a case study of successful partnering implementation

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A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation

1996, International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management

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Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

9 Effective Implementation: Partners and Capacities

Large-scale implementation requires more than a well-researched program design based on clear evidence for the efficacy of both core components and the specific practices through which those components take effect, thoughtfully adapted to meet the needs of diverse communities. The process of implementing an intervention at a scale that maximizes its impact also requires the system capacity—organizational infrastructure, resources, and abilities—to deliver it to a broad population and sustain the effort. That is, it requires not only effective methods and tools that can affect the behaviors and actions of people and organizations and thereby bring about change, but also an engineering process that produces the capacities required to sustainably support the use of those methods and tools in local settings.

In this chapter, we explore primary elements of this process, based on the now voluminous number of implementation models, frameworks, and strategies in implementation science ( Tabak et al., 2012 ; Waltz et al., 2015 ). We look first at an integrated model of the overall functioning of the system, synthesizing key features and foundational concepts from across many of the more applied implementation science models. We then explore the roles of key partners involved in this model—the “co-creation” partners who each play a part in developing the capacities needed to make programs and interventions work and sustain them at scale. Next we focus on some key elements of effective overall system capacities for scale-up: collaboration, including leadership and implementation teams, community coalitions, and learning collaboratives; workforce development systems; systems to monitor and improve quality and outcomes; and communications and media systems for disseminating science-based information within communities beyond direct intervention services alone.

A MODEL OF SYSTEM FUNCTIONING

Researchers have created models of how partners work together to develop the capacity for successful implementation of a program at scale and the key functions involved. Figure 9-1 depicts a model of essential partners, capacities, and processes needed to achieve sustained benefits at a population level—a theory of change. Co-creation partners 1 ( Metz, 2015 ), shown at the left of the figure, work together, each contributing in a different way but collectively supporting the development of a system with the capacity to implement and scale the intervention, which has the elements shown in the green band. The system is optimized to pursue key implementation outcomes as it is first put into practice and then adapted (center band); information is collected about initial results and developments on the ground related to feasibility, fidelity, cost, how the intervention is received by participants, and the like ( Proctor et al., 2011 ). As this system becomes operational, attention focuses on outcomes at the individual, family, school, and community levels, and further modifications are made to optimize these outcomes (band second from right), with the objective of ultimately effecting robust improvement that is evident in population-level indicators, represented in the band on the right.

Integrated theory of change for the successful, sustainable scale-up of evidence-based interventions. SOURCE: Adapted from Aldridge, Boothroyd, Veazey, et al. (2016) and Chinman et al. (2016).

If successful, this process can contribute to the establishment of learning-based partnerships and shared accountability for strategies and outcomes. Figure 9-1 highlights the importance of each of the partners and each link in the process, but it is important also to emphasize that the scaling system is a feedback loop, as indicated by the arrows in the figure representing support and feedback. At each stage of the process, practitioners and researchers collect data and other kinds of feedback about results, unexpected difficulties, and the ideas and experiences of practitioners and program participants. This information is used continuously (but especially in the early stages) to refine the design of the intervention and plans for implementation, develop effective adaptations for diverse community needs, improve intervention and implementation as scaling continues, and sustain the intervention and the scaling process as needs and challenges develop.

CO-CREATION PARTNERS

Researchers have used the term “co-creation” to describe situations in which partners are closely involved in both the identification of the problem to be solved and its solution, and whose involvement is both coordinated and aligned with program goals ( Metz, 2015 ; Metz, Albers, and Albers, 2014 ; Pfitzer, Bockstette, and Stamp, 2013 ; Voorberg, Bekkers, and Tummers, 2015 ). Although the literature on co-creation partners includes field and case studies that characterize the contributions of the various partners and how they coordinate, little evidence has emerged thus far about the direct outcomes of co-creation. Nevertheless, the importance of each of these groups of partners is clear.

Community Members

As co-creation partners, community members are those who can be expected to benefit broadly from the implementation or scaling of an effective intervention, including individuals and families who would benefit directly from participation and other community stakeholders who might benefit indirectly from the improved outcomes for individuals and families. Apart from participating in the program, community members may help spread information about it or provide tangible and intangible supports ( International Association for Public Participation, 2014 ). They also may help shape the political and policy climate to support the program's scaling. From case studies of the implementation of a practice model in county child welfare environments, Boothroyd and colleagues (2017) identified five key functions that community members may play in the development of system capacity for program implementation and scale-up: (1) relationship building, (2) addressing system barriers, (3) establishing culturally relevant supports and services, (4) meaningful involvement in implementation, and (5) ongoing communication and feedback for continuous improvement.

Community members may also be partners in research that supports effective program implementation ( Deverka et al., 2012 ; Graham et al., 2016 ; Lavallee et al., 2012 ). While seeking community input can slow the change process and may add an additional layer of complexity, it is key to true collaboration ( Barnes and Schmitz, 2016 ; Boothroyd et al., 2017 ). Researchers have drawn lessons from efforts to engage community members. For example, D'Angelo and colleagues (2017) examine the implementation of a policy in Washington State designed to increase the availability of and access to mental, emotional, and behavioral health-related practices and describe successful strategies for planning, education, financing, restructuring, and quality management. Walker and colleagues (2015) explore the use of a statewide Tribal Gathering for multiphased engagement of tribal communities in the planning of behavioral interventions for youth. And Sanders and Kirby (2012) use examples from large trials of Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) to highlight community engagement strategies, means of enhancing program fit with community needs and preferences, and ways to increase population reach. Nevertheless, more research is needed to clarify effective strategies for engagement and their outcomes.

Service Providers

Service providers are leaders, managers, supervisors, and practitioners who have a stake in the adoption, implementation, and outcomes of a program, and they play at least two key roles. First, practitioners and their direct supervisors have a distinct perspective on program fit, delivery, and reception. They may be able to point to gaps in the program, its organization, and the system that supports its implementation that are more difficult for leaders and external partners to see, thus creating unique opportunities to advance desired outcomes strategically during planning and improvement processes. Second, the readiness of service providers to change and act when a new program is implemented is critical to its success, although “readiness” is not simple to assess and should perhaps be viewed as a process rather than a state ( Dymnicki et al., 2014 ).

While researchers are only beginning to look in detail at what readiness entails, some have suggested that it is a combination of willingness and ability in the context of a program that fits the context and community well ( Dymnicki et al., 2014 ; Flaspohler et al., 2012 ; Horner, Blitz, and Ross, 2014 ; Scaccia et al., 2015 ; Weiner, 2009 ). It is important to note further that, while the concept of readiness for implementation may have primary relevance to service providers, the concept may also be meaningful across all co-creation partners.

Additional work has also pointed to the importance of strong organizational leadership; communication; and openness to trying new policies, procedures, and programs, as well as to the value of careful site selection ( Chilenski et al., 2015 ; Romney, Israel, and Zlatevski, 2014 ). Additional research on factors, strategies, and outcomes related to organizational readiness is clearly needed.

Funders and Policy Makers

Funders are individuals and organizations, whether public or private, that provide financial support for a program's implementation or scale-up, while policy makers set legislative or administrative policy related to factors known to contribute to MEB well-being (e.g., the availability of effective services, the community environment). Both groups are key to making the environment hospitable for a sustainable program ( Chapter 10 reviews recent developments in funding and policy making at the federal state, and local levels).

Powell and colleagues (2016) analyze efforts in Philadelphia to transform a behavioral health system. These authors suggest that policy strategies at the service provider, state agency, political, and social levels show promise. They see little benefit from strict mandates that might force top-down approaches, finding instead that developing broad political support by engaging multiple stakeholders is the approach most likely to succeed. This perspective is supported by a study of policy makers' perspectives on the implementation of an evidence-based program, SafeCare, in two state child welfare systems ( Willging et al., 2015 ). This study showed that SafeCare was sustained where policy makers had strong partnerships with service providers and academic institutions. Policy makers who participated in this study also pointed to robust planning and collaborative problem solving by all stakeholders involved as elements in program success. Also aligned with this perspective is work demonstrating the value of networking in helping all partners gain access to information, resources, and tools for decision making ( Armstrong et al., 2013 ; Tricco et al., 2016 ). The important role of legislative staff members in advancing mental health–related policy has also been noted ( Purtle, Brownson, and Proctor, 2017 ).

