The Most Common Workday Implementation Failures Increasing Costs & Lowering Performance

05.10.2022 | Managed Services

Congratulations! Your Workday implementation has finally gone live and the result is a major turning point for your business. You’re probably thinking that’s the end of your Workday project,

It’s easy to choose an enterprise solution when the software provider has scored 95% or better in customer satisfaction surveys for over a decade. For that reason, the Workday suite of cloud-based applications continues to instill confidence in organizations across industries looking to provide business users with greater accessibility and efficiency across business functions.

Even with their sterling reputation, simply deciding to go with Workday and completing your software purchase won’t guarantee a perfect implementation. Like any sophisticated enterprise solution, Financial Management and Human Capital Management suites can fail to deliver if specific mistakes are made during various stages of the implementation lifecycle, elevating costs and reducing overall performance in the long run. What can go wrong very likely will go wrong without the proper guidance.

What should your business avoid as you complete your Workday execution? In our experience, customers who engage us to fix Workday implementation failures are usually suffering from one of these avoidable issues.

Poor Scope Definition

If the best laid plans can go awry, it’s not surprising that incomplete or ill-conceived Workday projects mostly miss the mark. Whether too broad or too myopic, poor scope definition can prevent your business users from accessing the intended business features and functionality.

One midsized financial services organization ran into exactly that issue when pursuing a Workday Finance module. The business chose to work with a vendor that prioritized speed at the expense of accuracy and upfront preparedness, and upon their Workday launch, they found that users could not account for intercompany fund operations in the new implementation. The critical stakeholder interviews necessary to ensure proper functionality in their operations were overlooked.

Eventually, they engaged Agilysis to identify the gaps and fix the issues, making four key areas of improvement. But it can’t be overlooked that performance was stalled completely until we did our due diligence.

Improper Integration

Workday, despite a host of applications for unified operations, recognizes many customers still use third-party systems. In fact, the core Workday suites are designed to integrate with other cloud-based software providers while providing security and efficiency across the connection. Yet since the Finance module and HCM often act as a hub with various connected spokes, IT departments can struggle to integrate all these disparate systems in a timely, cost-effective, and functional manner.

Along the way, there can be any number of integration issues that crop up. The implementation team may have used poor methodology or non-scalable approaches to connect Workday with third-party systems, resulting in poor performance as data grows over time. Integration developers may leave security loopholes that could cause a breach of data.

That’s why it pays to work with Workday experts that not only demonstrates a command of these unified applications but showcases a firm grasp of a wide range of business platforms and systems.

Inconsistent Quality Testing

Let’s say your application management and support needs have decreased. Maybe you have full-time, dedicated employees supporting your Workday environment, but you occasionally need expert

With all the moving parts of a Workday implementation, you need keen attention to detail at every stage of the process. Moreover, you need Workday experts who are cognizant of what to evaluate, which tests to run, and where problems can arise.

Does the configuration deliver on what end users need? Is security set up correctly so that key functions are accessible to necessary users? Have third-party systems been properly integrated with your chosen Workday module? These and a multitude of other questions need to be asked and their corresponding tests need to be run if you are going to avoid some of the most common Workday implementation failures.

Also, it’s better to make these corrections early in the process, which in turn makes it easier to determine which actions resulted in the bug. When a defect survives through to launch, organizations often have to diagnose and reverse engineer an issue that might be obscured behind layers of functional configurations or technical code. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack.

Lax Support Processes

What happens when users have issues? Or the in-house team fails to adjust to the new implementation? This key step is often overlooked as organizations are quick to declare “Mission Accomplished” before the dust has settled.

A Fortune 500 company, while working with a Workday vendor, encountered a world of frustration at every step in a payroll system’s implementation. Yes, the initial scope of the engagement was complex, but the partner didn’t ease the process. Plus, the intricacy of ongoing post-implementation support required continued and costly retention of the original firm, sustaining their headache longer than necessary.

Agilysis came on to reduce costs and simplify the process, deploying a dual services model to resolve the full gamut of issues. Daily operational concerns were handled by temporary Workday consultants brought into the organization to support the system and retain critical knowledge. The more leftfield issues were handled by in-house members of the Agilysis team. At the end of the arrangement, the Fortune 500 company converted four of the consultants into full-time employees, retaining their knowledge and maximizing their investment.

Making Careful Decisions Upfront

Often, the granddaddy of implementation mistakes is the lack of careful consideration of potential partners from the get-go—this never fails to set off a cascade of issues. The promise and potential of adopting a Workday solution that can elevate your business function is exciting, but enough can go wrong that organizations need to properly vet any firm they decide to engage. Are these Workday specialists box-checkers or true partners? Do they give you a prepackaged solution or are they getting to know what will enhance your specific business operations?

Finding the answer early in the process, whether you are looking to implement updated features or a new module, can save you expensive detours and stumbling blocks. That means entrusting Workday implementation to an experienced partner or involving an implementation advisory partner in the planning stage. When that happens, you can join the number of satisfied customers who enjoy all their Workday modules can achieve.

Are you looking for help fixing or avoiding the most common Workday implementation failures? Find out how our Workday experts helped rectify implementation issues with a financial services module.

Read our case study

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