Enhance

Enhancing an IFS implementation enables a business to take full advantage of new features and functionality, improve and streamline business processes and in general improve the overall performance of their IFS system, however, any initiative to enhance or improve IFS is not without risks and issues. Totalamber’s approach to enhancing an IFS implementation is designed to mitigate risks and issues through a structured approach to programme delivery.

Understanding why a business wants to enhance their IFS implementation is the first stage in identifying the risks and issues. It is not uncommon to find one or more of the following symptoms with organisations who have been using IFS for at least 12 months:

• IFS Software is not used effectively - In most cases 50% of available functionality is not being utilised or understood.
• New business environment needs new IFS setup and approach - Many businesses change their strategies to improve bottom-line – e.g. outsourcing / Shared Services / Suppliers Partnerships. Often IFS needs to be reconfigured to support such changes.
• Limited internal IFS knowledge - Key team members from original implementation left the role or organisation – leaving the IFS system insufficiently supported.
• Original IFS training was ineffective or incomplete - Too many users have received little or no formal tailored training to help them do their jobs effectively.
• Low buy in and adoption to the software - The lack of training and knowledge result in the software getting a bad name.
• Poor Integration between business processes - Business departments and teams work in silos. Little effective data integration and standardisation between the sites or regions.
• Limited Management Reports - Users feel they are a slave to the system. Data keyed in but little useful information provided to management.
• Limited business ownership to the IFS software - Support to end users is considered as reactive and poor.

Totalamber’s tools, methodology and approach are all designed to assess the holistic environment of the IFS system, incorporating assessments of the business strategy, people, process and technology environments prior to the commencement of any initiative to upgrade IFS, ensuring the key aims and objectives of the programme are fully understood and agreed by all stakeholders and any risks and issues have been identified, enabling the programme to mitigate these during the enhancement programme.

Totalamber’s IFS Performance Review (IPR) is a 360 degree review, assessment and analysis of the holistic IFS environment using Totalamber’s Diamond Methodology to assess business strategy, people, process and technology.

The IPR uses the following tools and techniques to assess the IFS environment, identify risks and issues and provide the business with the most appropriate roadmap for delivering the enhancement programme:

• IFS Snapshot - An initial survey and questionnaire designed to elicit key feedback on the current system and environment from a cross-section of key stakeholders (management, super/key users, users) and to determine what they would like to see from any enhancement initiative.
• Landscape Internal Support Assessment (LiSA) - An on-line tool that assesses the issues and capabilities of the current support provision within an organisation.
• Support Needs Analysis (SNA) - A detailed assessment of the specific Support needs of an organisation assessed against Totalamber’s 6 layer Support Tower.

Analysis of the findings from each of the tools enables Totalamber to provide an IFS Snapshot Assessment, outlining the key findings, recommendations, quick wins and improvement initiatives along with an assessment of the potential cost, duration and return on investment for the enhancement initiative, mitigating risks and guaranteeing the success of the project.

Organisations consider enhancing their IFS application for a number of reasons – changes in the business model drives changes in operations and ways of working, business processes need streamlining, new features or functionality from the current version of IFS are still to be implemented.

Totalamber has a wealth of experience gained through upgrading IFS and its key guiding principles when developing a strategic, but pragmatic upgrade strategy is to:

• Understand Business Drivers – what are the business drivers of change and who are the stakeholders
• Understand Management Aims – what does the management and leadership team want to achieve from the upgrade initiative
• Understand Priorities and Constraints – what is the priority for the enhancements – which modules, which countries and what are the constraints that could impact the programme
• Understand what success looks like – what are the critical success factors, how does both Totalamber and the client agree a successful outcome
• Agree strategies – define the upgrade approach and agree this with the client
• Align Global and Local Agendas (where appropriate) – where there is misalignment between global and local expectations, establish the rules of engagement and align objectives
• Understand important KPIs – what are the key metrics and how are they measured

Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component Model provides the tools, methodology and approach to enable clients to identify the strategic changes to their IFS system and implement a programme of continuous improvement, prioritising the enhancements required and delivering the programme of work through clearly defined governance and controls.

