If you’re looking to implement Workday Adaptive Planning, this episode explains why you might consider choosing QMetrix as your implementation partner.

This is part of the “FP&A Transformation 101: Your guide to FP&A solution implementations” video series, where we explore how to choose a Financial Planning and Analysis solution, who to involve, the role of vendors and partners, implementation methodology, costs and more. Explore the whole series here.

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When implementing any system, there are two key parties to consider – the technology vendor (like Workday Adaptive Planning), and the implementation partner (like QMetrix).

One of our clients, Ben Challis, Head of Planning & Business Improvement at Designworks, sums it up best: “In my experience, the product is 50% of the battle, and the other 50% is the implementation itself – because you don’t get the full value out of the product if you don’t have an implementation that unlocks that value”. (Read a case study of how Designworks implemented an FP&A solution.)

Why choose QMetrix as your Workday Adaptive Planning implementation partner

In this episode, QMetrix Directors Brett Ruwoldt and David Huynh talk about:

• what makes QMetrix different from other FP&A implementation partners
• our team of finance and data specialists
• working with different sized organisations and industries
• why our strong relationship with Workday matters to you
• how we provide value-add and great outcomes for clients

We don’t mean to “toot our own horn” – that’s not the goal here. But what we want to say is that we have been purposeful about building a culture and business where our team and clients get good outcomes and are happy. To quote Brett, “If you do good work for clients, everything else looks after itself”.

That has been proven through clients who refer us by word-of-mouth, Workday Adaptive Planning who has awarded QMetrix as APAC Partner of the Year for three years running, our ISO27001 certification, our Great Place to Work certification for four years in a row, and more.

Watch the video or listen to the conversation here:

Read here for a transcript of the video:

QMetrix versus other Workday Adaptive Planning partners

[Watch at 00:15]

David Huynh (David): One of the key questions we always get asked is, what’s the key differentiator between QMetrix and any other organisation that implements Adaptive Planning?

Brett Ruwoldt (Brett): Well look, it’s a good question, Dave. And I think there’s quite a few perspectives I think I’ll bring to the table on that. I think first and foremost, as a consultancy we focus purely on Adaptive Planning. So I know a lot of other partners do several technology – they might do Workday Adaptive planning and then 1 or 2 other solutions.

Brett: So I think the advantage of us focusing purely on Adaptive means our team is only doing Adaptive Planning implementations. They’re only certified in Adaptive Planning. So they have a very deep knowledge of the solution. And they’ve also had many, many years’ experience in deploying Adaptive solutions. So it basically means they’re spending their whole time configuring Adaptive solutions.

Brett: So their expertise is second to none. And I might add. We have staff with long tenure in our organisation. And that simply means that if you’re engaging with QMetrix you’re getting the best consultants, getting the largest team across APAC. So I think from an organisational standpoint today, something like 36 or 37 people and probably 20 plus of those are dedicated to Adaptive Planning. So that’s probably number one.

QMetrix’s specialisation in Workday Adaptive Planning

[Watch at 02:05]

David: Would it be fair to say we would be the only implementation partner that specialises purely on Workday Adaptive Planning?

Brett: Yes. I believe that is the case as of today, and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved in this space. And a little bit more about QMetrix and our relationship with Workday Adaptive Planning is we’ve been named Partner of the Year three years running 2024 to 2026.

Working with different sized organisations and industries

[Watch at 02:35]

Brett: So I think the thing is, you know, there’s big tier one consultancies that do Adaptive Planning. And then there’s organisations which are smaller than us that do Workday Adaptive Planning. And I think we’re large enough to handle complex requirements and to satisfy large projects and achieve great outcomes. But we’re small enough to care about each and every one of those projects that we do.

Brett: And I think, yes, we’re a niche consultancy, but we’ve got the size to handle the big end of town, but we’ve also got where the right size to handle the organisations which are emerging. So they’re small businesses, but they’re growing quickly and they’re trying to scale and Excel just doesn’t cut it for them. So we work across those types of organisations of different sizes but also different industries as well. And lots of specialisations in various industries in Australia and New Zealand and Asia.

David: Yeah, it’s good to call that out. I mean, we do get a lot of questions along the line of “QMetrix, are they they’re big enough to support us ongoing. How big is their team?” All that stuff. And funnily enough, I think we do have the biggest team in not just ANZ but APAC, of certified Adaptive consultants.

