Consultants can help TMS implementations, but practitioners retain some skepticism.
Implementing treasury management systems (TMS) is an arduous and complicated task that can benefit significantly from outside expertise but maintaining a skeptical eye can optimize the outcome.
ATLG members who had implemented TMSs expressed horror at the notion of returning to Excel spreadsheets. Nevertheless, TMS vendor consolidation and other factors have worsened already sketchy vendor support services, increasing the need for outside help and expertise. The peer group of assistant treasurers exchanged insights on how to best go about that:
Self-implementation is best. A member considering a new TMS said that while he’s comfortable using consultants on the front end to analyze current processes and potential treasury transformation opportunities as well as the RFP process, he and his team are debating whether to lean on outside resources to help with implementation. Another assistant treasurer (AT), whose experience included installing four TMSs, recommended treasury implement as much as possible to best understand how the system works. Be prepared for vendors’ poor after-sale service.
Some exceptions. NeuGroup members generally agreed with that advice, although one participant said her team did use a consultant to implement SAP’s treasury module, since the vendor’s “mindset” tends to be focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems rather than treasury.
Consulting on infrastructure. Consultants can be especially helpful in early-on TMS implementation decisions, specifically when it comes to setting up the TMS infrastructure–such as static data, including entity and account structures, naming conventions and a variety of other items that can be difficult to change. “Things you have to live with forever,” said Tracey Ferguson Knight of HighRadius, whose prior experience spans sales, consulting and implementation services at Reval and Thomson Reuters’ TMS division.
RFP consulting concerns. A few members noted consultants’ familiarity with the range of TMS options and which may fit a company best. Ms. Knight cautioned about using consultants to guide the RFP process, however, given that many of their practices increasingly rely implementing systems. “Some are better than others, but they’re likely, even if subconsciously, to steer you toward solutions they know better, where they can earn more business on the implementation,” she said.
Make no promises. If a consultant’s systems selection help is necessary, don’t make any promises or even discuss the possibility of implementation work, to avoid potential bias throughout the implantation process, Ms. Knight said.
Just advice, please. Ms. Knight agreed that treasury should perform the bulk of the implementation itself, noting that consultants’ greatest value is advising treasury on how the TMS system works and applies to the specific business. The consultants at vendors, especially quickly growing ones, however, often have recently been hired and may not understand how to best tailor the TMS to the client company’s business. A third-party consulting firm may be a better bet, but make sure their staff is indeed experienced, since they, too—especially the biggest consulting firms—frequently bring on new hires.
One obvious solution. A participant noted her firm simply decided to hire one consultant for the RFP and a different firm for the implementation. “We selected a different one for implementation in part for price but also independence,” she said.
