An agricultural cooperative and marketing organization was seeking a consulting firm with experience and expertise in HCM strategic planning and vendor evaluation. The company had approximately 1,500 employees, the majority of which were located in Canada. Other company offices outside of the U.S. were in Japan and the U.K. At the time of our engagement with the organization, their current HCM systems in place included PeopleSoft, Taleo and Kronos. The client initially evaluated several potential HCM solution vendors to switch to, including Workday, Oracle, SAP and Ultimate Software. Unfortunately, the client was confused by the vendors and unable to clearly decide on the provider that best fit their needs.
We strategized with the company and planned to reach a vendor decision in six months. The number one goal for our client during this HCM vendor evaluation project was to find the vendor that most effectively and efficiently helped them improve their business processes through automation.
Our approach drew on our expert knowledge of the vendors, people, processes and technology that drive the selection and purchase decision. We focused on our client’s needs from a business perspective. Using our analysis of their current processes and the organization’s desired improvements, we helped our client develop a set of vendor challenge scenarios. These scenarios were based on specific processes identified as inefficient, procedures in need of improvement and key requirements. The winning vendor demonstrated how their solution would be used to automate the processes and implement best practice improvements to efficiently meet the client’s needs.
Our findings consisted of an executive level presentation and report that outlined our results, vendor selection approach, outcomes and roadmap with critical success factors. The goal of this step was to ensure that the client’s sponsors understood the due diligence involved in assessing the current environment, selecting the best fit solution and the steps required to achieve the desired state, as well as resource and cost commitments.
