How to secure a win-win situation for clients and vendors

How to create a win-win situation?

To evaluate the success of a treasury implementation, it is important for clients to be able to determine how quickly bugs or technical concerns get resolved. On the other hand, vendors too need to ensure that the client provides them with accurate and timely information. Multiple concerns need to be addressed for the entire process to be a long-term success for both the client and the vendor. The 5D model is used to help establish a win-win situation for both sides.

Define the project objectives and metrics

Proper goals and the relevant metrics help to gain better visibility of the situation by removing uncertainty. Additionally, it also helps to make well-informed judgments. Here are some tips that will help the clients and vendors to define their goals:

Tips for the clients

• Make a timeline: Complete the more difficult jobs first, followed by the simpler ones. This method of prioritizing can lead to better project decision-making.
• Focus on the ROI: Obtain hard dollar savings from budgeted expenditures and a reduction in the number of services consumed, and obtain soft dollar savings from free training, maintenance, or upgrades negotiated as part of the purchase.

Tips for the vendors

• Define the KPIs: Identify the KPIs to track the project and ensure its success.
• Set specific timelines: Learn the expectations of the clients for the timelines and ensure that the team has enough resources to meet those expectations.

Determine the key players from both parties

The key players include individuals who care about or have a vested interest in the project and actively participate in the project. Here are some pointers for identifying the key players from the client’s and vendor’s end:

Key players from the client’s end

• The process owners, the system users, the stakeholders, and the leadership team.
• A subject matter expert (SME) who assists clients in understanding the process’ critical steps.

Key players from the vendor’s end

• People who are involved in the implementation process from beginning to end, such as project managers, employees from reporting vendors, SMEs, IT personnel, and system users.
• Experienced consultants who know the scope of the project.

Discover the common bottlenecks and overcome them

Identifying a bottleneck is only half the battle. It is important to dive into the production process and course correct the processes that are taking too long. Here are some tips for identifying and overcoming the bottlenecks:

• Provide the vendor with as much good quality historical data as possible so that they can provide the best fit solution.
• Invest a significant amount of time in nurturing data.
• Ensure clear communication from top to bottom about the project.
• Identify blackout dates when treasury resources are not available.

Detect the issues in the data

Apart from lifting and shifting the data, clean the data at the source to get the expected results. Here are a few pointers to consider to ensure quality data is provided:

• Ensure that the first data dump is accurate.
• Collaborate with SMEs from various resource teams to gather the appropriate datasets.

Regardless of this, if there are any new updates to the project, it is critical to maintaining excellent communication between both parties.

Develop effective communication from both sides

Ideally, both clients and vendors share equal responsibilities for the success of a project. It is the vendor’s job to assign resources to engage with clients and deliver quality products. Clients must also devote effort to determining who will provide continuous feedback to vendors and assist in project tracking.

Here are a few points to consider to ensure effective communication:

• Establish a point of contact from the client’s internal team to communicate with vendors and keep them informed.
• The customer value and professional service teams from the vendor’s end should inform the clients of the latest project updates or new software versions.