company the sales department consists of ordinary employees and the head. What distinguishes the latter? He is older, more experienced, knows a lot more about the product that sells.
In addition, it is important to understand that among ordinary employees there is a very high turnover of personnel. Often an employee can work for literally several months, get some minimal experience and go to another company. This situation is found in many 1C franchisee companies. Almost everyone is short of sales specialists, and therefore even a slightly trained seller is already valued in the labor market, and competitors often try to lure him away.
The head of the sales department has been working in the company for a long time, perhaps even since the foundation of the company, and he knows a lot more than his subordinates about what he sells. But still it is focused on sales.
In general, in companies that are engaged in 1C, this is a massive problem: sales people are engaged in sales, and not people who have come from other departments, for example, from implementation, from living projects. Therefore, the sales department simply doesn’t have any idea what happens after the contract is drawn up; these people have never seen how the project is going, what difficulties may then arise from the specialists of their company. They just sold, got their percentage of the sale, that's all. Problems of the client or colleagues from other departments do not interest them.
The head of the sales department is a person who knows products a little better than his subordinates, he is better versed in psychology, has more sales experience, knows how to find a common language even with difficult customers. But, nevertheless, he is sales manager, he does not know the system itself.
So, the client was sold some configuration, perhaps suitable, perhaps not. But the contract is concluded, the sale took place. What happens next?
Next, the implementation department is connected to the work. It consists of technical specialists who are called very differently: 1C programmers, 1C consultants, implementers, 1C experts, 1C implementation staff, etc. In any case, the specialist of the implementation department goes to the customer to install and configure the 1C software product.
Unfortunately, the level of knowledge of implementers is usually very low. The main reason is that in 1C the division into programmers and consultants is very bad. Most often, a person may well know one thing: either programming or consulting. Thus, he will either be well-versed in the program, will be able to customize everything that is needed and even add the missing, but he has little knowledge of the subject area and will not be able to competently and clearly advise. Either the person is a good consultant, he will tell, tell, help, explain, but when it comes to the settings and nuances of working with the program, he frankly “floats”.
It would be correct to divide the work of implementers in such a way that two specialists work with the client: the programmer did his work, installed, configured and, if necessary, modified the software product. A consultant should help start working with software, help, tell, show and teach.
But, unfortunately, in this matter, as well as in almost the entire scheme of work of companies of 1C franchisee, there is a misunderstanding of the leadership of these nuances, i.e. There are problems with incompetence. The manager does not understand the specifics of working with 1C, employees are often not competent enough to correctly explain how to optimize work, or simply habitually agree with what they have. As a result, the whole chain turns out to be somewhat wrong, and the client, first of all, suffers from it.
In addition to the implementers themselves, who are technical specialists, often with quite extensive experience, there are so-called disk distributors in the implementation department. These are usually young boys and girls who know almost nothing about 1C and are engaged in the distribution of disks.
The essence of this work is as follows. In order to install some kind of update, it is very often necessary to bring it to the client on disk. It is this job and carry peddlers. In addition, they are on the spot immediately install this update. This happens in a few clicks, and does not require any qualifications (except for the user level of computer skills).
These employees, in addition to their functions: bring the disk and install the update, do not know and can not do anything. They will not be able to answer customer questions, will not be able to tell what the essence of the updates is, or solve any possible problems that may arise during the installation. Most often, these people do not develop, do not study. They either change the scope of activities in principle, or even at the age of 40 they remain the same users who can bring a disk and press a few keys. These are just practical observations of mine and not only mine. I understand that peddlers simply almost never go to people capable of learning programming.
So, the software product was brought to the client, installed and configured. What's next? Either the client and his staff learn to work independently, or they are assigned an implementer to help them master the work in a new software product.
And here the following nuance is very important: the implementer must be an expert in this software product. Then he will be able to help employees of the client’s company make the transition to a new program. But if the implementer is not an expert on the selected configuration, which is especially often the case if something exotic and little in demand is sold to the customer, then the result will be deplorable. Most likely, very soon the employees of the client will work on the old software again, and the new solution, even if it is actually very good, will gather dust on the disks.
