Continuous assessment and optimization of your Workday enterprise resource planning (ERP) is critical to the success of your organization.
Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a core tool that the business leverages to accomplish its goals. Take a proactive approach to optimize your enterprise applications. Strategically re-align business goals, identify business application capabilities, complete a process assessment, evaluate user satisfaction, measure module satisfaction, and vendor relations to create an optimization plan that will drive a cohesive technology strategy that delivers results.
The Get the Most out of Workday Workbook serves as the holding document for the different elements of the Get the Most out Workday blueprint. Use each assigned tab to input the relevant information for the process of optimizing Workday.
Use this tool provide Info-Tech with information surrounding your ERP application(s). This inventory will be used to create a custom Application Portfolio Assessment (APA) for your ERP. The template includes demographics, application inventory, departments to be surveyed and data quality inclusion.
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Define your workday application vision.
Set the foundation for optimizing Workday by building a cross-functional team, aligning with organizational strategy, inventorying current system state, defining your timeframe, and exploring current costs.
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.
Workday optimization team
Workday business model
Workday optimization goals
System inventory and data flow
Application and business capabilities list
Workday optimization timeline
Map current-state capabilities.
Measure the state of your current Workday system to understand where it is not performing well.
2.1 Assess Workday capabilities.
2.2 Review your satisfaction with the vendor/product and willingness for change.
Workday capability gap analysis
Workday user satisfaction (application portfolio assessment)
Workday SoftwareReviews survey results
Workday current costs
Assess Workday.
Explore underperforming areas to:
Uncover where user satisfaction is lacking and possible root causes.
Identify process and workflows that are creating issues for end users and identify improvement options.
Understand where data issues are occurring and explore how you can improve these.
Identify integration points and explore if there are any areas of improvement.
Investigate your relationship with the vendor and product, including that relative to others.
Identify any areas for cost optimization (optional).
3.1 Prioritize optimization opportunities.
3.2 Discover optimization initiatives.
Product and vendor satisfaction opportunities
Capability and feature optimization opportunities
Process optimization opportunities
Integration optimization opportunities
Data optimization opportunities
Workday cost-saving opportunities
Build the optimization roadmap.
Understanding where you need to improve is the first step, now understand where to focus your optimization efforts, build out next steps and put a timeframe in place.
4.1 Build your optimization roadmap.
Workday optimization roadmap
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
Product Description
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
Employees: 12,500
Headquarters: Pleasanton, CA
Website: workday.com
Founded: 2005
Presence: Global, Publicly Traded
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)
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)
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 continues to invest in Workday Finance
Recent Finance-Related Acquisitions
Workday challenges and dissatisfaction
Organizational
People and teams
Technology
Data
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.
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.
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.
“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
1. Map Current-State Capabilities | 2. Assess Your Current State | 3. Identify Key Optimization Areas | 4. Build Your Optimization Roadmap | |
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Identify and prioritize your Workday optimization goals.
Assess IT-enabled user satisfaction across your Workday portfolio.
Complete an assessment of processes, user satisfaction, data quality, and vendor management.
MANAGED AP AUTOMATION with OneSource Virtual
TripAdvisor + OneSource
INDUSTRY: Travel
SOURCE: OneSource Virtual, 2017
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:
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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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
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:
Call #3:
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.
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
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Define Your Workday Application Vision | Map Current State | Assess Workday | Build Your Optimization Roadmap | Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite) | |
Activities | 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 | 2.1 Assess Workday Capabilities 2.2 Review Your Satisfaction With the Vendor/Product and Willingness for Change | 3.1 Prioritize Optimization Opportunities 3.2 Discover Optimization Initiatives | 4.1 Build Your Optimization Roadmap | 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 |
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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:
This phase involves the following participants:
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
Title | Role Within the Project Structure |
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Organizational Sponsor |
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Project Manager |
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Business Unit Leaders |
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Optimization Team |
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Steering Committee |
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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 hour
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Identify which stakeholders to include and what their level of involvement should be during requirements elicitation based on relevant topic expertise.