Purveyors and Intermediary Organizations

Purveyors are people who provide training and technical assistance for implementers or supporters of a program, usually through a close relationship to the program's developer ( Fixsen et al., 2005 ). Their interactions with service providers may include both formal interactions addressing such matters as program guidelines, adherence, training, and supervision, and informal interactions addressing personal and professional issues outside the scope of primary work efforts ( Palinkas et al., 2009 ). Purveyors also may collect evaluation data, as well as local and clinical knowledge, from the service providers with whom they work as part of effective adaptation of the program to the local context. Among the factors that promote effective interactions between service providers and purveyors are accessibility, mutual respect, a shared language, and a willingness to engage in negotiation and compromise (see, e.g., McWilliam et al., 2016 ; Schoenwald and Henggeler, 2003 ; Webster-Stratton, Reid, and Marsenich, 2014 ).

Whereas purveyors typically represent a single program, intermediaries—organized centers or partnerships developed to support state and local agencies—support a wide range of programs ( Mettrick et al., 2015 ). Often housed within universities or nonprofit organizations, they take direction from state and local governments and complement state and local efforts to use research evidence to improve child, family, and community outcomes. Their functions may include providing support in the identification of promising programs and service delivery models; conducting research, evaluation, and data linking; supporting partnership engagement and collaboration; assisting in workforce development activities, including training; and providing expertise in policy and financing ( Mettrick et al., 2015 ).

A study of two centers that play the intermediary role—the Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support Center at Penn State University's Prevention Research Center and the Center for Effective Practice at the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut—highlights ingredients that appear to promote successful interactions between such groups and the other stakeholders with whom they interact ( Bumbarger and Campbell, 2012 ; Franks, 2010 ; Rhoades et al., 2012 ). This work points to the importance of, for example, attending to the immediate needs of practitioners and policy makers, ensuring clear communication and recommendations by using media common to and accessible to these audiences, balancing research and science with local expertise and wisdom, and establishing mutually reinforcing activities and shared objectives among partners.

Intervention Developers and Researchers

Individuals and organizations that conduct the research needed to generate or improve the design of a program clearly play a critical role, as do those that carry out the continued work necessary to increase the program's utility and support its implementation and scale-up. Progress in methods for consistently identifying a program's core components (discussed in Chapter 8 ) should allow developers, program purveyors, and intermediaries to support service providers with feasible and valid fidelity assessment and adaptation processes.

The value of partnerships between researchers and other stakeholders is also garnering increased attention. One key benefit of such collaboration is in the translation of field evidence to ongoing program improvements that support more efficient implementation processes, better implementation outcomes, and stronger program outcomes ( Chambers, Glasgow, and Stange, 2013 ). An ongoing process of development, evaluation, and refinement allows for the ultimate achievement of effective programs, as long as that process is supported by shared access to data obtained through program and implementation monitoring (discussed below) ( Chambers and Azrin, 2013 ). This approach is illustrated by the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle ( Taylor et al., 2014 ) (see Box 9-1 ). It is also of benefit in guiding the necessary iterative actions of other co-creation partners, particularly those closer to the ground level of implementation efforts. We discuss monitoring and related issues more fully in Chapter 11 .

Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA).

KEY ELEMENTS OF CAPACITY FOR SCALE-UP

Several key elements support effective implementation of a program at scale, including collaboration, workforce development systems, quality and outcome monitoring systems, and communications and media systems.

Collaboration

Collaboration is needed at multiple levels, including both within and among leadership and implementation teams and broader community coalitions. In some cases, these collaborations have been augmented by the use of learning collaboratives.

Leadership and Implementation Teams

Local leadership and implementation teams design and lead an organization-wide strategy for bringing about a targeted change ( Higgins, Weiner, and Young, 2012 ). They act as internal change agents, ensuring that core components of a program are carried out and that it is implemented with fidelity ( Aldridge, Boothroyd, Fleming et al., 2016 ). Researchers who have examined implementation frameworks suggest that to be effective, leadership and implementation teams need to include individuals who have decision-making authority within the organization or community, some form of oversight over front-line practitioners' delivery of a program, and the capacity to both engage others (secure buy-in) and foster a supportive climate for the program ( Meyers, Durlak, and Wandersman, 2012 ).

Implementation teams are part of effective blended strategies for implementation, such as the strategies of Communities That Care (CTC) and Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) (see Chapter 8 ). However, research to date has focused more on the factors that influence the functioning of such teams than on their specific effects on the implementation process ( Feinberg et al., 2007 ; Perkins et al., 2011 ). An exception is a randomized controlled trial of a program now known as Treatment Foster Care Oregon, which targets adolescents with behavioral and other problems. This study showed that although community development teams did not lead to higher rates of or faster implementation, they were associated with greater program reach and more thorough completion of stage-based implementation activities relative to implementation efforts that did not use such teams ( Brown et al., 2014 ). A study of Triple P service organizations found that leadership team capacity was associated with greater organizational implementation capacity and predicted agency sustainment of program delivery ( Aldridge, Murray, et al., 2016 ).

Researchers have also focused on specific aspects of leadership in the context of implementation and pointed to various reasons for its importance. For example, two studies of transformational leadership strategies (those that are motivational and promote innovation and change) compared with other strategies, such as those focused on bidirectional relationships between leaders and followers, found that the former strategies tend to foster a sense that new programs are attainable and reduce perceptions that the program imposes burdens, as well as to promote favorable attitudes toward a new program or practice ( Aarons and Sommerfeld, 2012 ; Brimhall et al., 2016 ). Strategies often associated with transformational leadership styles include recruiting and selecting staff members receptive to change, offering support and requesting feedback during the implementation process, and ensuring opportunities for hands-on learning experiences ( Guerrero et al., 2016 ).

Other observational studies have identified features of system leadership that contribute to successful, sustained program implementation. These include setting a project mission and vision, planning for program sustainment early and often, setting realistic program plans, and having alternative strategies for program survival ( Aarons et al., 2016 ). Qualitative studies have pointed to other roles played by leadership teams, such as championing the program and marketing it to stakeholders; institutionalizing the program through a combination of funding, contracting, and improvement plans; and fostering multilevel collaborations among state, county, and community stakeholders ( Aarons et al., 2016 ).

Community Coalitions

Successful leadership and implementation teams bring together individuals and groups within organizations and single-system environments and, depending on the scale of the program, across organizations and system environments. For large-scale programs, links across communities are needed. A community coalition is a relatively formal alliance of local organizations and individuals that have engaged to address a community issue collectively. 2 It serves as a hub for integrating and coordinating efforts, facilitating communication, and mutually reinforcing activities ( Billioux, Conway, and Alley, 2017 ; Hanleybrown, Kania, and Kramer, 2012 ). The development of a community coalition is therefore a strategy for linking leadership, implementation teams, and other system partners in cross-sector community environments ( Hawkins, Catalano, and Arthur, 2002 ; Spoth and Greenberg, 2011 ).

Researchers have examined the effectiveness of community coalitions developed for varied purposes. For example, a meta-analysis of studies of 58 community coalition-driven interventions to reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations yielded several conclusions ( Anderson et al., 2015 ). It showed that coalitions focused on broad health and social care system-level strategies had modest but positive effects, as did coalitions that used lay community health outreach workers or group-based health education led by professional staff. More inconsistent results were found for coalitions that focused on more targeted system-level changes, such as improvements in housing, green spaces, neighborhood safety, and regulatory processes, as well as coalitions that used group-based health education led by peers.

Several studies have investigated factors associated with the success or sustainability of such coalitions and provided evidence for the value of a number of process and structural elements: community readiness; training and fidelity to the coalition process; the presence and formalization of rules; staff competence, focus, cohesion, and enthusiasm; effective board functioning; skilled, capable, and shared leadership models; membership diversity, engagement, and cohesion; member agency collaboration; diversity and leveraging of funding sources; and increases in coalition capacity, data resources, and funding resources ( Brown et al., 2015 ; Brown, Feinberg, and Greenberg, 2010 ; Feinberg, Bontempo, and Greenberg, 2008 ; Feinberg et al., 2002 ; Feinberg, Greenberg, and Osgood, 2004 ; Gomez, Greenberg, and Feinberg, 2005 ; Johnson et al., 2017 ; Kegler and Swan, 2011 ; Zakocs and Edwards, 2006 ; Zakocs and Guckenburg, 2007 ).

One study focused specifically on the impact of community coalitions on outcomes for youth. A study of coalitions funded through the federally sponsored Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant showed that internal organization and structure, community connections and outreach, and funding from multiple sources each predicted reductions in one or more outcomes related to underage drinking that were sustained through young adulthood, especially for males ( Flewelling and Hanley, 2016 ; Oesterle et al., 2018 ).

