Tag Archive for: Case Study

Why P2P Implementations Fail After Go-Live: The Role of Execution Readiness

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Most Procure-to-Pay transformations don’t struggle because the software is wrong. They struggle because the organization is not prepared to operate differently when the system goes live.

Procurement leaders often evaluate implementation success by whether the platform was configured correctly and deployed on schedule. But meeting a go-live milestone does not guarantee that the organization is ready to execute the processes the technology enables.

In earlier articles in this series, we explored the Execution Gap; the difference between a system’s technical capability and an organization’s ability to consistently realize its intended value. We also introduced the Execution Gap Index (EGI) as a way to measure execution readiness before transformation initiatives begin.

That gap becomes most visible at one specific moment: go-live. Some organizations reach go-live and transition smoothly into steady operations. Others technically launch the system but spend months trying to stabilize adoption, resolve confusion, and recover momentum. The difference is rarely the technology. It is whether the organization was ready to execute the change when the system was activated.

Two Go-Lives, Two Very Different Outcomes

The contrast between two anonymized organizations, Client Sprint and Client Steady, illustrates how execution readiness shapes transformation outcomes. Both organizations implemented similar P2P technology within comparable timelines. Yet their experiences after go-live were dramatically different.

Client Sprint: Configuration First

Client Sprint approached their transformation with urgency. Leadership wanted to modernize quickly and expected the new system to deliver efficiency and visibility improvements. The project progressed rapidly, but the focus centered on configuring the platform rather than redesigning how work should flow across procurement, finance, and the business.

Approach

Instead of beginning with future-state process design, the project team focused on how the software performed specific tasks. The guiding question became “How does the system do this?” rather than “How should our organization operate?”

Leadership

Leadership approved the transformation but became less engaged once the project was underway. Strategic direction became less visible, decisions slowed, and the broader organization never fully understood the objectives behind the initiative.

The People Component

Many members of the implementation team were accustomed to existing workflows. While they supported the project in principle, they spent much of their effort attempting to replicate familiar processes inside the new platform rather than rethinking them.

The Result

The system launched successfully from a technical standpoint, but adoption stalled. Users struggled to adjust to new workflows, workarounds appeared, and the project entered an extended stabilization phase. The technology worked as designed but the organization simply wasn’t ready to use it effectively.

Client Steady: Process and Culture First

Client Steady approached its P2P transformation differently. From the beginning, leadership understood that automation would change how work moved across procurement, finance, and business stakeholders. The initiative was treated as an operating model transition supported by technology, not simply a system deployment.

Approach

The project team invested significant time documenting current-state processes and designing future-state workflows before configuration began. Supplier records were cleaned, approval structures clarified, and data foundations strengthened.

Leadership

Executive sponsors remained actively engaged throughout the transformation. They removed blockers, communicated the purpose of the initiative across the organization, and ensured the project had the resources it needed.

The People Component

Stakeholders across procurement, finance, and the business participated in design sessions and testing cycles. By the time the system entered User Acceptance Testing, many users already felt ownership over the solution because they had helped shape it.

The Result

Go-live was largely uneventful. Processes were clear, stakeholders were prepared, and the system behaved as expected. Adoption progressed quickly, and the organization began realizing the benefits defined at the start of the initiative. The technology simply enabled processes the organization was already prepared to execute.

What Differentiates Successful Transformations

Client Sprint and Client Steady deployed similar technology within similar timelines. The difference was organizational readiness at the moment of activation. Client Sprint treated implementation primarily as a technical exercise. Configuration advanced, but alignment across leadership, stakeholders, and processes lagged behind.

Client Steady treated implementation as an operating model change. Process clarity, leadership engagement, and user ownership were established before the technology was activated. Both organizations reached go-live, but only one entered it readyto adopt new processes .

Practical Lessons for Procurement Leaders

The lessons from these two examples reinforce the broader themes discussed throughout this series on the Execution Gap.

Do Not Shortchange Planning

Execution readiness is built during planning. Clear process design, defined roles, and stakeholder alignment determine whether the system will be adopted once it goes live.

Involve the “Doers” Early

User involvement should begin during design, not testing. User Acceptance Testing should validate decisions that have already been made, not introduce stakeholders to the solution for the first time.

