ERP System Procurement Project

ERP System Procurement Preliminary Health Check

At the start of the assignment we conducted a Preliminary Health Check to: understand the current position; to assess RM’s goals and identify if major risks and obstacles stood in the way of achieving them; and to recommend the most expedient route to achieving the RM’s aims. We reviewed the category management approach for ERP technology spend, the current business strategy and analysed drivers for change from technical, commercial, contractual and operational perspectives. We examined the extent to which objectives, outcomes and benefits were articulated, agreed, communicated and measurable. We assessed organisational project readiness for the procurement process being adopted by RM, the resources available to ensure project success and the senior management sponsorship of the project.

We held meetings with key stakeholders and undertook preliminary analysis of key contractual, technical and gap analysis documentation and other core project and programme documentation. We benchmarked the future Target Operating Model (TOM) objectives against the ‘As-Is’ situation and recommended some changes to ensure that the articulation of ERP objectives were aligned to the business outcomes, supporting the development of the Outline Business Case. We produced a procurement strategy that included detailed analysis on stakeholders, resource and activity plans, supplier selection, evaluation and contracting processes including early contract terms and risk identification/management. The results from this stage were:

Creation of the ITT/Statement of Requirements (SOR) and Evaluation Documentation

We created fit-for-purpose ITT/Statement of Requirements (SOR), using our extensive library of tender document templates and our comprehensive requirements elicitation process to ensure the document outputs clearly articulated RM’s requirements, objectives, outputs and outcomes. We ensured that the evaluation and selection documentation and process was robust, objective and would not be subject to challenge, while also identifying a suitable set of contractual terms to govern this complex programme. Our ITT/SOR response document templates are structured in such a way that they are easily understood by the vendors; directly align business outcomes with requirements and evaluation criteria to ensure that each vendor must clearly articulate how their solution meets the requirements and will deliver the outcomes, timelines for so doing, mutual resourcing obligations and related costs. It was important to get this right in order to anticipate and thereby mitigate the potential for debilitating, costly and time-zapping future arguments over requirements misunderstandings.

Procurement Process Support

We supported RM throughout the stages of the ERP system procurement process including supporting the evaluation of tenders, dialogues/negotiations with vendors, supplier due diligence and final commercial contract negotiations with the preferred supplier. During Evaluation we identified where further clarification was needed and shared our expertise in devising and delivering a structured due-diligence exercise that allowed both parties to undertake the appropriate due-diligence on each other, ensuring that the internal teams understood the importance of this approach and how it would reduce future potential misunderstandings about requirements. This resulted in confidence for all stakeholders involved that the preferred bidder had a fit-for-purpose solution that could be implemented on time and on budget.

Supporting Commercial Capability Uplift

In addition to informal skills and knowledge transfer activities, we delivered requirements gathering training in the use of our tools, templates and elicitation techniques. We also delivered Scoring & Evaluation training to ensure RM teams had the right skills and to explain how and why the initial ITT/SOR and response documents had been constructed the way they had to support a fair and objective scoring process.