Learning Collaboratives

Learning collaboratives populated by independent programs with similar goals have been efficient mechanisms for program implementation and improvement over time. Used successfully in health care ( Margolis, Peterson, and Seid, 2013 ), they serve not only as vehicles for joint planning, but also as laboratories for implementing, testing, and improving programs across a spectrum of sites. Sharing of learning within such collaboratives has considerable potential to accelerate the development and dissemination of effective programs, but also to support testing of outcomes in multiple sites. As implementation is a time-consuming and expensive process, novel approaches to effective and efficient scaling of programs will become increasingly important. As with any effort of this complexity, strong leadership, sharing among participants, and infrastructure are key ingredients in success.

Workforce Development Systems

The effectiveness of any program to foster healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) development will depend on a well-trained workforce. However, both shortages in the numbers of individuals interested in this work and insufficient professional development for the existing workforce have been documented in health care, early childhood education, K–12 education, and community-based programs (such as home visiting) ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015 ). Documentation of the rising prevalence of adverse early childhood experiences, disadvantageous social determinants of behavioral health, and increasing health and educational disparities has focused the attention of policy makers and leaders on the need to strengthen this workforce.

A substantial body of evidence from fields including industrial and organizational psychology points to methods for identifying the attributes needed for particular roles; recruiting, selecting, and retaining workers likely to be successful; and providing continuous opportunities for both formal and informal learning (see, e.g., National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017 , 2018b ). Education researchers and others have also contributed to a substantial body of work on both preparation and professional development for teachers (see, e.g., Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2012 , 2015 ; National Research Council, 2010 ). We do not review these and other ways of strengthening the early childhood workforce (see, e.g., Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2012 , 2015 ; National Research Council, 2010 ) here but we note several areas in which researchers have focused on challenges for the MEB health–related workforce (see also Boat, Land, and Leslie, 2017 ).

The demands on those who work in MEB health-related settings are significant. Effective staffing of child-focused programs and sites requires a pool of individuals who can reflect in their daily activities the delicate balance between fidelity to core program components and the flexibility to meet the needs of those they serve. Staff in such programs frequently work with distressed children and families, and are called upon to bring compassion, patience, and a wide range of skills and strategies to such challenges as helping families provide supportive environments for children. These individuals must also be comfortable with and skilled at working in teams. At the same time, programs associated with fostering MEB health will increasingly integrate research into daily activities, and workers must contribute to ongoing data gathering and be responsive to the resulting need for modifications of programs and practices. Thus, these workers are called on to engage in quality improvement and to work collaboratively in interdisciplinary settings and across sectors of the landscape of programs that serve children and families and promote MEB health.

Program developers frequently specify criteria for recruitment and selection of workers based on the professional qualifications and experience determined to be necessary for staff who can deliver core components of the program design. For example, intensive family interventions that integrate cognitive-behavioral approaches may require practitioners with related training, experience, and possibly certification. However, for a program that relies on more straightforward behavioral practices shown to be effective in a variety of service settings, individuals with less formal training may be able to deliver the intervention reliably and effectively ( Embry and Biglan, 2008 ). These individuals, including peer counselors, parenting counselors, and community health workers, come to the job with varied training, credentialing, and licensing; in many cases they are deeply culturally connected with the communities in which they work, and work at lower salaries than workers with more substantial credentials ( Boat et al., 2016 ).

While many program purveyors provide training and materials as a foundational learning experience for new practitioners, it is important that training be well aligned with the core program components, not only to enhance practitioners' understanding of the essentials of program delivery but also to increase the efficiency of training processes (not spending an undue amount of time on peripheral or nonessential intervention ingredients). Despite the importance of foundational training in evidence-based practices, such basic training strategies as workshops, reading of treatment manuals, and brief supervision have not been shown to produce adequate training outcomes for practitioners or clients ( Beidas and Kendall, 2010 ; Herschell et al., 2010 ). Other work has also supported the importance of active learning experiences for training practitioners in evidence-based practices (e.g., Beidas and Kendall, 2010 ). Other elements of effective training include experiential learning in a multidisciplinary and well-supervised model setting, with frequent evaluation and two-way feedback.

Ongoing coaching and supervision of practitioners and other individuals also play an important role in maintaining an effective workforce, and researchers have examined features that enhance the effectiveness of these activities. For example, Nadeem and colleagues (2013) identify as particularly valuable continuing training close to the time when new skills are to be put into practice, the application of new skills to cases, a focus on skill building and mastery, problem solving related to implementation barriers, adaptation of treatments to meet circumstantial needs, planning for how to sustain the trained skills, and promotion of engagement and accountability. Worker-specific collection of performance data and feedback can be a helpful improvement tool.

The impact of coaching on the actual use of program practices has been demonstrated in varied contexts, including K–12 teaching and medical health coaching 3 (see, e.g., Kraft and Blazar, 2018 ; Kresser, 2017 ; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017 , 2018b ). A theme in this work is that coaching and training can be effective if they incorporate such key features as targeting specific skills practitioners need and helping them link those skills to direct applications. For example, the authors of a meta-analysis of the impact of coaching on teachers found that training alone, even when it included integrated demonstrations, practice opportunities, and feedback, resulted in little applied transfer of innovative practices ( Joyce and Showers, 2002 ). However, when ongoing coaching was provided within classroom environments, large gains were seen in the use and application of practices. Similarly, a study of training workshops for mental health care providers showed that feedback, consultation, and coaching provided as follow-up on material presented in the workshop were essential for improving adoption of the new practices, the development and retention of skills, and outcomes for clients ( Herschell et al., 2010 ). A study of the implementation of new practices in community-based mental health and social service settings reinforces the finding that supportive coaching environments and systematic quality feedback are associated with favorable outcomes even beyond those related to fidelity, such as reduced practitioner turnover and no impact on increasing practitioner burnout ( Aarons, Fettes, et al., 2009 ; Aarons, Sommerfeld, et al., 2009 ). Thus while these approaches require time and expertise, they appear to have clear benefits for effective implementation.

Quality and Outcome Monitoring Systems

The collection of information about quality and outcomes is vital to the continuous improvement that fuels effective implementation, and can be done in a variety of ways. Effective monitoring requires a multipurpose data infrastructure that includes systems for monitoring implementation quality and intervention and community-level outcomes, as well as the integration of other sources of relevant data. Quality monitoring systems collect data on implementation or scale-up, including the elements of fidelity (see Chapter 8 ) and other implementation outcomes as noted in Figure 9-1 and discussed by Proctor and colleagues (2011) . Monitoring an array of implementation outcomes can ensure that quality benchmarks are being met and gives early indication of the extent to which intervention and community-level outcomes should be expected. For example, if intervention fidelity is low, it may be useful to increase practitioner supports during program training or coaching or to refine practitioner recruitment and selection criteria. Likewise, if reach is low, community leaders and implementation teams may seek to increase program adoption through the community, train more practitioners, or involve the support of community members and partners to address access problems or stigmas that may be associated with seeking support. Similar strategies could be used to address warning signs in other implementation outcomes.

Intervention and community-level outcome monitoring is a communitywide assessment process for monitoring the well-being of children and youth; its purpose is to identify trends or flag issues across different geographic areas and to contribute to assessments of the progress of programs and practices designed to bring about change. Researchers can use the data collected through such an infrastructure to continually improve a program or practice over time as they learn how the intervention functions in diverse contexts ( Chambers, Glasgow, and Stange, 2013 ). The data can also provide feedback to practitioners and other stakeholders, who can use it to strengthen their contributions to the implementation process.

Community outcome monitoring systems are a critical element of a public health approach to promotion of child well-being and prevention of MEB problems. 4 Such public health surveillance systems—which typically collect information about aspects of the health and well-being of children and adolescents—provide local assessment and monitoring data that can be used to prioritize needs, select evidence-based programs, and monitor program results. They identify the existence of problems, their effects, trends in their incidence, and the results of interventions ( Rivara and Johnston, 2013 ). Such systems are also critical to implementation research, allowing scholars to pinpoint problems to be addressed, provide a basis for sound choices of interventions, and assess program impacts ( Spoth et al., 2013 ). The Society for Prevention Research has described the key features of successful community monitoring systems (see Box 9-2 ). Spoth and colleagues (2013) also highlight the importance of using repeated assessments to monitor progress toward goals once a plan for implementing promotion and prevention programming is in place. The ideal may be to collect data and provide real-time feedback to participants continually so that implementation considerations and improvement opportunities remain closely connected.

Features of Successful Community Monitoring Systems.