Process First, Configuration Second

Automation does not correct flawed processes. It increases their speed and visibility. Organizations that design effective workflows before configuring their systems experience far fewer implementation disruptions.

Active Leadership is Essential

Research from Prosci consistently identifies active and visible executive sponsorship as the strongest predictor of successful change initiatives. Sustained leadership engagement keeps transformation aligned with business objectives and ensures that obstacles are addressed quickly.

From Go-Live to Real Value

Go-live is often treated as the finish line of a technology implementation. In reality, it is the moment when the organization begins operating in a new way.

Organizations that succeed recognize that the conditions for success are determined well before the system is activated. When process clarity, leadership alignment, and stakeholder ownership are established early, the technology simply performs the role it was designed to play. Software enables capability.  Organizations determine whether that capability produces value.

At Velocity Procurement, this principle sits at the center of our approach to digital transformation. Closing the Execution Gap requires aligning people, process, and technology so that when systems go live, organizations are fully prepared to operate within them. Because successful transformation is not defined by reaching go-live, it is defined by what happens the day after.

Tag Archive for: Case Study

Leveraging Sourcing with Organizational Growth

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Comprehensive strategic sourcing program executed via managed services achieves long-term savings and organizational growth.Global organization that provides clinical services and medical devices for pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations.Elevate the maturity level of the procurement organization by developing bespoke, best-in-class, policies & processes, sourcing templates, and procurement/supplier scorecards. Analyze and categorize all spend. Strategically source all categories of spend to generate impactful savings, increase working capital and negotiate long term supplier agreements. Finally, document all projects for future reference.The organization had a minimal, de-centralized procurement organization, and its involvement was mostly tactical and administrative. Their spend was very fragmented with a high degree of rogue buying, which resulted in limited top-level understanding of what was purchased and why. Aside from ERP financial systems, there were no procurement tools in place, nor was the organization taking advantages of potential global synergies. The lack of a formal contract management tool led to many missed termination dates and automatic renewals with price escalations. Most agreements were on suppliers’ paper and internally the organization had no established levels of signing authority. The organization did not have a clear path forward to grow the procurement organization. They were not seen as a value-add department within the organization. They were seen as another administrative hurdle to place purchase orders and approve invoices for suppliers. This left the organization open to supply chain, financial and legal risks that negatively impacted its ability to be competitive.

Completed close to 80 sourcing projects, with nearly $50MM in total contract savings. On average, we achieved 25% savings across all spend categories. As a result of the strategic sourcing projects we executed, the client now has a better understanding of the requirements for these products and/or services leading to organizational growth.

By consolidating spend and establishing longer term agreements, risk was significantly reduced and the ability to control costs was greatly enhanced. 

Velocity enabled the client to fully understand their spend and helped expand the newly centralized procurement organization. In addition to the savings generated, we provided a 5-year roadmap, which included Source to Pay Technology, Organizational Design & Change Management, Policy and Process Redesign and a Procurement Toolbox for the client’s continued procurement transformation journey.

Velocity Procurement supported us for over 2 years and helped us take our procurement organization to the next level. They effectively acted as our extended procurement department generating an enormous amount of savings, which freed up a lot of capital for our organization to grow.

Reduced Cost Curb Appeal for Quick Serve Retail

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A long overdue TCO reduction in curb appeal provides a convenience store chain a leaping off point for a strategic sourcing savings initiative.A regional name since 1923, with more than 300 locations in the US Northeast, a convenience store chain that also operates as a small grocery store. Founded in the family home, it serves its patrons by supplying fill-in grocery items and merchandise to urban residents in lieu of traditional grocery stores.Develop and deploy a formal strategic sourcing program to enable Client to execute cost savings programs. The program was designed to implement and manage immediate sourcing projects while maintaining a vested interest in the roots of the family/business history. The program would deliver an ROI that would appeal to the buy-in of the leadership team fostering a trusted business relationship.Client store operators had traditionally acted independently in all aspects of indirect procurement. Store managers were responsible for sourcing and procuring everything from receipt paper to building maintenance with limited governance from the headquarters. Overtime, as the influence of corporate controls advanced, cost savings became a priority.tracting activities differently.