Our expertise – Health Checks, resources, 100 successful projects

[Watch at 04:08]

Brett: So yeah. And look we I think testament to our expertise quite often will get asked to review a solution that’s been deployed by another partner. And so we do a Health Check which actually works through their current solution and limitations. And so yeah, we’re quite often approached to do that.

Brett: The other thing is we have a great library of resources. And for those that are interested, we have a YouTube channel and that has a library of what we call Two Minute Tuesdays. So that’s where our consultants actually walk through aspects of Adaptive Planning. They might spend two minutes, as they say, going through a particular use case or solution in Adaptive and how to address that. And that’s important because whilst Workday Adaptive Planning has lots of online help and you can easily access things or reference things that way, we add a personal touch to it. And there’s a great library of resources we have there.

Brett: I think the other thing is we’ve been in this space for ten years doing deployments. We’ve had over 100 successful projects delivered on the journey, and also we’ve got customers that are proud to speak about it too. We’ve probably got something like 25 or 30 case studies that are published and in the public domain.

(Read case studies from QMetrix’s Workday Adaptive Planning clients across APAC.)

Brett: So we’re proud of what we’ve achieved. And the solutions we’ve delivered for our clients. And equally, our clients are happy to share that that news as well, because they’re proud of what’s been achieved. And yeah, I think we have some great partnerships with our customers, but obviously also with Workday themselves.

Why our strong partnership with Workday matters to you

[Watch at 05:28]

David: Yeah, I think a key one, that last point you sort of mentioned. Because we’ve been working in this space dedicated for a large number of years now, we also have a good working relationship with Workday themselves. Like and not just the obviously the sales reps, it’s also the Workday support team. It’s also the product developers, all of that.

David: So we cover the whole spectrum and we have a really, really good working relationship with Workday themselves. So customers can be assured when they’re asking for questions about “will there be improvements on this or why things work this way”. With the solution, we can go straight to the source, but we’re also privy to additional information that’s to be released that yeah, we can have that open, honest dialog with Workday.

David: And they don’t have to be afraid as well what some of that information can cause. Because we only partner with Workday, right. They don’t have to be concerned with some of that going to their competitors or being used against the competition or with the competition. So that level of trust certainly helps with our deployment.

Brett: It’s actually worth pointing out that Workday don’t do Adaptive Planning deployments themselves. They actually rely on a partner network to do those deployments. And you know, Workday are a software organisation. So for them it’s about licensing and obviously building a client base that are using Workday solutions. But we bring a perspective of deploying for Workday or on behalf of Workday. So that’s where our expertise is and that’s where we offer our best value.

Brett: And obviously Workday is a great vendor to work with. And they have a great solution and Adaptive Planning. But ultimately we’re the experts at deploying these solutions. So that’s when you should come and talk to us about deployment. And we can help you wade through some of the product, brand advertisement or functionality, because there’s usually a list of things that each of these software vendors need to tick or achieve as part of their product set. But it’s really about when the rubber hits the road and how do you deploy those solutions?

(Learn about implementing Workday Adaptive Planning with QMetrix.)

David: I’ve got a good quote from Workday themselves. I mean, a couple of years back, we had some of my consultants go up to their development office in Brisbane, where Workday Adaptive Planning – they do have developers based here in Australia. In fact, they’ve got a large team just based in Brisbane. So on one occasion I brought some of the consultants up with me to a trip to Brisbane, and we sat with the product managers and the developers and they actually said to us, “you guys know the solution better than us”.

David: They’re the ones that build the thing. So yeah it was really good to hear them say that because we could actually show them: These are how customers are using a solution. They’re doing it this way as opposed to what you may think, etc. So just that dialog as again, as I was saying before, we can give that direct to the people that are in charge of building the solution itself.

Handling client’s secure data, and privacy concerns

[Watch at 08:57]

Brett: Workday Adaptive Planning is ISO 27001 and SOC2 and all these things. What about from an implementation partner. So we’re working with sensitive data as well. What’s your view on how can a client of ours be comfortable that we’re going to be able to handle their information security concerns.

