Category: How to Buy a LIMS, ELN or LES

I have a friend who does similar consulting to mine but that he works in the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) sector. Years ago, he found a product that could handle any of the customers that came his way and with an associated cost that scaled well to the size of customer implementing the product. He altogether stopped doing product selections for customers and started telling them he had the solution for them. I’ve been envious of this every since he told me.

With so many people wanting to talk about software product selection, this week, my last two posts are also about product selection topics. However, a couple things came up in a conversation with a customer that I wanted to write about because they have to do with making the process more affordable.

Yesterday, I had written a post highlighting some of the problems smaller companies and labs face when they’re doing a product selection to purchase a LIMS, ELN or LES in Product Select on a Smaller Budget. Today, I want to talk about products selection, as a possible trend.

Most of the product selection work I’ve done with customers has been in the mid-range to large budget scale. There are many brands that fall into the high-end and middle section from which to select AND we run across most of them often-enough that we know what brands those are. Yet, I haven’t had many customers ask me to assist with smaller budget LIMS, ELN or LES purchases. There are several points I’d like to make about this.

As I sometimes like to do, today, I’m going to write with regard to a search phrase that found this blog. The phrase is: “risk of non maintaning [sic] of approved vendor list”

Experts in our industry, myself included, have found a way to simplify the product selection process. With the multitude of changing product labels, it can be confusing to customers new to our industry, and even those of us long-term folks.

As I sometimes do, I’m blogging based on a search term someone used in order to find this blog. Today, I write about this search phrase: “why is lims market so hard to estimate”

Most of you who have purchased a new LIMS or ELN product know that it’s hard to find anyone who will use the word “programming” to you. The programming that’s done is referred to as “configuration” or “scripting” or some other such euphemism. No-one at all will use the word “customization” when they’re selling their product. That has negative connotations and the sales process is not the place for negative connotations but a time of happy stories, dancing through fields of flowers hand-in-hand with your sales rep, and dreaming of the wonderful day (years from now?) when your system will be done with its implementation.

I just received an update about a piece of software that has a new version coming out and one of its old versions is being retired. I’m also hearing rumors about another brand of software that is nearing its end of life. Let’s compare how these are being handled and you come to your own conclusions about it.

Last night, I attended a seminar specifically meant to give information about a heart-healthy diet. For my customers or potential customers reading this, don’t worry – I don’t have a heart condition that would cause me to keel-over in the middle of your project – I just thought I’d attend in order to receive preventative information. However, like me, most of you reading this post have probably been to a number of these – enough to know when you’re getting contrary information. That was the case, last night. It struck me how confusing health issues are for people and in an area somewhat simpler to traverse than our industry’s information.