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Table of Contents
01. Introduction
For new tools, especially those with business-wide impact like EPM platforms, implementation sets the tone for the rest of the lifecycle. It’s not just about configuration, either; a successful implementation means enablement, integration, and forward thinking.
That’s the main reason EPM implementations can falter: they focus too narrowly on the time frame leading up to “go live” or “launch.” And when businesses want to make major changes, they have to re-engage with the team who completed the initial configuration and undergo a whole new project. This is both inefficient and frustrating, but it’s alarmingly common within the EPM industry, as it keeps customers reliant on their vendors.
At Pigment, we do things differently. We use the implementation process to configure the tool successfully today, but also to lay the foundations for growth and evolution – equipping your team to own your use cases day-to-day, make changes to them, and even implement new ones themselves.
02. The cobuild approach
The Pigment team
Before we leap into the process, let’s take a look at who’s involved at each stage of implementation, and what their roles and responsibilities are.
Your Account Executive
You will have gotten to know your Account Executive very well during the purchasing process, and they’re not going anywhere. Your Account Executive may not be directly involved in the implementation, but they work to make sure your goals and requirements are incorporated fully into the implementation plan our other teams will execute.
The Customer Success team
Every Pigment customer has access to our Customer Success team, who are there to ensure you have all the resources and information you need, and to help you achieve your goals in Pigment. This will continue throughout your relationship with Pigment, not just the implementation phase.
Your Solution Architect
The Solution Architect will be your best friend during implementation. They will help you design your models for implementation, lead the co-building sessions, assign tasks, and assist with testing. Depending on whether you’re working with one of our incredible partners, your Solution Architect may be from Pigment or from the partner, but either way they’ll be your expert modeler resource throughout implementation.
Your team
Before we leap into the process, let’s take a look at who’s involved at each stage of implementation, and what their roles and responsibilities are.
The project team (eg. 3x analysts, FP&A manager)
This is the team that will be building and maintaining your Pigment applications on a day-to-day basis. This is usually the same group who will be responsible for managing Pigment moving forward, including members of different teams depending on the use cases being implemented. This group should expect to receive task assignments during the co-build and to participate in the modeling and testing for every use case, as well as ensuring all end users are adequately represented.
Executive stakeholders (eg. CFO, CIO)
It’s rare that executive stakeholders become Pigment modelers, but they’re included in the implementation for buy-in, validation, and approval purposes. Pigment is designed to enable strategic decisions, and as strategic decision-makers, the executive stakeholders are key to defining those requirements.
End users (eg. HR team, hiring managers, budget owners)
There are plenty of teams who will be considered “light” users of Pigment – team leads required to enter headcount requirements, for example, or budget owners who need to regularly review their spend and budget figures. These individuals should be engaged for requirements gathering at the beginning of implementation (or before), as well as during the testing phase.
03. The framework
So what does the implementation process actually look like? There are 3 key stages to implementation, each containing parts of our 5-step implementation framework:
For a typical new customer, we might choose to focus on three core use cases during the implementation process. For example, OPEX, Headcount Planning, and P&L reporting are three of our most popular use cases for initial deployment.Post-implementation, customers may choose to develop and implement new use cases autonomously – things like Cash Forecasting and Long-Range Business Planning, for example. This process works well during the co-build when your Solution Architect and the Customer Success team can walk you through it, but it also serves as the framework for launching new use cases moving forward.
Kickoff
The first phase of any Pigment implementation begins with Kickoff, led by the Customer Success team, during which we’re mainly focused on ensuring project readiness. All of the use cases being addressed during implementation will go through the initialization step during Kickoff.
This step consists of:
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