249. Financial Transformation Live: Stop Shopping, Start Transforming

Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly moving from cost controller to strategic visionary and with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Monroe managing director of ITAS, a financial transformation consultancy as she interviews key experts to give you real-world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people and data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of FTL so I've mentioned this potential session in a few different episodes previously so we're gonna just talk about maybe some food for thought for how you approach purchasing a new technology solution so this isn't specifically ERP but I think we need to maybe change the traditional approach given the current wave of new technology that's coming through so I just thought I'd share my thoughts with you today so I'm very excited to do this so I have called the session start shopping start transforming and I think the big thing to think about as we go through this piece and as you approach technology generally is how do you accelerate the time to value for the solution that you're looking at and I think the traditional methods and we're going to talk about this in a little bit focus very much on the process of purchasing and then it almost comes to stop and then you start transforming and what I want to help maybe rethink is how do we get started on that journey faster so today's session we can talk about why the traditional RFP approach doesn't always work where are some of the challenges with it so it doesn't mean that it's not always a great solution but I'm I guess I'm here to sort of say that perhaps there's a different way how to run a consultative selection cycle that really helps you get to choose not just choose the right technology but get value from the partner that you're working with and how to accelerate the time to value so for those of you that don't know me or haven't heard of me before my name is Hannah Munro I'm managing director of ITAS solutions as we're often referred to and we're a financial transformation consultancy that specializes in sage now for my sins even though I look after the team now I'm actually an ex-consultant and so one of my passions is building out frameworks that ensure consistent quality of service across our organization so that's part of what I do and it's why I do these financial transformation live sessions for those of you that didn't manage to make our transformation troubleshooter session in September is now available on demand if you'd like to listen that's both on the podcast and on our YouTube channel so let's get started then and we've actually made you know if I give maybe give you a positioning statement so we've actually made a decision as an organization to not engage within RFPs now RFPs for those of you that don't know our request for proposals that's where you submit a list of requirements and then obviously people submit tenders against them so what I've found and the reason we don't particularly like working with them is because it either become it doesn't allow suppliers to really get into your process and we're a consultancy so actually our value is helping you not just give you what you think you need but help make sure that we're delivering the outcomes that you want as an organization and the challenge we have with RFPs not RFIs by the way you know there's a different approach with RFIs but with RFPs you have very little room to actually consult and have value it's very much about a tick feature tick box exercise and it's and that's brilliant if you know what features you want to need but I would challenge most technology buyers in the current age to actually know and know what they actually need in order as in how they need their solution to work a lot of the time that certainly now it's not just about buying good technology it's about buying a transformation partner something that's going to help you on that journey and I don't feel like the current RFP process is designed for that and what we often found right regardless of the perception that comes across is that the team have already made a decision or they've selected they've worked with a different supplier before and and they're kind of going through a process of doing an RFP to tick the box versus actually engaging it as a way of assessing different solutions so there's some big challenges I think with how people purchase technology and I guess the only alternative that's currently available is for people to either go in alone or to do an RFP so what I want to talk through today is perhaps there's a different way and how can you engage with suppliers in a consultative way to really one select the best product for your organization to find the best supplier and to encourage them to innovate and help you deliver your value and your goals right so and that's what I think a process should be as it should be that purchasing process should take you on the start you on that journey of the transformation it shouldn't just be a point at which you once you've finished it you start transforming so the focus and outcomes needs to be there so I the key things I would suggest you think about is how can you educate and you know get your potential or prospective suppliers up to speed on your business and your processes how can you give them the space the room to offer alternative solutions that you may not have considered and how can you engage and evaluate the outcome that a product will deliver not just tick box on features because some things are comparable some things aren't and so that needs to form part of a holistic view of how you assess a technology vendor so I think what's really important is people produce in our traditional so produces very long-listed requirements but what they don't do is give enough information about the organization the processes controls the use cases the scenarios right so if you're going to spend money on a consultant coming in to help you put together a document why not make it something that actually starts you on your transformation journey so my view of what that could look like and I guess some food thought is imagine a document you give to each of your prospective suppliers right that has a series of problem statements and goals for each area of finance or the business so I for accounts payable it has a statement around this is the challenge we need a new solution to solve right this is the outcomes we want so we want to get the cost per invoice down to this for instance or we want to have we want to increase capacity to make to double the capacity of AP invoices that we can cope with without increasing heck out you know whatever your goals as an organization right so you actually summarized for that particular area problem statement you're the goals that you want to achieve you have an outline of the current process so what's your current process look like the use cases and scenarios that you might need to hit IE we've got you know we've got project based invoices we've got overhead invoices we've got multi currency based invoices we've got stock we've got fruit we've got service items yep so series of use cases and scenarios that you need to be able to cope with the controls that you need for that for that area and department and your required outputs right imagine having