Using the Baseline Assessment tool and Totalamber’s IFS Performance Review (IPR), Totalamber will undertake a complete assessment of the holistic IFS environment and provide documented findings and recommendations which will form the basis of the enhancement programme.

These tools and services are designed to:

• Assess the current landscape – across four dimensions of business strategy, people, process and technology
• Deliver project clarity – provide management and the project team with clarity on plans, resources and risks
• Develop a benefits realisation plan to measure tangible business benefit from the upgrade or enhancement and manage the delivery

Enhancing an IFS system is not just about the implementation of new technology modules. There are many other aspects that need to be considered in order for an enhancement initiative to be successful and deliver tangible business benefit to the organisation. The holistic environment encompassing people, process, business strategy all need to be considered as part of the enhancement programme.

Understanding current business processes and ways of working enables an organisation to make significant improvements in the re-engineering of processes and ways of working when taking advantage of new features and functionality and improved automation facilities.

Totalamber’s approach is not to just focus on the technology aspects of the enhancement, but to assess the holistic environment across four strategic dimensions of people, process, business strategy and technology. Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component Model provides the toolkit, approach and methodology for assessing an organisation and in order to gain an understanding of the IFS environment focuses on the following guiding principles:

• Understand Business Processes – organisations need to review and document current business processes and align these with IFS’s features and functionality
• Understand Ways of Workings – current “ways of working” need to be defined and document and aligned with business processes
• Understand As Is vs. To Be Processes – assess and document the current “As Is” business processes, define the “To Be” business processes and determine the changes required to both business process and IFS configuration to support the new system requirements
• Agree Required IFS Capabilities – analysis of the “To Be” environment will determine the capabilities required from the IFS system and provide the structure for the design and configuration of IFS
• Establish Knowledge Centre – establishing a knowledge centre ensures knowledge and intelligence about the IFS system, business processes and operations remains within the organisation and is not lost when key people leave

Totalamber’s approach is to start with an IFS Performance Review (IPR) which is a 360 degree review, assessment and analysis of the holistic IFS environment using Totalamber's Diamond Methodology to assess business strategy, people, process and technology. Assessment of the findings from the IPR provide the basis of recommendations for the “To Be” system.

Once the “To Be” system has been defined and agreed by the organisation, Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component Model provides the tools and approach to enhancing IFS across the organisation in a controlled manner.

Totalamber’s approach to enhancing IFS is to review the current environment and identify the features and benefits from the new version of IFS that will deliver tangible business benefit. Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component Model provides a toolkit, methodology and approach that enables organisations to:

• Document “As Is” business processes – ensure all business processes are documented and aligned with the ways of working
• Define the future “To Be” environment – define and agree the “To Be” environment
• “As Is” versus “To Be” analysis – identify process differences and re-engineer processes to support the new environment
• Align “To Be” environment with IFS capabilities – determine how IFS supports the “To Be” environment and identify any modifications or system enhancements required

People are key to the successful rollout and implementation of IFS. Not only ensuring the right delivery team is in place and ready for the journey ahead, but also ensuring the people using the IFS system (users and super-users) have been trained and are bought into the implementation is key to the success of the enhancement programme.

Totalamber’s approach to delivering an IFS implementation is to ensure the execution of the enhancement has been detailed, documented and agreed by all stakeholders – client management and leadership team, global delivery team and where appropriate, country or site stakeholders and the delivery team itself.

Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component Model provides a structured approach and methodology for the successful enhancement of IFS and is based on the following guiding principles:

• Understand End User Landscape – who are the end users, what are their roles and responsibilities
• Understand IT Literacy Levels – what is the level of IT understanding, knowledge and experience across all users
• Assess Training Needs – who needs what training and when – all users should be brought up to the same level of knowledge and experience
• Understand buy-in levels – are users bought into the system and could there be any saboteurs
• Develop Change Management Plans – providing a structured methodology to raise change issues and agree changes is a key requirement to ensure successful delivery
• Develop Communications Plans – providing an effective communications infrastructure that touches all stakeholders and educates them on the rollout initiative maintains buy-in and ensures country / site readiness is maintained
• Develop Training Programme – users need training, however training should not disrupt the business; a structure training programme ensures the right training is delivered to the right people at the right time

Totalamber’s approach takes the organisation through a number of workstreams, each of which is designed to ensure buy-in is achieved through all stakeholders and incorporates:

• Mobilise - Development of the Project Charter, Project Templates, IFS Education and Project Management Office (PMO)
• Design - IFS Straw-man to challenge design assumptions, Conference Room Pilot (to validate design), Test Strategy (to verify success of the enhancement), Environments (to deliver enhancements)
• Build - Configuration of the application, Development and changes to Reports, Development of Training Material, Data (associated with the new improvements), impact of Interfaces and Test Scenarios to validate change
• Test - System Training, Process Integration Testing, Performance Testing, UAT, Go Live Data Readiness
• Deploy - Training End Users, Data Cutover, Go Live, Live Support and Handover
• Support - Transition Initiatives, Capacity and Recruitment, Training and Skilling, Future Support Landscape, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Totalamber believes that delivery and success can be lost without the right levels of ongoing proactive support to both the business and users. A sustainable support service enables both the business and users to retain and increase internal knowledge and capabilities through a combination of on-site and remote support services. Totalamber’s approach to delivering a sustainable support service is based around the following guiding principles:

• Understand As-Is & To-Be Infrastructure - gain an understanding of the “As Is” environment and what the “To Be” infrastructure will be
• Understand IFS Landscape - what is the environment in which IFS operates – IFS modules implemented, third-party application interfaces
• IFS Modules Required - which IFS modules have been implemented in the site, any local configuration and any modifications
• Manage IT Risks - identification of risks and mitigating risks through change management
• Understand IT skills and capabilities - assess the IT skills and capabilities of users of the system and provide a training programme to bring everyone up to the same level
• Define IFS Support Strategy - define and agree a sustainable strategy to support IFS

Totalamber’s key objectives when providing a sustainable support service for an enhanced IFS application are:

• Documenting newly introduced functionality and associated business process and disseminating this across all key stakeholders within the business
• Educating the key-user/super-user network on the improvements to ensure they are aware of the improvements and educate and inform users
• Development and re-development of management and system reports to incorporate improvements into the intelligence provided to stakeholders
• Educate and train end users and new joiners on the improvements and changes to business process and operations
• Deliver further quick wins, improvements and strategic change identified as a result of the improvements and enhancements incorporated into the IFS environment

Totalamber’s Integrated Services Component model provides the tools, methodology and approach to deliver a sustainable support. Totalamber’s IFS Performance Review (IPR) is a 360 degree review, assessment and analysis of the holistic IFS environment using Totalambers Diamond Methodology to assess business strategy, people, process and technology.

The IPR uses the following tools and techniques to assess the IFS environment, identify risks and issues and provide the business with the most appropriate roadmap for delivering a sustainable support service:

• IFS Snapshot - An initial survey and questionnaire designed to elicit key feedback on the current system and environment from a cross-section of key stakeholders (management, super/key users, users) and to determine what they would like to see from any enhancement initiative.
• Landscape Internal Support Assessment (LiSA) - An on-line tool that assesses the issues and capabilities of the current support provision within an organisation
• Support Needs Analysis (SNA) - A detailed assessment of the specific Support needs of an organisation assessed against Totalamber's 6 layer Support Tower

The findings and recommendations result in a detailed Statement of Work based on Totalamber’s Six-layer Support Tower which provides a structured approach for the identification of required support services. Each layer is sub-divided into specific support components which enable a business to individually select those support services relevant to their specific requirements. The Statement of Work is typically reviewed quarterly enabling both Totalamber and the business to re-evaluate and adjust support requirements as required.