The Secret Sauce Behind Galley’s 5-Stage Implementation Process
A core value we’ve lived by since we first began working on Galley is hospitality first design. Everything, from how we lay out app screens to create success plans for potential customers, is meant to reflect the service and care we love and respect from thoughtful food establishments.
It’s how we deliver an enterprise ERP experience that doesn’t feel like clunky enterprise software or like a legacy ERP at all. It’s won us design awards, but more importantly, it’s helped us create product, sales, and onboarding experiences that our customers say are unlike any other.
We’d like to give you a peek behind the curtain of our implementation workflow and explore how our approach produces more empowered users, higher levels of adoption, and faster results than standard enterprise-level processes.
The Secret Sauce is Not So Secret
We recently had a rising star in prepared meals, valued at nearly $1 billion, tell us that our onboarding experience was the smoothest and fastest they’ve encountered after it took only 96 days to fully onboard the team. Feedback like this is not uncommon for us, but it never gets old.
There’s no hidden ingredient to our implementation process, however.
We stick to a trio of key values that, when integrated at every step, leads to an unusually smooth and cooperative experience (as far as enterprise onboarding goes, at least). The deceptively simple process comes down to this:
Transparency — Complete openness about the implementation process without any hidden steps, sugar-coated challenges, or task sleight of hand.
Accountability — Unmistakably clear responsibilities and task assignments, so everyone is fully aware of who needs to do what at any given moment.
Communication — Honest and timely communication when challenges arise, partners need help completing steps, and timelines need adjusting.
When there are dozens of team members who will be using Galley across multiple departments, there’s great potential for miscommunication, confusion, and onboarding tasks falling through the cracks. We’re constantly asking how we can more meaningfully improve transparency, accountability, and communication at every step of the onboarding journey to make sure that doesn’t happen.
The Galley Implementation Checklist in Five Stages
If there’s any magic to our onboarding process, it’s the Implementation Checklist.
This document is the end-all, be-all of onboarding for all stakeholders. Every step, every assigned stakeholder, every deadline—it’s all there. We like to think it’s the full expression of our value commitments, brought to life in a system.
Let’s run down the stages.
Stage 1: Kickoff and Discovery
Length: ~14 Days
Every implementation project begins with an investigation into a customer’s core objectives and target outcomes. We bring in a lot of this information from the Success Plan created during the sales process. We map each pain point or core objective to specific Galley functions and workflows, setting a highly practical and outcome-oriented tone for the implementation process.
We then use a series of meetings to validate those objectives, set expectations about the onboarding process, review users and baseline permission settings, and review the project timeline to ensure all stakeholders have complete clarity about next steps and responsibilities. Laying out everything from the very beginning is key to moving quickly.
Stage 2: Data Collection and Validation
Length: ~20 Days
Up next, customers send their recipe and vendor data to Galley. We use a series of automated tools and resources to quickly analyze and synthesize the data to ensure it’s consistent and ready to be integrated into the database. A sample dataset is uploaded into Galley as a secondary check of data cleanliness.
We’ll then conduct data validation meetings to confirm with customers that all recipe data is formatted correctly and ready for upload into Galley.
Stage 3: Galley Configuration
Length: ~14 Days
With recipe, vendor, and other data cleaned, we upload it into the customer’s Galley platform and double-check that Galley is properly configured to meet the unique requirements, objectives, and processes of each customer.
This configuration stage also involves finalizing any integrations/connections that need to be in place for Galley to fit into greater business systems (Microsoft Dynamics, Genesys Connection, etc).
Stage 4: Training
Length: ~35 Days
Slow adoption is one of the great challenges to enterprise software onboarding that results in low usage and stunted impact. We’ve created a multi-faceted training program that marries the best practices of live and self-serve education to get users up to speed at a quick pace our customers find unusual and exciting. Our education process also incorporates not how, but the why behind implementing Galley—a key step in earning team buy-in.
We start by offering live training to leaders across teams and use cases that are tailored to each user’s core objectives. Each trained user is given access to a full end-to-end demo version of Galley they can use to familiarize themselves. From there, it’s up to those managers and supervisors to train their teams.
The Galley Learning Center has step-by-step instructions for a variety of tasks and processes, so whether anyone—both a line cook and an R&D manager—can quickly access detailed instructions. Custom learning paths within the Galley Learning Center can be configured for different employee roles and use cases, so teams are never overwhelmed with tasks and workflows they do not participate in.
This training process is proven to minimize the learning curve and help our customers start seeing return on investment immediately when Galley goes live.
Stage 5: Pre-Launch Milestones
Length: ~7 Days
Before launch, we want to run users through scenarios that test comprehension. These training tasks, completed alongside the Galley customer success team, are custom-designed for each customer’s unique use case and core objectives.
This step is the final check, reinforcing training and ensuring key stakeholders can efficiently use Galley, continue to train their teams, and work through more complicated functions, like exporting relevant data or configuring new user access.
When these milestones are hit, we’re all set for launch! 🙌 🎉
Why We Maintain a 24/7 Service Model
Food companies rarely operate exclusively in normal work hours and setbacks to production can have significant consequences. We created a 24/7 service model so that when the Learning Center doesn’t cut it, Galley users always have help at the ready.
Enterprise customers are equipped with two ways of contacting support:
Dedicated slack channel
Live in-app support
Rigorous support is one of the ways we keep users in customer organizations engaged, empowered, and excited to use Galley.
Ready to Unlock Greater Profitability with Galley?
Generic ERPs are a dime a dozen. Galley’s not only purpose-built for the unique needs of our industry, but every step of the onboarding and support journey are optimized to create more engaged employees, higher ERP usage, and greater return on investment.
Much like our implementation process, mastering food data comes down to transparency, accountability, and communication between systems, vendors, prices, and teams—and it’s never been easier than with Galley.
Want to see how Galley can empower your organization firsthand?