Implementation Plan for a Global Spend Management Solution – Yokoy’s Approach
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Senior Implementation Manager, Yokoy
The primary objective of Yokoy’s implementation projects is to ensure customer success. This entails a collaborative approach, where – together with our customers – we define specific business objectives before rolling out a global spend management solution.
By establishing success metrics aligned with these goals and ensuring stakeholder alignment throughout the implementation process, we accelerate the time to value for our customers.
Through our work with over 600+ global customers ranging from mid- size businesses to large enterprises, we’ve developed our own framework for transforming the spend management process.
Our approach addresses the common challenges of a traditional process, while preventing the issues most often experienced by organisations who undergo finance transformation initiatives. The four pillars of this framework are:
Transformation strategy,
Tech architecture aligned to strategy,
Blueprint for implementation and phased global rollout,
Change management support, including post-implementation hypercare.
In this article, I will detail our general implementation plan, so that you know what to expect when choosing Yokoy as your spend management software provider.
Our approach to implementing spend management software
Although we place a strong emphasis on providing a flexible approach to implementation, we do have our tried-and-tested blueprint, which serves as our best practice guide.
Our blueprint for implementation and phased rollout is a meticulously crafted roadmap that ensures a smooth and successful transition to the new system, regardless of the project’s complexity and scale.
Because we work with large global organizations with multiple entities across geographies, we generally recommend a phased rollout, with one or a few countries going live first. This ensures a faster go-live date, and helps us optimize the setup before rolling out further.
Below you can see a sample implementation plan.
The exact project timeline may vary from one company to another depending on the number of entities and complexity of existing systems and processes, our general approach includes four main phases:
– Project preparation,
– Implementation phase,
– Enablement phase,
– Deployment and go-live, followed by post-implementation support.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these phases to see what they entail.
Phase 1: Project preparation
Once the sales process has ended, a dedicated implementation manager will reach out to you, to guide you through the entire project.
Then, we’ll gather all your requirements, get to know your current setup and desired end state in more detail, and agree on a project timeline. During this phase, your team will get to know our product as well, and we’ll officially kick-off the transformation project.
Phase 2: Solution implementation
This is the most resource- and time-intensive step. During this phase, we’ll make sure all business requirements are clear, all pre-requisites are in place, and we’ll start the technical setup, including the configuration of a Yokoy sandbox account, with all the required integrations.
This phase ends with acceptance testing, to make sure everything is according to your wish. Once the setup is signed-off, we enter the third phase of the project.
Phase 3: Customer enablement
During this phase, your team uses the system and receives in-depth live training from Yokoy’s Academy, as well as training guides and video material for self-study. In parallel, our implementation team is preparing the production environment for go-live.
You can learn more about the trainings and services offered by our Academy team below.
The Academy
Yokoy’s Academy provides live and self-guided training to help you become a Yokoy expert and gain full confidence to roll out end-user trainings in your company.
Phase 4: Deployment and Hypercare
Finally, during the Deployment phase, you are ready to go live with Yokoy. This phase includes dedicated support for one month post go- live: A step we call Hypercare.
At Yokoy, we aren’t customer-focused: We’re customer-obsessed.
Everything we do, from how we engineer our platform, to how we design our product, to how we build our training and support services, everything is done with deep care for the end customer – You!
Because you are so important to us, we support you during the live operative use of our platform for a full month post go-live. This is the so-called Hypercare phase, when we make sure you know how to use the platform fully to get the most benefit out of it, and we ensure that all processes run smoothly within Yokoy.
Hypercare starts right after the Implementation phase, and provides not only technical support in case of bugs, incidents or other such cases, but also access to product-related questions and assistance through Yokoy’s Academy team.
Throughout your entire Yokoy journey, the Academy supports you with high quality training materials and instructor-led classes, so you can truly master the use of our platform. At the same time, you get access to exclusive training videos and detailed handbooks and training blueprints, so you can extend the knowledge sharing sessions within your company, as needed.
And of course, as trusted partners, we offer continuous support and dedicated account management post implementation to ensure your satisfaction and enable you to realise the full potential of Yokoy’s spend management suite.
Next steps
If you want to learn more about our finance transformation framework, book a call with one of our Sales colleagues. They’d be more than happy to look at your specific requirements to see if we’re a good fit for each other!
Also, don’t forget to download the implementation plan below. The Excel template is ready to use – just adjust the dates to fit your own timeline, and you’re good to go.
Template
[Template] Implementation Plan for a Spend Management Solution
Ready to use Excel template that includes the timeline for implementing a global spend management solution, as well as the steps of the Yokoy Hypercare phase.
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