Sponsor | End User | IT | Business | |
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Description | An internal stakeholder who has final sign-off on the ERP project. | Front-line users of the ERP technology. | Back-end support staff who are tasked with project planning, execution, and eventual system maintenance. | Additional stakeholders that will be impacted by any ERP technology changes. |
Examples |
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Values | Executive buy-in and support is essential to the success of the project. Often, the sponsor controls funding and resource allocation. | End users determine the success of the system through user adoption. If the end user does not adopt the system, the system is deemed useless and benefits realization is poor. | IT is likely to be responsible for more in-depth requirements gathering. IT possesses critical knowledge around system compatibility, integration, and data. | Involving business stakeholders in the requirements gathering will ensure alignment between HR and organizational objectives. |
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.
1 hour
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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.
Required Skills/Knowledge | Suggested Project Team Members |
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1 hour
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
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
Your corporate strategy:
Your IT 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 at the executive level but at each level of the organization.
Begin by conducting interviews of your executive team. Interview the following leaders:
INTERVIEWS MUST UNCOVER:
Business Needs | Business Drivers | |
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Definition | A business need is a requirement associated with a particular business process. | A business need is a requirement associated with a particular business process. |
Examples |
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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.
60 minutes
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Organizational Goals
Business Needs
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Organizational Goals
Business Needs
Technology Drivers | Environmental Factors | |
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Definition | Technology drivers are technological changes that have created the need for a new ERP enablement strategy. Many organizations turn to technology systems to help them obtain a competitive edge. | These external considerations are factors that take place outside of the organization and impact the way business is conducted inside the organization. These are often outside the control of the business. Look three to five years ahead, what challenges will the business face? Where will you have to adapt and pivot? How can we prepare for this? |
Examples |
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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.
30 minutes
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
External Considerations
Technology Considerations
Functional Requirements
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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
Management Support | Organizational Culture | Organizational Structure | IT Readiness | |
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Definition | The degree of understanding and acceptance toward ERP systems. | The collective shared values and beliefs. | The functional relationships between people and departments in an organization. | The degree to which the organization’s people and processes are prepared for a new ERP system. |
Questions |
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Impact |
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1-3 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Functional Gaps
Technical Gaps
Process Gaps
Barriers to Success
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Organizational Goals
Barriers
(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
1-3 hours
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Business Benefits
IT Benefits
Organizational Benefits
Enablers of Success
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Benefits can be realized internally and externally to the organization or department and have different drivers of value.
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
30 minutes
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
1-3+ hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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+ hours
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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:
A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.
Value stream defined:
Value Streams:
Design Product
Produce Product
Sell Product
Customer Service
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.
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.
Operating Processes | ||||
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1. Develop vision and strategy | 2. Develop and manage products and services | 3. Market and sell products and services | 4. Deliver physical products | 5. Deliver services |
Management and Support Processes | ||||
6. Manage customer service | ||||
7. Develop and manage human capital | ||||
8. Manage IT | ||||
9. Manage financial resources | ||||
10. Acquire, construct, and manage assets | ||||
11. Manage enterprise risk, compliance, remediation, and resiliency | ||||
12. Manage external relationships | ||||
13. Develop and manage business capabilities |
(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.
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)
Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 |
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Market and sell products and services | Understand markets, customers, and capabilities | Perform customer and market intelligence analysis | Conduct customer and market research |
Market and sell products and services | Develop a sales strategy | Develop a sales forecast | Gather current and historic order information |
Deliver services | Manage service delivery resources | Manage service delivery resource demand | Develop baseline forecasts |
? | ? | ? | ? |
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.
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.
1-3+ hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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1-3+ hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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1.4.1 Define Workday Key Dates, and Workday Optimization Roadmap Timeframe and Structure
Step 1.1
Step 1.2
Step 1.3
Step 1.4
Step 1.5
This step will guide you through the following activities:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
1-3+ hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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1.5.1 Document Costs Associated With Workday
Step 1.1
Step 1.2
Step 1.3
Step 1.4
Step 1.5
This step will walk you through the following activities:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
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.
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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:
This phase involves the following participants:
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
Step 2.1
Step 2.2
This step will guide you through the following activities:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
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.
Option 2: Create a survey manually.
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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.
Option 2: Create a survey manually.