Even in those rare cases when the client’s employees are independently trying to keep records in the new program, they understand and how it works out, there is still very little benefit. After all, the money was spent not to get an inconvenient alternative to the solution that was used earlier, but to new opportunities, a new level of accounting automation, advanced analytics and other accounting tools that, as a result, no one uses.
As a rule, the head of the implementation department knows nothing about 1C. But these people most often are great administrators. Heads of implementation departments, not knowing practically 1C, not understanding how the implementation process takes place, try to manage and, simultaneously, communicate with the client and solve current issues. Therefore, a successful implementation manager is always an excellent negotiator and a very good administrator.
Moreover, these people, who themselves are not experts in 1C, lead, in fact, also not the most advanced technical experts, because, as I said above, implementers are mostly very poorly understood in what they install.
But, in spite of everything, the managers of the implementation department usually manage to somehow maintain order in the work, to solve problems that arise. Sometimes they hire consultants, sometimes programmers or freelance implementers who know the configuration well. At the same time, they agree with the client and maintain a certain visibility of the service.
Personally, I think that the very fact of having a service and the loyal attitude of customers towards the company in most cases is the merit of the head of the implementation department. Usually this post is occupied by very smart people who know how to find solutions in difficult situations, possess excellent qualities of a negotiator. At the same time, as a rule, the head of the sales department has been working almost since the day the company was founded and is very loyal to it.
One minus - the head of the implementation department still does not know the program. On the other hand, his superb administrator qualities compensate for this shortcoming, and the specialized knowledge in this position is not at all obligatory.
What is telemarketing, today they know almost everything. This work consists in the fact that from various databases, directories, catalogs, other open sources are taken contact information of different companies. After that, the staff of the department (most often women) are engaged in the fact that they systematically ring up the contacts of potential clients, make so-called “cold calls”.
What are the responsibilities of the staff of this department:
The staff of this department, most often, do not know anything about 1C. All their telephone conversations are based on blanks, so-called scripts. The main objective of the work of telemarketing department employees is to obtain contact information of the responsible persons.
The department of telemarketing usually leads the sales department. And, in my opinion, this method of attracting customers is very effective. In practice, I have observed more than once truly high-quality and efficient work of the telemarketing department. Of course, very often they mislead customers, posing as “1C Company”, but the result is in any case. Moreover, the cost of the telemarketing department’s work is significantly lower than the revenue that the company brings in the cold call method.
If a client has certain rather voluminous wishes that the implementation department cannot cope with, this part of the work is transferred to the project department. For example, the client requires deep individual settings of the software product, or refinement is required (create a new report, process, print form, etc.). In principle, the implementation department should cope with many of these tasks itself. But if the implementers fail, or they come to the conclusion that to satisfy all the wishes of the client, a significant amount of complex work is required, then all these wishes are transferred to the project department.
What does the design department consist of?
Specialists of this department have a high level of knowledge. Due to the fact that there is work on projects, in this department are trying to take the best specialists. And because the level of knowledge in the design department is much higher than in the whole company.
On the other hand, as often happens in our country in general, the level of knowledge of the staff of this department is very often insufficient for working with really serious projects. That is why the work on the project is as follows: install a software product, configure it as far as possible according to the wishes of the client. Everything. Work is considered finished.
Here a very big problem emerges in the work of the project department: they absolutely do not sell any consulting services. All work is built around 1C. And today, business tasks are predominantly complex. Today, business is not enough just 1C. Accounting. It also requires some kind of reporting, we need a link with the production system, trade, with the site, with telephony, with CRM, etc.
And to solve these problems, the company franchisee simply does not work. They do not offer such services, most often simply because they can not perform tasks of this level. As a result, the scope of work is reduced to the level of its competence. And, as a result of this approach, a businessman receives a product that does not benefit him.
In my practice, there were projects when it was necessary to introduce, for example, the program Enterprise Management. But in order for it to work effectively, it needed to be connected with other software products, it was necessary to think over how people would work with it, change their business process. And here, specialists from 1C franchisee lack qualifications, because they initially put everything in the basis of the program, not the business processes, and this is the wrong approach.
