Vendor Management System Implementation. Planning to Maximize ROI

Transcription

1 Vendor Management System Implementation Planning to Maximize ROI

2 Vendor Management System Implementation Planning to Maximize ROI Companies are actively implementing managed services programs and Vendor Management Systems (VMS) to generate cost savings, increase visibility, and reduce risks in their contingent workforce. How do you leverage a decade of industry experience and apply best practices for VMS implementation to your deployment? This whitepaper is for Procurement, HR, IT or Finance leaders who have decided to deploy a Vendor Management System to automate and manage their contingent workforce management program. It provides considerations for implementation as input to your decision-making and planning with your provider(s). Introduction to VMS Implementation With your experience deploying (or adopting) new processes or technologies, you are familiar with implementation planning and change management concepts. Your VMS (and/or MSP) provider will bring resources to support both the planning and project management for your implementation. These resources should enable you to define clear roles and responsibilities, project stages and tasks, communications and change management. But the most successful deployments begin with thorough planning inside your company. Change Management Foundation You have likely completed extensive analysis and crafted a business case to determine that a VMS solution is right for your business. The following strategic framework elements will help prepare your team for a successful implementation: Assess your Current State. How much are you spending? Which functions/business units are buying? Which skill sets and deliverables are procured outside the organization? Which suppliers are providing the resources? Align your Sponsorship and Stakeholders. In most organizations, change efforts are most successful when sponsored by an influential senior executive. This leader is instrumental in moving the initiative forward, securing buy-in at the top and allocating resources as members of the cross-functional team. Once the team is built, understand what is working and where you have challenges in your current process from different stakeholders. Include representatives from Operations (end users), Procurement, IT, HR, Security, Finance and Accounts Payable to capture individual perspectives. Build your Business Case. Engage your stakeholders to create a shared definition of success. Work with your providers to apply their expertise and leverage best practices from other companies. Create measurable objectives for generating both hard and soft dollar savings. Your overall business case should also include productivity and other performance metrics that comprise your definition of success. Vendor Management System Implementation 2

3 Big Bang or Phased Approach? Implementing all at once seems scary, complicated and risky. But if it is right for your business, you will reap the rewards. By launching to all users at once, you will not need to manage multiple processes simultaneously. You will gain full visibility to your spend faster. You will be able to analyze supplier performance and optimize your program sooner. And you will have a firm commitment from your vendor to go live on your target date. Every situation is unique. Only you can determine the implementation approach that suits your organization and can be successfully delivered by your provider(s). To begin your decision-making process, consider: How large and complex is the scope of your program (functions, regions, spend categories)? What are the sponsoring function s influence and/or span of control in the business? Do you have real decision-making authority? Do you have an internal team that can support the company s responsibilities in decision-making, design, testing, training and communications? How capable is your supplier? Have they done a similar deployment before? Remove Barriers to Success In Provade s experience, each VMS deployment is unique. However, we have observed common challenges and barriers to success with a variety of our customers. Review and understand these situations and plan to mitigate them in order to accelerate your results. Integrations Overpromised and Under Delivered Some companies aim to get all spend into the program/solution in phase one and to undertake system integrations in a second phase. Reasons for this approach can include an immovable implementation deadline, highly complex integrations, or a shifting customer IT infrastructure. There are certainly times that this approach is wise, but don t integrate later because of shortcomings on the part of the VMS. This phased approach would leave you with a less-than-complete solution until the integrations can be completed. It also introduces risk for the VMS/MSP because a non-integrated solution will not produce the anticipated returns that a properly integrated one would. Ownership without Authority VMS/MSP programs are often implemented with little or weak executive sponsorship. Procurement, HR and IT are often tasked with reducing costs, enhancing process, rationalizing the supply base or driving compliance and wisely turn to a VMS/MSP program to aid in the pursuit of these goals. Whether it is because of these Vendor Management System Implementation 3

4 departments failure to articulate the value of their approach, or failure of executives to appreciate the potential for improvement that can come with a well-executed program, the departments can be left to deploy the program throughout the company without topdown support. In this case a phased approach is often used, getting buy-in and results in a select department or labor category, and then using this as the business case for the expansion of the program. With proper executive sponsorship this barrier to a full implementation can be removed and immediate, enterprise-wide benefit can be achieved. So Many Projects, So Little Time Competing initiatives can drive program sponsors toward a phased implementation. There may be the perception that a VMS/MSP implementation will demand significant internal resources that may be dedicated to other important projects, or are just fully booked with their day jobs. If you find yourself in this situation, you may not be sufficiently prepared for a proper implementation, phased or otherwise, or the MSP has performed insufficient preparation and is not shouldering the appropriate degree of the workload. A well-executed implementation should install a program that will make the company s process more efficient, thereby enhancing their ability to concentrate on core competencies. With the possible exception of customer technical resources needed for a truly custom integration, other initiatives within the customer generally should not impede the VMS/MSP implementation. Change is Good a Little at a Time The phrase change management can invoke bad memories and often makes the list of considerations when making the big bang / phased decision. While change management is critical, and often not executed well in one-off internal projects, if done properly within a VMS/MSP implementation it should be less impactful than customers anticipate. This is because the VMS and MSP have performed dozens of implementations across a variety of verticals and geographies and therefore have welltested change management plans. Unlike a one-time implementation in which the customer must build anew a relevant and complete communication plan, training, etc. there are proven templates for VMS/MSP implementations that require fine tuning rather than building from scratch. It s Different Over There Multinationals, particularly US-based companies, often pursue a phased approach to VMS implementation. Within the country of origin a big bang may be undertaken, but prudence sometimes dictates tackling each country separately. In this way, standards and best practices can be established and significant savings and improvement produced because the home country is typically the biggest consumer of services. When there is one customer team responsible for the entire global deployment, this approach may be essential to success. Vendor Management System Implementation 4

5 Go Live In most instances, a VMS implementation should take less than 6 months. During implementation you will work with your provider(s) to document processes, capture baseline metrics and configure the technology. And you will create your communications plan to launch the program and institutionalize the new process. Ensure you communicate to all stakeholders including executives, users, and suppliers so they understand the objectives, the process and their role in the change. Communicate successes and leverage internal champions to increase utilization and make the new process stick. Summary You will determine how to approach your VMS implementation based on your business circumstances, provider readiness and evaluation of risk and reward. Ensure you have a cross-functional project team, thorough business case and clear success measures as a foundation. Gain executive support and plan the details with a proven provider and you will succeed in your VMS deployment. About Provade Provade, Inc. delivers the only enterprise Vendor Management System (VMS) for global workforce spend management. Provade s Software as a Service (SaaS) solution helps businesses achieve efficiency and measurable savings in their staffing, statement of work (SOW) and services spend. Leveraging best in class technology, Provade VMS delivers business process flexibility, robust analytics and complete integration with ERP systems. For more information, visit Vendor Management System Implementation 5