The State of Black Professionals in Tech

Keep inclusion at the forefront to gain the benefits from diversity.

Analysts' Perspective

The experience of Black professionals in technology is unique.

Diversity in tech is not a new topic, and it's not a secret that technology organizations struggle to attract and retain Black employees. Ever since the early '90s, large tech organizations have been dealing with public critique of their lack of diversity. This topic is close to our hearts, but unfortunately while improvements have been made, progress is quite slow.

In recent years, current events have once again brought diversity to the forefront for many organizations. In addition, the pandemic along with talent trends such as "the great resignation" and "quiet quitting" and preparations for a recession have not only impacted diversity at large but also Black professionals in technology. Our previous research has focused on the wider topic of Recruiting and Retaining People of Color in Tech, but we've found that the experiences of persons of color are not all the same.

This study focuses on the unique experience of Black professionals in technology. Over 600 people were surveyed using an online tool; interviews provided additional insights. We're excited to share our findings with you.

Allison Straker Research Director Info-Tech Research Group	Ugbad Farah Research Director Info-Tech Research Group

Demographics

In October 2021, we launched a survey to understand what the Black experience is like for people in technology. We wanted and received a variety of responses which would help us to understand how Black technology professionals experienced their working world. We received responses from 633 professionals, providing us with the data for this report.

For more information on our survey demographics please see the appendix at this end of this report.

26% of our respondents either identified as Black or felt the world sees them as Black.

Professionals from various countries responded to the survey:

• Most respondents were born in the US (52%), Canada (14%), India (14%), or Nigeria (4%).
• Most respondents live in the US (56%), Canada (25%), Nigeria (2%), or the United Kingdom (2%).

Companies with more diversity achieve more revenue from innovation

Organizations do better and are more innovative when they have more diversity, a key ingredient in an organization's secret sauce.
Organizations also benefit from engaged employees, yet we've seen that organizations struggle with both. Just having a certain number of diverse individuals is not enough. When it comes to reaping the benefits of diversity, organizations can flourish when employees feel safe bringing their whole selves to work.

Companies with higher employee engagement experience 19.2% higher earnings.

However, those with lower employee engagement experience 32.7% lower earnings.
(DecisionWise, 2020)

If your workforce doesn't reflect the community it serves, your business may be missing out on the chance to find great employees and break into new and growing markets, both locally and globally.
Diversity makes good business sense.
(Business Development Canada, 2023)

A study about Black professionals

Why is this about Black professionals and not other diverse groups?

While there are a variety of diversity dimensions, it's important to understand what makes up a "multicultural workforce." There is more to diversity than gender, race, and ethnicity. Organizations need to understand that there is diversity within these groups and Black professionals have their own unique experience when it comes to entering and navigating tech that needs to be addressed.

(Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2019)

The solutions that apply to Black professionals are not only beneficial for Black employees but for all. While all demographics are unique, the solutions in this report can support many.

Unsatisfied and underrepresented

Less Black professionals responded as "satisfied" in their IT careers. The question is: How do we mend the Gap?

Percentage of IT Professionals Who Reported Being Very Satisfied in Their Current Role

• All Other Professionals: 34%
• Black Professionals: 23%

Black workers are underrepresented in most professional roles, especially computer and math Occupations

The gap in satisfaction

What's Important?

Our research suggests that the differences in satisfaction among ethnic groups are related to differences in value systems. We asked respondents to rank what's important, and we explored why.

Non-Black professionals rated autonomy and their manager working relationships as most important.

For Black professionals, while those were important, #1 was promotion and growth opportunities, ranked #7 by all other professionals. This is a significant discrepancy.

Recognition of my work/accomplishments also was viewed significantly differently, with Black professionals ranking it low on the list at #7 and all other professionals considering it very important at #3.

All Other Professionals		Black Professionals

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs applies to job satisfaction

In Maslow's hierarchy, it is necessary for people to achieve items lower on the hierarchy before they can successfully pursue the higher tiers.

Too many Black professionals in tech are busy trying to achieve some of the lower parts of the hierarchy; it is stopping them from achieving elements higher up that can lead to job satisfaction.

This can stop them from gaining esteem, importance, and ultimately, self-actualization. The barriers that impact safety and social belonging happen on a day-to-day basis, and so the day-to-day lives of Black professionals in tech can look very different from their counterparts.

There are barriers that hinder and solutions that support employees

There are various barriers that increase the likelihood for Black professionals to focus on the lower end of the needs hierarchy:	These are among some of the solutions that, when layered, can support Black professionals in tech in moving up the needs hierarchy. Focusing on these actions can support Black professionals in achieving much needed job satisfaction.

What does this mean?

The minority experience is not a monolith

The barriers that Black professionals encounter aren't limited to the same barriers as their colleagues, and too often this means that they aren't in a position to grow their careers in a way that leads to job satisfaction.

There is a 11% gap between the satisfaction of Black professionals and their peers.

Early Steps:
Take time to understand the Black experience.

As leaders, it's important to be aware that employee goals vary depending on the barriers they're battling with.

Intermediate:
If Black employees don't have strong relationships, networks, and mentorships it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate the path to upward mobility.

As a leader, you can look for opportunities to bridge the gap on these types of conversations.

Advanced:
Black professionals in tech are not advancing like their counterparts.

Creating clear career paths will not only benefit Black employees but also support your entire organization.

Key metrics:

• Engagement
• Committed Executive Leadership
• Development Opportunities
• Organizational Programs

Black respondents are significantly more likely to report barriers to their career advancement

Common barriers

Black professionals, like their colleagues, encounter barriers as they try to advance their careers. The barriers both groups encounter include microaggressions, racism, ageism, accessibility issues, sexual orientation, bias due to religion, lack of a career-supported network, gender bias, family status bias, and discrimination due to language/accents.

What tops the list

Microaggressions and racism are at the top of these barriers, but Black professionals also deal with other barriers that their colleagues may experience, such as gender-based bias, accessibility issues, religion, and more.

One of these barriers alone can be difficult to deal with but when they are compounded it can be very difficult to navigate through the working environment in tech.

What are microaggressions?

Microaggression

A statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.

(Oxford Languages, 2023)

Why are they significant?

These things may seem innocent enough but the messaging that is received and the lasting impression is often far from it.

Our research shows that racism and discrimination contribute to poor mental health among Black professionals.

Examples

• You're so articulate!
• How do you always have different hair, can I touch it?
• Where are you really from?
• I don't see color.
• I believe the most qualified person should get the job; everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough.

"The experience of having to question whether something happened to you because of your race or constantly being on edge because your environment is hostile can often leave people feeling invisible, silenced, angry, and resentful."
Dr. Joy Bradford,
clinical Psychologist, qtd. In Pfizer

It takes some time to get in the door

For too many Black respondents, It took Longer than their peers to Find Technology Jobs.

Both groups had some success finding jobs in "no time" – however, there was a difference. Thirty-four percent of "all others" found their jobs quickly, while the numbers were less for Black professionals, at 26%. There was also a difference at the opposite end of the spectrum. For 29% of Black professionals, it took seven months or longer to find their IT job, while that number is only 19% for their peers.

.

This points to the need for improvements in recruitment and career advancement.

29% of Black respondents said that it took them 7 months or longer to find their technology job.

Compared to 19% of all other professionals that selected the same response.

And once they're in, it's difficult to advance

Black Professionals are not Advancing as Quickly as their Colleagues. Especially when you look at their Experience.

Our research shows that compared to all other ethnicities; Black participants were 55% more likely to report that they had no career advancement/promotion in their career. There is a bigger percentage of Black professionals who have never received a promotion; there's also a large number of Black professionals who have been working a significant amount time in the same role without a promotion.

.Career Advancement

Black participants were 55% more likely to report that they had had no career advancement/promotion in their career.

No advancement

There's a high cost to lack of engagement

When employees feel disillusioned with things like career advancement and microaggressions, they often become disengaged. When you continuously have to steel yourself against microaggressions, racism, and other barriers, it prevents you from bringing your whole self to the office. The barriers can lead to what's been coined as "emotional tax." An emotional tax is the experience of feeling different from colleagues because of your inherent diversity and the associated negative effects on health, wellbeing, and the ability to thrive at work.

(DecisionWise, 2020)

"I've conditioned myself for the corporate world, I don't bring my authentic self to work."
Anonymous Interview Subject

Lack of engagement also costs the organization in terms of turnover, something many organizations today are struggling with how to address. Organizations want to increase the ability of the workforce to remain in the organization. For Black employees, this gets harder when they're not engaged and they're the only one. When the emotional tax gets to be too much, this can lead to turnover. Turnover not only costs companies billions in profits, it also negatively impacts leadership diversity. It's difficult to imagine career growth when you don't see anyone that looks like you at the top. It is a challenge to see your future when there aren't others that you can relate to at top levels in the organization, leading to one of our interview subjects to muse, "How long can I last?"

"Being Black in tech can be hard on your mental health. Your mind is constantly wondering, 'how long can I last?' "
Anonymous Interview Subject

Fewer Black professionals feel like they can be their authentic selves at work

Authentic vs. Successes

For many Black professionals, "code-switching," or altering the way one speaks and acts depending on context, becomes the norm to make others more comfortable. Many feel that being authentic and succeeding in the workplace are mutually exclusive.

Programs and Resources

We asked respondents "What's in place to build an inclusive culture at your company?" Most respondents (51% and 45%) reported that there were employee resource groups at their organizations.

Do you feel you can be your authentic self at work?

What can be done?

There are various actions that organizations can take to help address barriers.

It's important to ensure these are not put in as band-aid solutions but that they are carefully thought out and layered.

Our findings demonstrate that remote work, career development, and DEI programs along with mentorship and diverse leadership are strong enablers of professional satisfaction. An unfortunate consequence, if professionals are not nurtured, is that we risk losing much needed talent to self-employment or to other organizations.

There are several solutions

Respondents were asked to distribute points across potential solutions that could lead to job satisfaction. The ratings showed that there were common solutions that could be leveraged across all groups.

Respondents were asked what solutions were valuable for their career development.

All groups were mostly aligned on the order of the solutions that would lead to career satisfaction; however, Black professionals rated the importance of employee resource groups as higher than their colleagues did.

Mentorship and sponsorship are seen as key for all employees, as is of course training.

However, employee resource groups (ERGs) were rated significantly higher for Black professionals and discussions around diversity were higher for their colleagues. This may be because other groups feel a need to learn more about diversity, whereas Black professionals live this experience on a day-to day basis, so it's not as critical for them.

Double the number of satisfied Black professionals through mentorship and sponsorship

Mentorship and sponsorship help to close the job satisfaction gap for Black IT professionals. The percentage of satisfied Black employees almost doubles when they have a mentor or sponsorship, moving the satisfaction rate to closer to all other colleagues.

As leaders, you likely benefit from a few different advisors, and your staff should be able to benefit in the same way.

They can have their own personal board of advisors, both inside and outside of your organization, helping them to navigate the working world in IT.

To support your staff, provide guidance and coaching to internal mentors so that they can best support employees, and ensure that your organizational culture supports relationship building and trust.

While all are critical, coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship are not the same

Coaching

Performance-driven guidance geared to support the employee with on-the-job performance. This could be a short-term relationship.

Mentorship

A relationship where the mentor provides guidance, information, and expertise to support the long-term career development of the mentee.

Sponsorship

The act of advocating on the behalf of another for a position, promotion, development opportunity, etc. over a longer period.

For more information on setting up a mentorship program, see Optimize the Mentoring Program to Build a High Performing Learning Organization.

On why mentorship and sponsorship are important:

"With some degree of mentorship or sponsorship, it means that your ability to thrive or to have a positive experience in organizations increases substantially. Mentorship and sponsorship are very often the lynchpin of someone being successful and sticking with an organization. Sponsorship is an endorsement to other high-level stakeholders who very often are the gatekeepers of opportunity. Sponsors help to shepherd you through the gate."

Carlos Thomas Executive Councilor, Info-Tech Research Group

What is an employee resource group?

IT Professionals rated ERGs as the third top driver of success at work

Employee resource groups enable employees to connect in their workplace based on shared characteristics or life experiences.

ERGs generally focus on providing support, enhancing career development, and contributing to personal development in the work environment. Some ERGs provide advice to the organization on how they can support their diverse employees.

As leaders, you should support and encourage the formation of ERGs in your organization.

What each ERG does will vary according to the needs of employees in your organization. Your role is to enable the ERGs as they are created and maintained.

On setting up and leveraging employee resource groups:

"Employee resource groups, when leveraged in an authentically intentional way, can be the some of the most impactful stakeholders in the development and implementation of the organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. ERGs are essential to the development of policies, programs, and initiatives that address the needs of equity-seeking groups and are key to driving organizational culture and employee wellbeing, in addition to hiring and recruitment. ERGs must be set up for success by having adequate resources to do the work, which includes adequate budgets, executive sponsorship, training, support, and capacity to do the work. According to a Great Place To Work survey (2021), 50% of ERGs identified the need for adequate resources as a challenge for carrying out the work.:"

CINNAMON CLARK PRACTICE LEAD, DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION services, MCLEAN & CO

There is a gap when it comes to diversity in leadership

Representation at leadership levels is especially stagnant.

Black Americans comprise 13.6% of the US population
(2022 data from the US Census Bureau)

And yet only 5.9% of the country's CEOs are Black, with only 6 (1%) at the top of Fortune 500 companies.
(2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Fortune.com)

I've never worked for a company that has Black executives. It's difficult to envision long-term growth with an organization when you don't see yourself represented in leadership.
– Anonymous Interview Subject

Having diversity in your leadership team doubles satisfaction

Our research shows that Black professionals are more satisfied in their role when they see leaders that look like them.

Satisfaction of other professionals is not as impacted by diversity in leadership as for Black professionals. Satisfaction doubles in organizations that have a diverse leadership team.

To reap the benefits from diversity, we need to ensure diversity is not just in entry or mid-level positions and provide employees an opportunity to see diversity in their company's leadership.

On the need for diversity in leadership:

"As a Black professional leader, it's not lost on me that I have a responsibility. I have to demonstrate authenticity, professionalism, and exemplary behavior that others can mimic. And I must also showcase that there are possibilities for those coming up in their career. I feel very grateful that I can bestow onto others my knowledge, my experience, my journey, and the tips that I've used to help bring me to be where I am. (Having Black leaders in an organization) demonstrates that there is talent across the board, that there are all types of women and people with proficiencies. What it brings to the table is a difference in thoughts and experience. A person like myself, sitting at the table, can bring a unique perspective on employee behavior and employee impact. CCL is an organization focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion; for sure having me at the table and others that look like me at the table demonstrates to the public an organization that's practicing what it preaches."

C. Fara Francis CIO, Center for creative leadership

Work from home

While all groups have embraced the work-from-home movement, many Black professionals find it reduces the impact of racial incidents in the workplace.

Percentage of employees who experienced positive changes in motivation after working remotely.

I have to guard and protect myself from experiencing and witnessing racism every day. I am currently working remotely, and I can say for certain my mood and demeanor have improved. Not having to decide if I should address a racist comment or action has made my day easier.
Source: Slate, 2022

Remote work significantly led to feelings of better chances for career advancement

Survey respondents were asked about the positive and negative changes they saw in their interactions and experiences with remote work. Black employees and their colleagues replied similarly, with mostly positive experiences.

While both groups enjoyed better chances for career advancement, the difference was significantly higher for Black professionals.

Reasons for Self-Employment:

More Black professionals have chosen self-employment than their colleagues.

The biggest reasons for both groups in choosing self-employment were for better pay, career growth, and work/life balance.

While the desire for better pay was the highest reason for both groups, for engaged employees salary is a lower priority than other concerns (Adecco Group's Global Workforce of the Future report). Consider salary in conjunction with career growth, work/life balance, and the variety in the work that your employees have.

If we don't consider our Black employees, not only do we risk them leaving the organization, but they may decide to just work for themselves.