It is essential that both relevant MEB outcomes and the prevalence of risk and protective factors be included in these measures, and that local-level data be collected to capture variations in the incidence of MEB problems and the presence of risk and protective factors across communities and neighborhoods ( Fagan, Hawkins, and Catalano, 2008 ). Local variations in need and risk can be quite marked, as demonstrated by data from the Communities That Care Youth Survey ( Arthur et al., 2007 ; Briney et al., 2012 ; Fagan, Hawkins, and Catalano, 2008 ). For example, a study comparing two high school populations from the same city showed that elevated risk factors at one high school included poor family management, parental attitudes favorable toward substance use, friends' use of drugs, and prevalence of favorable attitudes toward drug use ( Briney et al., 2012 ). Elevated risk factors at the other high school indicated a need for programs to reduce community disorganization, academic failure, and interaction with antisocial peers.

Once a monitoring system is in place, periodic reassessment will identify changes in levels of MEB outcomes and risk and protective factors, which can in turn be used to assess progress in reducing problems and provide early warning of emerging problems related to, for example, an economic downturn, rapid population growth, or other influences. Selection of the survey instrument, procedures for administering the survey and scoring the data, and training for all stakeholders who will use the data are all critical to the utility of a community monitoring system. Surveys that have been or could be used for this purpose include

the Communities That Care Youth Survey ( Beyers et al., 2004 ; Bond et al., 2005 ; Catalano et al., 2012 ; Fagan, Hawkins, and Catalano, 2008 ; Fleming et al., 2019 ; Glaser et al., 2005 ; Hemphill et al., 2011 ; Oesterle et al., 2012 );
Monitoring the Future ( Johnston et al., 2010 );
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey;
the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs ( Hibell et al., 2009 );
the Global Student Health Survey ( World Health Organization, n.d. ); and
the Early Development Index ( Catalano et al., 2012 ; Janus and Offord, 2007 ).

We note also that a considerable amount of data is routinely collected as children and youth go about their lives, and much of these data have potential utility for researching and monitoring MEB health and development. Electronic data capture systems are used in health care, schools, and other child care and services settings. The opportunity to use big data techniques 5 for observational research has not yet been well utilized for MEB health–related research, but use of these techniques is likely to increase in this context ( Van Poucke et al., 2016 ). See Chapter 11 for further discussion of quality and outcome monitoring.

Communications and Media Systems

The presence of digital media in daily life, particularly among children and youth, provides the opportunity to include targeted outreach as part of almost any kind of large-scale MEB health program. Existing research suggests that mass media could contribute to efforts both to strengthen prosocial behavior and to prevent MEB problems in families and schools.

A 2010 review of studies on the impact of media campaigns designed to affect public health showed that mass media—both radio and television—can have a significant impact on a wide variety of health behaviors ( Wakefield, Loken, and Hornik, 2010 ). The authors found evidence that such campaigns may both influence individuals' decisions about their behavior and have indirect effects—for example, through the influence of people directly exposed to the campaign on others not exposed to it, or by increasing general support for both norms and public policies. Campaigns appear to have increased effectiveness when products and services to support health behavior change are concurrently available through community-based programs and, more broadly, policies are in place to support changes in targeted health behaviors. Media campaigns targeting smoking have been studied especially thoroughly, and have been shown to both promote quitting and discourage young people from starting the habit, but effects have been found in other areas as well. 6 The Triple P system of interventions has also developed universal media-based strategies. The premise of these strategies is that media have the potential to influence aspects of child and adolescent development by directly affecting young people or by influencing parents' behavior and shaping norms and public policies ( Sanders and Prinz, 2008 ). More recently, researchers have focused on the potential value of communicating through existing, or natural, community, social, and professional networks ( Palinkas et al., 2011 ; Valente et al., 2015 ). (See Chapter 10 for discussion of technology-based developments.)

By 2009, researchers had identified many approaches that can be effective in improving MEB health and development and began to focus on the challenges of implementing those approaches at scales broad enough to benefit large populations. In the past decade, researchers have learned more about what goes into effective adaptation of programs, tracking of fidelity, and other elements of this complex process. There is more to learn about how to support and sustain implementation systems, but it is clear that successful implementation of an MEB health promotion or prevention program at a population scale is a complex endeavor that depends on the involvement of multiple partners to create system capacity:

Community members provide relationship building, support culturally relevant adaptation, provide communication and feedback, and partner with researchers and service providers.
Service providers execute the program strategies and provide feedback on program fit, delivery, and reception.
Funders provide or help secure sustained resources.
Policy makers secure resources as well as political and community support, and act in partnership with local service providers and researchers.
Purveyors and intermediary organizations oversee program delivery, provide expertise, collect evaluation data and feedback from practitioners and clients, and collaborate with local service agencies, community members, and researchers.
Researchers generate and improve the program design to meet community needs, analyze data and collaborate with service providers and purveyors to fine tune the program and address problems, monitor program fidelity, conduct evaluations, and analyze results.

These stakeholders work together to develop and operate the complex system that makes implementation possible.

Key elements that strengthen organizational infrastructure for the implementation system include

leadership and implementation teams (including their collaboration and coordination within community coalitions);
workforce development systems;
quality and outcome monitoring systems; and
communications and media systems.

CONCLUSION 9-1: Effective implementation of a well-researched program to foster healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral development at scale depends on an interactive system that provides the capacity to implement and continuously improve the program. Key elements of such a system include

active engagement of a diverse array of partners (community members, service providers, funders, policy makers, purveyors/intermediaries, and researchers);
a well-trained workforce that is provided with ongoing professional development opportunities;
active leadership and management (via implementation teams) within organizations responsible for delivering the program;
the development of strong community coalitions that can muster sustained support for the program and provide community-level leadership;
continuous fidelity monitoring and feedback;
a system for monitoring the quality and outcomes of implementation efforts, barriers to successful implementation, trends in risk and protective factors and other influences on MEB development, and other relevant data;
learning through evaluation and improvement; and
multiple methods of communication to publicize program objectives and share them with stakeholders and the community at large.
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“Co-creation” is a term also used in a business context to refer to strategies for blending ideas and contributions from varied partners interested in a shared goal.

See https://www .med.upenn .edu/hbhe4/part4-ch15-community-coalition-actiontheory .shtml for information about Community Coalition Action Theory.

A medical coach supplements care given by the physician by providing patient education and supporting patients in adhering to prescribed care or treatments; see, e.g., https://www .ama-assn .org/practice-management /payment-delivery-models /why-yourmedical-practice-needs-health-coach .

For more information on community monitoring systems, see https://www .preventionresearch .org/advocacy /community-monitoring-systems .

While there is no one best definition of the term “big data,” it is generally used to refer to extremely large sets of digital data that cannot be digested without advanced analytic techniques ( National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019 , pp. 2–10).

Behaviors for which effects were found included physical activity, nutrition, cardiovascular disease prevention, birth rate reduction, HIV infection reduction, cervical cancer screening, breast cancer screening, immunization, diarrheal disease, and organ donation, seat belt use, and reduction of drunk driving. However, for some behaviors, such as promoting parenting strategies for reducing drug use, media campaigns were not effective ( Wakefield, Loken, and Hornik, 2010 ).

Cite this Page National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development Among Children and Youth. Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development in Children and Youth: A National Agenda. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2019 Sep 11. 9, Effective Implementation: Partners and Capacities.
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Standout Traits for a Great Partner Case Study (With Examples)

It’s no surprise that partner case studies are a wee bit of a struggle to produce. Getting your customers to agree to a case study is one thing; getting your customer and your partner to agree to a case study is a miracle. On top of the fact that the partnerships world is still such a gray area for partner managers everywhere (let alone their leadership), partner case studies in SaaS are a rare sighting in the wild (think: the bat-eared fox. Do you even know what that is? 😝) .

So, think of this roundup as snapshots of the elusive partner case studies that lurk in the depths of the SaaS ecosystem — a co-marketing material still so new that, just maybe, by producing one of your own, you’ll be ahead of the curve already.

Below, we offer some partner case study standout traits, followed by a collection of examples located in (butler voice) the gallery , and a checklist for rolling out your own case study program.

1. Wow your readers by placing the results in the title.

While the rest of your case study should give the reader context, the results are what matter most to your potential buyers and their leadership teams. So, put the results at the top! SugarCRM kicks off its case study with Kyloe Partners and Bullhorn by sharing how they doubled lead-gen campaigns while cutting 60% of their customer’s workload.

Our suggestion: if someone were to ask you “What is the most impressive part of this case study?”, what is the first thing you’d say? That’s your headline.

2. Make the metrics obvious.

If your customer has observed more than one area of growth, that’s awesome. Draw the reader’s eyes right to the numbers. In Facebook’s case study with Zapier and Wicked Good Cupcakes , they placed their metrics in a standalone box that makes the numbers the most important information on the page.

Meanwhile, Acquia’s case study with Third and Grove and King Arthur Baking Company features their results point-blank in a standalone line that reads “Results.” (Say what?)

