Customer Diagnostic Workshop
Your customer has expressed an interest in using Aedon, you’ve already captured the Onboarding Questionnaire, created the Opportunity, but now you must go and visit the client and discuss how you are going to configure and use the software. We all have our own styles and techniques, but these are how we at Aedon would generally organise the preliminary workshop.
“I keep six honest serving men; they taught me all I knew.
Their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who.”
Rudyard Kipling
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PREPARATION
Before speaking with the client:
- Website review to establish the nature of the core processes and probable requirements.
- Statutory Accounts to reinforce the above and give an idea of the creditworthiness of the client.
- Prepare the Strawman Solution.
Before the workshop starts it is very helpful to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and then ask the client to give you the following:
- Aedon Onboarding Questionnaire.
- Organisation Structure.
- Description of any existing systems integrations
- Latest Management Accounts.
- Samples of key financial documents: Sales Invoices and Statements.
- Samples of key Excel operating documents (these point straight at operating weaknesses).
- List of current operating metrics so that you can establish before and after performance improvements. These often do not exist, so the following are some suggestions:
- Finance Cost as % of Turnover.
- Number of Sales/Purchase Invoices per Finance Employee.
- Number of Sales Credit Notes/Sales Invoices.
- Time to produce the Monthly Management Reports.
- Time to produce Sales Invoices after the work is completed or product is delivered.
SESSION 1: DISCOVERY (90 minutes)
- Review the Aedon Onboarding Questionnaire and explore any ambiguities.
- Walk through the current core Operating Process from Opportunity to Cash identifying any issues; record the process on the whiteboard with issues on the post-it notes (You are not designing the new process yet!!).
- Identify “Bottom-Up” reporting opportunities: Customers, Projects, Budget types, Sales Teams, etc.
- Identify Exception Reporting opportunities on key variances
- Review the additional materials identifying any further issues on post-it notes.
SESSION 2: PRESENT AEDON AND A STRAWMAN SOLUTION (90 minutes)
- Use the Quick Spin and Opportunity to Invoice demos to showcase the core Aedon functionality. Encourage the client to review these themselves BEFORE the workshop (30 Minutes).
- Present Straw-Man Solution (60 Minutes).
- Modify proposals and add to the post-it notes with client feedback.
- Confirm project scope and timelines.
- Agree next steps.
WORKSHOP FOLLOW-UP
- Thank you email and confirm next steps.
- Write-Up the notes as quickly as possible (you may or may not share them with your client depending upon the level of trust and the likelihood of these being passed to a competitor)
- Discuss budget expectations with your key stakeholder.
- Present a quote for Phase 1 (Detailed Discovery) or the Project (If it is small)
