The Role of Technical Advocacy in Your Digital Transformation

A technical advocate can play a crucial role during a company’s digital transformation, especially when performing system implementations. Unlike a traditional implementation partner, who represents and acts as a liaison between the software vendor and the customer doing the implementation, a technical advocate represents a client’s interests from end-to-end, with the goal of helping identify and execute fundamental process and data upgrades that are essential for optimal adoption.

What is technical advocacy?

The concept of technical advocacy involves several key responsibilities that are critical to any large-scale change initiative: 

Client engagement and resource management A technical advocate ensures the client has sufficient internal resource engagement on the project. This includes the client’s IT organization and the user community needed to support decisions during the implementation.	Stakeholder analysis and change management Every change initiative needs internal champions, which the technical advocate helps to engage. The avid support of champions is key to securing organizational buy-in of the new system.
Master Data management A technical advocate helps the client understand the importance of clean Master Data and has the subject matter expertise to lead data cleanup and management workstreams. Without clean Master Data, the new system will not function as expected.	Unbiased advisory services Unlike traditional implementation partners who may have a vested interest in selling “bells and whistles,” a technical advocate provides unbiased advice. They help the client make informed decisions about what is truly needed and cost-effective for their business.
Project management and problem resolution In addition to having technical aptitude and strong project management skills to keep initiatives on track, the technical advocate is also a subject matter expert on the client’s operations and can troubleshoot underlying problems with their best interests in mind.	Requirements generation and testing A technical advocate assists in generating accurate requirements and ensures the client’s needs are clearly communicated to the implementation partner. This helps avoid the rise of urgent issues during the testing phase.

Overall, the value of a technical advocate lies in their ability to represent the client’s interests, provide unbiased advice and ensure a smooth and successful implementation process. Technical advocates play an important role in bridging the gap between the client and the implementation partner, ensuring that the client’s needs are met, and that the new system is effectively integrated into their operations. 

System Implementations: Common Pitfalls

Having a trusted technical advocate can help you avoid a multitude of common implementation pitfalls that we’ve seen and solved many times over. These are some of the most common pitfalls encountered with system implementations: 

Resources
Insufficient internal resources to support the timeline 

Understanding
Poor understanding of how existing system configuration drives requirements  

Analysis
Lack of stakeholder analysis and change management to ensure adoption 

Master Data
Failure to clean up the master data driving the new system 

These pitfalls can significantly impact the success of a system implementation and end-user acceptance. As your eyes and ears on the ground, we help you proactively address each area through best practices and dedicated implementation support. 

Ensuring an effective implementation

SolomonEdwards has experience acting in this role to ensure you have an advocate looking out for your specific interests during system implementations. Our approach is not to replace implementation partners, but to work closely with them to ensure you realize an optimal outcome from the implementation.

We bring considerable experience to this role—many of our consultants are former Big Four implementation partners. We have experience leading both specialized teams and workstreams (e.g., data, change management, internal controls) and can interact with implementation consultants as the client’s advocate or supplement implementation teams with our expertise.

If you’d like to discuss your plans for future implementations and how SolomonEdwards can support you, I’d love to hear from you.

Read more about how we work with clients to assess their operational and technical needs using a data-driven, process-oriented approach to evaluate technology decisions.

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About the Author

Caroline Perez is a Principal with SolomonEdwards’ Business Transformation practice and is a transactional accounting SME with expertise in order-to-cash (OTC), procure-to-pay (P2P), Service Center and technology assessments with demonstrated success optimizing systems. Caroline also has extensive experience helping clients merge technical and operational goals with system implementations and other digital transformation initiatives. Caroline can be reached at cperez@solomonedwards.com.