Today’s guest post is from John Shaw (Senior Director, Adoption Services) of BravoSolution, a leading provider of spend analysis, (e-)sourcing, supplier performance management (SPM) and healthcare sourcing solutions and a sponsor of Sourcing Innovation (SI). It is the sixth of an eight (8) part series, which, when complete, will form a white-paper that BravoSolution will be releasing to the general populace this Wednesday.

Last Friday’s post (Part V) discussed the importance of the category to High Definition Adoption Measurement (HDAM) and the process required to transition to HDAM given that understanding. HDAM is achieved when adoption measurement and adoption opportunity assessment have been aligned with organizational objectives and category-specific strategies.

 

Today’s post provides an example of HDAM for an energy company operating in a regulatory environment.

Company B: Measuring Transparency

Our second company is an energy company operating in a European regulatory environment. The organization receives funding from the government and has a legal obligation to follow public sector procurement regulations. These regulations focus heavily on creating a sourcing process that provides equal opportunity to all suppliers.

Whereas the previous private sector manufacturer (Company A) focused their e-sourcing tool on generating supplier value, this organization’s primary focus is:

• Process Compliance:
  Specific timeline requirements for public notices and publications must be met.
• Equal Treatment of Suppliers:
  Communications and Evaluations must be timely and fair.
• Auditability:
  All supplier interactions must occur in the system.

As in our previous example, we can monitor system activities to understand how user behaviours roll up to this overall business objective.

As we change the focus of the analysis to transparency, the metrics we measure in the system also change.

Now we are looking to understand where system functions tie directly to regulatory compliance. Beyond looking for violations, this data also has the potential to serve a quantitate evidence of fair dealings with suppliers in the event of a supplier challenging an award decision in court.

Here are some examples of the types of data we might monitor and react to:

Part VII will provide an example case study that describes some of the adoption challenges of a national producer of construction materials with respect to sourcing process efficiency.

Today’s guest post is from John Shaw (Senior Director, Adoption Services) of BravoSolution, a leading provider of spend analysis, (e-)sourcing, supplier performance management (SPM) and healthcare sourcing solutions and a sponsor of Sourcing Innovation (SI). It is the fifth of an eight (8) part series, which, when complete, will form a white-paper that BravoSolution will be releasing to the general populace next Wednesday.

Yesterday’s post (Part IV) provided a case study that describes typical challenges faced by a large global manufacturer. In the case study, a 30,000-foot view would show positive progression, even though a number of users would not be using the system to maximize supplier value. The case study described symptoms, likely causes, and potential actions by the adoption team to increase value received.

Today’s post focuses on the process that Company A would follow to transition to high definition.

Understand the Category Impact

The interview concept is very important because each Category is different. Patterns that emerge at the 10,000-foot level may seem like problems, but may be a natural result of the constraints of sourcing a Category. In order to make the most of this data, the Adoption Team must be willing to learn about the characteristics of each Category. Just as an e-Sourcing solution isn’t “one-size-fits all” for each company, and it isn’t “one-size-fits-all” for each Category.

The process of interviewing Category managers and discussing data trends observed by the Adoption Team creates an additional layer of data, and it is in that layer of data that we transition to a High Definition view of adoption.

Transitioning to High Definition:

As we drop down from our 10,000-foot view to our High Definition view, we are going to expand beyond the Category and User dimensions to include Category-specific targets over time. We move to this view as we recognize that each Category not only has its own characteristics, but that the strategies deployed in that Category should change over time.

In most organizations, a Category’s overall strategy is determined as part of a periodic review process. As the strategy for each Category is established, the Adoption Team becomes a key stakeholder in this process because it is their job to help the Category Manager use the tools in a way that supports the strategy.

The examples below highlight how adoption goals can be tied directly to the strategy for a particular Category:

It is at this point, when you have aligned both Adoption Measurement and Adoption Opportunity Assessment directly with both your organizational objectives and Category-specific strategies that you have achieved High Definition Adoption Measurement. Your Adoption Team is now in a position to directly enable and monitor progress towards you business objectives.

Part VI will provide an example case study that describes some of the adoption challenges of an energy company operating in a (European) regulatory environment.

Today’s guest post is from John Shaw (Senior Director, Adoption Services) of BravoSolution, a leading provider of spend analysis, (e-)sourcing, supplier performance management (SPM) and healthcare sourcing solutions and a sponsor of Sourcing Innovation (SI). It is the fourth of an eight (8) part series, which, when complete, will form a white-paper that BravoSolution will be releasing to the general populace next Wednesday.

Yesterday’s post (Part III) discussed the concept of adoption from 30,000 feet and how this typical view is both useful and useless from an adoption perspective. While it is usually directionally accurate and good for identifying low-hanging fruit, it typically does not indicate if supplier value is increasing, transparency is improving, or efficiency intensifying. For that, more visibility is needed.

 

Today’s post will provide an example to illustrate this claim.

Company A: Measuring Supplier Value

So let’s go deeper into the challenges of each of our example companies. Company A is a global manufacturer who has been using their e-Sourcing tool for some time. At the 30,000-foot view the project appears to be progressing nicely. However, a key question that is important to Company A remains unanswered: “Are users using the system in a way that helps them to maximize supplier value?”

