The Imperium Standard
Through knowledge gained from best practices in the industry and through the substantial number of solutions implemented in Singapore and the region, Imperium Solutions has developed a comprehensive 8-step approach to ensure a successful project implementation.
Step 1: Pre-Sales Engagement
This is an important first step towards a mutually rewarding engagement; it lays the groundwork for eventual implementation success. Pre-sales engagement typically involves several meetings with the client to fully understand and assess the situation.
The first meeting usually focuses on the overall big picture based on a high-level discussion on customer needs, technology and solution-matching. A formal introduction to our company is invariably included in the initial meet-up.
Subsequent discussions will zoom in on specific business pain points, unique organizational requirements, financial and timeline constraints, resource planning, etc.
At the end of the pre-sales engagement phase, the client will have a useful understanding of the capabilities and limitations of a given technology or solution as well as the major considerations accrued to the adoption of the solution.
Step 2: Proof of Concept
A Proof of Concept (POC) engagement validates, prior to solution acquisition, whether specific functionalities of any given solution will work in a customer's unique environment. Matching solutions and product features to an organization's specific IT infrastructure and business processes very often necessitates on-site testing to ensure maximum system compatibility and optimal organizational fit.
At the end of a successful POC phase, the client will be able to make an informed purchase decision.
Step 3: Solution Design
During the Solution Design phase, Imperium, in close collaboration with the client and the relevant technology vendor, defines and reviews in detail the organization's requirements, affording close attention to corporate compliance, project deadline, resource allocation and budgetary considerations before architecting a solution customized and configured to meet these objectives.
By the end of this stage, the project's activities/tasks, outcomes and deliverables, schedules and resources and completion criterion will have been agreed by the client and Imperium. The next step will be to deploy a pilot test plan at the customer's site.
Step 4: Pilot
A Pilot engagement entails a controlled test run based on a scaled-down scope of work at the client's production environment; accordingly, it will validate the deployment and/or migration recommendations set forth in the solution design. During this phase, important data is gathered, analyzed and reported back to the client; if need be, changes will be made.
The design concept thus goes through testing and fine-tuning in this phase, resulting in a more polished and competent solution that will work well in the real world.
Step 5: Implementation
The Implementation phase will require Imperium's solution consultants to be based at the client's premises for a pre-determined number of days to roll out the proposed solution. The schedule, scope of work and deliverables are all defined in the project plan which will be given to the client.
Throughout this period there will be intense and continuous communication between Imperium's consultant and the client's representative. In larger or more complex projects, a project manager from Imperium may be involved to better manage matters like change orders or out-of-scope requests and to help steer the project on the planned course.
At the end of this phase, a working solution will be fully in place at the client's environment. Depending on the client's requirements, user training may be conducted at this stage or after the project is signed-off.
Step 6: User Acceptance / Documentation
A review, based on a comprehensive check-list customized for a particular project, will now be conducted to go through the key aspects of the implemented solution with the client. On acceptance, a complete documentation will be prepared and handed over to the client.
The documentation appends all the important information of the project including design concepts, terminology, state of the environment, implementation methodology, solution application, and hardware and software details. Relevant screenshots are also captured and documented.
Step 7: Post-Implementation Support
Once a project is signed-off, Imperium typically offers the client an SLA-based 30-day free support solution warranty. Thus the customer can have peace of mind that if a specified item of the solution has been inadvertently omitted from the implementation, there is immediate and competent recourse.
Step 8: On-going Maintenance Support
Imperium Solutions offers customers a wide range of standard and hybrid support plans to cater to different operational requirements and budgets.
The standard maintenance plan usually consists of a pre-determined number of reactive support incidents that the client can draw from in the course of the contractual term, usually a year. If need be, provisions can also be made at the start of the contract to convert incidents to Professional Service Days so that planned services like system fine-tuning can be carried out.