Most professionals believe their organizations are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion

38% of all respondents believe their organizations are very committed to DEI
49% believe they are somewhat committed
9% feel they are not committed
4% are unsure

Make sure supports are in place to help your employees grow in their careers:

Leadership
IT Leadership Career Planning Research Center

Diversity and Inclusion Tactics
IT Diversity & Inclusion Tactics

Employee Development Planning
Implement an IT Employee Development Plan

Belief in your organization's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts isn't consistent across groups: Make sure actions are seen as genuine

While organization's efforts are acknowledged, Black professionals aren't as optimistic about the commitment as their peers. Make sure that your programs are reaching the various groups you want to impact, to increase the likelihood of satisfaction in their roles.

SATISFACTION INCREASES IN BOTH BLACK AND NON-BLACK PROFESSIONALS

When they believe in their company's commitment to diversity, equity. and inclusion.

Of those who believe in their organization's commitment, 61% of Black professionals and 67% of non-Black professionals are very satisfied in their roles.

Recommendations

It's important to understand the current landscape:

• The barriers that Black employees often face.
• The potential solutions that can help close the gap in employee satisfaction.

We recognize that resolving this is not easy. Although senior executives are recognizing that a diverse set of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds is crucial to fostering innovation and competing on the global stage, organizations often don't take the extra step to actively look for racialized talent, and many people still believe that race doesn't play an important part in an individual's ability to access opportunities.

Look at a variety of solutions that you can implement within your organization; layering solutions is the key to driving business diversity. Always keep in mind that diversity is not a monolith, that the experiences of each demographic varies.

Info-Tech resources

• Recruit IT Talent
• Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT
• Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT Webinar

Appendix

About the research

Diversity in tech survey

As part of the research process for the State of Black Tech Report, Info-Tech Research Group conducted an open online survey among its membership and wider community of professionals. The survey was fielded from October 2021 to April 2022, collecting 633 responses.

Current Position

Education and Experience

Education was fairly consistent across both groups, with a few exceptions: more Black professionals had secondary school (9% vs. 4%) and more Black professionals had Doctorate degrees (4% vs. 2%).

We had more non-Black respondents with 20+ years of experience (31% vs. 19%) and more Black respondents with less than 1 year of experience (8% vs. 5%) – the rest of the years of experience were consistent across the two groups.

It is important to recognize that people are often seen by "the world" as belonging to a different race or set of races than what they personally identify as. Both aspects impact a professional's experience in the workplace.

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Get the Most Out of Workday

In today’s connected world, the continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Focus optimization on organizational value delivery.

HR, finance, and planning systems are the core foundation of enterprise resource systems (ERP) systems. These are core tools that the business leverages to accomplish its goals. An ERP that is doing its job well is invisible to the business. The challenges come when the tool is no longer invisible. It has become a source of friction in the functioning of the business.

Workday is expensive, benefits can be difficult to quantify, and optimization can be difficult to navigate. Over time, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of these systems is often not monitored. This is complicated in today’s digital landscape with multiple integration points, siloed data, and competing priorities.

Too often organizations jump into selecting replacement systems without understanding the health of their systems. We can do better than this.

IT leaders need to take a proactive approach to continually monitor and optimize their enterprise applications. Strategically realign business goals, identify business application capabilities, complete a process assessment, evaluate user satisfaction, measure module satisfaction, and improve vendor relations to create an optimization plan that will drive a cohesive technology strategy that delivers results.

Lisa Highfield

Research Director, Enterprise Applications

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Your Workday systems are critical to supporting the organization’s business processes. They are expensive. Direct benefits and ROI can be hard to measure.

Workday application portfolios are often behemoths to support. With complex integration points and unique business processes, stabilization is the norm.

Application optimization is essential to staying competitive and productive in today’s digital environment.

Common Obstacles

Balancing optimization with stabilization is one of the most difficult decisions for Workday application leaders.

Competing priorities and often unclear enterprise application strategies make it difficult to make decisions about what, how, and when to optimize.

Enterprise applications involve large numbers of processes, users, and evolving vendor roadmaps.

Teams do not have a framework to illustrate, communicate, and justify the optimization effort in the language your stakeholders understand.

Info-Tech's Approach

In today’s changing world, it is imperative to evaluate your applications for optimization and to look for opportunities to capitalize on rapidly expanding technologies, integrated data, and employee solutions that meet the needs of your organization.

Assess your Workday applications and the environment in which they exist. Take a business-first strategy to prioritize optimization efforts.

Validate capabilities, user satisfaction, and issues around data, vendor management, and costs to build out an overall roadmap and optimization strategy.

Pull this all together to prioritize optimization efforts and develop a concrete roadmap.

Info-Tech Insight

Workday is investing heavily in expanding and deepening its finance and expanded product offerings, but we cannot stand still on our optimization efforts. Understand your product(s), processes, user satisfaction, integration points, and the availability of data to business decision makers. Examine these areas to develop a personalized Workday optimization roadmap that fits the needs of your organization. Incorporate these methodologies into an ongoing optimization strategy aimed at enabling the business, increasing productivity, and reducing costs.

Insight summary

Continuous assessment and optimization of your Workday ERP is critical to the success of your organization.

• Applications and the environments in which they live are constantly evolving.
• This blueprint provides business and application managers with a method to complete a health assessment of their Workday systems to identify areas for improvement and optimization.
• Put optimization practices into effect by:
  • Aligning and prioritizing key business and technology drivers.
  • Identifying ERP process classification and performing a gap analysis.
  • Measuring user satisfaction across key departments.
  • Evaluating vendor relations.
  • Understanding how data plays into the mix.
  • Pulling it all together into an optimization roadmap.

Workday enterprise resource planning (ERP) facilitates the flow of information across business units. It allows for the seamless integration of data across financial and people systems to create a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

In many organizations, Workday is considered the core people systems and is becoming more widely adopted for finance and a full ERP system.

ERP systems are considered the lifeblood of organizations. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.

ERP implementation should not be a one-and-done exercise. There needs to be ongoing optimization to enable business processes and optimal organizational results.

Workday enterprise resource planning (ERP)

Workday

• Finance
• Human Resources Management
• Talent and Performance
• Payroll and Workforce Management
• Employee Experience
• Student Information Systems
• Professional Services Automation
• Analytics and Reporting
• Spend Management
• Enterprise Planning

What is Workday?

Workday has many modules that work together to facilitate the flow of information across the business. Workday’s unique data platform allows for seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.

Workday operates in many industry verticals and performs well in service organizations.

An ERP system:

• Automates processes, reducing the amount of manual, routine work.
• Integrates with core modules, eliminating the fragmentation of systems.
• Centralizes information for reporting from multiple parts of the value chain to a single point.

Workday Fast Facts

Product Description

• Workday offers HR, Finance, planning systems, and extended offerings. Workday prides itself on rapidly expanding its product portfolio to meet the needs of organizations in a changing world.
• The integrated cloud data model Workday has been built on allows for seamless end-to-end organizational data.
• Offerings include Financial Management, Human Capital Management, Workday Adaptive Planning, Spend Management, Talent Management, Payroll & Workforce Management, Analytics & Reporting, Student, Professional Services Automation, Platform & Product Extensions, Workday Peakon Employee Voice, and most recently VNDLY (contract and vendor management).

Evolution of Workday

Workday HCM 2006

Workday Financial Management 2007

Workday 10 (Finance & HCM) 2010

Workday Student (Higher Education) 2011

Workday Cloud (PAAS) 2017

Acquisition of Adaptive Insights 2018

Acquisition of VNDLY 2021

Vendor Description

• Workday was founded in 2005 by Aneel Bhusri and Dave Duffield (former PeopleSoft founder.)
• The platform-as-a-service (PaaS) bundles and modules are sold in a subscription model to customers.
• Workday has untaken several acquisitions in recent years to grow the product and invests in early-stage companies through Workday Ventures.
• Workday is publicly traded (2012); Nasdaq: WDAY.

Employees: 12,500

Headquarters: Pleasanton, CA

Website: workday.com

Founded: 2005

Presence: Global, Publicly Traded

Workday by the numbers

77%

77% of clients were satisfied with the product’s business value created. 78% of clients were satisfied that the cost is fair relative to value, and 95% plan to renew. (SoftwareReviews, 2022)

50% of Fortune 500

Workday has seen steady growth working with over 50% of Fortune 500 companies. 4,100 of those are HCM and finance customers. It has seen great success in service industries and has a 95% gross retention rate. (Diginomica)

40%

Workday reported a 40% year-over-year increase in Workday Financial Management deployments for both new and existing customers, as accelerated demand for Workday cloud-based continues. (Workday, June 2021)

Workday Finance

A great opportunity for Workday

Workday continues to invest in Workday Finance

• 35% of the Fortune 500 and 50% of the Fortune 50 use Workday HCM products (Seeking Alpha, 2019).
• The customer base for Workday Financial Management has increased from 45 in 2014 to 530 in 2019 with 9 Fortune 500 companies in the mix. This infers that Financial Management is a product that will drive future growth for Workday.

Recent Finance-Related Acquisitions

• Zimit - Quotation Management
• Stories.bi - Augmented Analytics
• Adaptive Insights - Business Planning
• SkipFlag - Machine Learning (AI)
• Platfora - Analytics
• VNDLY - Contractor and Vendor Management

Workday challenges and dissatisfaction

Workday challenges and dissatisfaction

Organizational

• Competing Priorities
• Lack of Strategy
• Budget Challenges

People and teams

• Knowledgeable Staff/Turnover
• Lack of Internal Skills
• Ability to Manage New Products
• Lack of Training

Technology

• Integration Issues
• Selecting Tools & Technology
• Keeping Pace With Technology Changes
• Update Challenges

Data

• Access to Data
• Data Literacy
• Data Hygiene
• One View of the Customer

Finance, IT, Sales, and other users of the ERP system can only optimize ERP with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve ERP technology capabilities and customer interaction.

Info-Tech Insight

While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for ERP.

Where are applications leaders focusing?

Big growth numbers

Year-over-year call topic requests

Enterprise Application Optimization - 124%

Product - 65%

Enterprise Application Selection - 76%

Agile - 79%

(Info-Tech case data, 2022; N=3,293)

We are seeing Applications leaders’ priorities change year over year, driven by a shift in their approach to problem solving. Leaders are moving from a process-centric approach to a collaborative approach that breaks down boundaries and brings teams together.

Other changes

Year-over-year call topic requests

Application Portfolio Management - 13%

Business Process Management - 4%

Software Development Lifecycle -25%

(Info-Tech case data, 2022; N=3,293)

Software development lifecycle topics are tactical point solutions. Organizations have been “shifting left” to tackle the strategic issues such as product vision and Agile mindset to optimize the whole organization.

Application optimization is risky without a plan

Avoid these common pitfalls:

• Not considering how this pays into the short-, medium-, and long-term ERP strategy.
• Not considering application optimization as a business and IT partnership, which requires the continuous formal engagement of all participants.
• Not having a good understanding of your current state, including integration points and data.
• Not adequately accommodating feedback and changes after digital applications are deployed and employed.
• Not treating digital applications as a motivator for potential future IT optimization efforts and incorporating digital assets in strategic business planning.
• Not involving department leads, management, and other subject-matter experts to facilitate the organizational change digital applications bring.

“A successful application optimization strategy starts with the business need in mind and not from a technological point of view. No matter from which angle you look at it, modernizing a legacy application is a considerable undertaking that can’t be taken lightly. Your best approach is to begin the journey with baby steps.” – Norelus, Pamidala, and Senti, 2020

Info-Tech’s methodology for getting the most out of your ERP

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Identify and prioritize your Workday optimization goals.

Application Portfolio Assessment

Assess IT-enabled user satisfaction across your Workday portfolio.

Key deliverable:

Workday Optimization Roadmap

Complete an assessment of processes, user satisfaction, data quality, and vendor management.

Case Study

MANAGED AP AUTOMATION with OneSource Virtual

TripAdvisor + OneSource

INDUSTRY: Travel

SOURCE: OneSource Virtual, 2017

Challenge

TripAdvisor needed a solution that would decrease administrative labor from its accounting department.

“We needed something that was already compatible with our Workday tenant, that didn’t require a lot of customizations and would be an enhancement to our processes.” – Director of Accounting Operations, Scott Garner

Requirements included:

• Easy implementation
• Existing system compatibility
• Enhancement to the company’s process
• Competitive pricing
• Secure

Solution

TripAdvisor chose to outsource its accounts payable services to OneSource Virtual (OSV).

OneSource Virtual offers the comprehensive finance and accounting outsourcing solutions needed to improve efficiency, eliminate paper processes, reduce errors, and improve cash flow.

Managed AP services include scanning and auditing all extracted invoice data for accuracy, transmitting AP files with line-item details from invoices, and creating full invoice images in Workday.

Results

• Accurate and timely invoice processing for over 3,000 invoices per month.
• Empowered employees to focus on higher-level tasks rather than day-to-day data entry.
• 50+ hours saved per week on routine data entry.
• Employees had 30% of their time freed up to focus on high-value tasks.
• Allowed TripAdvisor to become more scalable across departments and as an organization.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Phase 1

Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenge.

Phase 2

Call #2:

• Build the Workday team.
• Align organizational goals.

Call #3:

• Map current state.
• Inventory Workday capabilities and processes.
• Explore Workday-related costs.

Phase 3

Call #4: Understand product satisfaction and vendor management.

Call #5: Review APA results.

Call #6: Understand Workday optimization opportunities.

Call #7: Determine the right Workday path for your organization.

Phase 4

Call #8: Build out optimization roadmap and next steps.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Map Current-State Capabilities

Phase 1

1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

1.2 Build an ERP Strategy Model

1.3 Inventory Current System State

1.4 Define Optimization Timeframe

1.5 Understand Workday Costs

Phase 2

2.1 Assess Workday Capabilities

2.2 Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Optimization Opportunities

3.2 Discover Optimization Initiatives

Phase 4

4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

• Align your organizational goals
• Gain a firm understanding of your current state
• Inventory Workday and related applications
• Confirm the organization’s capabilities

This phase involves the following participants:

• CFO
• Department Leads – Finance, Procurement, Asset Management
• Applications Director
• Senior Business Analyst
• Senior Developer
• Procurement Analysts

Step 1.1

Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

Activities

1.1.1 Identify Stakeholders Critical to Success

1.1.2 Map Your Workday Optimization Stakeholders

1.1.3 Determine Your Workday Optimization Team

Map Current State Capabilities

Step 1.1

Step 1.2

Step 1.3

Step 1.4

Step 1.5

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Identify ERP drivers and objectives
• Explore ERP challenges and pain points
• Discover ERP benefits and opportunities
• Align the ERP foundation with your corporate strategy

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder map
• Workday optimization team

ERP optimization stakeholders

• Understand the roles necessary to Get the Most Out of Your Workday.
• Understand the role of each player within your project structure. Look for listed participants on the activities slides to determine when each player should be involved.

Info-Tech Insight

Do not limit project input or participation. Include subject-matter experts and internal stakeholders at stages within the project. Such inputs can be solicited on a one-off basis as needed. This ensures you take a holistic approach to create your ERP optimization strategy.

1.1.1 Identify Workday optimization stakeholders

1 hour

1. Hold a meeting to identify the Workday optimization stakeholders.
2. Use the next slide as a guide.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Understand how to navigate the complex web of stakeholders in ERP

Identify which stakeholders to include and what their level of involvement should be during requirements elicitation based on relevant topic expertise.

Large-scale ERP projects require the involvement of many stakeholders from all corners and levels of the organization, including project sponsors, IT, end users, and business stakeholders. Consider the influence and interest of stakeholders in contributing to the requirements elicitation process and involve them accordingly.

Activity 1.1.2 Map your Workday optimization stakeholders

1 hour

1. Use the list of Workday optimization stakeholders.
2. Map each stakeholder on the quadrant based on their expected Influence and involvement in the project.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Map the organization’s stakeholders

The Workday optimization team

Consider the core team functions when putting together the project team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, and Operations) to create a well-aligned ERP optimization strategy.

Don’t let your project team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limiting the size of the project team will enable effective decision making while still including functional business units such as Human Resources, Operations, Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales, Service, and Finance as well as IT.

