A wide range of comprehensive supply chain management solutions are currently available in the market today, and yet there are so many failed projects within the industry. Why? A lack of system implementation skills is one of the key contributors. If a system can't be implemented without a huge disruption to your business and excessive aggravation to your customers, it is unlikely that it will ever succeed.

With many years of system implementation experience and an impressive history of implementing both large and small systems in the UK and abroad, CSFD can offer an unprecedented level of implementation skills.

Successful supply chain implementations within the Food, Home Entertainment and Pharmaceutical industries have been attributed to CSFD's initial planning phase. The highest priority is given to ensuring minimal disruption to business activities by involving all relevant parties in the system implementation planning phase as early as possible in the project planning cycle. During planning, all possible scenarios that could affect the outcome of the implementation are thoroughly researched and accounted for.

A typical implementation will always include at least one go-live mock-up, where all aspects of the implementation are simulated including:

• Data conversions
• Simulation of daily business
• Running reports and comparing against predefined result sets

It is only when all parties are satisfied with the results of the simulation that the actual implementation will be considered.

A successful IT project is the culmination of months' and sometimes even years' worth of effort. At CSFD, we do not believe that all this effort should be jeopardised at the last hurdle.