Implementing treasury technology can do wonders for your organizations. However, many companies are unable to do it right and the technology project fails. Right implementation is getting the exact product you need which works exactly how it was supposed to at the right time.
In this episode, Juan Saudino, VP, Consulting, Treasury at Highradius will talk about the 3 major parts for the implementation of cash forecasting software.
What you’ll learn
- To Build the project team.
- Develop a detailed project plan.
- How to navigate implementation.
Building the project team
Typically for implementation of a new system in your organization, the team consists of:
- The project manager, from your organization, would oversee the process.
- Subject matter experts (SME), people who are involved in the daily process in treasury, core users.
- End users, people who are responsible for entering data into the system, people from different subsidiaries.
- IT resource, for technical work related to integration, would depend on the kind of implementation and requirement of technical knowledge.
Dedicating the maximum number of SMEs with consulting team from the vendor’s side will have the advantage of producing maximum value as they’ll be very knowledgeable about the system to support your organization’s growth.
Having a good mixture of technical and business knowledge in the team is necessary as recently treasury getting more and more tech-heavy.
Develop a detailed project plan
- Be realistic on how many hours each resource can allocate to the project, as the main job for treasurers is to handle treasury operations and are partially assigned to the project.
- Ensure that blackout dates are defined in which some or all members are unavailable and allocate them accordingly.
- Making sure there is excellent communication between the team is essential in creating a project plan is a great tool to ensure everything goes as per the timeline.
Navigating implementation the correct way
When implementing the software, vendors usually utilize a 5 phase implementation methodology.
Phase 1: Preparation
The first phase is started after the agreement is signed, there will be a kickoff call, led by Vendor’s side project manager to ensure the team is on board and create project governance documents that are used to run the project. Usually, necessary documents are:
- Action Item logs
- Weekly status reports
- Call status log
- High-level status template
Phase 2: Design
The vendor team researches the process of your company and tests out designs fit for your company. The goal for this phase is to get your buy-in with an implementation, changes are made according to your company’s needs.
Phase 3: Configuration
In this phase, most of the work happens in the system. Communication and coordination between the teams are of utmost importance. Different workflows are merged for various integrations and all of it needs to come together.
Phase 4: Testing
In this phase the system is tested, core users go through the test script and perform required activities. The goal is to make sure that the system delivers the value that you are expecting based on what you signed during the design phase.
Phase 5: Go live
After successful testing and after all the integrations, the vendor launches the solution in your production environment, and the product will go live.