So, they installed the selected program, and then what? How to use it? How to enter data, for example, from the billing system or from Accounting or Warehouse? Manually transfer and duplicate everything? And what's the point in installing this program at all? Those. if employees used to simply transfer the final numbers from several programs to Excel and could quickly calculate what they need, now they will have to transfer all the primary information to another program. Of course, people will resist a similar approach to work, as a result of a software solution will be on the shelf.
And for a comprehensive solution, the staff of the project department lacks competence and desire. Because the easiest way to sell separately is 1C, and not to engage in any website or any other software products. Just because today 1C configuration can cost up to 500 thousand rubles, while the net profit is very high, and the amount of work is minimal.
Imagine: they sold the product for 500,000, received profits of 250,000. Just for finding a client and installing a ready-made solution. Naturally, the company is not interested in promoting related services, it is fully satisfied with high profits with a minimum of labor costs.
But, for all the problems, the project department remains the most highly professional and with the most thoughtful division of labor. Here programmers do their work, there are professional consultants for client consultations, and the manager is busy with the management.
The scheme is, in general, good. But nevertheless they are engaged only in 1, which is insufficient to meet the needs of the business. In addition, the overall level, even in this department, is very low, as I already wrote above. Why it happens?
So, the structure of a typical franchisee company is fully disclosed. I hope that the advantages, disadvantages and problems I described in detail and clearly. And now I propose to return to the general issues of 1C franchising.
I talked a lot about the problems of 1C franchising, about the structure and principles of operation of these companies. It is clear that the problems and shortcomings are very important, because I examined them in detail. And now I would like to summarize the information and list the main pros and cons of the 1C franchise system. And I will start with what I said little about - the unconditional advantages of this system.
Pluses 1C franchising:
Cons 1C franchising:
And in conclusion, I would like to give some advice, how to choose a 1C franchisee company? How to avoid problems? What to focus on when choosing?
And in conclusion, I would like to clarify some nuances. I really would not like you to come to the conclusion that the market implementation of 1C is bad. Of course, I described the real situation, everything is really not rosy. In this case, a lot depends on your choice of service provider.
If you are not too lazy to study the subject, to personally communicate with representatives of different franchisee companies, to control the choice of software, then you will definitely have a wonderful and powerful tool for work - 1C software product.
And if you entrust the choice of software supplier to a secretary or another ordinary employee who works for you today, and who knows tomorrow? - the result will be unpredictable.
Remember that employees come and go, their degree of loyalty to your company is quite limited, and the choice of software is a large investment of funds, time and effort, including working (paid) time of your employees, and this choice is made for a long time . So, I repeat my advice: delve into all the nuances personally or, if this is not possible, entrust the work with software suppliers to a competent person, whose loyalty to your company is beyond doubt.
And now I would like to talk about how the franchisees themselves organize their own work, which structure of divisions is formed in companies selling and implementing 1C, which structural divisions are basic, how they work. Understanding these factors will help you to understand more deeply what to look for when choosing artists who will help you implement new software, what is important to pay attention when communicating with a sales manager, and which specialists will be involved in implementing your project.
The structure of 1C franchisee companies
In order to understand what to expect from the company franchisee 1C, you should also understand their structure. How do franchisees work? What are they made of? Regardless of the size of the company, the number of its branches, the franchisee consists of one unit - it is a kind of legal entity, for example, 1C franchisee LLC.
And from the inside the company usually looks like this:
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- Director
- Sales department.
- Implementation department.
- Telemarketing department.
- Design department (only in fairly large companies).
- Department of information and technical support.
In this list, I deliberately moved the personnel department, IT department, accounting department and other departments that may be present in the company, but which the client does not encounter, beyond the description. Here I want to show only those units with which the customer is forced to communicate in the process of cooperation.
And now let's look at the quality of work, on what each of the company's divisions is doing.
Director
A director (company or branch) is, most often, a manager, manager. As a result, this person knows almost nothing about 1C. Often this person once organized and built this business, but he knows almost nothing about 1C, about the technological features of software products, and in these matters he fully relies on his subordinates.