1.1.3 Determine your Workday optimization team

1 hour

1. Have the project manager and other key stakeholders discuss and determine who will be involved in the Workday optimization project.
   • The size of the team will depend on the initiative and size of your organization.
   • Key business leaders in key areas and IT representatives should be involved.

Note: Depending on your initiative and size of your organization, the size of this team will vary.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Step 1.2

Build an ERP Strategy Model

Activities

1.2.1 Explore Organizational Goals and Business Needs

1.2.2 Discover Environmental Factors and Technology Drivers

1.2.3 Consider Potential Barriers to Achieving Workday Optimization

1.2.4 Set the Foundation for Success

1.2.5 Discuss Workday Strategy and Develop Your ERP Optimization Goals

Map Current State Capabilities

Step 1.1

Step 1.2

Step 1.3

Step 1.4

Step 1.5

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Identify ERP drivers and objectives
• Explore ERP challenges and pain points
• Discover ERP benefits and opportunities
• Align the ERP foundation with the corporate strategy

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team

Outcomes of this step

• ERP business model
• Strategy alignment

Align your Workday strategy with the corporate strategy

Corporate Strategy

Your corporate strategy:

• Conveys the current state of the organization and the path it wants to take.
• Identifies future goals and business aspirations.
• Communicates the initiatives that are critical for getting the organization from its current state to the desired future state.

Unified ERP Strategy

• The ideal ERP strategy is aligned with overarching organizational business goals and broader IT initiatives.
• Include all affected business units and departments in these conversations.
• The ERP optimization can be and should be linked, with metrics, to the corporate strategy and ultimate business objectives.

IT Strategy

Your IT strategy:

• Communicates the organization’s budget and spending on ERP.
• Identifies IT initiatives that will support the business and key ERP objectives.
• Outlines staffing and resourcing for ERP initiatives.

ERP projects are more successful when the management team understands the strategic importance and the criticality of alignment. Time needs to be spent upfront aligning business strategies with ERP capabilities. Effective alignment between IT and the business should happen daily. Alignment doesn’t just need to occur at the executive level but at each level of the organization.

ERP Business Model Template

Conduct interviews to elicit the business context

Stakeholder Interviews

Begin by conducting interviews of your executive team. Interview the following leaders:

1. Chief Information Officer
2. Chief Executive Officer
3. Chief Financial Officer
4. Chief Revenue Officer/Sales Leader
5. Chief Operating Officer/Supply Chain & Logistics Leader
6. Chief Technology Officer/Chief Product Officer

INTERVIEWS MUST UNCOVER:

1. Your organization’s mission & vision
2. Your organization’s top business goals
3. Your organization’s top business initiatives
4. The stakeholder’s top goals and initiatives
5. Tools and systems needed to facilitate organizational and departmental goals

Understand the mission, vision, and goals of the organization and supporting departments

Info-Tech Insight

One of the biggest drivers for ERP adoption is the ability to make quicker decisions from timely information. This driver is a result of external considerations. Many industries today are highly competitive, uncertain, and rapidly changing. To succeed under these pressures, there needs to be timely information and visibility into all components of the organization.

1.2.1 Explore organizational goals and business needs

60 minutes

1. Discuss organizational mission, vision, and goals. What are the top initiatives underway? Are you contracting, expanding, or innovating?
2. Discuss business needs to support organizational goals. What are identified goals and initiatives at the departmental level? What tools and resources within the Workday system will help make this successful?
3. Understand how the company is running today and what the organization’s future will look like. Envision the future system state.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Organizational Goals

• Organization’s mission and vision
• Top business goals
• Initiatives underway

Business Needs

• Departmental goals
• Business drivers
• Key initiatives
• Key capabilities to support the organization
• Requirements to support the business capability and process

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

ERP Business Model

Organizational Goals

• Organization’s mission and vision
• Top business goals (~3)
• Initiatives underway
• KPIs and metrics that are important to the organization in achieving its goals and objectives

Business Needs

• Departmental goals
• Key initiatives
• Key capabilities to support the organization
• Tools and systems required to support business capability or process
• KPIs and metrics that are important to the department/stakeholder in achieving its goals and objectives

Understand the technology drivers and environmental factors

Info-Tech Insight

A comprehensive plan that takes into consideration organizational goals, departmental needs, technology drivers, and environmental factors will allow for a collaborative approach to defining your Workday strategy.

1.2.2 Discover environmental factors and technology drivers

30 minutes

1. Identify business drivers that are contributing to the organization’s need for ERP.
2. Understand how the company is running today and what the organization’s future will look like. Try to identify the purpose for becoming an integrated organization. Use a whiteboard or flip charts and markers to capture key findings.
3. Consider external considerations, organizational drivers, technology drivers, and key functional requirements.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

External Considerations

• Funding constraints
• Regulations

Technology Considerations

• Data accuracy
• Data quality
• Better reporting

Functional Requirements

• Information availability
• Integration between systems
• Secure data

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Create a realistic ERP foundation by identifying the challenges and barriers the project will bestow

There are several different factors that may stifle the success of an ERP implementation. Organizations that are creating an ERP foundation must scan their current environment to identify internal barriers and challenges.

Common Internal Barriers

1.2.3 Consider potential barriers to achieving Workday optimization

1-3 hours

1. Open tab 1.2, “Strategy & Goals,” in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
2. Identify barriers to ERP optimization success.
3. Review the ERP critical success factors and how they relate to your optimization efforts.
4. Discuss potential barriers to successful ERP optimization.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Functional Gaps

• No online purchase order requisitions

Technical Gaps

• Inconsistent reporting – data quality concerns

Process Gaps

• Duplication of data
• Lack of system integration

Barriers to Success

• Cultural mindset
• Resistance to change
• Lack of training
• Funding

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

ERP Business Model

Organizational Goals

• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Integrity
• One source of truth for data
• One team
• Customer service, external and internal

Barriers

• Organizational silos
• Lack of formal process documentation
• Funding availability
• What goes first? Organizational priorities

What does success look like?

Top 15 Critical Success Factors for ERP System Implementation

(Epizitone and Olugbara, 2019; CC BY 4.0)

Info-Tech Insight

Complement your ability to deliver on your critical success factors with the capabilities of your implementation partner to drive a successful ERP implementation.

“Implementation partners can play an important role in successful ERP implementations. They can work across the organizational departments and layers creating a synergy and a communications mechanism.” – Ayogeboh Epizitone, Durban University of Technology

1.2.3 Set the foundation for success

1-3 hours

1. Open tab 1.2, “Strategy & Goals,” in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
2. Identify barriers to ERP optimization success.
3. Review the ERP critical success factors and how they relate to your optimization efforts.
4. Discuss potential barriers to successful ERP optimization.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Business Benefits

• Business-IT alignment

IT Benefits

• Compliance
• Scalability
• Operational efficiency

Organizational Benefits

• Data accuracy
• Data quality
• Better reporting

Enablers of Success

• Change management
• Training
• Alignment with strategic objectives

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

ERP Business Model

Organizational Goals

• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Integrity
• One source of truth for data
• One team
• Customer service, external and internal

Enablers

• Cross-trained employees
• Desire to focus on value-add activities
• Collaborative
• Top-level executive support
• Effective change management process

The Business Value Matrix

Rationalizing and quantifying the value of Workday

Benefits can be realized internally and externally to the organization or department and have different drivers of value.

• Financial benefits refer to the degree to which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and are often quite tangible.
• Human benefits refer to how an application can deliver value through a user’s experience.
• Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact and improve your organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.
• Outward refers to value sources that come from your interaction with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

Organizational Goals

Increased Revenue

Application functions that are specifically related to the impact on your organization’s ability to generate revenue and deliver value to your customers.

Reduced Costs

Reduction of overhead. The ways in which an application limits the operational costs of business functions.

Enhanced Services

Functions that enable business capabilities that improve the organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.

Reach Customers

Application functions that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce market information and insights.

Business Value Matrix

1.2.4 Define your Workday strategy and optimization goals

30 minutes

1. Discuss the Workday business model exercises and ERP critical success factors.
2. Through the lens of corporate goals and objectives think about the supporting ERP technology. How can the ERP system bring value to the organization? What are the top things that will make this initiative a success? What major themes are emerging?
3. Develop five to ten optimization goals that will form the basis for the success of this initiative.
   • What is a strong statement that will help guide decision making throughout the life of the ERP project?
   • What are your overarching requirements for business processes?
   • What do you ultimately want to achieve?
   • What is a statement that will ensure all stakeholders are on the same page for the project?

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Workday strategy and optimization goals

Key Themes Emerging / Workday Strategy

• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Integrity
• One source of truth for data
• One team
• Customer service, external and internal

Optimization Goals

• Support Business Agility: A flexible and adaptable integrated business system providing a seamless user experience.
• Use ERP best practices: Do not recreate or replicate what we have today; focus on modernization. Exercise customization governance by focusing on those customizations that are strategically differentiating.
• Automate: Take manual work out where we can, empowering staff and improving productivity through automation and process efficiencies.
• Stay focused: Focus on scope around core business capabilities. Maintain scope control. Prioritize demand in line with the strategy.
• Strive for “One Source of Truth”: Unified data model and integrate processes where possible. Assess integration needs carefully.

Step 1.3

Inventory Current System State

Activities

1.3.1 Inventory Workday Applications and Interactions

1.3.2 Draw Your Workday System Diagram

1.3.3 Inventory Your Workday Modules and Business Capabilities (or Business Processes)

1.3.4 Define Your Key Workday Optimization Modules and Business Capabilities

Map Current-State Capabilities

Step 1.1

Step 1.2

Step 1.3

Step 1.4

Step 1.5

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Inventory of applications
• Mapping interactions between systems

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team
• Enterprise Architect
• Data Architect

Outcomes of this step

• Systems inventory
• Systems diagram

1.3.1 Inventory Workday applications and interfaces

1-3+ hours

1. Enter your Workday systems, Workday extended applications, and integrated applications within scope.
2. Include any abbreviated names or nicknames.
3. List the application type or main function. List the modules the organization has licensed.
4. List any integrations.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

ERP Data Flow

When assessing the current application portfolio that supports your ERP, the tendency will be to focus on the applications under the ERP umbrella. These relate mostly to marketing, sales, and customer service. Be sure to include systems that act as input to, or benefit due to outputs from, ERP or similar applications.

1.3.2 Draw your Workday system diagram (optional)

1-3+ hours

1. From the Workday application inventory, diagram your network. Include:
   • Any internal or external systems
   • Integration points
   • Data flow

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Sample Workday and integrations map

Business capability map (Level 0)

In business architecture, the primary view of an organization is known as a business capability map.

A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation, rather than how.

Business capabilities:

• Represent stable business functions.
• Are unique and independent of each other.
• Will typically have a defined business outcome.

A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.

The value stream

Value stream defined:

Value Streams:

Design Product

• Manufacturers work proactively to design products and services that will meet consumer demand.
• Products are driven by consumer demand and government regulations.

Produce Product

• Production processes and labor costs are constantly analyzed for efficiencies and accuracies.
• Quality of product and services are highly regulated through all levels of the supply chain.

Sell Product

• Sales networks and sales staff deliver the product from the organization to the end consumer.
• Marketing plays a key role throughout the value stream connecting consumers’ wants and needs to the products and services offered.

Customer Service

• Relationships with consumers continue after the sale of products and services.
• Continued customer support and data mining is important to revenue streams.

Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities in the marketplace. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment in which an organization operates. There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams.

• Core value streams are mostly externally facing. They deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map.
• Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.

Taking a value stream approach to process mapping allows you to move across departmental and system boundaries to understand the underlying business capability.

Some mistakes organizations make are over-customizing processes, or conversely, not customizing when required. Workday provides good baseline process that work for most organizations. However, if a process is broken or not working efficiently take the time to investigate it, including underlying policies, roles, workflows, and integrations.

Process frameworks

Help define your inventory of sales, marketing, and customer services processes.

(APQC)

If you do not have a documented process model, you can use the APQC Framework to help define your inventory of sales business processes.

APQC’s Process Classification Framework is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations.

APQC’s Process Classification Framework

Process mapping hierarchy

A process classification framework is helpful for organizations to effectively define their processes and manage them appropriately.

Use Info-Tech’s related industry resources or publicly available process frameworks (such as APQC) to develop and map your business processes.

These processes can then be mapped to supporting applications and modules. Policies, roles, and workflows also play a role and should be considered in the overall functioning.

APQC’s Process Classification Framework

(APQC)

Focus on level-1 processes

Info-Tech Insight

Focus your initial assessment on the level-1 processes that matter to your organization. This allows you to target your scant resources on the areas of optimization that matter most to the organization and minimize the effort required from your business partners.

You may need to iterate the assessment as challenges are identified. This allows you to be adaptive and deal with emerging issues more readily and become a more responsive partner to the business.

Process mapping and supporting ERP modules

The operating model

An operating model is a framework that drives operating decisions. It helps to set the parameters for the scope of ERP and the processes that will be supported. The operating model will serve to group core operational processes. These groupings represent a set of interrelated, consecutive processes aimed at generating a common output.

From your developed processes and your Workday license agreements you will be able to pinpoint the scope for investigation, including the processes and modules.

Workday modules and process enablement

Workday Finance

• Accounts Receivable and Collections
• Accounts Payable and Payments
• Asset Management
• Audit and Controls
• Billing and Invoicing
• Cash Management
• Contracts
• Financial Reporting and Analysis
• [Global] Close and Consolidation
• Multi-GAAP/Multi-book/Multi-chart of Accounts
• Revenue Management

Spend Management

• Strategic Sourcing
• Procure to Pay
• Inventory
• Expenses

Professional Services Automation

• Project and Resource Management
• Project Financials
• Project Billing
• Expense Management
• Time Tracking

Enterprise Planning

• Financial planning
• Reporting
• Analytics
• Budgets
• Insights
• Workforce planning
• Sales planning
• Operational planning

Analytics and Reporting

• Financial Management Core Reporting
• Human Capital Management Core Reporting
• Benchmarking
• Data Hub
• Augmented Analytics

Student

• Admissions
• Financial Aid
• Advising
• Student Finance
• Student Records

Human Capital Management (HCM)

• Human Resource Management
• Organization Management
• Business Process Management
• Reporting and Analytics
• Employee and Manager Self-Service
• Contingent Labor Management
• Skills Cloud
• Absence Management
• Benefits Administration
• ACA Management
• Compensation
• Talent Optimization

Payroll and Workforce Management

• Scheduling and Labor Management
• Time and Attendance
• Absence
• Payroll

Employee Experience

• Employee Engagement Insights
• Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Measurement
• Health and Well-Being Metrics
• Back-to-Workplace Readiness
• Confidential Employee-Manager Conversations
• Attrition Prediction
• Continuous Industry Benchmarks

Talent and Performance

• Talent Profile
• Continuous Feedback
• Survey Campaigns
• Embedded Analytics
• Goal Management
• Performance Management
• Talent Review
• Calibration
• Competencies
• Career and Development Planning
• Succession Planning
• Talent Marketplace
• Mobile
• Expenses

1.3.3 Inventory your Workday modules and business capabilities

1-3+ hours

1. Look at the major functions or processes within the scope of ERP.
2. From the inventory of current systems, choose the submodules or processes that you want to investigate and are within scope for this optimization initiative.
3. List the top modules, capabilities, or processes that will be within the scope of this optimization initiative.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

1.3.4 Define your key Workday optimization modules and business capabilities

1-3+ hours

1. Look at the major functions or processes within the scope of ERP.
2. From the inventory of current systems, choose the submodules or processes for this optimization initiative. Base this on those that are most critical to the business, those with the lowest levels of satisfaction, or those that perhaps need more knowledge around them.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Step 1.4

Define Optimization Timeframe

Activities

1.4.1 Define Workday Key Dates, and Workday Optimization Roadmap Timeframe and Structure

Map Current-State Capabilities

Step 1.1

Step 1.2

Step 1.3

Step 1.4

Step 1.5

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Defining key dates related to your optimization initiative
• Identifying key building blocks for your optimization roadmap

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team
• Vendor Management

Outcomes of this step

• Optimization Key Dates
• Optimization Roadmap Timeframe and Structure

1.4.1 Optimization roadmap timeframe and structure

1-3+ hours

1. Key items and dates relevant to your optimization initiatives, such as any products reaching end of life or end of contract, or budget proposal submission deadlines.
2. Enter the expected Optimization Initiative Start Date.
3. Enter the Roadmap Length. This is the total amount of time you expect to participate in the Workday Optimization Initiative. This includes short-, medium-, and long-term initiatives.
4. Enter your Roadmap Date markers – how you want dates displayed on the roadmap.
5. Enter column time values – what level of granularity will be helpful for this initiative?
6. Enter the sprint or cycle timeframe – use this if following Agile.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Step 1.5

Understand Workday Costs

Activities

1.5.1 Document Costs Associated With Workday

Map Current-State Capabilities

Step 1.1

Step 1.2

Step 1.3

Step 1.4

Step 1.5

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Define your Workday direct and indirect costs
• List your Workday expense line items

This step involves the following participants:

• Finance representatives
• Workday Optimization Team

Outcomes of this step

• Current Workday and related costs

1.5.1 Document costs associated with Workday

1-3 hours

Before you can make changes and optimization decisions, you need to understand the high-level costs associated with your current application architecture. This activity will help you identify the types of technology and people costs associated with your current systems.