3. Define the customer’s use case or challenge.

It’s likely that your customers can use your integration for multiple use cases, so be clear about what this particular customer’s use case is from the start. In Microsoft Azure’s case study with Sourced Group and a Canadian bank , they clearly list out the challenge, the solution, and the result in three brief columns.

They also dive deeper into the bank’s challenges with a numbered list.

4. Define the audience or market.

Your customers will want to know how you’ve solved challenges they’re facing internally or that their customers may be facing. Make an easy connection for them by pointing out the specific audience or market the case study applies to.

Greenlight Guru’s case study with Rook Quality Systems explicitly describes how RQS’s clientele of medical professionals informs RQS’s product investments.

5. Get customer quotes.

Tableau’s case study with AWS and ride-hailing app FREE NOW includes quotes from FREE NOW’s Head of Analytics showing how indispensable Tableau has been, in tandem with AWS, for their team’s daily operations.

Tip: Repurpose your customer quotes by including them on your website, in press releases, and even in your outbound sales outreach.

6. Put the results in perspective: Include a timeframe.

Growth metrics don’t mean anything if they’re not tied to a before and after. Include the exact timeframe your analysis fits into.

And yes, Facebook’s case study with Zapier and Wicked Good Cupcakes is, indeed, cupcake-themed!

7. Get partner quotes.

You have quotes from your shared customer, why not also include a quote from your partner? Partner quotes can be especially useful for agencies who want to prove the value of their services to their customers and software vendors.

Cisco’s case study with Matternet and Stratus Information Systems includes quotes from individuals from Stratus Information Systems and Matternet — each of whom found the other to be invaluable while implementing Cisco’s software.

8. Add personal stories.

Including brief personal stories can give extra life to an otherwise data-heavy document (think: the people behind the products and, more specifically, the customer service that makes working with a SaaS company so customer-friendly).

SugarCRM’s case study with Kyloe Partners and Bullhorn shares a meet-cute-ish story detailing how Kyloe Partners’ co-founder and director and Bullhorn’s co-founder met back in the day (Can’t you just see it in a movie?).

9. Show them the people behind the product.

Did I mention a big part of SaaS is that last “S”? It’s all about the service.

Greenlight Guru’s case study with Rook Quality Systems talks about how much RQS values the company because of its relationship with GG employees.

10. Avoid the “wall of text” effect.

Grab your designer (Hi, Nick !), and develop a creative way to organize the benefits or data you’re showcasing in the case study.

Braze’s case study with Segment, Amplitude, and IBM includes a graphic displaying their in-platform activities.

And Acquia’s case study with Third and Grove and King Arthur Baking Company includes the stakeholders, situation, challenge, solution, and results neatly laid out — bringing the good stuff front and center.

11. Create video content.

For an extra special case study, and if your customer’s on board for the extra time commitment, consider creating a video.

ActiveCampaign’s case study with Salesforce and the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago , includes a video at the top that dives into what the MSI team’s work days look like, the challenges they experience, and how the ActiveCampaign-Salesforce integration has helped them.

If you’re curious, we picked apart ActiveCampaign’s entire co-marketing playbook for getting to #1 in Salesforce’s marketing automation AppExchange .

From ActiveCampaign’s case study with Salesforce and the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

Sensyne includes a case study video on their website , existing outside of their official case study with Microsoft and Cognizant , explaining how they’ve deployed patient monitoring capabilities during COVID-19.

From Cognizant’s case study with Microsoft and Sensyne Health (video case study on Sensyne Health’s website)

12. Talk up your partners.

Include context about your partners, and talk them up. This case study should make you and your partner shine!

Tip: Include your partner case studies on the customer success section of your website and your partner page . It’s not just your potential customers reading these case studies, it’s also your potential partners.

Amazon Web Services’ case study with Deluxe Entertainment Services and Capgemini features a description of Deluxe Entertainment Services in a standalone section on the right.

13. Include a CTA.

‘Nuff said.

14. Create ancillary content that promotes your case studies.

Braze’s article in their Perspectives magazine links directly to their case study with Segment , Amplitude , and IBM .

If you’re developing partner case studies for the first time, or if you want to give your existing case studies a second life, check out our partner case study gallery below to gander everything we’ve mentioned thus far in a big picture view .

Partner Case Study Gallery:

And now, a collection of examples to help inspire your own work.

1. Facebook, Zapier, and Wicked Good Cupcakes

Read the case study .

2. Braze, Segment, Amplitude, and IBM

3. greenlight guru and rook quality systems, 4. sugarcrm, kyloe partners, and bullhorn.

Read the case study .

5. WPengine, BCF Agency, and Orangetheory Fitness

6. activecampaign, salesforce, and the museum of science and industry, chicago, 7. microsoft azure, sourced group, and a canadian bank, 8. cisco, matternet, and stratus information systems, 9. aws, deluxe entertainment services, and capgemini , 10. boomi and workiva.

This case study is a little different. In Dell Boomi’s case study with Workiva , they talk about how Workiva’s developers use Boomi to develop integrations for a variety of customers.

11. Tableau Software, AWS, and FREE NOW

12. acquia, third and grove, king arthur baking company, 13. cognizant, microsoft, and sensyne health, your partner case study checklist.

Great, you have the fundamentals. But what now? To rollout successful case studies you’ll need to make a few decisions: Considerations for planning your partner case study strategy:

Will you develop joint case studies with some of your early adopters before going live with a given integration? (hint: case studies like this can help strengthen your press release and make the case for other customers interested in adopting)
Which customers do you have the best relationship with, who may be interested in participating in a case study?
Is it okay to reach out to the above customers, or will it cause friction in their relationship with your sales or marketing team? (e.g. your team has already sent that customer a number of asks in the past month. Enough is enough!)
Are there specific use cases you’re looking to amplify through the case study? (e.g. an increase in revenue vs. a better leads to opportunities rate)
Will your case studies be more like a blog post-like or a fact-sheet-like? (note: Braze publishes case studies in their magazine, Perspectives )
Will you create video case studies in addition to written case studies (like Cognizant’s case study with Microsoft and Sensyne Health )?
How long will your case studies be? ( ActiveCampaign and Salesforce’s case study with Museum of Science and Industry is quite extensive while Acquia, Third and Grove, and King Arthur Baking Company’s case study spans a single page.

Considerations for distributing your partner case studies:

Where will your case studies live? Will they be gated with the goal of lead-gen? Or will they be available to the public? (Tip: If you make your case studies publicly available, you may want to consider a “Download PDF” button anyway so readers can pass the case study along to their team, just like Microsoft Azure does)
Will your case studies exist as standalone, downloadable documents, as dedicated pages on your site, or another format entirely?
Will you pull quotes or pieces of analysis from your case studies as previews for a case study homepage — or for elsewhere on your site/marketing materials? (You’ll want to let your customer know your plans ahead of time)
Will you use your case studies in nurture sequences to drive engagement with your leads?
Will your case studies be part of a bigger campaign with the participating partner ?

What makes a partner case study great? We called out the best attributes and developed a checklist for planning your case study strategy.

Your B2B SaaS Partner Page Checklist (with 50 Examples)

5 Signs Your Tech Partner's About to Get Acquired (And How to Prepare for Change)

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3 Successful ERP Implementation Case Studies

What do a maker of grooming products for men, a fast-growing moving business and a specialized shipping logistics provider have in common? All three had intractable challenges that were addressed by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

In all cases, their journeys started with ERP implementations. Once up and running, these disparate companies got the results they needed: more sales without adding new employees, faster and more accurate payroll processing and the ability to deliver tens of thousands of orders per day without delays or errors, respectively.

What Is an ERP Implementation?

An ERP implementation is the process of installing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, and then making sure your team is making the most of the technology. The process includes three main phases:

Installing onsite software and/or contracting with a SaaS provider. Often, companies seek help from the vendor or an implementation partner specializing in ERP, the vertical industry or specialized use cases.
Migrating data from your previous system or systems into the new ERP.
Training the finance team to use the new software. That process may include knowledge transfer from employees who previously used the system or formal education from your implementation partner.

The success rate ERP implementations is improving thanks to a focus on user experience, specifically simpler interfaces, more configuration flexibility, mobile functionality and increased automation. In fact, IDC’s 2021 SaaSPath Survey showed that "ease of use" is the most important vendor selection criteria for those purchasing finance applications.

Best practices to ensure success include organizing a strong implementation team of leaders from all areas of your company, from sales to accounting to operations. Ask them: What problems would we like this new system to resolve?