that for AP AR for the general ledger you know budgeting and planning projects etc so a series of knowledge you know some an overview of how the business currently operates and what you where you need to go and you gave that to a supplier because you know they might say well yes you know if I ticked your box around I need you know I need a digital process they may not look at some automated technology like OCR right I'm sure they would but you can see where I'm going is that I think RFPs encourage tick boxing versus this is how we think we should reimagine your your procurement process you know you may not have asked for a digital supplier onboarding but that's available you know those kind of you know those kind of things but in order for them to make good recommendations they need to understand your business in your your process so you can rather than spending that money on a consultant to put together requirements perhaps what they could do is put summary of the challenges the outcomes that you want to get and the process maps for each area so and that's what I think is a much more valuable process right so you so imagine you've got this document that summarizes for each of the areas that you're looking to put new technology solution in those things yeah the problem statement goals the current processes use cases scenarios controls required and required outputs and reporting yeah and you gave that to your suppliers right then what's really important is you offer them time with the required individuals and areas right so this is again where our fees because they've already spent so much time potentially you know dealing with the persons put together the RFP people get very like they don't want to engage anymore so if you've given them enough information right what you need to make clear to your suppliers and it's a good assessment of them I have actually read the document are they asking you things that are already in there or is this further you know delving into what over and above what you've already given them okay hey Google what's the best accounting software for my business give it a couple of years and I bet you she'll be able to answer you pretty accurately but for now it's still one of the few questions Google can't give you an answer for but we can take our free quiz and find out which sage product is the right fit for your business just head to itastolutions.co.uk now what's really important about this is I think that when you're in this when you're going through this process is that you're minimizing the number of partners you're working with okay because you don't want to waste your time more than anything so you know having three strong partners and you know potentially and I'm assuming across different technologies all all with a I would have said you know make sure you've got some either a recommendation or you've seen some case studies of somebody in a relevant industry or type of or similar industry like IE project-based etc and then ask you know having said the document ask them you know get give them time to delve deeper and to make sure they're fully understood and that there's no questions outside of what you've already talked about that perhaps they've missed and document your sessions with them right because very often certainly I would have thought most of them will come up with questions that you hadn't thought of that highlight particular capabilities you may want or need or areas for improvement and then circulate the additional questions to the to all of the suppliers that you're working with right create like a black box of data so you're constantly trying it you're basically trying to help your suppliers get to know you as quickly and as well as possible so so by continuing to sort of update them with the information that the other partners have found you're actually gaining real value from this process because they're uncovering things but you're sharing that knowledge so everyone is working from a similar core base of knowledge about your organization and and then at that point once they understand your business you can take some right give me a rough idea of what you think I need budget wise both for software for implementation and what modules would be looking at so just ask them for ballparks right because if you ask them for anything concrete at this stage you're potentially you know you're you're not going to get there yep so what you want is ballparks then you can look at them and go is everyone in the rough ballpark you know are we talking in the same piece and also you as a you're not investing a huge amount more effort if people are you haven't got the right ballparks in the room maybe they're too high maybe they're too low maybe you're you're concerned about how you're going to justify the ROI and that and that case you can start to think okay we need to go into the next part of the process with that in mind okay so once you've educated your suppliers you've asked them to you've offered them time to be able to consult with you and get under the hood of how you guys operate and you've got some rough ballparks then it's a chance to evaluate so what I would then ask them to do is deliver demos against those problem statements and outcomes so they should show you each of the areas that you've documented how they will enable you to achieve those outcomes and that's what you need to measure yeah and I think this is where again people lean on RFPs is there is easy to tick box right it's a lot harder to effectively evaluate a piece so you need to think about making sure you've got the right people involved in your evaluation so individuals that both have an operational knowledge so you want people that are doing the process to kind of look at that and go okay this is going to cause us a problem or and not not even or and you need people that can look at this and go this will allow us to achieve our overarching goals yeah that can assess your the ability to achieve the outcomes yeah and then assessing against the process what does the does the process look good does it look effective is it going to deliver the outcomes we want does it deliver the controls that we and the the you know for instance an AP that could be approvals does it deliver the controls of the process that we want does it deliver the reporting the outcomes so sort of marking and assessing against each of those functional areas against those different pieces like is the process more efficient does this pro does this a way of working allow us to achieve our goals does it solve our problem statement and how well does it do it does it give us the controls over the process that we need and does it deliver the outputs in terms of reporting etc that we need okay so and I would do that for each area so I would do again and oh and kind of cope with the use cases that we've put forwards and make sure you tick each of the use cases off as part of this yeah so as you get and as they show you that make sure you recording sessions yeah again and and then you can use that to build because very often you can get sidetracked or by a sparkly piece of technology right but just make sure you've got your marking matrix available to support that and once you've you've gone through that you could do this with all three but I you know you might want to get to down to final two then have a look and speak to customers ideally