1. Identify the types of technology costs associated with each current system:
   1. System Maintenance
   2. Annual Renewal
   3. Licensing
2. Identify the cost of people associated with each current system:
   1. Full-Time Employees
   2. Application Support Staff
   3. Help Desk Tickets

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Phase 2

Assess Your Current State

Phase 1

1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

1.2 Build an ERP Strategy Model

1.3 Inventory Current System State

1.4 Define Optimization Timeframe

1.5 Understand Workday Costs

Phase 2

2.1 Assess Workday Capabilities

2.2 Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Optimization Opportunities

3.2 Discover Optimization Initiatives

Phase 4

4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

• Determine process relevance
• Perform a gap analysis
• Perform a user satisfaction survey
• Assess software and vendor satisfaction

This phase involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team
• Users across functional areas of your ERP and related technologies

Step 2.1

Assess Workday Capabilities

Activities

2.1.1 Rate Capability Relevance to Organizational Goals

2.1.2 Complete a Workday Application Portfolio Assessment

2.1.3 (Optional) Assess Workday Process Maturity

Assess Workday Capabilities

Step 2.1

Step 2.2

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Capability Relevance
• Process Gap Analysis
• Application Portfolio Assessment

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Users

Outcomes of this step

• Workday Capability Assessment

Benefits of the Application Portfolio Assessment

Assess the health of the application portfolio

• Get a full 360-degree view of the effectiveness, criticality, and prevalence of all relevant applications to get a comprehensive view of the health of the applications portfolio.
• Identify opportunities to drive more value from effective applications, retire nonessential applications, and immediately address at-risk applications that are not meeting expectations.

Provide targeted department feedback

• Share end-user satisfaction and importance ratings for core IT services, IT communications, and business enablement to focus on the right end-user groups or lines of business, and ramp up satisfaction and productivity.

Gain insight into the state of data quality

• Data quality is one of the key issues causing poor ERP user satisfaction and business results. This can include the relevance, accuracy, timeliness, or usability of the organization’s data.
• Targeted, open-ended feedback around data quality will provide insight into where optimization efforts should be focused.

2.1.1 Complete a current state assessment (via the Application Portfolio Assessment)

3 hours

Option 1: Use Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment to generate your user satisfaction score. This tool not only measures application satisfaction but also elicits great feedback from users regarding the support they receive from the IT team around Workday.

1. Download the Workday Application Inventory Tool.
2. Complete the “Demographics” tab (tab 2).
3. Complete the “Inventory” tab (tab 3).
   1. Complete the inventory by treating each module within your Workday system as an application.
   2. Treat every department as a separate column in the department section. Feel free to add, remove, or modify department names to match your organization.
   3. Include data quality for all applications applicable.

Option 2: Create a survey manually.

1. Use tab Reference 2.1 “APA Questions” as a guide for creating your survey.
2. Send out surveys to end users.
3. Modify tab 2.1 “Workday Assessment” if required.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

2.1.2 Complete the Application Portfolio Assessment

3 hours

Option 1: Use Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment to generate your user satisfaction score. This tool not only measures application satisfaction but also elicits great feedback from users regarding the support they receive from the IT team around Workday.

1. Download the Workday Application Inventory Tool.
2. Complete the “Demographics” tab (tab 2).
3. Complete the “Inventory” tab (tab 3).
   1. Complete the inventory by treating each module within your Workday system as an application.
   2. Treat every department as a separate column in the department section. Feel free to add, remove, or modify department names to match your organization.
   3. Include data quality for all applications applicable.

Option 2: Create a survey manually.

1. Use tab Reference 2.1 “APA Questions” as a guide for creating your survey.
2. Send out surveys to end users.
3. Modify tab 2.1 “Workday Assessment” if required.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

2.1.3 (Optional) Assess Workday process maturity

1. As with any ERP system, the issues encountered may not be related to the system itself but processes that have developed over time.
2. Use this opportunity to interview key stakeholders to learn about deeper capability processes.
   1. Identify key stakeholders.
   2. Hold sessions to document deeper processes.
   3. Discuss processes and technical enablement in each area.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Process Maturity Assessment

Process Assessment

Strong

Moderate

Weak

1.1 Financial Planning and Analysis

1.2 Accounting and Financial Close

1.3 Treasury Management

1.4 Financial Operations

1.5 Governance, Risk & Compliance

2.1 Core HR

Stakeholders Interviewed:

The process is formalized, documented, optimized, and audited.

The process is poorly documented. More than one person knows how to do it. Inefficient and error-prone.

The process is not documented. One person knows how to do it. The process is ad hoc, not formalized, inconsistent.

Capability Processes:

General Ledger

Accounts Receivable

Incentives Management

Accounts Payable

General Ledger Consolidation

Treasury Management

Cash Management

Subscription / recurring payments

Treasury Transactions

Step 2.2

Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change

Activities

2.2.1 Rate Your Vendor and Product Satisfaction

2.2.2 Review Workday Product Scores (if applicable)

2.2.3 Evaluate Your Product Satisfaction

2.2.4 Check Your Business Process Change Tolerance

Product Satisfaction

Step 2.1

Step 2.2

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Rate your vendor and product satisfaction
• Compare with survey data from SoftwareReviews

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Product Owner(s)
• Procurement Representative
• Vendor Contracts Manager

Outcomes of this step

• Quantified satisfaction with vendor and product

2.2.1 Rate your vendor and product satisfaction

30 minutes

Use Info-Tech’s vendor satisfaction survey to identify optimization areas with your ERP product(s) and vendor(s).

1. Option 1 (recommended): Conduct a satisfaction survey using SoftwareReviews. This option allows you to see your results in the context of the vendor landscape.
2. Option 2: Use the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook to review your satisfaction with your Workday software.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise Resource Planning Category

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

2.2.2 Review Workday product scores (if applicable)

30 minutes

1. Download the scorecard for your Workday product from the SoftwareReviews website. (Note: Not all products are represented or have sufficient data, so a scorecard may not be available.)
2. Use the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook tab 2.3 to record the scorecard results.
3. Use your Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook to flag areas where your score may be lower than the product scorecard. Brainstorm ideas for optimization.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise Resource Planning Category

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

2.2.3 How does your satisfaction compare with your peers?

Use SoftwareReviews to explore product features, vendor experience, and capability satisfaction.

(SoftwareReviews ERP Mid-Market, 2022; SoftwareReviews ERP Enterprise, 2022)

2.2.4 Check your business process change tolerance

1 hours

Input

• Business process capability map

Output

• Heat map of risk areas that require more attention to validate best practices or minimize customization

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Participants

• Implementation team
• SMEs
• Departmental Leaders

1. As a group, list your level-0 and level-1 business capabilities. Sample on the next slide.
2. Assess the department’s willingness for change and the risk of maintaining the status quo.
3. Color-code the level-0 business capabilities based on:
   1. Green – Willing to follow best practices
   2. Yellow – May be challenging or unique business model
   3. Red – Low tolerance for change

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Heat map representing desire for best practice or those having the least tolerance for change

Legend:

Willing to follow best practice

May be challenging or unique business model

Low tolerance for change

Out of Scope

Determine the areas of risk to conform to best practice and minimize customization. These will be areas needing focus from the vendor, supporting change and guiding best practice.

For example: Must be able to support our unique process manufacturing capabilities and enhance planning and visibility to detailed costing.

Phase 3

Identify Key Optimization Opportunities

Phase 1

1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

1.2 Build an ERP Strategy Model

1.3 Inventory Current System State

1.4 Define Optimization Timeframe

1.5 Understand Workday Costs

Phase 2

2.1 Assess Workday Capabilities

2.2 Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Optimization Opportunities

3.2 Discover Optimization Initiatives

Phase 4

4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Identify key optimization areas
• Create an optimization roadmap

This phase involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team

Step 3.1

Prioritize optimization opportunities

Activities

3.1.1 Prioritize Optimization Capability Areas

Build Your Optimization Roadmap

Step 3.1

Step 3.2

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Explore existing process gaps
• Identify the impact of processes on user satisfaction
• Identify the impact of data quality on user satisfaction
• Review your overall product satisfaction and vendor management

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team

Outcomes of this step

• Application optimization plan

Info-Tech Insight

Enabling a high-performing organization requires excellent management practices and continuous optimization efforts. Your technology portfolio and architecture are important, but we must go deeper. Taking a holistic view of ERP technologies in the environments in which they operate allows for the inclusion of people and process improvements – this is key to maximizing business results. Using a formal ERP optimization initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify IT automation priorities, and dig deep into continuous process improvement.

Address process gaps:

• ERP and related technologies are invaluable to the goal of organizational enablement, but they must have supported processes driven by business goals.
• Identify areas where capabilities need to be improved and work toward optimization.

Support user satisfaction:

• The best technology in the world won’t deliver business results if it’s not working for the users who need it.
• Understand concerns, communicate improvements, and support users in all roles.

Improve data quality:

• Data quality is unique to each business unit and requires tolerance, not perfection.
• Implement data quality initiatives that are aligned with overall business objectives and aimed at addressing data practices and the data itself.

Proactively manage vendors:

• Vendor management is a critical component of technology enablement and IT satisfaction.
• Assess your current satisfaction against that of your peers and work toward building a process that is best fit for your organization.

Assessing application business value

The Business

Keepers of the organization’s mission, vision, and value statements that define IT success. The business maintains the overall ownership and evaluation of the applications.

Business Value of Applications

IT

Technical subject matter experts of the applications they deliver and maintain. Each IT function works together to ensure quality applications are delivered to stakeholder expectations.

First, the authorities on business value need to define and weigh their value drivers that describe the priorities of the organization. This will allow the applications team to apply a consistent, objective, and strategically aligned evaluation of applications across the organization.

In this context…

business value is

the value of the business outcome that the application produces. Additionally, it is how effective the application is at producing that outcome.

Business value IS NOT

the user’s experience or satisfaction with the application.

Brainstorm IT initiatives to enable high areas of opportunity to support the business

Create or Improve:

• ERP Capabilities
• Optimization Initiatives

Capabilities are what the system and business do that creates value for the organization.

Optimization initiatives are projects with a definitive start and end date, and they enhance, create, maintain, or remove capabilities with the goal of increasing value.

Brainstorm ERP optimization initiatives in each area. Ensure you are looking for all-encompassing opportunities within the context of IT, the business, and Workday systems.

• Process
• Technology
• Organization

Discover the value drivers of your applications

Financial vs. Human Benefits

Financial benefits refer to the degree to which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and are often quite tangible.

Human benefits refer to how an application can deliver value through a user’s experience.

Inward vs. Outward Orientation

Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact and improve your organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.

Outward refers to value sources that come from your interaction with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

Increased Revenue

Application functions that are specifically related to the impact on your organization’s ability to generate revenue and deliver value to your customers.

Reduced Costs

Reduction of overhead. The ways in which an application limits the operational costs of business functions.

Enhanced Services

Functions that enable business capabilities that improve the organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.

Reach Customers

Application functions that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce market information and insights.

Prioritize Workday optimization areas that will bring the most value to the organization

Review your ERP capability areas and rate them according to relevance to organizational goals. This will allow you to eliminate optimization ideas that may not bring value to the organization.

Value vs. Effort

How important is it? vs. How difficult is it?

(Roadmunk)

RICE method

Measure the “total impact per time worked”

(Intercom)

3.1.1 Prioritize and rate optimization capability areas

1-3 hours

1. Use tab 3.1 Optimization Priorities.
2. From the Workday Key Capabilities (pulled from tab 1.3 Key Capabilities), discuss areas of scope for the Workday optimization initiative.
3. Discuss the four areas of the business value matrix and identify how each module, along with organizational goals, can bring value to the organization.
4. Rate each of your Workday capabilities for the level of importance to your organization. The levels of importance are:
   • Crucial
   • Important
   • Secondary
   • Unimportant
   • Not applicable

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Step 3.2

Discover Optimization Initiatives

Activities

3.2.1 Discover Product and Vendor Satisfaction Opportunities

3.2.2 Discover Capability and Feature Optimization Opportunities

3.2.3 Discover Process Optimization Opportunities

3.2.4 Discover Integration Optimization Opportunities

3.2.5 Discover Data Optimization Opportunities

3.2.6 Discover Workday Cost-Saving Opportunities

Build Your Optimization Roadmap

Step 3.1

Step 3.2

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Explore existing process gaps
• Identify the impact of processes on user satisfaction
• Identify the impact of data quality on user satisfaction
• Review your overall product satisfaction and vendor management

This step involves the following participants:

• Workday Optimization Team

Outcomes of this step

• Application optimization plan

Workday’s partner landscape

Workday uses an extensive partner network to help deliver results.

ADVISORY PARTNERS

Workday Advisory Partners have in-depth knowledge to help customers determine what’s best for their needs and how to maximize business value. They guide you through digital acceleration strategy and planning, product selection, change management, and more.

SERVICES PARTNERS

Workday Services Partners represent a curated community of global systems integrators and regional firms that help companies deploy Workday and continually adopt new capabilities.

SOFTWARE PARTNERS

Workday Software Partners are a global ecosystem of application, content, and technology software companies that design, build, and deploy solution extensions to help customers enhance the capabilities of Workday.

Global payroll PARTNERS

Workday’s Global Payroll Cloud (GPC) program makes it easy to expand payroll (outside of the US, Canada, the UK, and France) to third-party payroll providers around the world using certified, prebuilt integrations from Workday Partners. Payroll partners provide solutions in more than 100 countries.

Adaptive planning PARTNERS

Adaptive planning partners guide you through all aspects of everything from integration to deployment.

With large-scale ERP and HCM systems, the success of the system can be as much about the SI (Systems Integrator) or vendor partners as it is about the core product.

In evaluating your Workday system, think about Workday’s extensive partner network to understand how you can capitalize on your installation.

You do not need to reinvent the system; you may just need an additional service partner or bolt-on solution to round out your product functionality.

Improving vendor management

Create a right-size, right-fit strategy for managing the vendors relevant to your organization.

Info-Tech Insight

A vendor management initiative is an organization’s formalized process for evaluating, selecting, managing, and optimizing third-party providers of goods and services.

The amount of resources you assign to managing vendors depends on the number and value of your organization’s relationships. Before optimizing your vendor management program around the best practices presented in Info-Tech’s Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative blueprint, assess your current maturity and build the process around a model that reflects the needs of your organization.

Note: Info-Tech uses VMI interchangeably with the terms “vendor management office (VMO),” “vendor management function,” “vendor management process,” and “vendor management program.”