The director is the most advanced sales manager. It is in sales that he is a specialist, his functions are mostly reduced to helping to find a compromise in difficult situations. Neprimer, in the process of project implementation there are problems, the sales or implementation department cannot cope, deadlines are delayed, the client is dissatisfied. It is the director that is the last link, another step that will help “put out the fire” (agree with the client, calm him down, persuade to extend the deadlines, etc., etc.) These are the functions of the director of franchisee companies with whom I faced in practice.
The director almost never deals with the professional development of his employees, he simply performs the functions of an administrator.
What's bad about it?
The bad thing is that the company works in a professional sense by itself. A director is not a mentor, mentor, he is simply an administrator. This situation is observed in almost all companies, exceptions are extremely rare, and are most often found in small companies consisting of 10 to 15 people. In this case, the director often combines administrative functions with the functions of a 1C specialist, he also works on projects, does not lose qualifications, is constantly aware of all the problems and innovations, develops himself and develops his company. But this, again, is an exception to the rule. Most often, the director is the administrator.
Sales department
How does the sales department usually work? In the staff, you can most often see young guys and girls (22-25 years old) who know very little about 1C. Most often, they simply completed courses on the sale of 1C, received a certain amount of fragmentary information, memorized several terms. And they are mainly engaged in answering calls, asking questions, finding out the primary needs of customers. If the communication went smoothly, preliminary agreements were reached, after telephone conversations, these young people meet with the client.
What is bad in such an organization of work?
As a rule, sales staff do not know anything about 1C. Their level is often so low that they can confuse configuration and platform! As a result, such unfortunate experts sell, they themselves do not know what.
There is one more trouble here. Franchisee companies often position themselves as 1C. But in 1C itself there are a lot of different products. Today there are more than 300 or even 400 titles (to be honest, I don’t remember exactly myself). There are ready-made configurations for beauty salons, for wholesalers and for retail sales, for sales of jewelry and for petrochemistry, for production and the service sector, and a lot of very different products for different business areas and different purposes.
Naturally, at 21, a young man who was trained in 1C sales courses would not be able to figure it all out. Most likely, he will not even remember the list of these products, but in order to understand how they differ from each other, why in one case it is better to choose one name, and in the other quite another, you need 1C knowledge of a completely different level.
But the motivation of these young people is sales. They must sell and nothing else. As a result, the client calls, asks questions, and an employee of the company sells to him, he does not know what, provides a choice of those products whose existence he remembered, and this, in fact, a very short list often does not include that product at all which is really needed by the client.
No matter how ridiculous this may be, but in reality sales often look like this:
Call from the client: “Hello! I would like to buy a 1C program. ”
Manager: “What are you doing?”
Client: "We are engaged in clothing."
After this short dialogue, the manager goes to the catalog and tries to find something related to clothes, after which he offers the product he has found to the buyer.
What is the result? The client is offered to buy (and often even sell) “Trade management”, “Clothing trade”, and plus to that - “1C Accounting”. But in fact, a person is engaged in manufacturing or tailoring to order. And he does not need any trade documents, analytics, accounting. Often, if you delve into the needs of the client, it turns out that he wanted from the very beginning to get the most ordinary “1C Accounting” and nothing more.
Why it happens? The manager himself does not understand what he is selling, but he knows well that it is necessary to sell as much as possible. The result is obvious: the client either goes away without a purchase at all, or works with this company, remains unhappy, and in the future, if necessary, update the program or make some changes will look for an alternative (franchisee companies or even software). Plus, of course, customer dissatisfaction is always a stain on the company's reputation.
Sales Manager
There is another possible way out of the current situation: the manager or the client will directly seek advice from the head of the sales department.
Usually in any company the sales department consists of ordinary employees and the head. What distinguishes the latter? He is older, more experienced, knows a lot more about the product that sells.
