Information and Education

Blog categorized as Information and Education

Your purpose is your customer, PERIOD.

A "purpose driven business", fashionable, but what is it exactly? And what purpose is driven by the business? Most importantly - does it matter?

The answer to the last question is YES! It matters - but not in the way you would expect. In this article, we break down the purpose, and what dr...

Matt Koopmans
10.11.19 12:47 PM - Comment(s)
Success with your Digital Transformation Program - Revolution or Evolution?
Sustained change is a long running process. Sustained change, therefore, is rarely revolutionary - where many things are fundamentally changed at once - as too many of those will lead to inherent roadblocks in dependent processes, causing the whole system to collapse.
Matt Koopmans
03.11.19 02:06 PM - Comment(s)
Has your Digital Transformation partner transformed?
The key word in Digital Transformation is not digital - digital merely refers to the enabler - it is transformation. The objective of this post is to make us all look more critical at those that are claiming to be experts in delivering Digital Transformation.
Matt Koopmans
21.10.19 12:29 PM - Comment(s)
Requirements for your software implementation - Three things you must do

Implementing new business software is hard. Way harder than it should be - and usually we are the cause of the complexity. We tend to understand what we do in the business, but we do not fully understand why we do it, leading for overestimating the complexity of the process. There are three simple r...

Matt Koopmans
13.10.19 07:32 PM - Comment(s)
How scope gets in the way of trust and success

Go and ask for a quote for an IT solution delivery, and the first thing you get asked is: "What is the scope?" Seems fair - if you want to get a price commitment, you will be asked for a functionality boundary. But what does this actually do to the delivery of your solution? Nothing good, ...

Matt Koopmans
07.10.19 05:18 PM - Comment(s)
Why your agile approach will probably fail - 5 common misconceptions you must address right now in your agile deployment

Much has been said about agile, and much is continued being said. Agile deployments of software fail, and agile deployments of software succeed... And every so often an article pops up which contributes to the common misconceptions that create the weak foundations to build your agile deployment. Let...

Matt Koopmans
28.09.19 03:14 PM - Comment(s)
Lean Startup? Get yourself sorted with enterprise grade systems for a lean startup budget

In any startup scenario, there are two things you will never have enough of: time and cash -  the latter at least until a successful funding round. A great practice for any startup is to practice being lean - it teaches you to be frugal with these two scarce commodities of time and money, so th...

Matt Koopmans
10.09.19 08:46 AM - Comment(s)
Implementing business applications? GAME ON!

If you ever played a computer game, you know that great games start easy, and incrementally introduce new complexities. As Nolan K. Bushnell coined the phrase to describe the best games: "easy to learn, difficult to master". So what does this have to do with business applications? Surely, ...

Matt Koopmans
05.09.19 01:28 PM - Comment(s)
Are your finance requirements holding you back?

I have been in the business of implementing business solution for over 25 years. During this time, I have been amazed at two things: 1). the incredible speed of innovation in this sector, and 2). the incredible inertia of silly requirements that keep us from utilising these innovations. No - this is...

Matt Koopmans
17.07.19 10:20 AM - Comment(s)
The Ransomware Scare - practical tips to protect yourself

Ransomware is creeping into business and government systems seemingly unimpaired by the counter measures they put in place. Antivirus and malware protection are not a luxury, but they can only keep up with the newly released infections, at best. The weak point remains the user as entry point, and sy...

Matt Koopmans
24.06.19 07:50 AM - Comment(s)
Pipeline management in CRM - Free webinar uploaded

Missed the webinar on Pipeline Management in CRM? No problem - this webinar was free, and is therefore posted on YouTube. You can find it under the Aurelian Group YouTube page (if you like the content, please subscribe). 

Matt Koopmans
03.06.19 12:34 PM - Comment(s)
A tale of two companies: how culture and systems drive support outcomes

I would like to share with you two different experiences I have had dealing with support - in both cases the respective companies were represented by courteous support agents, willing to do what is necessary to resolve a ticket satisfactory. Yet the outcome and experience could not have been a bigge...

Matt Koopmans
11.05.19 12:19 PM - Comment(s)
The Outcome Generation by Paul Henderson

Over the last decade or so, many technology vendors have made significant investments in Customer Success Management Teams, but the definition of customer success varies from vendor to vendor. In his book "The Outcome Generation", Paul starts by clearly defining the three generations of su...

Matt Koopmans
02.05.19 02:38 PM - Comment(s)
What I use for video recording and webinars

Let me start this post with a disclaimer: when it comes to video scripting, recording and editing, I don't know what I am doing. What I do know is that I don't script, and only marginally edit the end result. Is it professional? No - but it is authentic. Any errors in the videos are the fault of the...

Matt Koopmans
02.05.19 10:58 AM - Comment(s)
Customer Success Management and SCRUM - a match made in heaven?

Customer success teams are here to stay. It is inevitable that the vendor of a subscription based software application takes a keen interest in the success that has been achieved with that software. After all, even the most specialised software application is in danger of being "commoditised...

Matt Koopmans
18.04.19 01:51 PM - Comment(s)
Five lessons Albert Einstein can teach us about business systems
Five lessons we Einstein can teach us about business systems - From bookkeeping to Data Analytics, from Customer Relationship Management to Artificial Intelligence - these five principles keep you on top of your applications - not the other way round
Matt Koopmans
23.01.19 06:05 PM - Comment(s)
Whose business is it anyway? - know your books!

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners outsource their accounting and bookkeeping needs, so they can focus on the growth of their business. And most bookkeepers do an excellent job of keeping the books away from the continuous descent into a state of total disorder - and accountants, in partic...

Matt Koopmans
07.01.19 05:00 PM - Comment(s)
Cobb's Paradox - why projects still fail

"We know why projects fail; we know how to prevent their failure - so why do they still fail?" - Martin Cobb


If you are involved in delivering ICT projects, you must have heard this phrase coined more than once - I came across this well over a decade ago (and it was not a new discovery then...

Matt Koopmans
04.01.19 04:04 PM - Comment(s)
Lies, damn lies, and spreadsheets

November is the second month of Spring here in Australia - and over the weekend we had temperatures soaring to the mid-to high 30's (even over 40's at the hottest point point of the day Friday - this is degrees Celsius, about 100 degrees Fahrenheit). One cannot help but to want for a nice cold water...

Matt Koopmans
04.11.18 02:00 PM - Comment(s)