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

3.2.1 Discover product and vendor satisfaction

1-2 hours

1. Review tab 2.2 Vend. & Prod. Sat. to review the overall Product (and Vendor) satisfaction of your Workday system.
2. Use tab 3.2 Optimization Initiatives to answer the following questions in the Overall Product (and Vendor) Evaluation area.
   • Document overall product satisfaction.
   • How does your satisfaction compare with your peers?
   • Is the overall system fit for use?
   • Do you have a proactive vendor management strategy in place?
   • Is the product dissatisfaction at the point that you need to evaluate if it is time to replace the product?
   • Could your vendor or SI help you achieve better results?

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

3.2.2 Discover capability and feature optimization opportunities

1-2 hours

1. Review tab 2.2 Vend. & Prod. Sat. and tab 3.1 Optimization Priorities to review the satisfaction with the capabilities and features of your Workday system.
2. Use tab 3.2 Optimization Initiatives to answer the following questions in the Capabilities and Features Evaluation area to answer the following questions:
   • What capabilities and features are performing the worst?
   • Do other organizations and users struggle with these areas?
   • Why is it not performing well?
   • Is there an opportunity for improvement?
   • What are some optimization initiatives that could be undertaken?

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Process optimization: the hidden goldmine

Know your strategic goals and KPIs that will deliver results.

3.2.3 Discover process optimization opportunities

1-2 hours

1. Use tab 3.1 Optimization Priorities and tab 2.2 Bus Proc Change Tolerance to review process optimization opportunities.
2. Use tab 3.2 Optimization Initiatives to answer the following questions in the Capabilities and Features Evaluation area to answer the following questions:
   • List underperforming capabilities around process.
   • Answer the following:
     • What is the state of the current processes?
     • Is there an opportunity for process improvement?
     • What are some optimization initiatives that could be undertaken in this area?

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Integration provides long-term usability

Balance the need for secure, compliant data availability with organizational agility.

The benefits of integration

• The largest benefit is the extended use of data. The ERP data can be used in the enterprise-level business intelligence suite rather than the application-specific analytics.
• Enhanced data security. Integrated approaches lend themselves to auditable processes such as sign-on and limit the email movement of data.
• Regulatory compliance. Large multi-site organizations have many layers of regulation. A clear understanding of where orders, deliveries, and payments were made streamlines the audit process.

The challenges of integration

• Extending a single instance ERP to multiple sites. The challenge for data management is the same as any SaaS application. The connection and data replication present challenges.
• Combining data from equally high-volume systems. For Workday it is recommended that one instance is set to primary and all other sites are read-only to maintain data integrity.
• Incorporating data from the separate system(s). The proprietary and locked-in nature of the data collection and definitions for ERP systems often limit the movement of data between separate systems.

Common integration and consolidation scenarios

For more information: Implement a Multi-site ERP

3.2.4 Discover integration optimization opportunities

1-2 hours

1. Use tab 3.2 Optimization Initiatives to answer the following questions in the Integration Evaluation area:
   1. Are there some areas where integration could be improved?
   2. Is there an opportunity for process improvement?
   3. What are some optimization initiatives that could be undertaken in this area?

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Use a data strategy that fixes the enterprise-wide data management issues

Your data management must allow for flexibility and scalability for future needs.

IT has several concerns around ERP data and wide dissemination of that data across sites. Large organizations can benefit from building a data warehouse or at least adopting some of the principles of data warehousing. The optimal way to deal with the issue of integration is to design a metadata-driven data warehouse that acts as a central repository for all ERP data. This serves as the storage facility for millions of transactions, formatted to allow analysis and comparison.

Key considerations:

• Technical: At what stage does data move to the warehouse? Can processes be automated to dump data or to do a scheduled data movement?
• Process: Data integration requires some level of historical context for all data. Ensure that all data has multiple metadata tags to future-proof the data.
• People: Who will be accessing the data and what are the key items that users will need to adapt to the data warehouse process?

Info-Tech Insight

Data warehouse solutions can be expensive. See Info-Tech’s Build a Data Warehouse on a Solid Foundation for guidance on what options are available to meet your budget and data needs.

Optimizing Workday data, additional considerations

3.2.5 Discover data optimization opportunities

1-2 hours

1. Use your 2.1 APA survey and/or tab 2.2 Vendor & Prod Sat to better understand issues related to data.

• Note: Data issues happen for a number of reasons:
  • Poor underlying data in the system
  • More than one source of truth
  • Inability to consolidate data
  • Inability to measure KPIs (key performance indicators) effectively
  • Reporting that is cumbersome or non-existent

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Info-Tech Insight

The number one reason organizations leave Workday is because of cost. Do not be strong-armed into a contract you do not feel comfortable with. Do your homework, know your leverage points, be fully prepared for cost negotiations, use their competition to your advantage, and get support – such as Info-Tech’s vendor management resources and team.

Approach contracts and pricing strategically

Don’t go into contract negotiation blind.

• Understand the vendor – year-end, market strategy, and competitive position.
• Take the time to understand the contract. including contract details such as length of the contract, full-service equivalent (FSE, employee count,) innovation fees, modules included, and renewal clauses.
• Be fully prepared to take a proactive approach to cost negotiations.
  • Use Info-Tech’s vendor management services to support you.
  • Go in prepared.
  • Use your leverage points – FSE count, Module Bundles, CPI & Innovation Fees.
  • Use competition to your advantage.

Since 2007, Workday has been steadily growing its market share and footprint in human capital management, finance, and student information systems.

Organizations considering additional modules or undergoing contract renewal need to gain insight into areas of leverage and other relevant vendor information.

Key issues that occur include pricing transparency and contractual flexibility on terms and conditions. Adequate planning and communication need to be taken into consideration before entering into any agreement.

3.2.6 Discover Workday cost-saving opportunities

1-2 hours

1. Use tab 1.5 Current Costs, as an input for this exercise. Another great resource is Info-Tech’s Workday vendor management resources which you can use to help understand cost-saving strategies.
2. Use tab 3.2 Optimization Initiatives Costs Evaluation area to list cost savings initiatives and opportunities.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Other optimization opportunities

There are many opportunities to improve your Workday portfolio. Choose the ones that are right for your business.

• Artificial intelligence (AI) (and management of the AI lifecycle)
• Machine learning (ML)
• Augment business interactions
• Automatically execute sales pipelines
• Process mining
• Workday application monitoring
• Be aware of the Workday product roadmap
• Implement and take advantage of Workday tools and product offerings

Phase 4

Build Your Optimization Roadmap

Phase 1

1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

1.2 Build an ERP Strategy Model

1.3 Inventory Current System State

1.4 Define Optimization Timeframe

1.5 Understand Workday Costs

Phase 2

2.1 Assess Workday Capabilities

2.2 Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Optimization Opportunities

3.2 Discover Optimization Initiatives

Phase 4

4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Review the different options to solve the identified pain points
• Build out a roadmap showing how you will get to those solutions
• Build a communication plan that includes the stakeholder presentation

This phase involves the following participants:

• Primary stakeholders in each value stream supported by the ERP
• ERP Applications support team

Get the Most Out of Your Workday

Step 4.1

4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

Activities

4.1.1 Evaluate Optimization Initiatives

4.1.2 Prioritize Your Workday Initiatives

4.1.3 Build a Roadmap

4.1.4 Build a Visual Roadmap

Next steps

Step 4.1

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Review the different options to solve the identified pain points then build out a roadmap of how to get to that solution.

This step involves the following participants:

• Primary stakeholders in each value stream supported by the ERP
• ERP Applications support team

Outcomes of this step

• A strategic direction is set
• An initial roadmap is laid out

Evaluate your optimization initiatives and determine next steps to build out your optimization roadmap

Activity 4.1.1 Evaluate optimization Initiatives

1 hour

1. Evaluate your optimization initiatives from tab 3.2, Optimization Initiatives.
2. Complete Value Drivers:

• Relevance to Organizational Goals and Objectives
• Applications Portfolio Assessment Survey:
  • Impact: Number of Users, Importance to Role
  • Current State: Satisfaction With Features, Usability, and Data Quality.
• Value Drivers: Increase Revenue, Decrease Costs, Enhanced Services, or Reach Customers.
• Additional Factors:
  • Current to Future Risk Profile
  • Number of Departments to Benefit
  • Importance to Stakeholder Relations

• Resources: Do we have resources available and the skillset?
• Cost
• Overall Effort Rating

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Activity 4.1.2 Determine your optimization roadmap building blocks

1 hour

Optimization initiatives: Determine which if any to proceed with.

1. Identify initiatives.
2. For each item on your roadmap assign an owner who will be accountable to the completion of the roadmap item.
3. Wherever possible, assign a start date, month, or quarter. The more specific you can be the better.
4. Identify completion dates to create a sense of urgency. If you are struggling with start dates, it can help to start with a finish date and “back in” to a start date based on estimated efforts.
5. Include periphery tasks such as communication strategy.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Note: Your roadmap should be treated as a living document that is updated and shared with the stakeholders on a regular schedule.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Activity 4.1.3 – Build a visual Workday optimization roadmap (optional)

1 hour

For some, a visual representation of a roadmap is easier to comprehend.

Consider taking the roadmap built in 4.1.2 and creating a visual roadmap.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook

Summary of Accomplishment

Get the Most Out of Your Workday

ERP technology is critical to facilitating an organization’s flow of information across business units. It allows for seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making. ERP implementation should not be a one-and-done exercise. There needs to be ongoing optimization to enable business processes and optimal organizational results.

Get the Most Out of Your Workday allows organizations to proactively implement continuous assessment and optimization of their enterprise resource planning system, including:

• Alignment and prioritization of key business and technology drivers.
• Identification of processes, including classification and gap analysis.
• Measurement of user satisfaction across key departments.
• Improved vendor relations.
• Data quality initiatives.

This formal Workday optimization initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify IT automation priorities, and dig deep into continuous process improvement.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

Research Contributors

Ben Dickie

Research Practice Lead

Info-Tech Research Group

Ben Dickie is a Research Practice Lead at Info-Tech Research Group. His areas of expertise include customer experience management, CRM platforms, and digital marketing. He has also led projects pertaining to enterprise collaboration and unified communications.

Scott Bickley

Practice Lead and Principal Research

Director Info-Tech Research Group

Scott Bickley is a Practice Lead and Principal Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group focused on vendor management and contract review. He also has experience in the areas of IT asset management (ITAM), software asset management (SAM), and technology procurement along with a deep background in operations, engineering, and quality systems management.

Andy Neil

Practice Lead, Applications

Info-Tech Research Group

Andy is a Senior Research Director, Data Management and BI, at Info-Tech Research Group. He has over 15 years of experience in managing technical teams, information architecture, data modeling, and enterprise data strategy. He is an expert in enterprise data architecture, data integration, data standards, data strategy, big data, and the development of industry standard data models.

Bibliography

“9 product prioritization frameworks for product managers.” Roadmunk, n.d. Accessed 15 May 2022.

Armel, Kate. "New Article: Data-Driven Estimation, Management Lead to High Quality." QSM: Quantitative Software Management, 14 May 2013. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.

Collins, George, et al., “Connecting Small Businesses in the US.” Deloitte Commissioned by Google, 2017. Web.

Epizitone, Ayogeboh, and Oludayo O. Olugbara. "Critical Success Factors for ERP System Implementation to Support Financial Functions." Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies Journal, vol. 23, no. 6, 2019. Accessed 12 Oct. 2021

Gheorghiu, Gabriel. "The ERP Buyer’s Profile for Growing Companies." Selecthub, 2018. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

Karlsson, Johan. "Product Backlog Grooming Examples and Best Practices." Perforce, 18 May 2018. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.

Lauchlan, Stuart. “Workday accelerates into fiscal 2023 with a strong year end as cloud adoption gets a COVID-bounce.” diginomica, 1 March 2022. Web.

"Maximizing the Emotional Economy: Behavioral Economics." Gallup, n.d. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

Noble, Simon-Peter. “Workday: A High-Quality Business That's Fairly Valued.” Seeking Alpha, 8 Apr. 2019. Web.

Norelus, Ernese, Sreeni Pamidala, and Oliver Senti. "An Approach to Application Modernization: Discovery and Assessment Phase," Medium, 24 Feb. 2020. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

"Process Frameworks." APQC, n.d. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

Saxena, Deepak, and Joe Mcdonagh. "Evaluating ERP Implementations: The Case for a Lifecycle-based Interpretive Approach." The Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, vol. 22, no. 1, 2019, pp. 29-37. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

“Workday Enterprise Management Cloud Product Scorecard.” SoftwareReviews, May 2022. Web.

“Workday Meets Growing Customer Demand with Record Number of Deployments and Industry-Leading Customer Satisfaction Score.” Workday, Inc., 7 June 2021. Web.

Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics

Spend less time struggling with visuals and more time communicating about what matters to your executives.

Analyst Perspective

A dashboard is a communication tool that helps executives make data-driven decisions

CIOs naturally gravitate toward data and data analysis. This is their strength. They lean into this strength, using data to drive decisions, track performance, and set targets because they know good data drives good decisions.

However, when it comes to interpreting and communicating this complex information to executives who may be less familiar with data, CIOs struggle, often falling back on showing IT activity level data instead of what the executives care about. This results in missed opportunities to tell IT’s unique story, secure funding, reveal important trends, or highlight key opportunities for the organization.

Break through these traditional barriers by using Info-Tech’s ready-made IT dashboards. Spend less time agonizing over visuals and layout and more time concentrating on delivering IT information that moves the organization forward.

Diana MacPherson
Senior Research Analyst, CIO
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

The purpose of a dashboard is to drive decision making. A well designed dashboard presents relevant, clear, concise insights that help executives make data-driven decisions.

Your challenge

CIOs struggle to select the right metrics and dashboards to communicate IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress to their executives. CIOs:

• Fail to tailor metrics to their audience, often presenting graphs that are familiar and useful to them, but not their executives. This results in dashboards full of IT activities that executives neither understand nor find valuable.
• Do not consider the timeliness of their metrics, which has the same effect as not tailoring their metrics: the executives do not care about the metrics they are shown.
• Present too many metrics, which not only clutters the board but also dilutes the message the CIO needs to communicate.
• Do not act on the results of their metrics and show progress, which makes metrics meaningless. Why measure something if you won’t act on the results?

The bottom line: CIOs often communicate to the wrong audience, about the wrong things, in the wrong amount, using the wrong metrics, at the wrong time.

In a survey of 500 executives, organizations that struggled with dashboards identified the reasons as:
61% Inadequate context
54% Information overload

— Source: Exasol

CXOs and CIOs agree that IT performance metrics need improvement

When asked which performance indicators should be implemented in your business, CXOs and CIOs both agree that IT needs to improve its metrics across several activity areas: technology performance, cost and salary, and risk.

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards center key metrics around these activities ensuring you align your metrics to the needs of your CXO audience.

Info-Tech CEO/CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Report n=666

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the top CIO priorities

The top six areas that a CIO needs to prioritize and measure outcomes, no matter your organization or industry, are:

• Managing to a budget: Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend
• Customer/constituent satisfaction: Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience.
• Risk management: Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization.
• Delivering on business objectives: Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization.
• Employee engagement: Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people.
• Business leadership relations: Establishing a network of influential business leaders.

Deliver High-Value IT Dashboards to Your Executives

Info-Tech’s approach

Deliver High-Value Dashboards to Your Executives

Executives recognize the benefits of dashboards:
87% of respondents to an Exasol study agreed that their organization’s leadership team would make more data-driven decisions if insights were presented in a simpler and more understandable way
(Source: Exasol)

The Info-Tech difference:

We created dashboards for you so you don’t have to!

1. Eliminate 80% of the dashboard design work by selecting from our ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
2. Use our IT Dashboard Workbook to adjust the dashboards to your audience and organization.
3. Follow our blueprint and IT Dashboard Workbook tool to craft, and deliver your dashboard to your CXO team, then action feedback from your audience to continuously improve.