In addition, it is important to understand that among ordinary employees there is a very high turnover of personnel. Often an employee can work for literally several months, get some minimal experience and go to another company. This situation is found in many 1C franchisee companies. Almost everyone is short of sales specialists, and therefore even a slightly trained seller is already valued in the labor market, and competitors often try to lure him away.
The head of the sales department has been working in the company for a long time, perhaps even since the foundation of the company, and he knows a lot more than his subordinates about what he sells. But still it is focused on sales.
In general, in companies that are engaged in 1C, this is a massive problem: sales people are engaged in sales, and not people who have come from other departments, for example, from implementation, from living projects. Therefore, the sales department simply doesn’t have any idea what happens after the contract is drawn up; these people have never seen how the project is going, what difficulties may then arise from the specialists of their company. They just sold, got their percentage of the sale, that's all. Problems of the client or colleagues from other departments do not interest them.
The head of the sales department is a person who knows products a little better than his subordinates, he is better versed in psychology, has more sales experience, knows how to find a common language even with difficult customers. But, nevertheless, he is sales manager, he does not know the system itself.
Important: know the 1C system is completely impossible. The configurations that exist today cover almost the entire account, all areas of activity. One person simply will not be able to know all the products. But at least a general idea of ​​which configuration is best suited for, and what is better to offer the client in a particular case, is quite realistic.
Implementation department
So, the client was sold some configuration, perhaps suitable, perhaps not. But the contract is concluded, the sale took place. What happens next?
Next, the implementation department is connected to the work. It consists of technical specialists who are called very differently: 1C programmers, 1C consultants, implementers, 1C experts, 1C implementation staff, etc. In any case, the specialist of the implementation department goes to the customer to install and configure the 1C software product.
Unfortunately, the level of knowledge of implementers is usually very low. The main reason is that in 1C the division into programmers and consultants is very bad. Most often, a person may well know one thing: either programming or consulting. Thus, he will either be well-versed in the program, will be able to customize everything that is needed and even add the missing, but he has little knowledge of the subject area and will not be able to competently and clearly advise. Either the person is a good consultant, he will tell, tell, help, explain, but when it comes to the settings and nuances of working with the program, he frankly “floats”.
It would be correct to divide the work of implementers in such a way that two specialists work with the client: the programmer did his work, installed, configured and, if necessary, modified the software product. A consultant should help start working with software, help, tell, show and teach.
But, unfortunately, in this matter, as well as in almost the entire scheme of work of companies of 1C franchisee, there is a misunderstanding of the leadership of these nuances, i.e. There are problems with incompetence. The manager does not understand the specifics of working with 1C, employees are often not competent enough to correctly explain how to optimize work, or simply habitually agree with what they have. As a result, the whole chain turns out to be somewhat wrong, and the client, first of all, suffers from it.
Hawkers drives
In addition to the implementers themselves, who are technical specialists, often with quite extensive experience, there are so-called disk distributors in the implementation department. These are usually young boys and girls who know almost nothing about 1C and are engaged in the distribution of disks.
The essence of this work is as follows. In order to install some kind of update, it is very often necessary to bring it to the client on disk. It is this job and carry peddlers. In addition, they are on the spot immediately install this update. This happens in a few clicks, and does not require any qualifications (except for the user level of computer skills).
These employees, in addition to their functions: bring the disk and install the update, do not know and can not do anything. They will not be able to answer customer questions, will not be able to tell what the essence of the updates is, or solve any possible problems that may arise during the installation. Most often, these people do not develop, do not study. They either change the scope of activities in principle, or even at the age of 40 they remain the same users who can bring a disk and press a few keys. These are just practical observations of mine and not only mine. I understand that peddlers simply almost never go to people capable of learning programming.
I will not talk about 1C programmers in this article, since this is a large, separate topic. I plan to talk about them in another article. And now I will confine myself only to mentioning that they, of course, are on staff, but the client almost never communicates with them.
Client training: how does this happen?
So, the software product was brought to the client, installed and configured. What's next? Either the client and his staff learn to work independently, or they are assigned an implementer to help them master the work in a new software product.
