Shared ERP Service

Anyone working within business from any perspective who has had exposure to an ERP programme will understand the magnitude of change and component parts required to ensure its success. The Crown Consulting Group worked with the organisation and its partners throughout the full project life cycle. We are going to share snippets of our insights, successes and approaches over the coming months.

What was the situation?

Separate functions within the Organisation - As with many ERP programmes one of the biggest pain points suffered by the organisation was how different functions and teams communicated across the business. Upon initiation there was minimal departmental process mapping and no end-to-end process or data illustrations.

• Multiple Departments - In this instance the organisation was looking to optimise not only themselves but five other partner organisations within the programme. As the home Department the primary organisation through governance had insured process is had remained similar across the six organisations. However, through the varying needs of the businesses from a Human Resources (HR) and finance perspective, variations within the processes were common-place and in some instances significant.

• Separate Platforms - The system architecture also varied as across the six organisations four we are using one platform with the other two using a different, more bespoke option.

• Manual ‘Off-system’ processing - An initial assessment indicated a 60% digital process uptake. This meant that only six out of ten potentially digital processes where being realised through the applications. The remaining 40% were made up of manual re-keying activities, paper-based processes, and productivity software usage.

• Data inaccuracies - The degree of process discrepancies and manual interactions had given rise overtime to increased data in accuracies within all the departments individually and across shared data sets.

“Very supportive and transparent throughout the process and engaged our staff to aid knowledge transfer and empowerment”

IT Director - Primary Organisation

What did The Crown Consulting Group do?

The Crown Consulting Group were fully engaged with the six organisations within this programme. We had been working with them all from programme initiation and as such had already set up the project governance, controls and stakeholder engagement forums required. Access to individual representation from across the six organisations was key to helping us ensure the programme ran smoothly.

In this instance, we relied heavily on the stakeholder network to support us in mapping the As-Is process and data architecture.

Process Identification - We initiated our efforts by working with the primary organisation to understand the core processes and data models. We completed this by creating a process taxonomy for both the HR and finance functions which illustrated how each function broke down. We applied a simple Level 1-5 rating to show the detail captured within the artefacts, Level 5 being the most comprehensive.

Taking this approach meant we were able to identify the higher touchpoint and transactional areas and ensure they were mapped to the highest level of detail. Additionally, this allowed us to accurately plan resource requirements and outline delivery dates.

Having completed the first round of mapping with the primary organisation we then held a series of workshops where representation from all six organisations were present. One of the objectives was to understand how aligned the different organisations were to the central process. Where differences were identified we were able to capture these along with supporting information around the variance and understand its nature.

Data Mapping - A shared objective was it the sex organisations would move to a single solution. As they had been working across different solutions for several years data sets had become fragmented and inaccurate. There was limited visibility as to data requirements from the consortium as a whole and the individual organisations. Here the Crown Consulting Group created separate data models for each organisation around the specific use cases of an ERP solution. The common data elements were highlighted, and a universal model was agreed. In addition to having an agreed data model that all the organisations would use the data mapping exercise allowed us to highlight weather was up and downstream dependencies on the data handled within the ERP solution. Having this information allowed us to accurately plan our delivery approach at later stages within the programme.

“this is what Digital Transformation really means – thank you all so much for your support and guidance, really pleased to have worked with you all”

Programme Manager

Pain-Point Identification - A secondary but equally important objective of the process mapping workshops was to identify user pain points. This formed a major part of our user research input into the programme and helped us shape where and how we could optimise process is to deliver maximum business benefit.

Process Optimisation - Having the information gathered from the process mapping workshops, the data mapping and the pain point identification work we identified key areas where processes could be re-designed and/or optimised to deliver further value. Working across the organisations we prioritised these and mapped the To-Be state. With the addition of understanding the data model and business rules we outlined the associated risk to up and downstream services.

What was the Outcome?

Common Process Model - The process taxonomy approach meant all organisations within the consortium we are able to work to a common standard. Having representation from all the organisations present and involved with the decision-making supported business buying and overall support for the programme.

Common Data Model - The centrally agreed data model not only supported the ERP programme through to delivery it also enabled significant degrees of insight for all 6 organisations. The insight that the model provided allowed the consortium to save over £8 Million within 18 months of delivery, this did not include the savings associated to the consolidated ERP solution.

Optimised Processes - Taking into consideration the business rules, pain points and data requirements allowed us to re-engineer many of the processes transitioning these from a system driven to business driven. Having the data model and end to end process Maps allowed us to identify where dependencies sat elsewhere across the different organisations and make adequate provisions for these as part of the delivery.

As with the common data model, the optimised process model supported the consortium and separate organisations to deliver additional change elsewhere. Both elements are now used across all six organisations to help enable change and identify requirements elsewhere within the business. The approach has also been adopted when working with external partners and agencies to help drive a holistic service with consistent data and business artefacts.

Programme Delivery - Many of the insights shared above reference extremely specific elements within the overall delivery. Taking the detailed and comprehensive approach we did to the process, data and business rule mapping allowed us to gain further confidence and support from users. Users felt more engaged throughout meaning we were able to rely on the networks for greater support when approaching go-live and into the early service transition phases of the programme.

Identifying the pain-points and subsequently re-engineering the processes to a more holistic direction ensured the new solution was business driven rather than prescribing the processes to work in a way that the technology dictated. Having the confidence in the As-Is maps, the reasons for change (To-Be maps) and the acceptance around some variations meant system configuration was more straight forward.

Our approach reduced the original system configuration stage by 50% due to having a clear direction, understanding the business rules, data, integration, and touchpoint requirements.

“the team had appropriate SME’s on hand throughout to support even the most complex financial processes, not something which I have encountered before to that degreed so very refreshing”

Head of Finance – Primary Organisation