Info-Tech’s methodology for establishing high-value dashboards

1. Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs

Phase Steps

1. Validate Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
2. Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs

Phase Outcomes

1. Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards
2. Completed Tabs 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

2. Translate Audience Needs into Metrics

Phase Steps

1. Review Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
2. Derive Metrics from Audience Needs
3. Associate metrics to Dashboards

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Tab 3 of IT Dashboard Workbook

3. Ready Your Data for Dashboards

Phase Steps

1. Assess Data Inventory
2. Assess Data Quality
3. Assess Data Readiness
4. Assess Data Frequency

Phase Outcomes

1. Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs
2. Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook
3. Finalized dashboards

4. Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

Phase Steps

1. Design Your Dashboard
2. Update Your Dashboards
3. Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Tab 5 and 6 of IT Dashboard Workbook and finalized dashboards

5. Plan, Record, and Action Your Metrics

Phase Steps

1. Plan How to Record Metrics
2. Record and Action Metrics

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization
2. Completed IT Dashboard Workbook

How to Use This Blueprint

Choose the path that works for you

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards address several needs:

1. New to dashboards and metrics and not sure where to begin? Let the phases in the blueprint guide you in using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards to create your own dashboards.
2. Already know who your audience is and what you want to show? Augment the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards framework with your own data and visuals.
3. Already have a tool you would like to use? Use the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards as a design document to customize your tool.

Insight Summary

The need for easy-to-consume data is on the rise making dashboards a vital data communication tool.

70%: Of employees will be expected to use data heavily by 2025, an increase from 40% in 2018.
— Source: Tableau

Overarching insight

A dashboard’s primary purpose is to drive action. It may also serve secondary purposes to update, educate, and communicate, but if a dashboard does not drive action, it is not serving its purpose.

Insight 1

Start with the audience. Resist the urge to start with the data. Think about who your audience is, what internal and external environmental factors influence them, what problems they need to solve, what goals they need to achieve, then tailor the metrics and dashboards to suit.

Insight 2

Avoid showing IT activity-level metrics. Instead use CIO priority-based metrics to report on what matters to the organization. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the CIO priorities: risks, financials, talent, and strategic initiatives.

Insight 3

Dashboards show the what not the why. Do not assume your audience will draw the same conclusions from your graphs and charts as you do. Provide the why by interpreting the results, adding insights and calls to action, and marking key areas for discussion.

Insight 4

A dashboard is a communication tool and should reflect the characteristics of good communication. Be clear, concise, consistent, and relevant.

Insight 5

Action your data. Act and report progress on your metrics. Gathering metrics has a cost, so if you do not plan to action a metric, do not measure it.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Blueprint benefits

CIO Benefits

• Reduces the burden of figuring out what metrics to show executives and how to categorize and arrange the visuals.
• Increases audience engagement through tools and methods that guide CIOs through tailoring metrics and dashboards to audience needs.
• Simplifies CIO messages so executives better understand IT needs and value.
• Provides CIOs with the tools to demonstrate transparency and competency to executive leaders.
• Provides tools and techniques for regular review and action planning of metrics results, which leads to improved performance, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Business Benefits

• Provides a richer understanding of the IT landscape and a clearer connection of how IT needs and issues impact the organization.
• Increases understanding of the IT team’s contribution to achieving business outcomes.
• Provides visibility into IT and business trends.
• Speeds up decision making by providing insights and interpretations to complex situations.

Measure the value of this blueprint

Realize measurable benefits after using Info-Tech’s approach:

Determining what you should measure, what visuals you should use, and how you should organize your visuals, is time consuming. Calculate the time it has taken you to research what metrics you should show, create the visuals, figure out how to categorize the visuals, and layout your visuals. Typically, this takes about 480 hours of time. Use the ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook to quickly put together a set of dashboards to present your CXO. Using these tools will save approximately 480 hours.

A study at the University of Minnesota shows that visual presentations are 43% more effective at persuading their audiences (Bonsignore). Estimate how persuasive you are now by averaging how often you have convinced your audience to take a specific course of action. After using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and visual story telling techniques described in this blueprint, average again. You should be 43% more persuasive.

Further value comes from making decisions faster. Baseline how long it takes, on average, for your executive team to make a decision before using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards then time how long decisions take when you use your Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. Your audience should reach decisions 21% faster according to studies at Stanford University and the Wharton School if business (Bonsignore).

Case Study

Visuals don’t have to be fancy to communicate clear messages.

• Industry: Construction
• Source: Anonymous interview participant

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation
"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop
"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting
"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Workshop overview

Day 1: Test Info-tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs and Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics

Activities
1.1 Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.
1.2 Identify your audience’s attributes.
1.3 Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.
1.4 Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.
1.5 Associate metrics to each need.
1.6 Identify a dashboard for each metric.

Deliverables
1. Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
2. Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 2: Inventory Your Data; Assess Data Quality and Readiness

Activities
2.1 Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, and the owner and security/compliance requirements.
2.2 Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.
2.3 Assess data readiness and frequency of measurement and reporting.

Deliverables
1. Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 3: Design and Build Your Dashboards

Activities
3.1 Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change on the dashboards.
3.2 Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.

Deliverables
1. Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.
2. Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
3. Finalized dashboards.

Day 4: Deliver Your Dashboard and Plan to Action Metrics

Activities
4.1 Craft your story.
4.2 Practice delivering your story.
4.3 Plan to action your metrics.
4.4 Understand how to record and address your results.

Deliverables
1. Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 5: Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

Activities
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

Deliverables
1. Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.
2. Completed IT Dashboard Workbook.

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889

What is an IT dashboard?

An IT dashboard is…
a visual representation of data, and its main purpose is to drive actions. Well-designed dashboards use an easy to consume presentation style free of clutter. They present their audience with a curated set of visuals that present meaningful metrics to their audience.

Dashboards can be both automatically or manually updated and can show information that is dynamic or a snapshot in time.

Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

We created dashboards so you don’t have to.

Use the link below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and consider the following:

1. What are your initial reactions to the dashboards?
2. Are the visuals appealing? If so, what makes them appealing?
3. Can you use these dashboards in your organization? What makes them usable?
4. How would you use these dashboards to speak your own IT information to your audience?

Download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Why Use Dashboards When We Have Data?

How graphics affect us

Cognitively

• Engage our imagination
• Stimulate the brain
• Heighten creative thinking
• Enhance or affect emotions

Emotionally

• Enhance comprehension
• Increase recollection
• Elevate communication
• Improve retention

Visual clues

• Help decode text
• Attract attention
• Increase memory

Persuasion

• 43% more effective than text alone

— Source: (Vogel et al.)

Phase 1

Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Documenting impressions for using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for your audience.
• Documenting your audience and their needs and metrics for your IT dashboards

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Info-Tech IT Dashboard organization and audience

We created a compelling way to organize IT dashboards so you don’t have to. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO Priorities, and these are consistent irrespective of industry or organization. This is a constant that you can organize your metrics around.

Dashboard Customization

The categories represent a constant around which you can change the order; for example, if your CXO is more focused on Financials, you can switch the Financials dashboard to appear first.

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are aimed at a CXO audience so if your audience is the CXO, then you may decide to change very little, but you can customize any visual to appeal to your audience.

Phase 1 will get you started with your audience.

Always start with the audience

…and not the data!

Reliable, accurate data plays a critical role in dashboards, but data is only worthwhile if it is relevant to the audience who consumes it, and dashboards are only as meaningful as the data and metrics they represent.

Instead of starting with the data, start with the audience. The more IT understands about the audience, the more relevant the metrics will be to their audience and the more aligned leadership will be with IT.

Don’t forget yourself and who you are. Your audience will have certain preconceived notions about who you are and what you do. Consider these when you think about what you want your audience to know.

Resist the Data-First Temptation

If you find yourself thinking about data and you haven’t thought about your audience, pull yourself back to the audience.

Meaningful measures rely on understanding your audience and their needs

It is crucial to think about who your audience is so that you can translate their needs into metrics and create meaningful visuals for your dashboards.

Step 1.1

Review and Validate Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience

Activities:
1.1.1 Examine Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Info-Tech dashboards reviewed for your organization’s audience.

1.1.1 Examine the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

30 minutes

1. If you haven’t already downloaded the Info-Tech IT Dashboards, click the link below to download.
2. Complete a quick review of the dashboards and consider how your audience would receive them.
3. Document your thoughts, with special emphasis on your audience in the Info-Tech Dashboard Impressions slide.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Reviewing visuals can help you think about how your audience will respond to them

Jot down your thoughts below. You can refer to this later as you consider your audience.

Consider:

• Who is your dashboard audience?
• Are their needs different from the Info-Tech IT Dashboard audience’s? If so, how?
• Will the visuals work for your audience on each dashboard?
• Will the order of the dashboards work for your audience?
• What is missing?

Step 1.2

Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs

Activities:
1.2.1 Document your audience’s needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Audience details documented in IT Dashboard Workbook

Identify Your Audience and dig deeper to understand their needs

Connect with your audience

• Who is your audience?
• What does your audience care about? What matters to them?
• How is their individual success measured? What are their key performance indicators (KPIs)?
• Connect the challenges and pain points of your audience to how IT can help alleviate those pain points:
  • For example, poor financial performance could be due to a lack of digitization. Identify areas where IT can help alleviate this issue.
  • Try to uncover the root cause behind the need. Root causes are often tied to broad organizational objectives, so think about how IT can impact those objectives.

Validate the needs you’ve uncovered with the audience to ensure you have not misinterpreted them and clarify the desired timeline and deadline for the dashboard.

Document audiences and needs on Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

Prioritize and select audience needs that your dashboard will address

Prioritize needs by asking:

• Which needs represent the largest value to the entire organization (i.e. needs that impact more of the organization than just the audience)?
• Which needs will have the largest impact on the audience’s success?
• Which needs are likely to drive action (e.g. if supporting a decision, is the audience likely to be amenable to changing the way they make that decision based on the data)?

Select three to five of the highest priority needs for each audience to include on a dashboard.

Prioritize needs on Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

1.2.1 Document Your Audience Needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 2. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Phase 2

Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Revisiting the Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience.
• Documenting your prioritized audience’s needs and the desired outcome of each in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Linking audience needs to metrics has positive outcomes

When you present metrics that your audience cares about, you:

• Deliver real value and demonstrate IT’s value as a trusted partner.
• Improve the relationship between the business and IT.
• Enlighten the business about what IT does and how it is connected to the organization.

29% of respondents to The Economist Intelligence Unit survey cited inadequate collaboration between IT and the business as one of the top barriers to the organization’s digital objectives.
— Source: Watson, Morag W., et al.

Dashboard Customization

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards use measures for each dashboard that correspond with what the audience (CXO) cares about. You can find these measures in the IT Dashboard Workbook. If your audience is the CXO, you may have to change a little but you should still validate the needs and metrics in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Phase 2 covers the process of translating needs into metrics.

Once you know what your audience needs, you know what to measure

Step 2.1

Document Desired Outcomes for Each Prioritized Audience Need

Activities:
2.1.1 Compare the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your audience’s needs.
2.1.2 Document prioritized audience needs and the desired outcome of each in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Understanding of how well Info-Tech IT Dashboards address audience needs.
• Documented desired outcomes for each audience need.

2.1.1 Revisit Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards and Review for Your Audience

30 minutes

1. If you haven’t already downloaded the Info-Tech IT Dashboards, click the link below to download.
2. Click the link below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook.
3. Recall your first impressions of the dashboards that you recorded on earlier in Phase 1 and open up the audience and needs information you documented in Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
4. Compare the dashboards with your audience’s needs that you documented on Tab 2.
5. Record any updates to your thoughts or impressions on the next slide. Think about any changes to the dashboards that you would make so that you can reference it when you build the dashboards.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards contain a set of monthly metrics tailored toward a CXO audience.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Knowing what your audience needs, do the metrics the visuals reflect address them?

Any changes to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards?

Consider:

• Are your audience’s needs already reflected in the visuals in each of the dashboards? If so, validate this in the next activity by reviewing the prioritized needs, desired outcomes, and associated metrics already documented in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
• Are there any visuals your audience would need that you don’t see reflected in the dashboards? Write them here to use in the next exercise.

Desired outcomes make identifying metrics easier

When it’s not immediately apparent what the link between needs and metrics is, brainstorm desired outcomes.

2.1.2 Document your audience’s desired outcome per prioritized need

Now that you’ve examined the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and considered the needs of your audience, it is time to understand the outcomes and goals of each need so that you can translate your audience’s needs into metrics.

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Deriving Meaningful Metrics

Once you know the desired outcomes, you can identify meaningful metrics

Common Metrics Mistakes

Avoid the following oversights when selecting your metrics.

Step 2.2

Derive Metrics From Audience Needs

Activities:
2.2.1 Derive metrics using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented metrics for audience needs.

2.2.1 Derive metrics from desired outcomes

Now that you have completed the desired outcomes, you can determine if you are meeting those desired outcomes. If you struggle with the metrics, revisit the desired outcomes. It could be that they are not measurable or are not specific enough.

2 hours

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Download IT Metrics Library

Download HR Metrics Library

Step 2.3

Associate Metrics to Dashboards

Activities:
2.3.1 Review the metrics and identify which dashboard they should appear on.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Metrics associated to each dashboard.

2.3.1 Associate metrics to dashboards

30 minutes

Once you have identified all your metrics from Step 2.2, identify which dashboard they should appear on. As with all activities, if the Info-Tech IT Dashboard meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information.

Phase 3

Ready Your Data for Dashboards

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Inventorying your data
• Assessing your data quality
• Determining data readiness
• Determining data measurement frequency

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Can you measure your metrics?

Once appropriate service metrics are derived from business objectives, the next step is to determine how easily you can get your metric.

Make sure you select data that your audience trusts

40% of organizations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.
— Source: Experian, 2020

Phase 3 covers the process of identifying data for each metric, creating a data inventory, assessing the readiness of your data, and documenting the frequency of measuring your data. Once complete, you will have a guide to help you add data to your dashboards.

Step 3.1

Assess Data Inventory

Activities:
3.1.1 Download the IT Dashboard Workbook and complete the data inventory section on Tab 4.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data inventory for each metric.

3.1.1 Data Inventory

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 4. The pre-populated text is arranged into the tables according to the dashboard they appear on; you may need to scroll down to see all the dashboard tables.

Create a data inventory by placing each metric identified on Tab 3 into the corresponding dashboard table. Complete each column as described below.

Metrics Libraries: Use the IT Metrics Library and HR Metrics Library for ideas for metrics to use and how to measure them.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.2

Assess Data Quality

Activities:
3.2.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to complete an assessment of data quality on Tab 4.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data quality assessment for each metric.

3.2.1 Assess Data Quality

1 hour

Document the data quality on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook by filling in the data availability, data accuracy, and data standardization columns as described below.

Data quality is a struggle for many organizations. Consider how much uncertainty you can tolerate and what would be required to improve your data quality to an acceptable level. Consider cost, technological resources, people resources, and time required.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.3

Assess Data Readiness

Activities:
3.3.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data readiness for each metric

3.3.1 Determine Data Readiness

1 hour

Once the data quality has been documented and examined, complete the Data Readiness section of Tab 4 in the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook. Select a readiness classification using the definitions below. Use the readiness of your data to determine the level of effort required to obtain the data and consider the constraints and cost/ROI to implement new technology or revise processes and data gathering to produce the data.

Remember: Although in most cases, simple formulas that can be easily understood are the best approach, both because effort is lower and data that is not manipulated is more trustworthy, do not abandon data because it is not perfect but instead plan to make it easier to obtain.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.4

Assess Data Frequency

Activities:
3.4.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data and how frequently you will measure your data.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented frequency of measurement for each metric.

3.4.1 Document Planned Frequency of measurement

10 minutes

Document the planned frequency of measurement for all your metrics on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

For each metric, determine how often you will need to refresh it on the dashboard and select a frequency from the drop down. The Info-tech IT Dashboards assume a monthly refresh.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Phase 4

Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Designing your dashboards
• Updating your dashboards
• Crafting your story
• Delivering your dashboards

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Using your dashboard to tell your story with visuals

Now that you have linked metrics to the needs of your audience and you understand how to get your data, it is time to start building your dashboards.