And here the following nuance is very important: the implementer must be an expert in this software product. Then he will be able to help employees of the client’s company make the transition to a new program. But if the implementer is not an expert on the selected configuration, which is especially often the case if something exotic and little in demand is sold to the customer, then the result will be deplorable. Most likely, very soon the employees of the client will work on the old software again, and the new solution, even if it is actually very good, will gather dust on the disks.
Even in those rare cases when the client’s employees are independently trying to keep records in the new program, they understand and how it works out, there is still very little benefit. After all, the money was spent not to get an inconvenient alternative to the solution that was used earlier, but to new opportunities, a new level of accounting automation, advanced analytics and other accounting tools that, as a result, no one uses.
Head of Implementation Department
As a rule, the head of the implementation department knows nothing about 1C. But these people most often are great administrators. Heads of implementation departments, not knowing practically 1C, not understanding how the implementation process takes place, try to manage and, simultaneously, communicate with the client and solve current issues. Therefore, a successful implementation manager is always an excellent negotiator and a very good administrator.
Moreover, these people, who themselves are not experts in 1C, lead, in fact, also not the most advanced technical experts, because, as I said above, implementers are mostly very poorly understood in what they install.
But, in spite of everything, the managers of the implementation department usually manage to somehow maintain order in the work, to solve problems that arise. Sometimes they hire consultants, sometimes programmers or freelance implementers who know the configuration well. At the same time, they agree with the client and maintain a certain visibility of the service.
Personally, I think that the very fact of having a service and the loyal attitude of customers towards the company in most cases is the merit of the head of the implementation department. Usually this post is occupied by very smart people who know how to find solutions in difficult situations, possess excellent qualities of a negotiator. At the same time, as a rule, the head of the sales department has been working almost since the day the company was founded and is very loyal to it.
One minus - the head of the implementation department still does not know the program. On the other hand, his superb administrator qualities compensate for this shortcoming, and the specialized knowledge in this position is not at all obligatory.
Telemarketing department
What is telemarketing, today they know almost everything. This work consists in the fact that from various databases, directories, catalogs, other open sources are taken contact information of different companies. After that, the staff of the department (most often women) are engaged in the fact that they systematically ring up the contacts of potential clients, make so-called “cold calls”.
What are the responsibilities of the staff of this department:
- Check the relevance of the phone.
- Find out which version of 1C is installed, what they generally use in the company.
- Get contact details of responsible persons (chief accountant, director, etc.)
- If you can contact the responsible person, offer the services of your company.
- In case of interest from a potential client, the “lead” (contacts of the interested person and the company as a whole) is transferred to the sales department for further work.
The staff of this department, most often, do not know anything about 1C. All their telephone conversations are based on blanks, so-called scripts. The main objective of the work of telemarketing department employees is to obtain contact information of the responsible persons.
The department of telemarketing usually leads the sales department. And, in my opinion, this method of attracting customers is very effective. In practice, I have observed more than once truly high-quality and efficient work of the telemarketing department. Of course, very often they mislead customers, posing as “1C Company”, but the result is in any case. Moreover, the cost of the telemarketing department’s work is significantly lower than the revenue that the company brings in the cold call method.
Project department
If a client has certain rather voluminous wishes that the implementation department cannot cope with, this part of the work is transferred to the project department. For example, the client requires deep individual settings of the software product, or refinement is required (create a new report, process, print form, etc.). In principle, the implementation department should cope with many of these tasks itself. But if the implementers fail, or they come to the conclusion that to satisfy all the wishes of the client, a significant amount of complex work is required, then all these wishes are transferred to the project department.
What does the design department consist of?
- 1C programmers
- 1C Consultants
- Project Manager
Specialists of this department have a high level of knowledge. Due to the fact that there is work on projects, in this department are trying to take the best specialists. And because the level of knowledge in the design department is much higher than in the whole company.
On the other hand, as often happens in our country in general, the level of knowledge of the staff of this department is very often insufficient for working with really serious projects. That is why the work on the project is as follows: install a software product, configure it as far as possible according to the wishes of the client. Everything. Work is considered finished.
