We have looked at multiple reasons for the lack of Treasury Workstation Adoption including Misinformation, Integration Challenges, Lack of Configurability, Training Needs and the approach to Treasury Management System adoption. The underlying disadvantage caused by all of these factors is essentially the considerable time needed for implementation and hence the higher cost of Treasury Workstation or Treasury Management System Implementation/Adoption.
In a typical implementation of a Treasury Management System, considerable time is spent on the RFI/RFP process without actually using and evaluating the product for what it provides functionally. This is followed by an extensive planning phase, again planning that is largely done on paper and most often one that considers the complete implementation cycle for the product- i.e. adoption of all products modules, rollout to all departments and sub-organizations and adoption of all features is planned upfront.
At the outset of any such TMS implementation, the choices made and the planning almost always seem perfect. Of course sufficient contingencies are built in as well. The first major disadvantage that such TMS implementations have is the vendor & product selection is based on
pages and pages of text written in a word document and a marketing product demonstration of a few hours. This leads to the end users of the product having little to no understanding of the product- or having significant misunderstanding on product functionality and what the product offers. As the implementation begins the "Request for Change" process also starts in full swing. Now, there is only so much contingency you can build into any product implementation timeframe. As the product implementation timeline itself is based on limited understanding of product features, chances are the timeline would be adversely affected by the new features or changes needed.
Configurability of the product can help meet some of the needs here but then again it can only help so much.
Additional changes, new features and functionality and customized functionality ensures significant involvement of consultants or internal employees. Add time leads to added cost and before you know it newer plans are made- the changes to the plans are in 2 areas - the end date & cost.
As third party observer, if you have seen an organization go through the above mentioned process you would have noticed the added time, the significant costs incurred and the frustration of your counterparts in that organization who are involved in the process.
Now, here is an excerpt from a conversation we had with the Treasurer of one of the largest software vendor/integration services provider. After spending a hour seeing our product and discussing our approach, he said "We are 2 years into implementation of our Treasury Management System and we do not have a definite end date now. Note that this is when our internal resources who are trained and who typically consult on TMS implementation of the large third party TMS product we choose are implementing the TMS for us internally. I wish we had considered the alternate approach you are recommending"
At Treasury Sciences, we are not saying that we have a magic wand that can help resolve all of the issues, however we can certainly assure you that we have a better approach and very
configurable suite of products. These two when put together with our
Free Trial will go a long way in eliminating some of the challenges to TMS adoption.