Using visual language

• Shortens meetings by 24%
• Increases the ability to reach consensus by 21%
• Strengthens persuasiveness by 43%

— Source: American Management Association

Phase 4 guides you through using the Info-Tech IT Dashboard visuals for your audience’s needs and your story.

Step 4.1

Design Your Dashboard

Activities:
4.1.1 Plan and validate dashboard metrics, data, level of effort and visuals.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Identified and validated metrics, data, and visuals for your IT dashboards.

Use clear visuals that avoid distracting the audience

Which visual is better to present?

Sample A:

Sample B:

Select the appropriate visuals

Identify the purpose of the visualization. Determine which of the four categories below aligns with the story and choose the appropriate visual to display the data.

Relationship

Scatterplots

• Used to show relationships between two variables.
• Can be difficult to interpret for audiences that are not familiar with them.

Distribution

Histogram

• Use a histogram to show spread of a given numeric variable.
• Can be used to organize groups of data points.
• Requires continuous data.
• Can make comparisons difficult.

Scatterplot

• Can show correlation between variables.
• Show each data plot, making it easier to compare.

Composition

Pie chart

• Use pie charts to show different categories.
• Avoid pie charts with numerous slices.
• Provide numbers alongside slices, as it can be difficult to compare slices based on size alone.

Table

• Use tables when there are a large number of categories.
• Presents information in a simple way.

Comparison

Bar graph

• Use to compare categories.
• Easy to understand, familiar format.

Line chart

• Use to show trends or changes over time.
• Clear and easy to analyze.

(Calzon)

Examples of data visualization

To compare categories, use a bar chart:

Conclusion: Visualizing the spend in various areas helps prioritize.

To show trends, use a line graph:

Conclusion: Overlaying a trend line on revenue per employee helps justify headcount costs.

To show simple results, text is sometimes more clear:

Conclusion: Text with meaningful graphics conveys messages quickly.

To display relative percentages of values, use a pie chart:

Conclusion: Displaying proportions in a pie chart gives an at-a-glance understanding of the amount any area uses.

Choose effective colors and design

Select colors that will enhance the story

• Use color strategically to help draw the audience’s attention and highlight key information.
• Choose two to three colors to use consistently throughout the dashboard, as too many colors will be distracting to the audience.
• Use colors that connect with the audience (e.g., organization or department colors).
• Don’t use colors that are too similar in shade or brightness level, as those with colorblindness might have difficulty discerning them.

Keep the design simple and clear

• Leave white space to separate sections and keep the dashboard simple.
• Don’t measure everything; show just enough to address the audience’s needs.
• Use blank space between data points to provide natural contrast (e.g., leaving space between each bar on a bar graph). Don’t rely on contrast between colors to separate data (Miller).
• Label each data point directly instead of using a separate key, so anyone who has difficulty discerning color can still interpret the data (Miller).

Example

Checklist to build compelling visuals in your presentation

Leverage this checklist to ensure you are creating the perfect visuals and graphs for your presentation.

Checklist:

• Do the visuals grab the audience’s attention?
• Will the visuals mislead the audience/confuse them?
• Do the visuals facilitate data comparison or highlight trends and differences in a more effective manner than words?
• Do the visuals present information simply, cleanly, and accurately?
• Do the visuals illustrate messages and themes from the accompanying text?

4.1.1 Plan and validate your dashboard visuals

1 hour

Click the links below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook. Open the IT Dashboard Workbook and select Tab 5. For each dashboard, represented by its own table, open the corresponding Info-Tech IT Dashboard as reference.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 4.2

Update Your Dashboards

Activities:
4.2.1 Update the visuals on the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with data and visuals identified in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Dashboards updated with your visuals, metrics, and data identified in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

4.2.1 Update visuals with your own data

2 hours

1. Get the data that you identified in Tab 4 and Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
2. Click the link below to go to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and follow the instructions to update the visuals.

Do not worry about the Key Insights or Calls to Action; you will create this in the next step when you plan your story.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Step 4.3

Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards

Activities:
4.3.1 Craft Your Story
4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards
4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented situations, key insights, and calls to action for each dashboard/visual.
• A story to tell for each dashboard.
• Understanding of how to practice delivering the dashboards using stories.

Stories are more easily understood and more likely to drive decisions

IT dashboards are valuable tools to provide insights that drive decision making.

• Monitor: Track and report on strategic areas IT supports.
• Provide insights: sPresent important data and information to audiences in a clear and efficient way.

“Data storytelling is a universal language that everyone can understand – from people in STEM to arts and psychology.” — Peter Jackson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Exasol

Storytelling provides context, helping the audience understand and connect with data and metrics.

• 93% of respondents (business leaders and data professionals) agreed that decisions made as a result of successful data storytelling have the potential to help increase revenue.
• 92% of respondents agreed that data storytelling was critical to communicate insights effectively.
• 87% percent of respondents agreed that leadership teams would make more data-driven decisions if insights gathered from data were presented more simply.

— Exasol

For more visual guidance, download the IT Dashboard Guide

Include all the following pieces in your message for an effective communication

Info-Tech Insight

Time is a non-renewable resource. The message crafted must be considered a value-adding communication to your audience.

Enable good communication with these components

Be Consistent

• The core message must be consistent regardless of audience, channel, or medium.
• Test your communication with your team or colleagues to obtain feedback before delivering to a broader audience.
• A lack of consistency can be interpreted as an attempt at deception. This can hurt credibility and trust.

Be Clear

• Say what you mean and mean what you say.
• Choice of language is important: “Do you think this is a good idea? I think we could really benefit from your insights and experience here.” Or do you mean: “I think we should do this. I need you to do this to make it happen.”
• Avoid jargon.

Be Relevant

• Talk about what matters to the audience.
• Tailor the details of the message to the audience’s specific concerns.
• IT thinks in processes but wider audiences focus mostly on results; talk in terms of results.
• IT wants to be understood, but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “What’s in it for them?”
• Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.

Be Concise

• Keep communication short and to the point so key messages are not lost in the noise.
• There is a risk of diluting your key message if you include too many other details.
• If you provide more information than necessary, the clarity and consistency of the message can be lost.

Draft the core messages to communicate

1. Hook your audience: Use a compelling introduction that ensures your target audience cares about the message. Start with a story or metaphor and then support with the data on your dashboard. Avoid rushing in with data first.
2. Demonstrate you can help: Let the audience know that based on the unique problem, you can help. There is value in engaging and working with you further.
3. Write for the ear: Use concise and clear sentences, avoid technological language, and when you read it aloud ensure it sounds like how you would normally speak.
4. Interpret visuals for your audience: Do not assume they will reach the same conclusions as you. For example, walk them through what a chart shows even if the axes are labeled, tell them what a trend line indicates or what the comparison between two data points means.
5. Identify a couple of key insights: Think about one or two key takeaways you want your audience to leave with.
6. Finish with a call to action: Your concluding statement should not be a thank-you but a call to action that ignites how your audience will behave after the communication. Dashboards exist to drive decisions, so if you have no call to action, you should ask if you need to include the visual.

4.3.1 Craft Your Story

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 6. The workbook contains grey text that reflects a sample story about the Info-Tech IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the sample text as reference, then remove after you have entered your information.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards

30 minutes

1. Take the Key Insights and Calls to Action that you documented in Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook and place them in their corresponding dashboard.
2. Add any text to your dashboard as necessary but only if the visual requires more information. You can add explanations more effectively during the presentation.

Tip: Aim to be brief and concise with any text. Dashboards simplify information and too much text can clutter the visuals and obscure the message.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards

1 hour

Ideally you can present your dashboard to your audience so that you are available to clarify questions and add a layer of interpretation that would crowd out boards if added as text.

1. To prepare to tell your story, consult the Situation, Key Insights, and Call to Action sections that you documented for each dashboard in Tab 6 of the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook.
2. Practice your messages as you walk through your dashboards. The next two slides provide delivery guidance.
3. Once you deliver your dashboards, update Tab 6 with audience feedback. Often dashboards are iterative and when your audience sees them, they are usually inspired to think about what else they would like to see. This is good and shows your audience is engaged!

Don’t overwhelm your audience with information and data. You spent time to craft your dashboards so that they are clear and concise, so spend time practicing delivering a message that matches your clear, concise dashboards

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

Using voice and body

Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, and frame all have an impact on what might be conveyed.

If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.

Be professional and confident

State the main points of your dashboard confidently. While this should be obvious, it needs to be stated explicitly. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.

Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or a calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.

Connect with your audience

Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation or if you are presenting remotely, look into the camera. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.

Avoid reading the text from your dashboard, and instead paraphrase it while maintaining eye/camera contact.

Info-Tech Insight

You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren’t engaged, it is on you as the communicator.

Communication Delivery Checklist

• Have you practiced delivering the communication to team members or coaches?
• Have you practiced delivering the communication to someone with little to no technology background?
• Are you making yourself open to feedback and improvement opportunities?
• If the communication is derailed from your plan, are you prepared to handle that change?
• Can you deliver the communication without reading your notes word for word?
• Have you adapted your voice throughout the communication to highlight specific components you want the audience to focus on?
• Are you presenting in a way that is genuine to you and your personality?
• Can you communicate the message within the time allotted?
• Are you moving in an appropriate manner based on your communication (e.g., toward the screen, across the stage, hand gestures)
• Do you have room for feedback on the dashboards? Solicit feedback with your audience after the meeting and record it in Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Phase 5

Plan, record, and action your metrics

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Planning to track your metrics
• Recording your metrics
• Actioning your metrics

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Actioning your metrics to drive results

To deliver real value from your dashboards, you need to do something with the results.

Don’t fail on execution! The whole reason you labor to create inviting visuals and meaningful metrics is to action those metrics. The metrics results inform your entire story! It’s important to plan and do, but everything is lost if you fail to check and act.

70%: of survey respondents say that managers do not get insights from performance metrics to improve strategic decision making.
60%: of survey respondents say that operational teams do not get insights to improve operation decision making.

(Bernard Marr)

“Metrics aren’t a passive measure of progress but an active part of an organization’s everyday management….Applying the “plan–do–check–act” feedback loop…helps teams learn from their mistakes and identify good ideas that can be applied elsewhere”

(McKinsey)

Step 5.1

Plan How to Record Metrics

Activities:
5.1.1 For each dashboard, add a baseline and target to existing metrics and KPIs.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Baselines and targets identified and recorded for each metric.

5.1.1 Identify Baselines and Targets

1 hour

To action your metrics, you must first establish what your baselines and targets are so that you can determine if you are on track.

To establish baselines:
If you do not have a baseline. Run your metric to establish one.

To establish targets:

• Use historical data and trends of performance.
• If you do not have historical data, establish an initial target based on stakeholder-identified requirements and expectations.
• You can also run the metrics report over a defined period of time and use the baseline level of achievement to establish an initial target.
• The target may not always be a number – it could be a trend. The initial target may be changed after review with stakeholders.

Actions for Success:
How will you ensure you can get this metric? For example, if you would like to measure delivered value, to make sure the metric is measurable, you will need to ensure that measures of success are documented for an imitative and then measured once complete.

• If you need help with Action plans, the IT Metrics Library includes action plans for all of its metrics that may help

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 5.2

Record and Action Metrics

Activities:
5.2.1 Record and Action Results

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Understanding of what and where to record metrics once run.

5.2.1 Record and Action Results

1 hour

After analyzing your results, use this information to update your dashboards. Revisit Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook to update your story. Remember to record any audience feedback about the dashboards in the Audience Feedback section.

Action your measures as well as your metrics

What should be measured can change over time as your organization matures and the business environment changes. Understanding what creates business value for your organization is critical. If metrics need to be changed, record metrics actions under Identified Actions on Tab 7. A metric will need to be addressed in one of the following ways:

• Added: A new metric is required or an existing metric needs large-scale changes (example: calculation method or scope).
• Changed: A minor change is required to the presentation format or data. Note: a major change in a metric would be performed through the Add option.
• Removed: The metric is no longer required, and it needs to be removed from reporting and data gathering. A final report date for that metric should be determined.
• Maintained: The metric is still useful and no changes are required to the metric, its measurement, or how it’s reported.

Don’t be discouraged if you need to update your metrics a few times before you get it right. It can take some trial and error to find the measures that best indicate the health of what you are measuring.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Tips for actioning results

Sometimes actioning your metrics results requires more analysis

If a metric deviates from your target, you may need to analyze how to correct the issue then run the metric again to see if the results have improved.

Identify Root Cause
Root Cause Analysis can include problem exploration techniques like The 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, or affinity mapping.

Select a Solution
Once you have identified a possible root cause, use the same technique to brainstorm and select a solution then re-run your metrics.

Consider Tension Metrics
Consider tension metrics when selecting a solution. Will improving one area affect another? A car can go faster but it will consume more fuel – a project can be delivered faster but it may affect the quality.

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

1. Using this blueprint and the IT Dashboard Workbook, you validated and customized the dashboards for your audience and organization, which reduced or eliminated time spent searching for and organizing your own visuals.
2. You documented your dashboards’ story so you are ready to present them to your audience.
3. You assessed the data for your dashboards and you built a metrics action-tracking plan to maintain your dashboards’ metrics.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an Info-Tech workshop or Guided Implementation.

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889

Additional Support

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech Workshop.

To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com
1-888-670-8889

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Determine how you can use the Info-Tech IT Dashboards in your organization and the anticipated level of customization.

Plan your dashboards
Complete the IT Dashboard Workbook to help plan your dashboards using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.

Research Contributors and Experts

John Corrado
Head of IT
X4 Pharmaceuticals

As head of IT, John is charged with the creation of strategic IT initiatives that align with X4s vision, mission, culture, and long-term goals and is responsible for the organization’s systems, security, and infrastructure. He works closely developing partnerships with X4tizens across the organization to deliver value through innovative programs and services.

Grant Frost
Chief Information & Security Officer
Niagara Catholic School Board

Grant Frost is an experienced executive, information technologist and security strategist with extensive experience in both the public and private sector. Grant is known for, and has extensive experience in, IT transformation and the ability to increase capability while decreasing cost in IT services.

Nick Scozzaro
CEO and Co-Founder of MobiStream and ShadowHQ
ShadowHQ

Nick got his start in software development and mobility working at BlackBerry where he developed a deep understanding of the technology landscape and of what is involved in both modernizing legacy systems and integrating new ones. Working with experts across multiple industries, he innovated, learned, strategized, and ultimately helped push the boundaries of what was possible.

Joseph Sanders
Managing Director of Technology/Cyber Security Services
Kentucky Housing Corporation

In his current role Joe oversees all IT Operations/Applications Services that are used to provide services and support to the citizens of Kentucky. Joe has 30+ years of leadership experience and has held several executive roles in the public and private sector. He has been a keynote speaker for various companies including HP, IBM, and Oracle.

Jochen Sievert
Director Performance Excellence & IT
Zeon Chemicals

Jochen moved to the USA from Duesseldorf, Germany in 2010 to join Zeon Chemicals as their IT Manager. Prior to Zeon, Jochen has held various technical positions at Novell, Microsoft, IBM, and Metro Management Systems.

Info-Tech Contributors

Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst
Donna Bales, Principal Research Director
Shashi Bellamkonda, Principal Research Director
John Burwash, Executive Counselor
Tony Denford, Research Lead
Jody Gunderman, Senior Executive Advisor
Tom Hawley, Managing Partner
Mike Higginbotham, Executive Counselor
Valence Howden, Principal Research Director
Dave Kish, Practice Lead
Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director
Gary Rietz, Executive Counselor
Steve Schmidt, Senior Managing Partner
Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security & Privacy
Ian Tyler-Clarke, Executive Counselor

Plus, an additional four contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

Related Info-Tech Research

Bibliography

“10 Signs You Are Sitting on a Pile of Data Debt.” Experian, n.d. Web.

“From the What to the Why: How Data Storytelling Is Key to Success.” Exasol, 2021. Web.

Bonsignore, Marian. “Using Visual Language to Create the Case for Change.” Amarican Management Association. Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.

Calzon, Bernardita. “Top 25 Dashboard Design Principles, Best Practices & How To’s.” Datapine, 5 Apr. 2023.

