A4B Notes

The Answers 4 Business Team Pledge for a Shifting Economy

A lot has changed even since August 2008.  We are all trying to get a handle on the economy and are wondering where it is going.  Wherever that is, there are profound effects on our clients, our business partners and our consultants.  And that is likely to continue.  We offer this perspective.

The economy is not “correcting”, it is shifting.  We are coming to terms as a global community with many of the basic contradictions in our old economic game.  We are shifting values toward that which we now determine to be of value.  It may be too early to settle on what materials or services will ultimately become the staples for a new set of economic drivers, but we’d suggest those that compliment the principles of community, collaboration, teamwork and respect will win out over fierce, win-lose competitiveness, the hoarding of knowledge, and a get-ahead-at-all-costs-and-damn-the-impact approach.  We’d also expect that governments will be tinkering with what role they can play and new, more collaborative models will be offered in many areas of our lives.

A peaceful shift is possible.  Much of the old is on its way out and new ideas, solutions and paradigms are coming forth.  There is a marked difference between the thinking of the generation under 30 from that over 40, in general terms, but new parent-like bonds are being formed to bring the 60+ crowd in line with the thinking of the youth in many ways.  Additionally, countries and economies are shifting power bases and the gap between rich and poor countries is normalizing through the force of the Flat World.  Traditionally, changes such as these have been times for conflict and protectionism as we shift to a view of a limited pie.  However, we see signs of a maturity that would suggest this revolution might remain simply a rapid evolution and negotiation and understanding might win the day.

A pledge from our team.  At Answers 4 Business, we have been focused on delivering value – true value as it is defined and perceived by our customer – for the duration of our 7+ - year existence.  We have always paid attention to both monetary and non-monetary value drivers and will continue to do so.  As this shift takes place, we commit to:

• sharpen our focus on the economic equation of our work in order to ensure our services remain affordable and deliver substantial payback;
  
• providing leading perspective and access to wisdom in order that our customers can align their businesses well to new economic environments and more readily adapt to change and;
  
• delivering trusted solutions with the utmost in integrity.
  

Sincerely,

Answers 4 Business Leadership Team

Lessons Learned from a Delayed SAP Go-Live

On November 15^th I completed a contract that ended up being a year plus two and a half months in duration.  It was enjoyable in many ways, I met a lot of very talented colleagues (we had a strong team of SAP consultants) and the process owners and the users at the client were both friendly and professional.  The go-live was quite smooth by comparison to typical and the entire team (save the Business Warehouse report developer) has departed within 6 weeks of go-live with everything documented and handed over to the internal support team.  Yet, by budget measures, this was not a successful project and it’s time to share some of my lessons learned (or rather re-learned in many cases).  As we did not have a lessons learned meeting to close out this project (at least not with the consultants), I’ll put my own out there.

1)      When is a “template” not a template?  When it is not documented and many of the processes it may support have multiple methods within other business divisions and there has not been a determination of best-practice.  On this project, we were doing a Canadian deployment of a “template” approach that had been developed for multiple vertical business units in the US.  As is quite typical, Canada (as a horizontal business unit) comprised product lines from each of the US verticals and thus, could adopt business processes from all of the vertical business units in the US.  And, although they shared a common SAP instance, each vertical business unit had developed their own fairly customized business processes and determining what was “in the template” was a matter of judgment.

2)      Who is best suited to estimate the amount of work involved?  The consultants who will do the work (if they are experienced) together with the project manager.  We kind of did this at times during this project.  And we kind of made efforts to level-load the consultants (adjusting roles and picking up some of the variable tasks with lesser-loaded consultants) but we could have teamed better on that front.  It’s important to have honest conversations about how much work we really have (and not be too pushy with those who have lots or too quick to jump on those who have little).  This is difficult in any work environment, but very important for projects as the longest work stream will ultimately be the project duration and there can be a lot of unnecessary cost if the project does not have mostly-balanced work streams.  We had some of that on this project and I was the lightest work stream in this case.  Fortunately, I was local and could be flexible with my schedule.

