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Vendor Selection Case Study

Conflict/Challenge

Reviewing multiple vendors to replace a significant company business system and selecting a system from the various vendors reviewed to meet the objectives of the company and align with strategic initiatives for the future. There is a significant burden on the current staff that does not review systems on a regular basis and may lack the perspective and processes to achieve the objective.

Example Client – Review of systems to replace legacy and out dated systems that include complex processes and critical business functions in the financial accounting and transactional areas. 

 

TAC4 Resolution 

Strategy  

Work with Management to ensure a clear understanding of what the new system is expected to do for the organization. Gain an understanding of the company, business needs and team dynamics to identify the right steps forward to achieve the objective.

Key Steps 

  • Listen and understand your objectives and needs
  • Determine the guiding principles for the project in conjunction with you.
  • Help you establish the list of vendors to consider making requests for proposals 
  • Manage the proposal request process and information accumulation to assist your team in evaluating the vendors
  • Ensure clarity on business requirements
    • Work with your team to ensure complete and clear business requirements definition (as this is a prerequisite for successful contract negotiation)
  • Manage vendors to success with proven vendor management principles
    • Always give honest estimates based in reality
    • Ensure thorough task tracking
    • Ensure all decisions are being made in line with the guiding principles and senior leadership priorities
    • Ensure decisions are made within scope
    • Provide meaningful status reports
  • Lead development of Current/Future State documentation
  • Overall project management
  • Assist with change management and training
  • Provide business expertise to support team decisions as needed

Example Client – We assisted in reviewing, selecting, and implementing a new enterprise wide financial system that would replace multiple legacy systems in several reporting jurisdictions with specific requirements.  We not only managed the project from the beginning to end in addition to overseeing the third party implementation vendors utilized by the client. We also supported the client with assistance creating specific work product and developing business and data architecture required by the project.

Happy Ending 

Result of TAC4 involvement was to enable the client team to work through the selection process for a new financial system. Our established process and added business expertise ensures the selection of a system that would provide the functionality needed by the business requirements.   

The result for this project was that the Company was able to timely select a new system that helped them reach the business goal of moving multiple systems and processes to one system.  This created significant efficiencies across the organization.