“Data Literacy.” Tableau, n.d. Accessed 3 May 2023.

“KPIs Don’t Improve Decision-Making In Most Organizations.” LinkedIn, n.d. Accessed 2 May 2023.

Miller, Amanda. “A Comprehensive Guide to Accessible Data Visualization.” Betterment, 2020. Accessed May 2022.

“Performance Management: Why Keeping Score Is so Important, and so Hard.” McKinsey. Accessed 2 May 2023.

Vogel, Douglas, et al. Persuasion and the Role of Visual Presentation Support: The UM/3M Study. Management Information Systems Research Center School of Management University of Minnesota, 1986.

Watson, Morag W., et al. ”IT’s Changing Mandate in an Age of Disruption.” The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2021.

Get the Most Out of Your SAP

In today’s connected world, the continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Focus optimization on organizational value delivery.

	Chad Shortridge Senior Research Director, Enterprise Applications Info-Tech Research Group
	Lisa Highfield Research Director, Enterprise Applications Info-Tech Research Group

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a core tool that the business leverages to accomplish its goals. An ERP that is doing its job well is invisible to the business. The challenges come when the tool is no longer invisible. It has become a source of friction in the functioning of the business.

SAP systems are expensive, benefits can be difficult to quantify, and issues with the products can be difficult to understand. Over time, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of these systems is often not monitored. This is complicated in today’s digital landscape with multiple integrations points, siloed data, and competing priorities.

Too often organizations jump into selecting replacement systems without understanding the health of their systems. We can do better than this.

IT leaders need to take a proactive approach to continually monitor and optimize their enterprise applications. Strategically re-align business goals, identify business application capabilities, complete a process assessment, evaluate user adoption, and create an optimization plan that will drive a cohesive technology strategy that delivers results.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

SAP ERP environments are changing, but we cannot stand still on our optimization efforts. Understand your product(s), processes, user satisfaction, integration points, and the availability of data to business decision makers. Examine these areas to develop a personalized SAP optimization roadmap that fits the needs of your organization. Incorporate these methodologies into an ongoing optimization strategy aimed at enabling the business, increasing productivity, and reducing costs.

Insight summary

Continuous assessment and optimization of your SAP ERP systems is critical to the success of your organization.

• Applications and the environments in which they live are constantly evolving.
• This blueprint provides business and application managers with a method to complete a health assessment of their ERP systems to identify areas for improvement and optimization.
• Put optimization practices into effect by:
  • Aligning and prioritizing key business and technology drivers.
  • Identifying ERP process classification and performing a gap analysis.
  • Measuring user satisfaction across key departments.
  • Evaluating vendor relations.
  • Understanding how data plays into the mix.
  • Pulling it all together into an optimization roadmap.

SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across business units. It allows for the seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making. In many organizations, the SAP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow. ERP implementation should not be a one-and-done exercise. There needs to be ongoing optimization to enable business processes and optimal organizational results.

SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP)

What is SAP?

SAP ERP systems facilitate the flow of information across business units. They allow for the seamless integration of systems and create a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.

An ERP system:

• Automates processes, reducing the amount of manual, routine work.
• Integrates with core modules, eliminating the fragmentation of systems.
• Centralizes information for reporting from multiple parts of the value chain to a single point.

SAP use cases:

Product-Centric

Suitable for organizations that manufacture, assemble, distribute, or manage material goods.

Service-Centric

Suitable for organizations that provide and manage field services and/or professional services.

SAP Fast Facts

Product Description

• SAP has numerous ERP products. Products can be found under ERP, Finance, Customer Relations and Experience, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources, and Technology Platforms.
• SAP offers on-premises and cloud solutions for its ERP. In 2011, SAP released the HANA in-memory database. SAP ECC 6.0 reaches the end of life in 2027 (2030 extended support).
• Many organizations are facing mandatory transformation. This is an excellent opportunity to examine ERP portfolios for optimization opportunities.
• Now is the time to optimize to ensure you are prepared for the journey ahead.

Vendor Description

• SAP SE was founded in 1972 by five former IBM employees.
• The organization is focused on enterprise software that integrates all business processes and enables data processing in real-time.
• SAP stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.
• SAP offers more than 100 solutions covering all business functions.
• SAP operates 65 data centers at 35 locations in 16 countries.

SAP by the numbers

Only 72% of SAP S/4HANA clients were satisfied with the product’s business value in 2022. This was 9th out of 10 in the enterprise resource planning category.

Source: SoftwareReviews

As of 2022, 65% of SAP customers have not made the move to S/4HANA. These customers will continue to need to optimize the current ERP to meet the demanding needs of the business.

Source: Statista

Organizations will need to continue to support and optimize their SAP ERP portfolios. As of 2022, 42% of ASUG members were planning a move to S/4HANA but had not yet started to move.

Source: ASUG

Your challenge

This research is designed to help organizations who need to:

• Understand the multiple deployment models and the roadmap to successfully navigate a move to S/4HANA.
• Build a business case to understand the value behind a move.
• Map functionality to ensure future compatibility.
• Understand the process required to commercially navigate a move to S/4HANA.
• Avoid a costly audit due to missed requirements or SAP whiteboarding sessions.

HANA used to be primarily viewed as a commercial vehicle to realize legacy license model discounts. Now, however, SAP has built a roadmap to migrate all customers over to S/4HANA. While timelines may be delayed, the inevitable move is coming.

30-35% of SAP customers likely have underutilized assets. This can add up to millions in unused software and maintenance.

– Upperedge

SAP challenges and dissatisfaction

Finance, IT, Sales, and other users of the ERP system can only optimize ERP with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve ERP technology capabilities and customer interaction.

Info-Tech Insight

While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for ERP.

Where are applications leaders focusing?

Big growth numbers Year-over-year call topic requests	Other changes Year-over-year call topic requests
We are seeing applications leaders’ priorities change year over year, driven by a shift in their approach to problem solving. Leaders are moving from a process-centric approach to a collaborative approach that breaks down boundaries and brings teams together.	Software development lifecycle topics are tactical point solutions. Organizations have been “shifting left” to tackle the strategic issues such as product vision and Agile mindset to optimize the whole organization.

The S/4HANA journey

Optimization can play a role in your transition to S/4HANA.

• The business does not stop. Satisfy ongoing needs for business enablement.
• Build out a collaborative SAP optimization team across the business and IT.
• Engage the business to understand requirements.
• Discover applications and processes.
• Explore current-state capabilities and future-state needs.
• Evaluate optimization opportunities. Are there short-term wins? What are the long-term goals?
• Navigate the path to S/4HANA and develop some timelines and stage gates.
• Set your course and optimization roadmap.
• Capitalize on the methodologies for an ongoing optimization effort that can be continued after the S/4HANA go-live date.

Many organizations may be coming up against changes to their SAP ERP application portfolio.

Some challenges organizations may be dealing with include:

• Heavily customized instances
• Large volumes of data
• Lack of documentation
• Outdated business processes
• Looming end of life

Application optimization is risky without a plan

Avoid these common pitfalls:

• Not pursuing optimization because you are migrating to S/4HANA.
• Not considering how this plays into the short-, medium-, and long-term ERP strategy.
• Not considering application optimization as a business and IT partnership, which requires the continuous formal engagement of all participants.
• Not having a good understanding of your current state, including integration points and data.
• Not adequately accommodating feedback and changes after digital applications are deployed and employed.
• Not treating digital applications as a motivator for potential future IT optimization efforts and incorporating digital assets in strategic business planning.
• Not involving department leads, management, and other subject-matter experts to facilitate the organizational change digital applications bring.

“[A] successful application [optimization] strategy starts with the business need in mind and not from a technological point of view. No matter from which angle you look at it, modernizing a legacy application is a considerable undertaking that can’t be taken lightly. Your best approach is to begin the journey with baby steps.”

– Medium

Info-Tech’s methodology for getting the most out of your ERP

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Identify and prioritize your SAP optimization goals.

Application Portfolio Assessment

Assess IT-enabled user satisfaction across your SAP portfolio.

Key deliverable:

SAP Optimization Roadmap

Complete an assessment of processes, user satisfaction, data quality, and vendor management.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.

Guided Implementation

Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.

Workshop

We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.

Consulting

Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Map Current-State Capabilities

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

• Align your organizational goals
• Gain a firm understanding of your current state
• Inventory ERP and related applications
• Confirm the organization’s capabilities

This phase involves the following participants:

• CFO
• Department Leads – Finance, Procurement, Asset Management
• Applications Director
• Senior Business Analyst
• Senior Developer
• Procurement Analysts

Step 1.1

Identify Stakeholders and Build Your Optimization Team

Activities

1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

1.1.2 Map your SAP optimization stakeholders

1.1.3 Determine your SAP optimization team

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Identify ERP drivers and objectives
• Explore ERP challenges and pain points
• Discover ERP benefits and opportunities
• Align the ERP foundation with the corporate strategy

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder map
• SAP Optimization Team

ERP optimization stakeholders

• Understand the roles necessary to get the most out of your SAP.
• Understand the role of each player within your project structure. Look for listed participants on the activities slides to determine when each player should be involved.

Info-Tech Insight

Do not limit project input or participation. Include subject-matter experts and internal stakeholders at stages within the project. Such inputs can be solicited on a one-off basis as needed. This ensures you take a holistic approach to create your ERP optimization strategy.

1.1.1 Identify SAP optimization stakeholders

1 hour

1. Hold a meeting to identify the SAP optimization stakeholders.
2. Use next slide as a guide.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Understand how to navigate the complex web of stakeholders in ERP

Identify which stakeholders to include and what their level of involvement should be during requirements elicitation based on relevant topic expertise.

Large-scale ERP projects require the involvement of many stakeholders from all corners and levels of the organization, including project sponsors, IT, end users, and business stakeholders. Consider the influence and interest of stakeholders in contributing to the requirements elicitation process and involve them accordingly.

EXAMPLE: Stakeholder involvement during selection

Activity 1.1.2 Map your SAP optimization stakeholders

1 hour

1. Use the list of SAP optimization stakeholders.
2. Map each stakeholder on the quadrant based on their expected influence and involvement in the project.
3. [Optional] Color code the users using the scale below to quickly identify the group that the stakeholder belongs to.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Map the organization’s stakeholders

The SAP optimization team

Consider the core team functions when putting together the project team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned ERP optimization strategy. Don’t let your project team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limiting the size of the project team will enable effective decision making while still including functional business units such as Marketing, Sales, Service, and Finance as well as IT.

1.1.3 Determine your SAP optimization team

1 hour

1. Have the project manager and other key stakeholders discuss and determine who will be involved in the SAP optimization project.

• The size of the team will depend on the initiative and size of your organization.
• Key business leaders in key areas and IT representatives should be involved.

Note: Depending on your initiative and the size of your organization, the size of this team will vary.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Step 1.2

Build an SAP Strategy Model

Activities

1.2.1 Explore environmental factors and technology drivers

1.2.2 Consider potential barriers and challenges

1.2.3 Discuss enablers of success

1.2.4 Develop your SAP optimization goals

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Identify ERP drivers and objectives
• Explore ERP challenges and pain points
• Discover ERP benefits and opportunities
• Align the ERP foundation with the corporate strategy

This step involves the following participants:

• SAP Optimization Team

Outcomes of this step

• ERP business model
• Strategy alignment

Align your SAP strategy with the corporate strategy

ERP projects are more successful when the management team understands the strategic importance and the criticality of alignment. Time needs to be spent upfront aligning business strategies with ERP capabilities. Effective alignment between IT and the business should happen daily. Alignment doesn’t just need to occur just at the executive level but at each level of the organization.

ERP Business Model Template

Conduct interviews to elicit the business context

Stakeholder Interviews

Begin by conducting interviews of your executive team. Interview the following leaders:

1. Chief Information Officer
2. Chief Executive Officer
3. Chief Financial Officer
4. Chief Revenue Officer/Sales Leader
5. Chief Operating Officer/Supply Chain & Logistics Leader
6. Chief Technology Officer/Chief Product Officer

INTERVIEWS MUST UNCOVER

1. Your organization’s top three business goals
2. Your organization’s top ten business initiatives
3. Your organization’s mission and vision

Understand the ERP drivers and organizational objectives

Info-Tech Insight

One of the biggest drivers for ERP adoption is the ability to make quicker decisions from timely information. This driver is a result of external considerations. Many industries today are highly competitive, uncertain, and rapidly changing. To succeed under these pressures, there needs to be timely information and visibility into all components of the organization.

1.2.1 Explore environmental factors and technology drivers

30 minutes

1. Identify business drivers that are contributing to the organization’s need for ERP.
2. Understand how the company is running today and what the organization’s future will look like. Try to identify the purpose for becoming an integrated organization. Use a whiteboard or flip charts and markers to capture key findings.
3. Consider external considerations, organizational drivers, technology drivers, and key functional requirements.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Create a realistic ERP foundation by identifying the challenges and barriers the project will bestow

There are several different factors that may stifle the success of an ERP implementation. Organizations that are creating an ERP foundation must scan their current environment to identify internal barriers and challenges.

Common Internal Barriers

ERP Business Model

What does success look like?

Top 15 critical success factors for ERP system implementation

Source: Epizitone and Olugbara, 2020; CC BY 4.0

Info-Tech Insight

Complement your ability to deliver on your critical success factors with the capabilities of your implementation partner to drive a successful ERP implementation.

“Implementation partners can play an important role in successful ERP implementations. They can work across the organizational departments and layers creating a synergy and a communications mechanism.” – Ayogeboh Epizitone, Durban University of Technology

1.2.2 Consider potential barriers and challenges

1-3 hours

• Open tab “1.2 Strategy & Goals,” in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.
• Identify barriers to ERP optimization success.
• Review the ERP critical success factors and how they relate to your optimization efforts.
• Discuss potential barriers to successful ERP optimization.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

1.2.3 Discuss enablers of success

1-3 hours

1. Open tab “1.2 Strategy & Goals,” in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.
2. Identify barriers to ERP optimization success.
3. Review the ERP critical success factors and how they relate to your optimization efforts.
4. Discuss potential barriers to successful ERP optimization.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

The Business Value Matrix

Rationalizing and quantifying the value of SAP

Benefits can be realized internally and externally to the organization or department and have different drivers of value.

• Financial benefits refer to the degree to which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and are often quite tangible.
• Human benefits refer to how an application can deliver value through a user’s experience.
• Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact and improve your organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.
• Outward refers to value sources that come from your interaction with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

Organizational Goals

• Increased Revenue

Application functions that are specifically related to the impact on your organization’s ability to generate revenue and deliver value to your customers.

• Reduced Costs

Reduction of overhead. The ways in which an application limits the operational costs of business functions.

• Enhanced Services

Functions that enable business capabilities that improve the organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.

• Reach Customers

Application functions that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce market information and insights.

Business Value Matrix

Link SAP capabilities to organizational value

1.2.4 Define your SAP optimization goals

30 minutes

1. Discuss the ERP business model and ERP critical success factors.
2. Through the lens of corporate goals and objectives think about supporting ERP technology. How can the ERP system bring value to the organization? What are the top things that will make this initiative a success?
3. Develop five to ten optimization goals that will form the basis for the success of this initiative.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.

Download the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook

Step 1.3

Inventory Current System State

Activities

1.3.1 Inventory SAP applications and interactions

1.3.2 Draw your SAP system diagram

1.3.3 Inventory your SAP modules and business capabilities (or business processes)

1.3.4 Define your key SAP optimization modules and business capabilities

This step will guide you through the following activities:

• Inventory of applications
• Mapping interactions between systems

This step involves the following participants:

• SAP Optimization Team
• Enterprise Architect
• Data Architect

Outcomes of this step

• Systems inventory
• Systems diagram

1.3.1 Inventory SAP applications and interfaces

1-3+ hours

1. Enter your SAP systems, SAP extended applications, and integrated applications within scope.
2. Include any abbreviated names or nicknames.
3. List the application type or main function.
4. List the modules the organization has licensed.
5. List any integrations.

Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your SAP Workbook.