When choosing the ERP, it’s important to ensure it can easily integrate with other financial systems, and those of your key partners, and that you can be up and running in a reasonable timeframe, preferably 90 days or less. Finally, make sure your finance policies and procedures are aligned to make the most of the new system.

Key Takeaways

An ERP implementation is a process: ERP vendors and reviewers alike recommend carefully evaluating ERP vendors and/or partners before beginning, as well as taking things one step at a time, setting expectations with realistic planning timeframes and a comprehensive checklist mapped to your company’s goals for the system.

Let’s look at three companies that found success with their ERP implementation projects, and their key lessons learned.

ERP Case Study #1: Fulton & Roark

Fulton & Roark , a retailer of men’s grooming products, is an example of a successful ERP implementation.

Prior to upgrading to full-featured ERP, the North Carolina-based business tracked its inventory in a spreadsheet and its financial data in desktop accounting software, Sage Live. When the company began doubling sales year-over-year, leadership felt its current processes weren’t keeping up. Spreadsheets couldn’t account for changing inventory costs, and the accounting software didn’t have the workflows necessary to record the cost of goods sold (COGS) , an important financial metric.

As a result, the Fulton & Roark team did double data entry — manually.

To centralize all work in one place, the company’s co-founders implemented NetSuite ERP . After a three-week implementation process, changes were immediate, according to team members. Finally, the Fulton & Roark team was able to:

Catch and correct bookkeeping mistakes related to inventory.
Stop working with external accountants, growing both unit and dollar volumes significantly with no extra headcount.
Increase sales roughly 50% year-over-year without increasing headcount.
Get a more accurate picture of margins and inventory, which helped grow its ecommerce operation.
ERP implementations don’t have to drag on — Fulton & Roark’s team was up and working in about 20 days.
The company’s story also emphasizes a major success factor: Getting management committed to an ERP project. In this case, the co-founders initiated the project, which consultants say often spurs employee adoption.

ERP Case Study #2: N&N Moving Supplies

N&N Moving Supplies, a family-run distributor of moving equipment and supplies, successfully implemented an ERP system after expanding from one location in Georgia to three locations in multiple states and more than quadrupling its workforce.

Running on QuickBooks and a third-party payroll provider, it was nearly impossible to keep accurate time records and reconcile payroll with general ledger accounts. So, N&N turned to ERP to manage its accounting and payroll processes. During the implementation process for NetSuite ERP, N&N worked with a NetSuite partner, NOVAtime, to add a time-clock solution to the main system.

With this in place, N&N was able to:

Reduce payroll processing time by 84%.
Balance accounts faster.
Improve the accuracy of hours and vacation time counts.
See labor-cost trends across its three locations.
Give employees access to personalized ERP dashboards on iPads at each of its sites.
N&N’s case study nods to another major implementation success factor: managing employee morale. ERP projects often fail when execs and other employees don’t feel a sense of buy-in. By providing personalized dashboards — and ideally explaining their benefits to employees before the implementation — N&N avoided this pitfall.
The case study also shows that a third-party partner can be helpful in tailoring the ERP system to precisely fit your company’s needs.

ERP Case Study #3: Green Rabbit

Once upon a time, two friends launched a candy wholesale business. Then, they ran into a problem: shipping melt-prone chocolate bars during summer months. After the pals designed a heat-sensitive supply chain, other food companies turned to them for help. The duo rebranded as Green Rabbit, a supply chain logistics provider specializing in fast delivery of perishable goods.

That shift in strategy tested the company’s current processes, which relied on QuickBooks, Excel and email. Green Rabbit’s multiple databases couldn’t communicate with one another, making real-time data analysis impossible. The warehouse was often waiting on help from the IT team, too.

Green Rabbit chose NetSuite ERP, and the NetSuite professional services team got the company up and running on the system in three months.

Green Rabbit now:

Helps customers ship candy, snacks and more across the country in 24 hours from one of three different warehouses, without inventory errors.
Delivers tens of thousands of orders per day, without delays.
Gets guaranteed error-free data from its ERP system, instead of risking errors from manually entered data.
Could triple its order volume, if desired, without impact to its systems.
When implemented correctly, ERP makes it easier to manage a complicated supply chain, as Green Rabbit’s case study shows.
ERP is pivotal to growth. Green Rabbit implemented ERP after it grew substantially and because it anticipated further expansion.

Many growing companies like those profiled here ask: “What is the business case for ERP?”

Besides the takeaways from our case studies, it boils down to agility. When finance teams stop peering at dozens of spreadsheets and paper records, they can get strategic. By helping executive and business colleagues visualize data, growing firms can forecast future trends and adapt quickly to beat competitors.

ERP Success Factors

ERP systems can revolutionize businesses and ease their paths to growth, but successful applications of them share some common traits. The first is employee adoption and morale, which requires encouraging buy-in by presenting the ERP in a way in which it will directly benefit the end users. Providing dashboards and solutions tailored to each business makes this easier to do — and tagging in a third-party partner to help with a tailored implementation is an effective way to accomplish this. Also important is planning and executing the implementation efficiently , while having realistic expectations for the timeline.

#1 Cloud ERP Software

What Are the Challenges of ERP?

Implementing an ERP can mean overcoming obstacles. Two of the most commonly cited ERP challenges are:

Choosing the right vendor. Obviously, choosing an ERP system that doesn’t fit your company’s needs will likely result in a failed implementation. Many advisers recommend evaluating around five vendors before choosing which ERP to purchase.

Companies should choose a vendor that has experience with your company’s vertical, type (product or service) and size; can provide a hands-on demo; understands the tax laws and regulations that apply to your business; and is sure to be in business in five years.

Getting employees to support the change. As mentioned, teams may resist the transition to ERP if you don’t show them why the new system will be helpful to them. Explain how ERP will make each team’s everyday tasks easier before the implementation begins and ensure plenty of time for training during the process.

Why Do ERP Implementations Fail?

ERP implementations can fail without proper risk management. In other words, leaders need to anticipate what might derail the project, then plan.

In one often-cited case, for example, a multinational distributor’s implementation epically failed, resulting in major shipping delays and lost sales. It turns out the company had operational issues before the implementation even began, as it had just acquired another company and was having trouble integrating the new subsidiary’s operations into its own. Company leadership should have managed that risk by identifying and fixing those operational issues before the ERP implementation began.

ERP implementation is a process. It requires lots of planning to ensure success. However, your company isn’t the first to go through it. Consider case studies of successful implementations, choose the right partner and your business will enjoy the benefits of the system, quickly.

If you’re considering an ERP implementation, schedule a consultation with NetSuite .

ERP Implementation Plan: Methodology and Process

Enterprise resources planning (ERP) solutions are designed to support an organization in just about every aspect of business operations by centralizing data and through automation. These platforms control internal…

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NetSuite has packaged the experience gained from tens of thousands of worldwide deployments over two decades into a set of leading practices that pave a clear path to success and are proven to deliver rapid business value. With NetSuite, you go live in a predictable timeframe — smart, stepped implementations begin with sales and span the entire customer lifecycle, so there’s continuity from sales to services to support.

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Key Factors of Relational Partnerships in Project Management

First Online: 01 January 2014
pp 1047–1061

Cite this chapter

a case study of successful partnering implementation

Hemanta Doloi 7

Part of the book series: International Handbooks on Information Systems ((INFOSYS))

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Relational partnership is one of the most widely used procurement mechanisms for construction projects. While the relational procurement is based on principles of contracting parties being cohesive and committed to work with an agreed project outcome, what really drives the success of a good relationship among the parties and the underlying factors are difficult to ascertain. Among many factors highlighted by researchers, the three widely known significant factors are communication , trust and confidence and joint risk management . Based on an empirical study in Australian construction industry, a comprehensive investigation was undertaken by the author to analyse these factors further and thereby to understand the impacts on the success of relational partnerships in construction projects. The results of the investigation identified communication as the single most influencing factor impacting relational partnering success. While the trust and confidence were found to be mutually inclusive for effective communication, both the factors have direct influence on developing capability for joint risk management within the partnering organisations.

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Wong SPP, Cheung SO (2004) Trust in construction partnering: views from parties of the partnering dance. Int J Proj Manag 22:437

Wood GD, Ellis RCT (2005) Main contractor experiences of partnering relationships on UK construction projects. Constr Manag Econ 23:317–325

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Acknowledgements

Some of the materials in this chapter have been taken from the following published work with appropriate permission for reprint from the publisher, Taylor & Francis Ltd. No further reprint is permitted without written consents of the author and the publisher.

Doloi ( 2009 ), Relational Partnerships: the importance of communication, trust and confidence and joint risk management in achieving project success. Construction Management and Economics , 27(1):1099–1109.

