EIM Services
CellarStone helps companies bridge the gap between their compensation plans and their system to support the needs of those plans. We can help implement selected vendor software or custom develop a solution to fit the client's needs.
CellarStone can develop Compensation Systems based on customers' business needs in partnership with the customer project team. CellarStone can also provide support and maintenance for the products built according to customers' specifications.
At CellarStone we work with IT, Finance, Human Resources, and Sales to manage changes and/or implementation of your Compensation Systems within budget and technical requirements.
We can assist you in the following ways:
EIM System Review
How is your system working today? What are the compensation plans you have? Are your payouts accurate? Are your payouts timely and close to the fiscal periods in which they were earned? Is your process too manual? Can you save money by automating/optimizing your solution? What can the system do to better support the needs of your compensation plans? Do you need to improve the current systems, buy a vendor solution or build your own? CellarStone can review your current environment and provide a detailed analysis and recommendations. - - solution
EIM Vendor Selection
When you have decided to purchase a new system, we can help. There are many companies selling solutions, but the marketplace is just now beginning to mature. There is no clear leader, or even consistent agreement on what these systems should do. We have a good understanding of the marketplace and the capabilities that the vendors offers. We can be your agent in analyzing the vendors to determine best fit to your requirements. We can identify the inevitable gaps that are present in all systems. We can help sort the wheat from the chaff and match your needs to the vendor best able to fulfill those requirements. - - solution
EIM Implementation
You will need to implement and train on the solution whether you buy a system or build a new one. CellarStone can provide experienced resources in EIM, to analyze, configure, test and implement the solution. CellarStone can determine the integration, conversion and rollout strategies for your implementation. CellarStone will help manage the process by providing schedules, plans and additional resources to make sure the rollout is successful. We conduct a knowledge transfer process to make sure your team is fully capable of maintaining the installed system. - - solution
EIM Development and CustomizationTOP
We can provide capable resources to completely develop your solution from scratch, modify your existing system or to customize a vendor supplied system. We have experienced developers to help augment your IT staff with short or long term projects. We can help from data integration to building custom reports and everything in between. - - solution
EIM System Review
a) EIM Internal Process Review - We will clarify the company goals as regards the EIM process and systems. We will review the current system the company has, and identify how to best achieve the company's goals. We will analyze the as-is process and systems for the appropriate recommendations
b) EIM System Recommendations - Many companies today are looking to review their EIM systems, and need experienced help with the process. CellarStone evaluates the company's current technology and compensation needs. What is required to make the EIM process optimal, and what is the best way to get there?. Does the system make accurate payments? Can the participant understand what they need to do for payment? Does the system allow for the communication of corporate goals and objectives across the entire enterprise? Does the system perform adequately? Can the solution scale into the future? We answer these and more questions and make a set of recommendations to create an optimal process and solution.
EIM Vendor Selection
a) EIM RFI/RFP Vendor Management - When companies are looking to create a RFI and RFP for the purpose of software selection, internal companies will spend a great deal of time getting educated on the market, learning who the players are, their strengths and weaknesses. We tailor our superset of RFI and RFP questions for the individual customer's needs and use that to manage the RFI/RFP process. This is a process CellarStone is very familiar with as well as being familiar with the vendors in the EIM space. We help with the vendor management process during selection.
b) EIM Software Selection
What is the best process for selecting a new vendor? Can you tell what is "smoke and mirrors"? We do everything from creating the sample test scripts, to contacting and scheduling the vendors; to explaining what they really mean when they say "yes, we can do that". We can manage the vendor through demo script creation, demos and analysis and evaluation of the vendor and software performance. We understand all the major vendors products and can explain advantage and disadvantages of each, in order to help you select the best system for your needs.
ImplementationTOP
a) Implementation Review and Evaluation - CellarStone can create an implementation plan covering tasks, scope, timelines, and resources and make the determination about the best way to execute the project. We will work with you to decide integration, conversion and rollout strategies for your implementation.
b) Project Management - The process to manage the implementation of the solution from both sides of the table is critical to its success. Both the client and the vendor (or user and IT staff) need to be held accountable to the schedule and scope, in order to make a successful on-time implementation. With many successful EIM implementations under our belt, we can manage your projects to success. We provide a tremendous advantage because of our experience in understanding where the usual problems lie in an EIM implementation.
c) Development and Testing - We provide skilled resources in EIM as well as in technologies such as Java to be able to develop/customize products to your needs. Comprehensive testing plans, scripts and resources knowledgeable in EIM, can make testing the implementation of your requirements in the product, much easier.
d) Training and Roll-out of Application - The data has been converted, the system set up and tested, and the reports are ready to go. What is missing, and often overlooked is the users experience with the application. The creator of the system provided sufficient documentation for the initial setup. We make sure when the territories and plans need to be changed, do the users know what to do? Are they dependent on the person who made the system to fix problems like this, or has the proper knowledge transfer been completed? We make sure proper learning systems are in place.
e) Custom Training Materials - We provide documentation, web course materials or other media as needed to ensure proper understanding of how to use and maintain the new system. From web page on how to understand a commission statement to CBT based system on how to add a new rate table, we match the learning style of the company to the materials we provide.
CustomizationTOP
a) Data integration services - One of the largest challenges of an EIM system is getting the right data to the right place, in the right format. It is easy to take a target and source and match them up, but it is seldom that easily done with an EIM system. There is often the problem of the data in the transaction system being perfectly correct for that system, but be incorrect for the purpose of the incentive system. We provide analyst evaluation and services to solve that problem. We establish the integration framework: the component systems, the file layouts, error handling, frequency of processing, etc. We can create the scripts and programs necessary to implement the data integration.
b) Data conversion - When a new system is brought up, it is very important to bring over data from the legacy system. It is common for the data in the old system to be incorrect. How do you account for the data, and how do you bring it into the new system? We can help create the framework for conversion: the data to be converted, tools to convert the data, the periods, reconciliation and error handling.
c) Custom Reporting - Communication. One of the most important aspects of the system is the information that is being communicated to the various beneficiaries of the system - the participant who needs to understand their commission statement; the web site where they understand their goals and objective; to the executive who needs to see it all at a high level, etc. We can help develop the reports and web frontends necessary to complete this task effectively.
d) Customization - We can also augment your staff for modification of an existing system, or customize a new one. If cost is an issue, we can support our local staff with offshore staff to reduce the overall cost of the project.
