Case study: Technology, media, and entertainment
Identifying the right Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for a sports franchise
Table of contents
A Major League Baseball franchise encompasses far more than what fans see on the field. It’s an enormous network of geographically dispersed sub-businesses across the flagship team and its minor league affiliates—from facilities management, payrolls, and travel—to tickets, t-shirts, and concessions sales. When the franchise wanted to scale its customer-facing aspects without ballooning the back-office, it needed a collaborator with a mix of technology enablement expertise and fresh perspectives to help them weed through the complex process of identifying the best vendor for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Eagle Hill stepped up and helped our client knock it out of the ballpark.
Goal
Identify the best ERP system to enable expansion of back-office capabilities and support robust organizational growth—without increasing headcount.
The challenge
The client knew they wanted to scale their business, but were relying heavily on manual (and in some cases, even paper-based) processes. Back-office workflows such as HR and finance moved across a constellation of independent, non-integrated and non-automated applications, impeding efficiency. To successfully grow, the client knew they needed to find a new ERP system that would satisfy their unique business requirements and provide a single source of data-based truth. Moreover, they faced the added challenge of assessing, choosing, and implementing a new ERP system all within the six-week off season—an aggressive, but non-negotiable timeline. They decided to partner with Eagle Hill to assist them in this herculean task to be completed in such a limited window of time.
The roadmap to success
When Eagle Hill came on board, we:
Identified crucial ERP functionality needs by facilitating collaboration sessions with key stakeholders, including the CIO, HR and Finance Leadership. Before diving into the ERP selection process, we knew the importance of creating a collective vision and set of objectives to guide the technology selection process. Working with key stakeholders, we helped our client define crucial functionality needs, top priorities, and shortcomings of their current systems. We translated these technology needs into a requirements package that we shared with the top contending vendors, enabling them to build proposals tailored to our client’s unique needs.
Developed a quantitative scorecard by identifying key criteria to help our client assess and select a best-fit ERP solution. Based on information gathered from working sessions with key stakeholders, we developed a detailed scorecard (organized into five main topics outlining 61 requirements and 13 assessment areas) to enable our client to objectively assess the prospective technology vendors, while eliminating bias and preconceived notions.
Facilitated vendor assessment sessions. Upon scoring potential vendors, we synthesized the results from 15 key stakeholders and facilitated a deep dive into our findings. This allowed our client to understand the nuances between the various options and discuss tradeoffs.
Served as the main PoC between our client and technology vendors. Throughout the project, we expertly navigated the complex process of engaging with vendors who often wanted a competitive leg up by pressuring our client. We facilitated an iterative series of reviewing objectives and requirements with ERP vendors and client stakeholders, guiding our clients through the conversations and helping vendors put their best foot forward. We persuaded as many as 50 high-level staff to prioritize our meetings and information requests, while firmly holding the line on vendors eager to make a deal.
Throughout the vendor selection process, Eagle Hill remained steadfast in our commitment to helping our client choose the best technology solution to address their needs—keeping their priorities and future vision top of mind—while also weighing all pros and cons through our carefully crafted scorecard.
When the client finalized its ERP selection, our work wasn’t done. We developed change management recommendations based on the anticipated impact of the new system. We laid out a path in four areas—awareness, engagement, training and support—with specific associated activities and timelines, to help the client maximize the uptake and benefits from its costly ERP investment.