3)      Change is hard to take, but some take it harder than others.  I have often seen on ERP implementation projects, one business area that just isn’t keen on a new system.  Although this is typical across the board (we all find comfort in what we have every day), when one department finds reason to delay, it can be quite costly as all areas need to wait.  I ended up leaving this client 3 months after I was originally scheduled to leave.  The scope of delivery in my area was expanded and the users and process owners were able to use the extra time to become that much more self-sufficient, but I don’t think that in my area (even with my diminished work schedule) the client really got good value for that investment in the extra time.  I think that some extra leadership push on the change management front to bring in the go-live date by even one month would have saved substantial costs.  As a team, I think we felt we were ready a month early and we didn’t really have a team discussion to make that determination. I do understand that erring on the side of caution can often make sense, but I was left wondering in this case about the cost of that caution.

I’ll leave it there.  This was, overall, a good experience and a fairly smooth move to SAP for the client.  I believe the process has begun for the client overall to recognize the SAP solution as a strong one – better in many ways (but not all) than the solution being replaced and the cost of maintenance will be lowered significantly.  I enjoyed having work I could get to and from daily from my home and it was a great team to work with.  I honed my knowledge in many areas of the SAP solution set (most notably, my areas of production planning and execution) and learned some new tricks (and applied for the first time a few I had known about). 

As all projects should, this one leaves me more qualified for the next one and I look forward to taking that next one on.

Good to see advancement in Greenhouse Gas emissions reporting to the EPA for automotive. http://aiag.informz.net/admin31/content/template.asp?sid=17949&brandid=4002&uid=1001738439&mi=1776021&ptid=0

Answers 4 Business completing the summer.

Summer - the very word gets us all in the mood for things outside of work.  Pace is more relaxed, family events, wonderful outside weather (for those of us in the north, we enjoy it while we can).  And yes, unfortunately, updating a blog tends to wait.

But here we have it, the rainy day before the Labour Day long weekend and activities to ramp up for a busy fall are in full swing.  Yours truly will be starting a one-year implementation with a new client immediately after the Holiday and the team is preparing for expansion with reduced support (or interference?) from the founder.

So - what are we focusing on?  The same thing we've been focusing on for our entire 7 years - improving businesses by ensuring "return on business system investment (ROBSI)".  And HOW do we deliver ROBSI?  Through training, assessing and diagnosing problem situations or opportunities, implementing systems, and improving installed system solutions.  We do this largely, but not exclusively, in the area of the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and we maintain a number of associates with various specializations to help our clients with general or specific tasks.  Fairly simple, we think, and we are always open to ideas on how to do it better and deliver higher returns to our clients.

Over the next few months, there may be some changes in roles within our team - and a renewed focus on delivered impact to our clients.  We will make efforts (with the blog and other communication methods) to keep everyone (clients, assocaites, our team and partners) aware of any changes that may impact them. 

IT in Canada Posts article about Answers 4 Business software selections. http://www.itincanada.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=207&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=12552&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid

Answers 4 Business customer Invotronics Manufacturing reports on ERP replacement:

http://www.itincanada.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=207&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=12536&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=

About Answers 4 Business consultant, they say "He deals with enough companies in our industry. He knows all of the crazy nuances that we need. And then he can translate that into a needs analysis for a software company that probably doesn’t know them."

Articles to Share from IT Canada

As an Extended Business Partner to SAP through our trusted Channel Partner Contax, Answers 4 Business is happy to share the following news articles:

http://www.itincanada.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=12463&category_id=331&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

http://www.itincanada.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=334&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=12448&option=com_virtuemart&np=2

Best wishes for high Quality of Life in 2010 from Answers 4 Business

It seems our team is running pretty hard heading into the Holiday Season (which, it seems, is now fully upon us).  Personally, I have some teaching work right through the 23rd (and gladly, it's local to Toronto) and other associates have client work, new projects starting (yes, right before the holidays) and, of course, the various sales and marketing activities associated with building out our company and preparing clients for projects starting in the New Year.

