Accelerating procurement transformation with a Coupa implementation requires a holistic, coordinated effort across many functional and technical groups in the organization.
To ensure your organization is tracking toward its goals, consider these four ways to drive implementation success:
1. Gain Buy-In Through a Phased Approach
Expect each stakeholder group to respond differently to changing processes and technology. To drive adoption and ensure go-live readiness, consider a phased rollout.
A phased rollout can be segmented by Coupa module, geographic region, or a pilot group of selected users. In some cases, Coupa Expenses can be launched prior to Procurement and Invoicing so that end users are familiar with submitting and approving within Coupa and the mobile application during expense submission.
2. Engage an Implementation Partner and IT Early
Engage with an implementation partner to do the heavy lifting.
Internal resources have daily job responsibilities outside of Coupa implementation project tasks – an experienced partner can provide support, strategy, and execution for the end-to-end process. CrossCountry Consulting has completed more than 500+ Coupa implementations and can lead from the front or augment teams as needed.
Engagement with IT and the integrations developers are also critical to success. Coupa integrates with all ERPs and, in some cases, inventory, budgeting and planning, banks, tax engines, or other applications. Aligning with IT ensures the application infrastructure, systems in scope, and integration approaches are driving toward a common solution, not creating obstacles.
3. Document and Design
A Coupa BluePrint and process mapping exercise aligns stakeholders and leads to project success. Organizations have complex existing processes that need to be understood, acknowledged, and designed for the future state using Coupa.
This does not mean a “lift and shift” approach of old processes to new technology, but instead reviewing the current uses and design and documenting a transformed process within Coupa’s BSM application. The implementation partner should create documents noting process, field transformations, and descriptions of the current and future state, which can be validated with extended stakeholders in working sessions.
4. Create Detailed Systems Integration Testing (SIT) Use Cases
Systems testing is critical from a technical and functional perspective.
Technically, all data integrations and transformations should be occurring as expected. Functionally, detailed SIT cases will ensure all business scenarios are factored in.
Spending time with detailed SIT use cases will occur before User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and help expedite the UAT process. It will also ensure thorough system design and configuration has been completed.
A Coupa implementation can have transformative benefits to the broader organization beyond business spend management. For expert implementation and advisory, contact CrossCountry Consulting.