Disadvantages of the project department
Here a very big problem emerges in the work of the project department: they absolutely do not sell any consulting services. All work is built around 1C. And today, business tasks are predominantly complex. Today, business is not enough just 1C. Accounting. It also requires some kind of reporting, we need a link with the production system, trade, with the site, with telephony, with CRM, etc.
And to solve these problems, the company franchisee simply does not work. They do not offer such services, most often simply because they can not perform tasks of this level. As a result, the scope of work is reduced to the level of its competence. And, as a result of this approach, a businessman receives a product that does not benefit him.
In my practice, there were projects when it was necessary to introduce, for example, the program Enterprise Management. But in order for it to work effectively, it needed to be connected with other software products, it was necessary to think over how people would work with it, change their business process. And here, specialists from 1C franchisee lack qualifications, because they initially put everything in the basis of the program, not the business processes, and this is the wrong approach.
So, they installed the selected program, and then what? How to use it? How to enter data, for example, from the billing system or from Accounting or Warehouse? Manually transfer and duplicate everything? And what's the point in installing this program at all? Those. if employees used to simply transfer the final numbers from several programs to Excel and could quickly calculate what they need, now they will have to transfer all the primary information to another program. Of course, people will resist a similar approach to work, as a result of a software solution will be on the shelf.
And for a comprehensive solution, the staff of the project department lacks competence and desire. Because the easiest way to sell separately is 1C, and not to engage in any website or any other software products. Just because today 1C configuration can cost up to 500 thousand rubles, while the net profit is very high, and the amount of work is minimal.
Imagine: they sold the product for 500,000, received profits of 250,000. Just for finding a client and installing a ready-made solution. Naturally, the company is not interested in promoting related services, it is fully satisfied with high profits with a minimum of labor costs.
But, for all the problems, the project department remains the most highly professional and with the most thoughtful division of labor. Here programmers do their work, there are professional consultants for client consultations, and the manager is busy with the management.
The scheme is, in general, good. But nevertheless they are engaged only in 1, which is insufficient to meet the needs of the business. In addition, the overall level, even in this department, is very low, as I already wrote above. Why it happens?
- High staff turnover. Specialists are very popular, but because they are often lured by competitors, in case of discontent, they also leave quickly and simply. In this case, a person very often leaves in the middle of a project, does not thoroughly delve into the project itself, is sprayed on various tasks. And, as a result, it does not grow professionally.
- The lack of a cohesive team. It is clear that for the successful implementation of any project, especially if it is the implementation of a software product, a solid team is a very important success factor. The reasons for this problem are: staff turnover, as well as the frequent transfer of specialists from one project to another. As a result, a cohesive team does not work out; the project manager has to deal with attempts to create team spirit many times anew during one project, often to no avail.
- Low leadership competencies. Employees hide all the problems and even the stages of work from the company's management. The problem is that the management doesn’t understand well what and how the design department employees perform. As a result, there is constant pressure on programmers, simply, just in case, as well as a willingness to replace a specialist on a project at the slightest suspicion that he may not cope. In such conditions, specialists are forced to begin to conceal the stages of work and possible problem situations from the management.
So, the structure of a typical franchisee company is fully disclosed. I hope that the advantages, disadvantages and problems I described in detail and clearly. And now I propose to return to the general issues of 1C franchising.
1C franchising: pros and cons
I talked a lot about the problems of 1C franchising, about the structure and principles of operation of these companies. It is clear that the problems and shortcomings are very important, because I examined them in detail. And now I would like to summarize the information and list the main pros and cons of the 1C franchise system. And I will start with what I said little about - the unconditional advantages of this system.
Pluses 1C franchising:
- Franchisee companies almost completely cover the need for consulting services for the implementation and maintenance of 1C software products.
- Franchisee companies provide a huge number of jobs.
- Software 1C is a Russian software solution, it is fully suitable for the needs of our business, it does not need to be localized. And the wide distribution of franchisee companies makes this solution available to entrepreneurs in any region.
- The 1C franchise system also creates competition between companies that sell and implement 1C software products. In each region there are several different specialists, and the client still has something to choose from.
