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If I had a dollar every time I’ve heard “We have to get the project rolling right now. We’re going to want to go live in days,” I would have my own private island.

It’s natural that when companies sign a contract, the exec sponsors want to get things moving quickly. The decision has been made, and it’s time to get on to reaping the benefits of the best SaaS platform on the market. Looking across all of our clients, it’s easy to see who will get their implementation up and running first. The funny thing is, it is actually independent of the size of the client, or how “process oriented” they are. It comes down to three simple things.

• 1. Defined Scope. Clients who get live quickly do so in part because they define a scope and stick to it. There’s always a new feature to add, something that will make it even more cool, but if you want to get live, you make the conscious choice to save that new feature to phase II.
• 2. Focused Resources. If your deployment team is also responsible for the corporate LAN, the CEO’s laptop support, resetting passwords for wayward users, and refilling the coffee pot, well, they’re going to have a hard time focusing on getting the work done. (OK, a full pot of coffee probably helps, but the CEO is going to have to find the printer on his own!)
• 3. Make Decisions Quickly. Even the smallest organizations can get bogged down if they debate simple questions endlessly. Businesses don’t fail because the background on the offer page was the wrong color. On the other hand, businesses do fail if you don’t get to market and start generating revenue. Nominate someone from each of the key functional areas, and give them the authority to make the call.

If you adhere to these simple precepts, the implementation of a best-in-class billing system takes less time than you would imagine.