I just had some thoughts on ERP demonstrations and pilots - why they are so hard to do, and also a possible solution - Piloting in the Cloud, and becoming your very own Test Pilot. 

ERP Sales Cycle Demonstration Obsticals - Supplier vs Prospect

The main problem is that there is a disconnect between what prospects want, and what can be practically delivered during a sleas cycle.

1. Prospects want demo versions of the software

• Unfortunately most software that involves a sales cycle tends to be a little more complicated than the software that you buy from BestBuy.  Although prospects coujld probably install the software, and connect it to the required databases etc. the learning curve may be a little steep, and a frustrated prospect looses faith in a product very quickly.
• Additionally, because of the nature of the ERP software packages that you demonstrate, they may be confusing to someone who does not know what they are doing.  There are a number of options and setup requirements that may be required to make the software fit your business.  Without a little bit of guidance and hand holding, you probably won't get the most out of the softwrae even if you were alowed to run amuck in it.
• From a licensing standpoint, suppliers don't want to have demo versions of softwrae lingering out there in the marketplace.  And auditing the prospects who request and install software, and then decide to persue other avenues is a administrative nightmare.  It's not that you don't trust them... but...
• Administering security and restricting access is hard if there is no direct access to the software.
• Finally, if someone get's a copy of the software, and does manage to install it and run it, they have no motivation to do anything after that.  The software becomes more of a freebie and there is no other investment or attachment to the software.

2. To get over this hurdle, prospects ask for the second best thing - a Pilot.  Although this has it's own challenges from a software sales standpoint:

• This has it's own problems - because the software suppliers need to install the software somewhere.  Customer's usually don't have servers laying around that meet the spec and that will perform well, so you have to find or buy physical servers.  On top of mounting sales cycle costs, this is not high on the list of things to do.
• Pilots are time consuming, and use a lot of people.  Usually people from sales, consulting, and technical services are involved in what is really a throw away implementation, with an uncertain rate of return.  Sales and pre-sales people are easier to pin do this type of work, although the billable resources are harder to convince to help with the work.
• Finally to do a good pilot, it is a better to have the prospects data loaded.  There isn't an easy way to do this if this is done on a moving target or server.

Solution: Demo/Pilot Combination 

If you could have a SAS environment set up that you could create prospect systems on then every demonstration could be accessed by both the software supplier, and also the prospect, if they want to move to the next steps in the process which would be partial implementation and piloting of the system.

• You can lock down a prospect image so that they can only see certain parts of the application
• You can have extra areas unlocked for pre-sales to access for demonstrations.
• There would be no setup, installation, hardware requirements etc. for the customer.
• With custom demonstrations, all of this is being done anyway, just within the local demonstration environments.
• If the gave you the data, you could standardize the loading of the data 
• The prospect would not be given access to sections of the system until you have shown them how to use the application mitigating the risk for prospect frustration with the system.
• If there are implementation consultants sitting around then they could even help by giving mini-training courses on the modules - which you could charge for.
• You should also be able to track if and when the prospect is getting into the system though auditing allowing your to see If they are serious about the product
• You could apply updates and fixes to the system as needed since the servers will be centrally located.
• When the prospect becomes a customer they can still have access to the system, bossibly transitioning directly into a SAS offering. 

Additional Benefits

• Implementation Consultants could get introduced earlier on in the sales cycle
• Customers get invested in the product early on - if they pay for the TestPilot
• You change the sales cycle and should differentiate ourselves from everyone else.
• You could utilize Global Services (possibly) to help with this and then they could continue with the support and hosting.
• Once set up this would be a template that could be set up for new prospects pretty quickly.

That's all I have for now - just some thoughts.