Every supply chain software has a beta client; the question is whether at the time of implementation, they know they are Beta client or not.

I think in the international firms at Fortune 500 level, they know this so the challenge in this stage is not to cope with unexpected shortcomings of the software at the customization level but how to envision a realistic objective for the project in terms of time, cost and final functionalities.

Using a beta version is not that bad after all. The company can gain significant experience with a certain business suite and do next implementations more efficiently; also to be ahead of competition (of course it's not possible to transform the level of performance in a company dramatically only by a software implementation).

Another important point which I have seen in such software implementation is that since the software is in the beta version, the company should collaborate with the top designers and implementation guys in the consulting and software partners. It's not possible in such cases to simply offshore the development activity to India. The challenge then is to manage the higher cost of such partners and finish the project ASAP.

What do you think?