What is the shortest honest answer?

Run the purchase as an operating-model and data programme, with software selection inside it—not as a software demonstration followed by an import. Establish the first workflow, decision rights, data model, migration treatment, acceptance tests and operating capacity before committing to a platform. This approach is consistent with KPMG’s published GRC implementation guidance, which separates business readiness, data rationalisation, migration, testing and post-production support. (kpmg.com)

This guide supplies a buyer-led route through twelve stages:

1. Establish the decision, sponsor and business case.
2. Define the first useful scope and regulatory applicability.
3. Inventory and clean the data.
4. Write requirements and obtain comparable proposals.
5. Test shortlisted platforms using your own scenarios.
6. Complete security, commercial and contractual diligence.
7. Configure the agreed operating model.
8. Build and prove integrations.
9. Rehearse migration and complete acceptance testing.
10. Cut over without losing accountability or evidence.
11. Establish sustainable administration and adoption.
12. Maintain renewal and exit readiness.

DIY means retaining ownership of these decisions. It need not mean refusing all external assistance. You can commission a narrow architecture review, difficult migration component or security assessment while keeping the requirements, configuration register, acceptance evidence and operating model under your control.

How should you read the evidence and estimates?

• Verified facts are cited to public regulator guidance, professional bodies, supplier documentation, public procurement material or an employer’s job posting.
• Supplier statements establish what a supplier publishes, not what this desk has independently tested.
• The checklists, scorecards, test cases, staffing allocations and financial examples are proposed buyer methods. They are not industry benchmarks or regulatory prescriptions.
• The illustrative schedule is 42 weeks from mobilisation to stabilisation. It is not a measured average.
• No private quotations, customer interviews or hands-on platform tests were available for this document. The supplied desk’s unverified market-size and broad price estimates are therefore not repeated as established facts.

Confirm legal applicability, retention decisions and contract language with your organisation’s US counsel and regulatory specialists.