Our client, a large UK supermarket chain, had seen success in the past using HighQ for their HR & Legal teams. As part of a push to modernise their construction processes, our client saw an opportunity to use HighQ for a non-legal use case and approached SYKE to help them achieve their goals.
DESIGNING A UNIQUE, NON-LEGAL, INSTANCE
We set up a natural work team including Quantity Surveyors, Project Managers and Construction colleagues to ensure that all users were engaged throughout the journey. We wanted to ensure that all parties had a say so that the output would be suitable for their processes and ways of working.
This comes with its own challenges when working with a complex organization like Supermarket X with many internal stakeholders and layers of sign-off. SYKE invested time with the team to understand the “needs and wants”, using end-to-end process charts; historic cases and a fully inclusive design process.
BUY IN IS KEY TO SUCCESS
Together with our client, we spent a lot of time identifying what training would be required based on the number of different users. SYKE were on hand to provide support but were guided by the client on the most appropriate methods based on their experiences, with the use of video, user guides and initial training sessions paying dividends.
The teams were really responsive to the initial training sessions which were delivered by SYKE and our client was really pleased with the post-launch support for key users who have completed further ‘follow up’ sessions.
Speaking at an event discussing this project, a key client stakeholder for the project commented “We as a business have clear guides to support all personnel and I can’t thank SYKE enough for their professionalism and consideration for making all of the materials user-friendly and relevant – We’ve seen a huge improvement in workloads for the affected teams and the 80 business users across the organisation.
“I was really surprised that we were able to automate some of the more technical steps in the process – for example the project instruction documentation is now completely automated which saves a huge amount of time for the teams; cost to the business in couriers and enhanced efficiency and accuracy in managing and maintaining contracts.
“We have started to see quick turnaround of contracts – saving time for various different stakeholders. We now also have an updated system which provides clear visibility on project instructions and contracts status. I have received highly positive feedback from PM’s and consultants on how the system has improved WOW giving all parties clear visibility on project status.”
A HAPPY PATH
“Looking back on the journey I believe the system has come a long way and has been very successful – if I had to do anything different I would ensure that all stakeholders that landed the project were clear on their objectives and time frames to ensure we landed it on time.
“You will always face some reluctancy from some colleagues when landing a change project, however I believe that most colleagues were clear on the benefits of the system from the offset. I think that it is important when landing change projects to continue to highlight the benefits of system, even once the initial roll-out is complete.
“I would always advise other teams in the position we were in to bring in an expert as soon as you can on the journey. You may think that you know your own processes, but an external eye will help you to figure out what’s needed and align the processes so that the new tech solution can be used to the fullest. SYKE really took the time to engage the teams and understand the needs and wants before coming back to us with the start of the solution.”