David: Yeah. No that’s a good one too. And in fact, when people see organisations like QMetrix, we may not have the big four branding or anything like that, but they want to be comfortable that if they’re working with QMetrix – is their data safe, privacy, all of that.

David: We are ourselves ISO 27001 certified meaning we’re not just compliant. We actually get the auditors to come in and certify. So it sort of means that we do take that quite seriously. I don’t know if other partners have that sort of certification. Most people tend to focus on just the vendor. So and of course the vendor Workday Adaptive Planning has all of those certifications. But you’re often as weak as your weakest link I suppose. So from a consultant or consultancy – you got to make sure that they’ve got those requisite controls in place as well to handle that.

Brett: I think it’s important. And it’s always great when we’re, you know, working with potential clients. And they’ve got a security questionnaire and we just provide them the ISO 27001 certification. And yeah, problem goes away. You don’t have to answer the questions, which is always, always a good thing as well. So yeah we’re very mindful of security and information privacy concerns.

Brett: And that’s why we’ve invested as a business in that certification – it’s so that you as our customers don’t need to worry about that from that perspective. So in terms of QMetrix’s other differentiators, I’m not sure if we’ve got any more, mate.

Our team: Finance and data specialists, providing actual value-add

[Watch at 11:16]

David: Oh, sure. Talk to us a little bit about the consultants. So as it’s professional services, the key differentiators, well – the people that do the work, it’s obviously going to be the consultants themselves. So as a business, you know, what do we do to look after them?

Brett: Some people say that consultancies are all the same, and that’s absolutely not true. Obviously, from our perspective, it’s an important differentiator of ours. We, our team and those members that are deploying Adaptive Planning solutions, they’re finance people first and foremost. So some have CA / CPA qualifications as well. And yes, they know the technology – that’s a given, they’re certified.

Brett: But they’re also business analysts as well. They can come in and talk to you about your business and understand finance and accounting terminology. And also they can make recommendations and say, “look we understand how you are currently modeling your revenue, for example, in your business, but we’ve seen it done like this elsewhere in a similar industry. Have you considered that particular approach”.

Brett: So one thing that we never do is go in and take your spreadsheets and put them into Adaptive Planning. That’s certainly not the idea. We would expect that our consultants will be working with you closely to determine what are the real drivers behind your business, what drives revenue, what drives costs, and actually unpacking that and then coming up with some suggestions around how that may look in Adaptive Planning, and it might look totally different to how you’re doing in Excel at the moment.

Brett: But that’s okay. So that’s the value we add. I mean that’s we would expect would form part of our engagement with the client. So I think having that finance experience is critical and having industry specialisations as well. And again, I touched on tenure in a previous conversation, but I think our average tenure is over five years and that just means that when you’re engaging with our consultants, you are talking to someone that’s been there, done that. So and that’s a really important aspect of what we do.

David: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, our clients are expecting us to do that checking and challenging, not just to replicate but to actually provide some advice as well. And that’s what our team definitely do.

Investing in our people who get great outcomes for clients

[Watch at 13:57]

David: We talked about the tenure. And one of the key reasons for that is QMetrix has been voted as a Great Place to Work for probably four year running at the moment.

Brett: That’s absolutely correct. So we’re very proud of that achievement. And I think what does that mean – we’re a great place to work or voted a great place to work. Well what does it mean for a client? I mean they think, well that’s great. Well, what it means is our employees, our consultants, enjoy working for QMetrix, but that should also extend to enjoy working with our clients and being proud of getting great outcomes for our clients.

Brett: And if you’ve got a motivated employee, they’re going to be motivated to get the best outcome for our clients by extension. So yeah, we value what our employees bring to the table. Absolutely. And we therefore want to make sure that they’re happy and looked after. And Great Place to Work is one way of making sure that it’s occurring.

Brett: And obviously we’d like to continue getting that award and but improving the scores we get each time we do it so that we know that they’re going to be for the long haul, but also going to be getting great outcomes for our clients, which is probably the most important thing. If you do good work for clients, everything else looks after itself.

David: Yeah. Now look it’s  quite basic isn’t it? Like, if our employees, our consultants love what they do, they enjoy it. Enjoying who they’re doing it with, as in their colleagues, and obviously us leadership – if they’re enjoying doing that. Then by extension, they’re going to get great outcomes for our clients.