International Investment Bank

The Implentation of new systems

One of the world’s largest global investment banks. In 2000 the bank purchased the Ariba Procurement system to manage the procurement of goods and services to support its operations. The project had been running for over 12 months and implementation was behind expectations.

To re-launch the deployment of the P2P system and ensure the barriers to implementation were overcome. A particular challenge was the degree of autonomy in the bank and lack of governance to approved processes

ADR joined the bank to lead the deployment of Ariba, and manage the European Purchasing Operations team.

The key barriers were to overcome resistance with using new systems to manage suppliers and purchases of goods and services in an environment where cost was not considered a key business driver.

The project commenced with a full diagnostic analysis and recommendations on current status. Key findings were:

1. Lack of clarity on the purchase to pay process and policies

2. Stakeholders did not know their role in the process

3. System integrator had spent 18 months supporting implementation, but the system did not work as expected

ADR made a series of presentations to the board and business stakeholders. The recommendations to recover the project were accepted by the board and implementation initiated one month later.

A series of process design workshops highlighted:

• Weak and broken processes
  
• Lack of clarity on future state
  
• Errors and corrections to system configuration
  
• Elimination of unnecessary interfaces
  
• Need to ensure stakeholders and users were trained in the use of the system.

Not banking issues at all – common failures to projects!

Corrective actions were planned, agreed and implemented. The system was re-launched after 4 months and successfully deployed to progressively more users across the bank.

Key Learning:

Successful implementation of the Purchase to Pay process has four key dynamics:

Process – Build clarity and understanding on current and future state

People - Buy in to change

Understand the challenge of migrating to future state and plan to support it

Commitment to the vision

Suitable Technology – Do not assume it is a ‘one size fits all’

Beware of technology constraints

Process – Build clarity and understanding on current and future state

Strong, experienced and pragmatic project management!

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