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Workforce Management ( WFM )
RAPID Project Toolkit™
While the vendor space is not nearly as large for WFM applications as for POS, there are still 15 or more vendors offering solutions for Time and Attendance, Labor Scheduling, BI and Analytics, Dashboards and in some cases, Task (or Execution) Management. The selection of the right vendor for your company requires that you define the best vendors for your critical differentiators-task management, talent management integration, budgeting, engineered labor standards, or other project components. C-CORE has contributed a large number of functional requirements to the NRF ARTS WFM RFP process, is a member of the Workforce Management ARTS Committee, and has conducted several Workforce Management evaluations since announcing the WFM RAPID Project Toolkit.
Typically, a WFM engagement consists of two separate and distinct phases:
1. Scope and Objectives, requirements definition RFP and vendor evaluation.
2. Project Launch, including project planning, phasing, pilot and deployment.
You may choose to use C-CORE for either or both phases, to accelerate your project timelines and drive the WFM application selection process from vendor evaluation to project planning to full deploy.
Our toolkit methodology provides for an efficient method to quickly prioritize the more than 2000 requirements for Workforce Management and review suitable offerings based on your priorities. Each toolkit template or tool has been refined from multiple uses, providing for the most efficient use of your time, tested and proven in more than 20 retail consulting engagements in the past few years.
Our Toolkit methodology provides for progressively reducing the vendors in scope with our proprietary vendor scoring methodology. We provide for RFI’s, webinar reviews, RFP’s and onsite demos in our evaluation process, depending on what is right for your project. We get you to your goal of selecting the best vendor fit for your priorities, typically in 90 days or less, allowing you to use your time and resources to focus on using the technology to drive business improvement.
Scoring Grids are available for RFI, RFP, Demo, and CRP so you can analyze vendor performance through evaluation process
Our deployment tools focus on the impact of the technology and phasing on your stores and your personnel. From management to front line workers, WFM has a major impact on people, and our planning and execution focus ensures you will build the proper metrics, training and communication plan to minimize the change management impact to your stores and headquarters staff.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
Why C-CORE?
Quite simply, speed and experience. When you deal with C-CORE you are dealing with a core group of experts with over 50 combined years of retail front line experience. When you use one of the large consulting outfits you are generally receiving the low level experienced personnel in the engagement or paying exorbitant fees for the principals and a delayed project timeframe. With C-CORE , you get both a proven methodology and experienced consultants delivering the speed to market and the experience of many installations and vendor selections.
Finally, with our partner IHL's Retail Technology Database, we are quickly able to find multiple references for each vendor (not just the references they hand select). Together, we can provide an unmatched solution of technology insight, contacts, and selection/implementation.
Will the toolkit work effectively with my existing project methodology?
The Toolkit is content rich and designed to be quickly aligned with project management best practices. The Toolkit focuses on jump-starting the requirements definition and vendor evaluation and provides Microsoft office compatible based templates easily converted to a retailers templates and methodology to launch the project quickly while leveraging the project disciplines that retailers have developed in their IT organizations. Our toolkit methodology has been reviewed to be consistent with PMI methodology.
Why would I need to use the toolkit? I have a strong IT organization.
Vendors and Retailers have both expressed concerns over the challenges of starting a project such as a WFM implementation. Many of the resources responsible for the current platform support have been promoted, or moved to other organizations. Typically, retailers have not placed much value in creating and updating process and requirements repositories. In a recent engagement, a retailer provided a list of 85 requirements that represented a month of work to develop. They were amazed to prioritize an additional 2100 functional and 800 technical requirements in only 5 days.
The RAPID PROJECT TOOLKIT provides the mechanism to jump-start the process and move through business requirement definition and vendor selection quickly.
Why would I not use the NRF ARTS RFP instead of this toolkit?
The Rapid Toolkit includes the ARTS RFP Framework but takes the process to a much deeper level than just the business requirements and an RFP template. It provides tools and templates for due diligence around the vendor evaluation and scoring process required today due to SOX. It also includes training requirements estimates, deployment plans, testing plans and risk management templates. Finally, the RAPID PROJECT TOOLKIT also provides a user adjusted weighting system so that the retailers can present the RFP according to the most important needs of the retailer. In other words, it allows the retailer to direct the RFP towards how they operate rather than a standard industry document only.
How much help will I need to use this toolkit?
We estimate that project support and skills transfer can take place in 15 full productive days, including customizing the information for the retailer's business, depending on the complexity of the retail operation.
Contact us today for more information on our Workforce Management RAPID Project Toolkit.
See why C-CORE is the right choice for your WFM project.
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