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Hemanta Doloi

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Jürgen Zimmermann

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Doloi, H. (2015). Key Factors of Relational Partnerships in Project Management. In: Schwindt, C., Zimmermann, J. (eds) Handbook on Project Management and Scheduling Vol. 2. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05915-0_16

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Case Study: Lessons Learned From A Tough SAP S/4HANA Implementation

Three years ago, in advance of commencing a large-scale SAP S/4HANA transformation project, I talked to thirty CIOs to get their best practice advice.

The exercise was invaluable, and full of critical insight and tips often presented by SAP and other expert partners. But the incredible experience of leading a project from inception through go-live has taught me so much more about end-to-end process improvement, organizational change management, operating models, competitive advantage, and real enterprise transformation. The opportunity for a company to digitally transform finance, HR, and operations with the SAP S/4HANA suite is a fundamental value-shift that can easily be squandered if not managed well. And so, there is much to learn from others who have undertaken this journey… and arguably more from the tougher projects.

This post is a quick survey of the more interesting (and often controversial things) I learned along the way; lessons that I know can make SAP S/4HANA projects more successful. All are based on real-life, hard-knock moments, mistakes, surprises, and successes. May these be a great conversation starter for those about to commence their SAP S/4HANA transformation.

Future State Vision and Benefits

First and foremost, the project founders must define and broadly communicate a simple and compelling statement: How will this SAP transformation enable capabilities vital to the enterprise's future survival ? This visioning effort is an important test if the executive suite is aligned. The tighter the vision is tied to strategic survival, the better. Will key leaders trade their current jobs for one in the future state? Will they put their bonuses on the line? This vision will be a north star that will be referred to often in times of trouble and change. Write it down and proudly put it on the wall, on t-shirts, and compensation plans.

Ritualize Reconfirming Cross-Functional Teams on the Vision

Everyone must be aligned and incentivized, including controller, FP&A, revenue, billing, commercial, product, operations, HR, and the C-suite. The goal should be zero detractors from day one. Extra points if all agree on how to mutually manage the inevitable cutover challenges ahead. Alignment means no finger pointing. No one should assume this is going to be easy, or someone else’s problem. Any lingering doubts or reservations will continue to resurface unless leadership demonstrates that alignment is mandatory. Do surveys regularly and confirm all stakeholder commitment often, both in public and private settings.

Build an Enterprise-Shared Vision and a Crisp and Bottoms-Up Business Case

Focus on avoiding benchmarks and top-down index estimates, which will not stand the test of time. All executives must be aligned on the numbers, and signed up personally to deliver. A PE exec once challenged me that a true ERP business case must have a list of employee numbers with exit dates, or it will likely never happen. That’s the detail rigor most organizations will need, as most will find that eventually, they will not have a choice.

Be Resilient Over Time

It is so easy for these epic projects to be waylaid by questions and challenges along the way. It is important to build resilience into your vision, budget, and governance to steer you through tough waters. What if key leaders or executive sponsors go? Can/should it live through organizational and strategy changes? Ownership changes? PE vs. public? Your transformation will undoubtedly need to remain relevant and supported through multiple years of operating plan cycles. It needs to be important and big enough in vision to last five years or more. The strength of your future state vision and the rigor of your business case are the key drivers of the project’s resilience.

Build a Senior Project Management Office

This office should be multi-disciplinary, focused on verifiably changed processes/data, customizations proposed/confirmed/rejected, unanimous approval gates, testing gates, training confirmed, capacity effectiveness, budget and business-case progress. Signal that attendance is mandatory. Document all decisions and votes, especially for customizations. Any software customizations must be publicly PMO-approved with a finance-approved business case, ideally unanimously. Make sure to have measurable KPIs.

The PMO Should Report up to a Steering Committee

Optimally, this committee should be made of those in the C-suite (and ideally, include the CEO, CFO, and COO), a top SAP leader (a key designate from the SAP product; I recommend the President of SAP North America, Lloyd Adams), and a top five systems integrator (SI) executive (ideally a chair/division lead superior to the project team). Compel monthly attendance for these steering committee leaders.

Press for Co-Located IT/Finance/System Integrator Teamwork

It’s important to have everyone work together in person when possible, especially during the design phase. It is too easy for folks to be cheerleaders for transformation that may be quarters and years away… and even more when working remotely and in less-engaged video calls. Insist on in-person, dedicated sessions where participants clearly and publicly articulate how processes and roles will change in the future state.

Document the End-to-End Lead-to-Cash Process

Include sales force automation tool processes, pricing proposals, contracting, and all the relevant boundary systems for provisioning/fulfillment/delivery. Where are there manual processes today? Can they be automated/eliminated in the future? Create a manual work heat map where “human middleware” connects disparate systems and build automation into your transformation business case.

Focus on Finance

Arguably, the most important battleground of a finance transformation is an exhaustive line-by-line revenue/contract operating model review, considering all customers, contracts, products, proposals, and pricing processes. What are the revenue models that will exist in your future state? Don’t lift and shift bad processes here. Do this before you start your project as this may be the hardest and most controversial part. Can you consolidate products and revenue models? Can you reduce variation in contracting, pricing, milestone, and revenue recognition scenarios? Are your largest client revenue models different than longtail smaller clients? Identify your long-term strategic vision for revenue, and design SAP S/4HANA accordingly.

Next, consider whether your revenue recognition accounting is ready to be automated in SAP S/4HANA. You may have overly flexible or manual practices that have been accommodated in your legacy systems that are best not enabled/customized in new technology. Are your teams and executives ready for this discipline? SAP S/4HANA is designed to automate revenue in a lights-out process. It will be controversial to remove ad hoc human intervention in these processes. Engage your auditor/internal audit teams to help identify these scenarios.

It is also important to consider how your new SAP S/4HANA Finance cost planning and reporting ties to your Human Relations Information System (HRIS) or headcount control processes. Are you planning to optimize your current methods? Are finance and HR aligned on how systems should be integrated and normalized? This is not to be taken for granted, in particular, if HRIS and ERP transformations are not happening at the same time.

Experts will recommend that you should “stay standard” and “keep the core clean” by avoiding the customizations of SAP functionality out of the box. Your teams may agree to this in principle , but then be conflicted when it becomes time to actually change current legacy processes. Incentivize and applaud public commitments to legacy processes change during early project stages. Encourage your teams and partners to not just give in to the status quo in what I’ve come to call the “quiet lift and shift.” Insist that your SI push you to best practice, and not customization. It will be much harder to undo later.

Change Management > Technology

If stakeholders do not buy into new system processes, even if the software is perfectly implemented, your project will be challenged with defects and quality problems at cutover. Incentivize key user leaders and train teams early; make sure they are convinced and looking forward to the change. Create detailed bottoms-up procedures for how all finance jobs change. Consider ancillary functions like HR and commercial functions. What must change in commercial contracting? Client expectations? What jobs go away and when? What expertise must be imported? Specific job change management documentation cannot be detailed enough.

Tie SI Compensation to Real Outcome Success Measures

These post-cutover measures are things such as monthly close financial timeliness, billing accuracy and speed, well-trained associates, and defect/manual work elimination targets in the first six months after go-live. This will change the dynamic about readiness to go live and hypercare. Talk to your integrator about other cutovers they have managed, and what their expectations are for yours. Insist that they call your team out if they have concerns about readiness. Experienced SIs have seen it all before, so listen to their stories and insist they bring veterans to your project.

SAP Must Have Skin in the Project

Budget accordingly to afford additional cost here. Even the biggest system integrator firms rarely have all the expertise needed, and multiple perspectives are often useful for complex problems. A best practice is to have your integrator and SAP Services create a mutual RACI for the project, with all designs approved by SAP. Things will go wrong, and you will not want to hear that the design is not standard SAP practice.

Understand the Monthly/Quarterly Close Processes

This is where your stakeholders will first feel the impact of your transformation, and in most cases the first impression will raise questions and concerns. It is vital that key financial report stakeholders understand how information flow may be disrupted and delayed for some time after cutover as defects are ironed out. It is also important that controllership and FP&A teams are fully ready for the new close process. Do all actors in the close process know exactly how their jobs must change on day one? Are they really well trained and comfortable from hands-on testing? Do they all believe and want a successful transformation? Steve Jobs once said this about love, “The one who loves you will never leave you for another because even if there are 100 reasons to give up, he or she will find one reason to hold on.” You need a preponderance of transformation lovers and a few reason-finders for the first few months and quarters.