within the same industry or with the similar problem so in for instance if you're in construction your project-based yeah so looking and speaking to other customers of theirs that are in project-based industries there's a good way to test that it ideally more than one if you can get it and that and ask them you know ask them about the challenges they faced etc in their experience and more importantly did it achieve the outcomes because it's not about features and then then what you can do is based on what you've seen then assess ROI right because depending on the solution that's in front of you the ROAs the ROI is going to be different so it might be that a particular solution's got a really great automation around bank right for instance that and that could save you one FTE or give you some controls that another another solution may not be able to give you so you need to assess each solution and I did that's why I did you want to kind of get down to two and understand sort of what's the ROI of the solution you've seen and at that point that would be when I would then sit down with that particular vendor and go okay can you now give me an investment plan and an implementation plan what does this look like in terms of how I need to resource and how you are going to resource and in what order and how do we how do we get there yeah because it's all very good them showing you this beautiful shiny toy but you need to make sure that you have a plan to get there as well and certainly if they give you a plan and you feel like it's not detailed enough or it doesn't cope with some of the change management then you've got the opportunity to kind of get into that yeah but the the key piece about this right is that as you're going through this they're learning about your organization right you're enabling them to understand as a starting point so rather than this be a process by which you select a technology it actually becomes a way you could start their education journey on you as a new as an organization and then what by time you actually start the project you've got this whole history you've got you know ideally you know for end-to-end demonstrations for each of the areas that cover the use cases that you've selected right they've understood the use cases and your current processes you've got clear ROI and benefits against outcomes and you've got an investment plan and a way of achieving it so it does sound in some ways like common sense but the key piece is to it the key differential from how I've seen a lot of current processes work is to focus on this is what I want where I want to go mr. supplier how are you going to help me get the how am I best to achieve this aim and take me on that journey this is what you need to know about me and this is this is the outcome I need to achieve help me figure out the best way to get that and I feel like that for me is the key differential I think there's too much focus on ticking the box in terms of features and capabilities right because if I'm the first one to say that not not all technologies created equal there are some real differentials but sometimes differentials come down as much to how it's implemented as it is to what is implemented yeah so this is your way of making sure that the focus is on the outcomes and that you're truly getting value from your transformation and that you're starting that journey at the beginning of the buying cycle so that once you get into that process of actually implementing the technology selected there's already a level of knowledge around your organization within that supplier that can then accelerate your time to value okay so this is and has been a very short but sweet one I hope it was valuable and of course I really if you have any questions around this I'd love to get some feedback on this piece and I am you know looking for a few we do a huge amount of we have a lot of conversations with different customers prospects and both are existing about how to evaluate what you know what they want from their technology and what solutions to look for but I'd be really interested in your feedback if you're going through this process and would like some more insight or some guidance I'd be happy to help so coming up in November though guys we do have our transformation troubleshooters please do you join us for that it's from the 20th of November and if you have found this session interested perhaps you're looking to explore a different way or you want to you're about to start a procurement process then please do reach out I'm happy to have an informal conversation answer any questions you might have about this I guess this alternative model and how it could work in practicalities we do offer a pre-purchase consultancy service for those of you that are interested and we tend to work obviously within the sage suite of tools so you know in terms of options that we offer on the table that's where we go but the principles that I've been talking about here you know documenting current processes focus on how the as how it could look and where that differential is putting forward solutions and modules based on what you're trying to achieve and you know where you want to go versus what you do now is all of what that's about so we do do drink our own champagne here I test so if you're looking to assess that then please do reach out but if you just want some I guess some some advice and guidance on how to go through this process please do reach out to me on LinkedIn you know I'm I'm happy to have an initial call just to give you a nudge in the right direction if that would help so and of course for those of you that don't know we do have our watch product is right for me quiz and we do have some we you know if you're looking to evaluate technology then of course please do book a discovery with one of our technology teams well thank you so much for listening I hope this has been useful perhaps some food for thought on a Wednesday afternoon and yeah if you've got any further questions please don't hesitate reach out thanks guys and we'll see you next time on a financial transformation life one of the hardest things I think is actually putting into words what it means to work with yourself and the team here I test because not only are we a financial transformation consultancy but we do it using sage technology so rather than me tell you how awesome we are let me introduce one of our customers I recommend I test as a sage partner not only because of their knowledge that they have on the product itself intact but also their friendly and professional approach to the whole project they've been incredibly flexible throughout the process but also challenging us as a customer to really think about what it is that we're after and ensuring that intact was actually the correct solution for us to meet our needs which was really refreshing rather than feeling we're just being sold a product that they offer and we've gone really well with the whole team they've been hugely approachable helpful throughout the whole process really putting it as a ease if that you know anything we kind of felt and we were struggling with or difficult and it really helps us to understand some of the complexities with the new system that's different to other finance systems things that we just never come across before like the new dimensions and understanding how that actually works