FTSE 100 Company, Whitbread PLC, entrust EA to deliver new HR Tech Platform

Given the scale of the business and its operating model, coupled with the complex EU works council requirements, EA and the internal Procurement team set about establishing a roadmap which would ultimately ensure the best solution was decided upon.

EA advised Exco and ultimately Group Board that this was the moment to focus on Quality. By design then, this phase was challenging and arguably longer than one might normally expect.

Ensuring a definitive view on requirements upfront, whether they be functional, non-functional, architectural or other, was imperative if the correct decision on supplier was to be attained. Moreover, focussing on Quality during this phase remedies the potential for undesirable outcomes further into the Project.

During this phase, the Business captured >1000 requirements. Once distilled and prioritised, they formed the criteria to select suitable suppliers. A market assessment identified 10 potential suppliers. This was shortlisted to 4.

A comprehensive RFP process was run to select a preferred supplier. This included a combination of desktop, supplier presentations and sandbox testing. This provided SME’s with a multi-faceted view to enable them to make an objective assessment of each solution.

The scoring criteria, which was weighted through a combination of cost, business functionality and tech alignment, identified Dayforce as the preferred supplier. Given the objectivity of the process, the decision to award the outcome to Dayforce was endorsed by all stakeholders (including Ops, HR, Finance and IT).

Following the selection of Dayforce, EA led the work to produce the final business case. This set out the case for change, costs, approach, risks and commercial benefits. The analysis captured within the business case ensured it was approved by the PLC Board on its very first review, which was a requirement given the high level of investment being sought.

Image: RFP Timeline (EA IP)

Following the Dayforce decision, a pre-contract blueprint activity was completed. This increased certainty in the design prior to signing commercial contracts. A team encompassing Whitbread, EA and Dayforce SME’s evaluated the requirements in further detail. Key dependencies with other systems and programmes were identified at this point.

An Integration Catalogue (EA IP) was produced that depicted a prioritised set of 70+ integrations, inclusive of how the system would interact with other upstream/downstream solutions. This provided a clear agenda to manage a notoriously high-risk element of a cloud based tech deployment of this magnitude.

Data migration was identified as another area of high risk. To address concerns, the blueprinting phase identified that a data strategy to migrate legacy data from the incumbent solutions and retain historical data to decommission legacy systems.

Following conclusion of blueprinting, commercial contracts were signed, including for all 3rd parties, the team was then assembled and the programme fully mobilised. The team encompassed a global team of over 100 resources who were a combination of onshore and offshore, each supported by 7 central and experienced EA consultants who were leading the spine for the overall programme.

Whilst the design principle was to ‘implement out of the box’, care had to be taken to identify policy and statutory requirements that needed to be configured. To manage scope, a Design Authority oversaw all decisions. This was critical in aligning the solution to the needs of the business, maintaining design integrity, and making timely decisions to ensure delivery velocity.

Given the complexity of the requirements, issues inevitably surfaced during the development and testing phases. Early in the design there were challenges eliciting configuration requirements from SMEs using workshops. To address these, the methodology was adapted to create an additional smoke test phase. This offered an early opportunity for SME’s to get hand’s on experience of the system to validate requirements. This approach also generated confidence in the new solution as we approached implementation.

A comprehensive set of testing phases were undertaken which covered unit testing, functional and user acceptance testing. This included parallel testing multiple Payroll cycles.  All parts of the business were involved in the testing to fully validate the solutions, hand-offs and integrations with dependent systems.

The size and scale of the implementation required detailed planning to ensure continuity of service. EA leveraged it’s own IP to create a comprehensive cutover strategy with a playbook that recorded all tasks relating to business readiness, data migration and switching on c.70 integrations. To validate the approach, several dress rehearsals were run. Objective go/no-go criteria were used to determine readiness to proceed to launch the solution. A legacy of the cutover is a strategy and playbook that will be adapted for other projects within our clients sphere.

The scope of the cutover included both business and technical readiness. It was crucial to ensure that the impact to the business was minimised to avoid impacting revenue. Local teams were used to support and implement the change across the business. This enabled all Team Members to access the system on day 1.