Our team have installed hundreds of Dealer Management Systems over the years, so we are ideally placed to answer this very important question.

Many dealerships will spend a good deal of time picking the perfect time to go-live on their new Dealer Management System.

In reality, this perfect time doesn't exist!

For every potential date that you may consider, there will always be some downside or problems that need to be overcome

Key issues that may arise are :-

- Staff Holidays

- Expected busy time (eg March or September)

- Accounting concerns (maybe end of a Month/Year is best?) 

- End of contract with existing providers.

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Let's review some of these :-

Staff Holidays

These happen all through the year, but are concentrated in the Summer, Easter and at Christmas. However, with enough notice, it should be possible to create a necessary 2 week holiday embargo for key staff to ensure that you have full coverage when you go live. Even if not, the Navigator training is all online, so people can catch up or do their training early!

Busy Times

Throughout the year, various departments will be busy at differing times. So, in reality at any time, one department or another will likely be busy. However, with some joint Project Management, our live process can take account of this and bring Navigator live at any time!

Accounting Concerns

There is an impression that the "best" time to go live is at the beginning of the month or better still at the beginning of a financial year.

In reality, with some clear Project Management - it doesn't matter!

Firstly, all customers will go live on a Monday - this means we can get the system setup and ready for the start of the week. Only 1 in 7 "1sts" of the month are a Monday, so there aren't many opportunities for going live on the beginning of a month.

What we do is simply arrange with your accountant to either shorten or lengthen an accounting month on your existing system and complete it on Navigator.

There is some Accounting logic that says start on the beginning of the year. This is difficult anyway, unless your year end is a Sunday, and in reality, a Year End may not be the best time to go live anyway! At the point where you want to focus on the future running with Navigator, you will be also needing to do Year End stock counts and reporting!

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Conclusion

The conclusion is that there is no perfect time for going-live. Every live opportunity has up and downsides.

With careful project planning any live day is possible, and any downsides can be easily worked around to make the implementation run smoothly.