In order to answer this question, we must first understand what system behaviours drive supplier value. If we start simply, we can conclude that an event should have some basic characteristics:

• Supplier Participation:
  Maximizing qualified suppliers generally increases award quality.
• Event Structure:
  Well structured events facilitate a better understanding of supplier capabilities.
• Spend Value:
  Managing greater volumes of spend increases potential event value.

Next, we create simple measures at the User and Category level. This becomes our 10,000-foot view. We are drilling deeper into the current situation and finding our next layer of adoption improvement opportunities.

Using this level of data we can now begin to look deeper into understanding how system activity is correlating to our business objectives.

By creating a few simple metrics for each of our basic event characteristics we can see the symptoms of poor adoption emerge.

These patterns become a roadmap of improvement activities for the Adoption Team to explore. Notice on the chart below that Adoption Team activities typically start with an interview and continually ask more questions!

Part V will discuss the importance of understanding the category impact and its implications for the transition to high definition adoption measurement.

Today’s guest post is from John Shaw (Senior Director, Adoption Services) of BravoSolution, a leading provider of spend analysis, (e-)sourcing, supplier performance management (SPM) and healthcare sourcing solutions and a sponsor of Sourcing Innovation (SI). It is the third of an eight (8) part series, which, when complete, will form a white-paper that BravoSolution will be releasing to the general populace next Wednesday.

Yesterday’s post (Part II) introduced us to High Definition Adoption Measurement (HDAM) and framed the solution in the context of e-Sourcing, which presents a common complex adoption challenge.

 

Today’s post addresses the typical view from 30,000 feet and how it leaves something to be desired.

Adoption from 30,000 Feet:

The report below highlights what appears to be a very successful Go-Live followed by a year of continual growth of system usage. This is the 30,000-foot view and it should answer some very fundamental questions like:

• “Have we trained everyone?“
• “How many of our Souring Events are going through the system?“
• “Is usage increasing according to plan?“

These 30,000-foot views are useful. The report could apply to any of our three (3) companies and might be presented at an executive level as evidence of a successful first year of rollout. In this example, it seems our companies are generally moving in the right direction. If we saw problems at this level, we could easily identify the low hanging adoption fruit to pursue.

But if we reflect back upon the business case of each of our example companies, this view does not really tell us much on how any of them are progressing in increasing supplier value, maintaining transparency or increasing efficiency.

Take the following “unknown issues” common in e-Sourcing organizations. Each issue is counter-productive to the organization’s goals, but is not evident on the report:

These examples are the tip of the iceberg. They illustrate how users can appear at a 30,000-foot level to be using a system correctly but also how that 30,000-foot view can be deceptive. When this occurs to your organization, the results are simple. Your organization isn’t realizing the full ROI that you set out to achieve and the Adoption Team doesn’t have visibility into the problems they need to fix.

Part IV will provide an example case study that describes some of the adoption challenges at a global manufacturer.

Today’s guest post is from John Shaw (Senior Director, Adoption Services) of BravoSolution, a leading provider of spend analysis, (e-)sourcing, supplier performance management (SPM) and healthcare sourcing solutions and a sponsor of Sourcing Innovation (SI). It is the second of an eight (8) part series, which, when complete, will form a white-paper that BravoSolution will be releasing to the general populace next Wednesday.

Yesterday’s post (Part I), which noted that rolling out a technology solution isn’t anything like building the “Field of Dreams“, pointed out that just giving the team the tools they need isn’t enough. The leadership team also needs to acquire a set of tools designed to help their team succeed. In short, they need an “adoption toolkit” to make sure the tools are adopted as standard operating procedure.

Today’s post will introduce the concept of High Definition Adoption Measurement (HDAM), but first, it will frame the problem.

E-Sourcing: A commonly complex adoption challenge

For the purposes of this paper, we’ll discuss Adoption Measurement in the context of e-Sourcing simply because so many organizations use an e-sourcing tool to varying levels of success. It serves as an easy-to-identify-with example. Interestingly, the adoption challenges inherent in e-sourcing can be quite complex. We hope this paper will challenge you take an in-depth look at how you apply adoption measurement in your organization, both for e-sourcing and other solutions you use to support your business.

What is High Definition Adoption Measurement?

High Definition Adoption Measurement is a catchy way of saying that we are going to measure and understand how your organization is using a solution. It is a process of understanding your business case and tailoring a set of standard measurements to create visibility into how well the behaviours of your people are supporting your organization’s goals. It includes sharing these metrics with your team, setting collaborative targets and working towards those targets.
Adoption Measurement serves as the basis for prioritizing opportunities for continual improvement and defining solutions for capitalizing upon those opportunities. It essence, it is the Opportunity Assessment and Wave Planning processes of the Adoption Professional!

Setting the Stage: Understand the Business Case

The first step in measuring adoption is to understand why a particular tool is being implemented by an organization. While this may seem both obvious and easy for something like an e-Sourcing tool, I can assure you that one business case does not fit all organizations, no matter how well the benefits of e-Sourcing have been documented. For our discussion, we will highlight 3 organizations that have been modelled after common customer profiles in BravoSolution’s customer base.

3 Distinct e-Sourcing Needs 

Observe that each of these organizations is trying to solve a different problem with the same e-sourcing tool. Although they all may be able to benefit from using e-Sourcing to achieve additional supplier value, increase transparency to the sourcing process and increase team efficiency, they each have their own focus areas.

Part III will describe the typical view of adoption from 30,000 feet and the useful- and useless-ness of such a view.