Highlight Reporting

The SAP Analytics Cloud concept of XPA ( distributed planning and analysis) versus traditional FP&A is compelling. Are executives across your company, and especially your finance colleagues, ready for automated real-time dashboards instead of pivot tables and PowerPoints? How will your finance team operating model change with a well-implemented SAP S/4HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud, and group reporting system? Effective and accurate reporting is a key scorecard item for SAP S/4HANA project success. Like your initial financial close efforts, reporting effectiveness is a key first impression opportunity on your project’s success.

Identify a Data Quality Owner Executive

This executive should be on the steering committee or PMO, with compensation tied to system data quality and availability. Measure data quality success with regular KPIs/validations for transforming the value of your data. Do not accept bad data or the technology (and more importantly, the user experience and change management) does not have a chance. It will be tempting to “fix data later.” Start with where data problems are in your current state legacy system. What workarounds must your teams endure today to fix data? Do folks download extracts and create “the real financials” in pivot tables outside the system? Your vision should correct data in the system automatically and make it available “on the glass.” Your future state vision should highlight how much better you could run the company if you had accurate, real-time, highly available data.

Plan for the Worst-Case Scenario

Be transparent with key leaders to set their expectations. Reporting could be hampered, revenue reconciliation discrepancies could need significant incremental manual work. Monthly close could be awkward and manual for a while, typically months. Communicate clearly and well in advance, and remind everyone about future state benefits. Again, understand your integrator’s experience and best practices for cutover effectiveness, and how they will bring their best efforts to assure your success. Again, engage your auditor, board, and entire C-suite in cutover scenario planning.

Plan for Continuous Improvement

Support, plan, and budget for continuous improvement post cutover, as enhancements and automation opportunities will always be available to make the solution better, faster, and less manual. Invariably, a minimum viable product (MVP) process will limit the full capabilities of the system at launch and require rapid releases in the first few months. Ideally, your team will have developed a depth of new SAP S/4HANA suite architecture skills and the capacity to run and build on your new environment (and enable you to migrate to business as usual and away from your SI sooner). Note that in a competitive environment for SAP expertise, this may take quarters, if not years. Planning well ahead of cutover is important here.

These are but a few of the more interesting lessons that I learned on my SAP S/4HANA journey—and many of these were learned by not getting it right at first, or believing we got it right, only to learn we had more work to do. Growth mindset, metrics-driven leadership, and feedback loops are essential along the path. Leadership’s future state visioning work early on is critical across all of these change management considerations. An SAP S/4HANA migration should be a foundationally transformational opportunity for any company, providing a clean digital core for decades to come. Executive leadership dedication to truly change is essential for this enterprise generational investment to pay dividends.

Recommendation

It’s time to start your migration to SAP S/4HANA, using this all-in-one resource! Get to know the migration paths, processes, and tools. First, explore on-premise, cloud, and hybrid deployment scenarios. Then, understand the steps involved in new implementations and system conversions. Finally, get step-by-step instructions for all the relevant migration tools. From basic concepts to implementation processes, you’ll find everything you need to plan, prepare, and kickstart your SAP S/4HANA migration!

Patrick Dineen is the Corporate CIO and Transformation Office Leader at the Nielsen Company. Patrick's extensive experience in sales management, products, M&A, and corporate finance transformation prepared him perfectly to lead Nielsen’s recent SAP S/4HANA journey. Before Nielsen, Pat held senior sales and marketing leadership roles at Quaero, CSG, USADATA, Claritas, and Equifax. A NYC native, Pat holds a Masters in Business Administration degree in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University.

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COMMENTS

A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation
This article provides a detailed case study of successful buyer-supplier partnership development and maintenance at the Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak followed a methodical approach, adapting a managerial guideline for "partnering" originally developed by one of the authors in 1991.
A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation
A recent study of approximately 100 matched pairs of buyer-supplier partners revealed the following key characteristics of successful partnering ventures. First, the intensity of these relationships limits the number that can be managed effectively, usually to about 1 percent or less of the purchaser's supplier base.[3]
A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation
A case study of successful partnering implementation Ellram, Lisa M; Edis, Owen R V International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management; Fall 1996; 32, 4; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
Effective Implementation: Partners and Capacities
Researchers have created models of how partners work together to develop the capacity for successful implementation of a program at scale and the key functions involved. Figure 9-1 depicts a ... Although the literature on co-creation partners includes field and case studies that characterize the contributions of the various partners and how ...
A successful partnership
A successful partnership a project implementation case study. Share. Share. Post. Share. Case Study May 2000 ... Knutson, J. & Wadams, K. (2000). A successful partnership: a project implementation case study. PM Network, 14(5), 27-28. Reprints and Permissions Executive Notebook. by Joan Knutson, Contributing Editor, and Karen Wadams ...
A Case-Study of Partnership in Practice: Engaging Students ...
The remaining parts of this chapter detail the implementation of the students-as-partners paradigm within the scope of this project, discussing how we model this process and approach. ... Mitigating these risks is part of the process of achieving a successful partnership. Enacting regular reviews, inviting open and honest communication and a ...
The Use of the Partnering Concept for Public-Private ...
The explorative nature of this study called for the use of a qualitative case study (Bryman and Bell 2003; Eisenhardt 1989).The case study method was also chosen because it supports analytical generalization and theory development (Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 2003); and it is in line with the main purpose of the study, to explore the applicability of partnering in a public sector context with focus ...
A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation
This page is a summary of: A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation, International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management, September 1996, Wiley, DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-493x.1996.tb00227.x. You can read the full text: Read
PDF Building Successful Relationships in Research- Practice ...
The RP consultant partner in this case study was a professional development and coaching company that provides workshops and ongoing training on restorative practices (RP) to schools, teachers, administrators, and staff across the United States. This partnership specifically involved the RP consultant's CEO and founder and its Project ...
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Partnering for Success (PfS) initiative (Barth et al., 2019) which was developed to increase the combined ability of CW and MH systems to recognize, evaluate, and eectively serve the MH needs of CW-involved youth. This explora-tory, qualitative study examines factors which impacted PfS implementation from the perspectives of participating CW
A Case Study of Successful Partnering Implementation
This article provides a detailed case study of successful buyer‐supplier partnership development and maintenance at the Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak followed a methodical approach, adapting a manager...
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The case studies in this publication, Patient Diagnostic Corp. and the Academy for Scientiﬁc Research, use the six-step process (Figure 1 ) described in the Strategic Partnerships Guideline. FIGURE 1: STRATEGIC PARTNERING PROCESS OVERVIEW . STEP 2: Partnership planning . STEP 3: Partner engagement . STEP 4: Partnership execution . STEP 5 ...
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Below, we offer some partner case study standout traits, followed by a collection of examples located in (butler voice) the gallery, and a checklist for rolling out your own case study program. 1. Wow your readers by placing the results in the title. While the rest of your case study should give the reader context, the results are what matter ...
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A major strand of this literature on cross-sector collaboration is comprised of comparative case studies that seek, in the main, to identify the key success factors in and/or impediments to effective collaboration. For the most part, the case study literature reflects the experience of collaboration in the United States and Britain.
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6.1.2. Early implementation of partnering process. The six case study projects show that the earlier is the implementation of partnering process, the more successful the project will be. It takes time for project team members to tune in the partnering spirit.
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ERP Case Study #1: Fulton & Roark. Fulton & Roark, a retailer of men's grooming products, is an example of a successful ERP implementation. Prior to upgrading to full-featured ERP, the North Carolina-based business tracked its inventory in a spreadsheet and its financial data in desktop accounting software, Sage Live.
Effective partnering tools in construction: a case study on MTRC TKE
Reported partnering success stories are mostly descriptive. This paper reports a case study of a successful partnering venture in Hong Kong. The case study provides valuable information on how partnering was implemented by MTR Corporation Ltd., one of the pioneers in introducing partnering in the Hong Kong construction industry.
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This paper provides a concise review of the barriers to successful implementation of partnering in general and then identifies the perceived problems associated with partnering in the Hong Kong setting in particular. ... "Project partnering—A case study on MTR Corporation Ltd's Tseung Kwan O Extension." Proc., Millennium Conf. on ...
Key Factors of Relational Partnerships in Project Management
Based on a UK based case study, their research discussed the criticality and importance of nine different perspectives in the partners' selection process. ... (2001) Chinese culture and successful implementation of partnering in Singapore's construction industry. Constr Manag Econ 19:619-632. Article Google Scholar Molenaar K, Washington ...
Case Study: Lessons Learned From A Tough SAP S/4HANA Implementation
Case Study: Lessons Learned From A Tough SAP S/4HANA Implementation. Three years ago, in advance of commencing a large-scale SAP S/4HANA transformation project, I talked to thirty CIOs to get their best practice advice. The exercise was invaluable, and full of critical insight and tips often presented by SAP and other expert partners.