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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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
Description | All aspects related to financial operations | ||
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Key Success Indicators | Month-end reporting in 5 days | AR at risk managing down (zero over 90 days) | Weekly operating cash flow updates |
Timely liquidity for claims payments | Payroll audit reporting and insights reporting | 90% of workflow tasks captured in ERP | |
EFT uptake | Automated reconciliations | Reduce audit hours required | |
Current Pain Points | A lot of voided and re-issued checks | NIDPP | Integration with banks; can’t get the information back into existing ERP |
There is no payroll integration | No payroll automation and other processes | Lack of integration with HUB | |
Not one true source of data | Incentive payment processing | Rewards program management | |
Audit process is onerous | Reconcile AP and AR for dealers |
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.
General Ledger
Accounts Receivable
Incentives Management
Accounts Payable
General Ledger Consolidation
Treasury Management
Cash Management
Subscription / recurring payments
Treasury Transactions
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
Step 2.1
Step 2.2
This step will guide you through the following activities:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
30 minutes
Use Info-Tech’s vendor satisfaction survey to identify optimization areas with your ERP product(s) and vendor(s).
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise Resource Planning Category
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30 minutes
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SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise Resource Planning Category
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(SoftwareReviews ERP Mid-Market, 2022; SoftwareReviews ERP Enterprise, 2022)
1 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Legend:
Willing to follow best practice
May be challenging or unique business model
Low tolerance for change
Out of Scope
Product-Centric Capabilities | ||||
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R&D | Production | Supply Chain | Distribution | Asset Mgmt |
Idea to Offering | Plan to Produce | Procure to Pay | Forecast to Delivery | Acquire to Dispose |
Add/Remove | Shop Floor Scheduling | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove |
Add/Remove | Product Costing | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove |
Service-Centric Capabilities | ||||
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Finance | HR | Marketing | Sales | Service |
Record to Report | Hire to Retire | Market to Order | Quote to Cash | Issue to Resolution |
Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove |
Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove | Add/Remove |
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 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:
This phase involves the following participants:
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
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:
Support user satisfaction:
Improve data quality:
Proactively manage vendors:
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.
Create or Improve:
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.
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.
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.
How important is it? | How Difficult is it? |
---|---|
What is the value?
What is the benefit?
What is the impact?
|
What is the cost?
What is the level of effort?
What is the risk of implementing/not implementing? What is the complexity? |
(Roadmunk)
Reach | Impact | Confidence | Effort |
---|---|---|---|
How many people will this improvement impact? Internal: # of users OR # of transactions per period External: # of customers OR # of transactions per period |
What is the scale of impact? How much will the improvement affect satisfaction? Example Weighting: 1 = Massive Impact 2 = High Impact 1 = Medium Impact 0.5 = Low Impact 0.25 = Very Low Impact |
How confident are we that the improvements are achievable and that they will meet the impact estimates? Example Weighting: 1 = High Confidence 0.80 = Medium Confidence 0.50 = Low Confidence |
How much investment will be required to implement the improvement initiative? FTE hours x cost per hour |
(Intercom)
1-3 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
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.
Workday Services Partners represent a curated community of global systems integrators and regional firms that help companies deploy Workday and continually adopt new capabilities.
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.
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 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.
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.”
1-2 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
1-2 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
Goals of Process Improvement | Process Improvement Sample Areas | Improvement Possibilities |
---|---|---|
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1-2 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
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The benefits of integration
The challenges of integration
Financial Consolidation | Data Backup | Synchronization Across Sites | Legacy Consolidation |
---|---|---|---|
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For more information: Implement a Multi-site ERP
1-2 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
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:
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.
Data Quality Management | Effective Data Governance | Data-Centric Integration Strategy | Extensible Data Warehousing |
---|---|---|---|
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|
1-2 hours
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.
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.
1-2 hours
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
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:
This phase involves the following participants:
Get the Most Out of Your Workday
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:
This step involves the following participants:
Outcomes of this step
1 hour
Record this information in the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook.
Download the Get the Most Out of Your Workday Workbook
1 hour
Optimization initiatives: Determine which if any to proceed with.
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
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
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:
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
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.
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