  • Led a strategic sourcing program for multiple facility maintenance categories targeting TCO optimization.
  • Conducted detailed spend analysis and opportunity assessment which provided the Client with a clear list of short and long-term savings targets.
  • This expertise led to property-wide sourcing pilot projects for landscaping, snow removal and window washing, resulting in hard dollar savings of 10%+ with various adopted TCO benefits.
  • Despite the transformative events, the leadership team was responsive to change as Velocity worked hard to maintain the integrity of the Client’s long standing tradition.

This initiative successfully balanced the need to be culturally sensitive and barrier breaking at the same time – not an easy task.

Contract-to-Pay Process Transformation

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Global contract to pay processes merge to create centralized operating model and improved efficiency.A global American company that manufactures and sells printing technologies with $4B in annual revenue.Bring the two procurement organizations together with regards to supplier and contract-to-pay processes. To do this, the team needed to engage a few methodologies including business process assessment, contract management design and change management.Merge the two existing global procurement organizations. On one side, there was a limited decentralized sourcing and contract management and on the other there was inconsistent utilization of process, policy and tools across the business units. In both organizations, category and contract management not effectively integrated into the procurement transaction workflow and there was limited formal strategy and operating model for supplier and contract management.

Velocity applied it’s S2P assessment methodology that included global user workshops with category and contract managers, business leads and procurement buyers in order to effectively map current-state Contract-to-Pay (C2P) processes for the two merging procurement organizations. Velocity then then applied best-practices in C2P process and procedure models to develop a fit/gap analysis which resulted in a newly recommended future-state C2P design that included detailed process maps, recommendations for change, and a revised procurement policy and SLA/KPIs for the newly implemented unified Contract-to-Pay program. Early results analysis, during the implementation, indicated an improved C2P cycle time by nearly 80% and the identification of supplier contract consolidation upwards of 35%.

A merge of Global process and procedure is never easy, but this project stayed on task to produce a seamless transformation.

Delivering Strategic Sourcing Savings for Senior Community Living

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Tackling an aggressive sourcing challenge that focused on delivering net new cost savings for unique spend categories.One of the largest senior living communities throughout the US, housing nearly 100,000 beloved residents.In the wake of an acquisition, effectively doubling the size of Client’s profile, Velocity was hired to support the executive leadership in a companywide cost savings initiative. Velocity subject matter experts partnered with the Client sourcing teams to augment and lead specific waves of a strategic sourcing project.The Client contacted Velocity seeking an efficient and cost-effective solution to a number of challenges. The existing sourcing staff did not possess the bandwidth to effectively meet the savings goal. In addition, new spend categories were identified with limited internal category expertise to already exhausted staff. These factors made prioritizing which categories were the best opportunities for savings without affecting resident care, a unique, yet slow decision-making process. With an aggressive target date for realized savings, there was a tremendous amount of pressure to execute efficiently.

By deploying a team of seasoned category sourcing consultants, with distinct subject matter expertise, we were able to provide the Client with the needed knowledge-base and expertise to deliver savings. In addition to boosting man-power, Velocity was able to fill the subject matter gaps for the new spend categories, including the more complex and unique areas of spend. The collaborative teams completed 12 sourcing projects in four months, delivering a cost-effective solution to the pressing timeline. By supporting the internal team, we were able to meet and exceed the savings targets by the steering committee. The impact of the overall project resulted in an ROI in excess of 16X, far exceeding industry benchmarks.

The exceptional sourcing expertise and high-degree of project efficiency made achieving our goals possible53606408

Procurement Organizational Uplift for Tech Solutions Provider

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A procurement function uplift results in new supply management value and operational cost savings – just in time to meet the increased demand.Technology solution and services provider with over 100,000 users in their customer community,Due to recent rapid company acquisition growth the desire for a formalized procurement function. With the influx of new spend and new suppliers, a new procurement organization was to be formed that could effectively manage internal purchase requests, suppliers, and spend.Rapid growth naturally comes with some growing pains, the impact was evident in a multi-functional team who was now charged with a formal role in procurement. Though a dedicated staff, there were knowledge and experience gaps which needed addressed to meet the needs of increased demand. Lack of formal procurement policy and sourcing processes, combined with limited visibility into 3rd party spend, developed into an environment of supplier risk and lack of visibility to savings opportunities. In addition, despite change management efforts multiple business units were performing supplier contracting activities differently.

