A significant challenge to TMS adoption is enterprise wide rollout and the ability to train and get users upto speed with the new TMS, especially when additional features such as say, EFT capability is adopted along with basic treasury workstation functionality. i.e. if the system is required to support subsidiary origination of payments (decentralized origination, centralized approval), the user base could be scattered across multiple locations and thus classical training becomes a hassle. This is especially true for large enterprises that have multiple subsidiaries in multiple countries. In their case, even basic TMS functionality such as cash positioning could present a training nightmare.
Let us take an example of an organization with say 5 subsidiaries that represent 5 regions across the globe. Even if they are considering basic TMS functionality, there are still users to train across multiple continents. Classical training methods to solve this problem are often costly. i.e. you need to fly out a crew to each location and train users on the product. This in itself can be a considerable added cost to the product.
Additionally, there is the problem of availability of help when it is needed most. i.e when users start using the product after training. Upfront training, no matter how much time was invested in it; will not help answer some of these questions. Support time from the vendor and associated cost kicks in. Even then, there is no guarantee that adequate help will be available to the user to create that cash position before say, 8 AM. The only solution then is to sign up for 24x7 support, which of course will be the costliest support option provided by the vendor.
Then there is the issue of product user interface design. Some products are simply very complicated to use- this is typically true with products that are put together by vendor by purchasing multiple product modules from multiple vendors. Note that this a typical case with many treasury workstation products out there. With these products, end users typically end up having more issues and more questions resulting in reduced productivity and added cost. It may not seem to be much upfront, but over years of use these costs and inefficiencies add up.
However, there are other products that are easier to use and are more intuitive because they were specifically designed to be so. So usability should be a consideration while evaluating multiple products during vendor selection. The key here is evaluation of the product, however if the product was chosen by a paper based RFP process together with one or two demonstrations, chances are that the organization does not know how usable the product is, they will only find out when it is too late.
We utilize extensive usability analysis, design of intuitive interfaces and product videos that are available 24x7 to users of the product to help address the issues listed above. I will cover our approach in much detail in a later post.