Overview

Technology implementations are executed in a variety of circumstances business managers must successfully navigate; including complex technical environments, varying leadership capabilities and challenging company cultures. It is well established that enterprise software can be transformative to your business. But while the ingredients for success may be well known, often it's the execution in a single key area that sets the stage for success or failure. We at Coupa find the most common, recurring predictor of success is strong project governance, instituted at the very beginning and continued through the duration of the project.

This is the principal reason we begin our implementation with an established structure and process of project controllership. Our implementations, your project team and ultimately your continued success with Coupa are all guided by this first phase of our methodology.

Project Governance

At the outset, a Coupa executive management team member is a key part of implementation. We do this to drive alignment across all the various teams, provide expertise where required and bring a singular customer success focus to every implementation. This Coupa executive is an active member of the team sharing their insights and building a relationship foundation with your executive sponsor to not only guide the project but to ensure that issues are quickly addressed and the project continues to drive forward. 

Project Management

During a Coupa implementation, there's a single master project plan outlining the Coupa-related activities, along with your specific internal activities. The project plan identifies  tasks related to the implementation, including project activities like supplier enablement, weekly executive status updates, and more.

Along with a comprehensive project plan, we set up a series of meetings and deliverables related to project management tasks which include:

• Weekly status meetings with the project team
• Twice-monthly executive steering committee meetings with the executive stakeholders
• Weekly status updates sent to the team with green/yellow/red project status and risks
• Action tracker to identify and resolve open issues as they arise

Change Management

We believe that change management is the act of communicating in a manner that is effective for your company's culture. That may seem simplistic, but at the end of the day, it really is that simple. Some of the key elements include:

• Set expectations with your project team, employees and vendors
• Have executives communicate how the project is important for the strategic direction of the company
• Broadcast early success that you've build with a phased deployment
• Gather feedback and provide updates on what you're doing with that feedback
• Hold daily or weekly meetings for questions, and make it clear to employees where they can go if they have questions

These are only a few examples. The goals is to give your employees a feeling of ownership in the system and the process. We'll work with you to develop a change management strategy that's right for your company, executive involvement, and then document and track the strategy as part of the project plan.

In your Statement of Work, you'll find much more detailed information on deliverables, roles and responsibilities for both you and us. This makes sure that together, we properly perform project and change management, all in the pursuit of your success.