The new procurement structure, methodology and processes developed a strong foundation for the client team to build upon. This included leveraging a newly defined operating model, organizational chart and business-partner RACI model, allowing the team to better equipped to lead company-wide procurement.

Additionally, Velocity built the team a formal category management strategy and conducted multiple pilot sourcing projects over the course of several months. The exercises uplifted the procurement and sourcing skills of the existing team and of new procurement staff.

Within six months, Velocity accelerated the team to reach their savings target goal to reduce addressable spend by 15%, and the client achieved ROI of 17X.

Velocity helped us to build the foundational structure we needed to mature our procurement organization while in a state of hypergrowth.

Major Shift in Electronic Contract Management for Leading Financial Firm

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Building a strong contract management foundation by leveraging legal expertise to get electronic contract migration right the first time.American investment advisor with over $5.3 trillion in assets under management. It is the largest provider of mutual fundsThis was a 5 months project to migrate 15,000 files to an eContracts module. The objective was to screen, segment, clean and extract relevant information into the future tool. In addition, the goal was to upload 33 new contract templates for future use.The biggest challenge was to address the high volume of contract files, without any pre-existing repository in place. All files had to be collected, and then with the support of lawyers and paralegal teams to update the key information such as, termination dates, renewal status, contract hierarchies between master agreements and services of work (SOW). All information had to be put into templates, and once ready to be uploaded into the eContracts solution.

  • After reviewing 15,000 files of which 10,000 contracts and 8,000 final documents were selected at the end to be moved into the tool.
  • Over 55 key information were analyzed per contract to be then uploaded as managed information into eContracts.
  • The newly established contracts hierarchies between master agreements and SOW will become a powerful managerial tool for procurement to manage their future negotiations and deliver new sets of values. (TCO and savings).
  • The new contract templates will also permit faster negotiations with more favorable legal conditions as they were written by Client.

It’s not an easy task to migrate this high volume of contracts, but a keen focus on collaboration and coordination produce the speed and accuracy needed to stay within budget and on schedule.

Sourcing Achieves Savings for Environmental Services Provider

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Delivering strategic sourcing savings with the adoption of a
new strategic sourcing model and best-practices training.Service Company present in more than 550 communities across North America, leveraging a complex relationship between water, waste and energy to solve environmental challenges and help customers reach their goalsThis project was to launch for ten months several strategic sourcing activities with a scope of roughly 15 Direct and Indirect industrial type categories. The expected deliverables were to deliver at minimum 10% savings, to develop the corresponding strategic sourcing position papers and to train the procurement team on strategic sourcing methodologies.The collection of spend data was especially difficult without any existing P2P tool or adapted processes in place. The fragmented supplier base made it hard to build an external and internal overview cross the different information systems. Last, the lack of strategic supplier or category papers obliged the team to start with basic data collection, aggregation of spend by main categories and suppliers to build step by step an executable action plan.

Our overall approach was to address the spend analysis, to define executable addressable sourcing waves, to deliver savings, and to train the team on strategic sourcing processes. Each of the work-streams were delivered using best practices in strategic sourcing, change management and training.

The various business users and key stakeholders were enthusiastic about the training programs and to learn more about best in class strategic sourcing practices. All of the addressed spend categories had a defined action plan with a new preferred supplier network and the financial results were above target with 16% savings across the addressable spend.

The project delivered a well-balanced approach to both adoption of process change and achievement of new cost savings.

Sourcing Transformation Resulting in Savings

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Collaborative sourcing team works closely with Banks lines of business to exceed sourcing savings targets.Regional US bank with assets of over $37.1 billion.This project was to launch for ten months thirty different strategic sourcing activities covering Indirect services spend categories plus Direct spend related to insurance and banking industries such as ATM credit cards, checks, appraisals, hardware. The expected deliverables were to deliver at minimum 8% savings and to promote best in class strategic sourcing methodologies.The biggest challenge was to map the spend over 300 locations without any regional procurement organization to support the analytics. Also, some agencies were open, and others closed. It was complicated to build the active addressable spend before starting negotiations with suppliers. The sourcing project team had to build a mapping covering hundreds of suppliers, without any multi-site business processes.

