Saw Bill Cosby the day after Thanksgiving.

He told the story of “Phil’s Famous Stuffing”. Phil, a craftsman in Cosby’s employ, is known, far and wide, across the townships of rural Massachusetts, for making the world’s greatest stuffing.

Cosby described how folks drive out and line up at Phil’s each turkey day to get a heap of the magical stuff. Families for miles around anticipate the famous stuffing as the highlight of the feast. So, prevailing on the employee relationship, Cosby pressed the gentleman to reveal the secret of his fabulous concoction.

After some hesitancy, Phil said, “Ok, here it is…”.

Bill readies pen and paper, anxious to capture every nuance of the recipe.

“Stove Top Stuffing”, says Phil.

“Right, and then what?” says Cosby.

“That’s it”

“What do you mean? What do I do with it?”

“Just Stove Top Stuffing. Follow the directions on the box”

“Now look” says Cos “millions of those boxes are sold, this can’t be right?”

“You gotta follow the box. It’s all on the box”

“You mean to say nobody else follows the box?”

“Nah”, Phil explains “they gotta add spices or do it their own way. Do what’s on the box”

“You telling the truth?”

“Follow the box”

The punch line, of course, is that Cosby gets his box and then can’t resist doing it his own way, screwing it up.

The question for those of us who sell and buy enterprise software is “Do we have a box”? Do vendors have a tangible recipe for successfully deploying their software?  And, if so, are Enterprises ignoring the box and freelancing their own recipe, ruining implementations?

Well, our experience is that in the last ten years, we’ve evolved from a world where vendors shipped some ingredients and forced the Enterprise to figure out how to put it together, thru a stage where vendors articulated pretty well-worked implementation formulas, only to be largely ignored by buyers, into a period of enlightenment where everyone strives “to follow the box”.

This is goodness. Still, we often hear from clients that they wish our recipe was a little more definitive, more front and center. We’re working hard on that.

Technology Providers are obligated to have a strong point of view about how to get value from product. For KANA, Service Experience Management is not just the name of our software platform; it’s a comprehensive recipe for ROI.

How about you? I still hear from our Professional Service teams that the frame of reference for many implementations is not our experience and learning, but the Enterprise’s history of pain. We sometimes see Enterprises acting as though the primary challenge is to force software to adapt to their uniqueness, as opposed to looking for ways to smooth out their world to leverage the vendor’s proven formula for value.

Deploying Enterprise software may not be as simple as Stovetop Stuffing, but the best results come from following the maker’s recipe.

(Mark Angel is EVP and CTO, KANA)