It is easy to take our eyes off of the importance of a calendar year end and the significance and meaning of the Holidays (regardless of the faith we may practise - this period seems to have significance to everyone).   We recently defined how our own team defines "winning" and an important aspect of that was to "Constantly increase our individual and collective Quality of Life".  Of course, this extends to our family members, friends, clients, subcontractors, and other stakeholders.   This goal seems to have a particularly strong resonance with our team, so I am quite comfortable speaking for them by wishing for you, our reader, that 2010 be a true breakthrough "Quality of Life" year for you - however it is that you may choose to define and measure that.

We are committed that 2010 be a great year for us and those around us, and we're really looking forward to continuing to expand our relationship with all of you.

 

Season's Greetings.

 

PEAK Teamwork at Answers 4 Business

On October 28th I introduced the PEAK Teamwork management system and committed that we'd be implementing it fully for the purpose of strengthening our own business.  We've been at it for a first month (not full-time, of course) and its impact is beginning to be felt.  Preliminary results are quite positive and I'll describe some of the things that work differently around here so far (and we have just begun - it's at the senior management level so far).

1)  We have a much better understanding of where our own business has been.  As we introduced and gathered simple yet powerful measures for ourselves, it has become more apparent where the source of our success is, and we can easily adjust to build upon these strengths.  Intuition is helpful, but hard data is more compelling.

2)  We are developing and communicating a stronger collective team vision for the enterprise (both current and future states) and are having active dialogues about not only what is possible, but how to get there.

3)  The attitude and atmosphere within the organization has become more positive.  Any leader of any team knows how useful this is.

4)  We are investing in the business and ourselves with a higher degree of purpose and team commitment.

I don't think it's too early to say the the PEAK Teamwork concepts work for us - and I expect to continue to see benefits as we roll out the concepts at more layers in the organization.

Some Things to Consider before Outsourcing

As I sit in the coffee shop as much at work as I ever was when I had a "real" office, it really drives home the nature of structural change our businesses and economy are undergoing.  When anyone can contribute to a business from anywhere, we are left asking what a business really is.  Additionally, the opportunity to reduce cost by outsourcing is virtually limitless (even $0 may not be a practical limit as new revenue models are put in place where businessesmay actually be paid for doing traditional cost processes a different way).  So what must remain core to all businesses?

At the inner-circle level, I'd contend there must be two things:

1.  Harmonization of intentions.  Whether your inner-circle is employees, partners, outsourcers or other stakeholders, it is important that they be carefully selected such that their business and other intentions create a harmonic resonance with your own.  Without that, growth will be very difficult to foster.

2.  Understanding and control of strong business processes to develop brand.  Your brand is ultimately the impression you leave with your customer - and this impression is developedbased upon high-quality delivery, at speed for a favourable price.  Each of these elements is the outcome of sound business processes (regardless of whether you or your outsourcer executes them).

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the above.  Of course, if you're reviewing what is "core" versus "outsourcable" at this time (as many of you are) we'd be happy to be involved in the discussion.

Some things to consider about your commercial business system when times are tough.

It seems that maintenance fee just sits out there - untouchable, rising, and not delivering business benefit.  As budgets get tight, there must be SOMETHING we can do to affect it somehow.  There may be.  Here are two things to consider as the budget needs to be scrutinized.

1)  Understand what is deployed.  Is there un-deployed (or under-deployed) functionality in your larger packages that could be used to displace some of your stand-alone software or remove a home-grown solution you need to maintain.  Maintenance software, quality management, contact management, service management, etc. are all places to look where you may be paying maintenance fees, but not yet utilizing the software.  If you can get these functions addressed with no or minimal increase to your maintenance fees, your value equation can improve.

2)  Know your users.  There are methods for tracking exactly who is using what processes and how.  Quite often, more users may be licensed than are using the software (we call that shelf-ware) or the types of users may be lighter (and cheaper) than you are licenced for.  It may take a little negotiating, but  this information can usually lead to a maintenance fee reduction.

There are other items that can be considered, of course, and opportunity on the hardware side as well, but the above is usually a good place to start.   If you need a hand going into the next fiscal budget, give us a call.