In parallel to a source-to-pay transformation, our approach was to complete a detailed spend analysis, and define source-able spend into multiple project waves in order to deliver new cost savings.

The project execution required the Client sourcing team to remain engaged from a subject-matter and line-of-business support perspective, which ultimately allowed for great efficiency in execution of the sourcing efforts. The sourcing results exceeded the target with 12% savings across all spend categories. The Client sourcing leads were also able to pilot e-auctions with a new eSourcing solution.

Getting sourcing savings was achieved with a keen focus on efficient project management and stakeholder involvement.

Source-to-Pay Transformation (S2P)

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A holistic approach to spend management through effectively leveraging managed servicesOne of the largest Medicaid Managed Care organizationsAs a result of a procurement transformation initiative, client sought to optimize operations within the procurement function. Due to the recent changes to source-to-pay policy, process and procedure and the implementation of a leading procurement technology suite, the need for operational alignment was evident. The client hoped to achieve improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.Even prior to the procurement transformation initiatives that were nearing completion, there were multiple redundant and time-consuming tasks that needed to be improved. Ranging from sourcing and contracting to procurement and supplier enablement; and even for supporting the new procurement system. The client teams were essentially wearing many hats and shared a heavy load of cross-functionally similar tasks. The above organizational environment and recent procurement changes had no alignment for an acceptable level of internal customer satisfaction. The above situation was in part due to lack of a change management plan. The change management plan would have helped identify needs to support the business earlier in the process. At the end of the day, the client felt that out-tasking certain processes of the operation would be a smart move towards positive change.

After we assumed operational responsibility for various procurement and solution management tasks, our managed services team has helped our client achieve following results:

• Through task segmentation and realignment of duties, relieved more than 70% of existing staff of nearly 6-8 hours of any tactical, non value-add activities per week.

• By improving the various tactical processes and service levels, there was a decrease in the cycle time of transactional-exception processing by nearly 28%.

• Through a more efficient transaction process the team improved throughput of user requests to completion by 2.3 times, resulting in significant efficiency gains.

• By acting as their functional system administration support, we greatly improved end user satisfaction.

• Enhanced performance management led to an increased user experience thus exceeding the customer experience targets set by client leadership, as they called it a “great achievement for our department.”

The best part of the program is how the Velocity team seamlessly acts on our behalf.

Source-To-Pay Transformation For Health Insurance Provider

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Intense focus on infusing best-practices in change management and technology adoption contributes to the successful deployment of a leading S2P solution.One of the largest Medicaid Managed Care organizations in the US serving more than 5.3 million people.To support customer through implementation of an S2P Solution and to ensure a critical on-time go live. Tasked with module configuration support, business process alignment and optimization as part of the comprehensive procurement solution. Guided change management, communications and training to facilitate company-wide adoption.Fragmented procurement organization, over time, developed layers of operational procedures devoid of a number of best practices. There were difficult and inconsistent ordering processes, including siloed purchasing sites with specialized requirements. In addition, a manual AP process led to frequent non-PO purchases with non-matched invoice processing. Lack of control in the procurement process made strategic sourcing cumbersome and lead to supplier dissatisfaction due to an underdeveloped supplier on-boarding process

  • A detailed business process map was developed to ensure a single, fully integrated procurement platform. The process map provided the organization the solution efficiency they were seeking.
  • Transformative change management requires strong communications, our team collaborated
    with internal executives to develop effective communications for the organization.
  • Consistent support, expectation management and timely communications ensured all users were aware of the upcoming system enhancements and what their various responsibilities were from the beginning.
  • Experienced P2P experts provided comprehensive support through go-live to ensure stability and adoption.
  • Users have been trained to effectively use the S2P solution through a combination of trainer-led seminar style sessions and web meetings.

This program wouldn’t have been a success without the laser focus of the change management efforts.