How to guarantee a smooth Source to Pay project

Pre-Implementation Preparation

During our Source to Pay implementation projects we repeatedly see issues which, due to a lack of preparation, can stall the project. Some delays can be brief and some much longer, but all will weaken the project’s momentum.

Conversely, we see clients that are well prepared achieve far greater benefits and outcomes from their Source to Pay project investment. There are a number of high impact, pre-implementation activities that we can support clients with that will transform the success of their procurement implementation.

In our experience the better prepared a client is, the smoother a Source to Pay project will run, the quicker they will go live, and the greater the benefits will be from day one.

Xoomworks has analysed lessons learnt from over 600 cloud implementations and consolidated the main causes of delays or benefit blockers into a number of topics.

We have adapted the tools, templates and playbook steps from our XoomCloud methodology so that our clients can easily get a head start on their Source to Pay project, all achievable 100% remotely. 

Target Operating Model Design:

  • Clients who invest time to ensure their future procurement plans or digital procurement plans and process are aligned with the Source to Pay project objectives achieve smoother adoption post go live, improved ways of working, and gain greater benefits from the technology. (more details here)

Supplier and Content Data:

  • The effort required to cleanse master data and prepare suppliers is often underestimated. Investing in upfront identification of desired catalogue content will drive managed and contracted spend with enabled suppliers. In turn, this will drive adoption and usability from go live.

Core Data and Policy Design:

  • Delays during design are caused when organisations cannot agree on key data structures e.g. commodity codes, or key policies e.g. approval flows and limits. There are some simple activities that can prepare for this and allow design sessions to focus on more value add decisions.

Change Management:

Where clients run their own change management activity, we often see this stream of activity starts too late in the Source to Pay project and focuses too much on just email comms and basic training. Some simple, up front analysis and preparatory activities can result in a much more embedded solution within the organisation. (learn about XoomChange)

Integration:

  • The most common cause of delays on projects. However, many integrations are common across clients and a significant head start can be achieved by agreeing basic integration principles, frequencies, flows and middleware options.

Xoomworks will directly engage with your experts and process owners for each of the in scope functional and technical tracks, to thoroughly review, vet and produce the required deliverables. A typical schedule of activity takes 5 weeks.

pre-implementation

Download our Value Proposition and find out more details about each step of the program and the benefits it can bring to your organisation.