Cons 1C franchising:
- Thanks to the franchise system, a lot of random people are involved in the implementation of this software.
- There is no single approach to the work of 1C franchisee companies.
- There is no control over the work of 1C franchisee, 1C company never acts as an arbitrator in disputes, does not delve into any problems and claims of customers. In fact, the purchaser of the software product is left alone with the franchisee's firm.
- There are a lot of lies, petty fraud, attempts to impersonate 1C company, frauds with certificates, etc. Of course, this is not only a 1C franchising disadvantage, but the Russian market as a whole. And, nevertheless, the minus of the system works in this area, which should be noted.
And in conclusion, I would like to give some advice, how to choose a 1C franchisee company? How to avoid problems? What to focus on when choosing?
- It is important to understand that you choose not a company, but an artist . If a person came to your meeting, you should not read press releases with enthusiasm or study colorful cases with ready projects. Such beautiful promotional materials will provide you with almost any company. It is better to pay attention to the person, make sure that you understand each other, try to establish partnership with him.
- It is better to choose a small franchisee company . There is no point hoping that a large company will care more about its reputation than a small firm. In fact, they are not much different from each other. But in a small company, if necessary, you can easily go to the head. While in a large company you will be transferred from department to department, you will communicate with a huge number of middle managers, often not at all related to your problem, and the manager will not even guess about your existence. In addition, in a large company, the project manager may change at any time, and a sufficiently large number of orders will most likely prevent the project manager and higher management from remembering all the nuances of your project. And in a small company, almost all employees, including the director, will deal with you. Therefore, even the dismissal of one of them will not cause delays and delays.
- Learn to understand the question. You should not rely on the managers of the company of the franchisee, it is better to spend time yourself, to understand the nuances and the difference between the configurations (those that could potentially suit you), and finally choose the software product yourself. Configuration in 1C is your business tool, and they differ greatly among themselves. And therefore, if you make a mistake in choosing a software product, then it will be of no more use than a hammer for cutting wood. Remember that the manager has a goal - to sell and as soon as possible, and you - choose the best. So, take your time, it pays off.
- When choosing specialists you should not rely on the opinion of subordinates. Try to talk with them yourself, to evaluate their competence, focus on results, the desire to establish fruitful cooperation.
- Never believe press releases. Very often, franchisees show links to press releases on 1C as a plus. I saw how they are written, he himself participated in the writing of some of them. Typically, press releases are written according to a specific pattern “They have implemented such and such a product, they have successfully implemented such and such opportunities”. The template manager from the sales department transmits to the secretary, who fills it on the basis of the provided data from the contract or other documentation, then this document is sent to the client for signature, most often, almost immediately after implementation. The customer has not yet figured out how a new software product works, did not understand whether this solution is worth the investment, and signs the document, practically without reading.
- Control finances in person. 1C franchising is at the same time selling a product and implementation services. And, as is known, where a concept such as services appears, in our country the problem of bribes immediately arises. If the manager trusts most of the questions to his chief accountant or another subordinate, it is highly likely that they will agree on an inflated price and a subsequent pullback in favor of a particular official. Unfortunately, this is also the Russian reality, and it is better to take into account this possibility in advance than to overpay for the service.
And in conclusion, I would like to clarify some nuances. I really would not like you to come to the conclusion that the market implementation of 1C is bad. Of course, I described the real situation, everything is really not rosy. In this case, a lot depends on your choice of service provider.
If you are not too lazy to study the subject, to personally communicate with representatives of different franchisee companies, to control the choice of software, then you will definitely have a wonderful and powerful tool for work - 1C software product.
And if you entrust the choice of software supplier to a secretary or another ordinary employee who works for you today, and who knows tomorrow? - the result will be unpredictable.
Remember that employees come and go, their degree of loyalty to your company is quite limited, and the choice of software is a large investment of funds, time and effort, including working (paid) time of your employees, and this choice is made for a long time . So, I repeat my advice: delve into all the nuances personally or, if this is not possible, entrust the work with software suppliers to a competent person, whose loyalty to your company is beyond doubt.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289596/
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