Case Study – Strategy Aligned, Success Amplified

CLIENT CHALLENGE:

Originally, a regional healthcare provider with 12,000 employees, four hospitals and over 200 clinical settings and administrative offices sought an independent assessment of its HR strategic plans. Despite significant organic growth and growth through acquisition over the previous 10 years, the HR and technology staff remained predominantly unchanged.

The organization was in the process of restructuring the HR department through five individual initiatives. Sikich’s Business Transformation consulting team was engaged to determine if these initiatives were on track and moving in the right direction.

The Solution:

After compiling the interview data from all five teams, reviewing project plans and project charter documents, our team conducted a comprehensive analysis which concluded that the teams were on track, but needed additional cross-functional communications in addition to stronger project planning processes. The most significant finding of this study was that to better support the organization, all five teams needed new technology and needed to determine the best strategy. Options included investing in the current 20-year-old highly customized solution, adding supplementary “best of breed” solutions or investing in new technology that could support the organization as it continued to evolve.

Once the strategy of adding new technology was agreed upon, our team facilitated an independent vendor selection process with two incumbent vendors and one additional new vendor. The selection process resulted in a competitive, comparative cost analysis and client-driven assessment of each solution’s functionality and vendor’s ability to meet the needs of the organization. We then ran a competitive process to select the implementation provider. Once the implementation vendor was chosen, we provided a full-scale program and project management during the 18-month implementation process.

The Results:

Going beyond the healthcare provider’s initial challenge, our Business Transformation team uncovered and accomplished several improvements for their HR and IT functions:

Implemented a technology strategy that focused on a modern ERP capable of supporting the organization’s future needs, with defined links to the organization’s enterprise strategic objectives.

• Managed programs and projects for an 18-month implementation.
• Assessed and refined responsibilities between IT, HR and Payroll for a Cloud solution.
• Redesigned business processes to leverage new technology, improve controls and reduce cycle times.
• Developed change management assets including identifying change champions, aligning executives and developing training and communications.
• Coordinated timelines, resources and content input for the change management workstream of the implementation.
• Identified alternative solutions and workarounds for software deficiencies through collaboration with the client, vendor and implementation consultant.
• Backfilled key project roles through a staff augmentation budget.
• Realigned HR and IT resources to support a Cloud application.
• Created and staffed a change management role for the project.