About
We help B2B industrial companies establish high performing Digital Operations Teams so they can accelerate their digital projects, digitize their core processes and incubate new ventures.
The companies that want to re-invent their operating model, must develop digital skills and competencies in-house and learn how to create a virtual environment where micro-learning, micro-coaching, micro-training and micro-outsourcing can result in improved competitiveness and profitability for the entire organization.
Founded in 2000, our headquarters are located in Southlake, Texas and we have remote teams in various locations.
Vision
To help B2B companies build world class Digital Workspaces so they can thrive in the digital economy.
Values
Engage, Evaluate and Improve.
Mission
To help our clients create sustainable value by helping them effectively execute on digital initiatives.
Purpose
Educate the marketplace so they can make the right choices in technology stacks and internal capability development.
Our Ideal Clients...
Forwarding-looking B2B manufacturing, wholesale distribution and private equity companies who are on their digital transformation journeys and could benefit from establishing their internal Digital Center of Excellence. We help …..
- Improve project level outcomes,
- improve utilization of existing technologies,
- Help fill skills and technology gaps where they are needed the most,
- Leverage more of their internal resources instead of outsourcing key activities,
- Take advantage of our deep expertise in industrial businesses,
- Tap into our remote talent pool,
- Benefit from “Just-in-time” micro-training, micro-outsourcing and micro-coaching methodologies we have developed,
- Get higher returns on their digital investments.
What are some of the challenges traditional B2B companies facing?
Fast-moving digital players like Amazon, up and coming procurement professionals who love amazon and fast-moving digital players offering best-in-class customer convenience and more price transparency.
Growing percentage of business is going to bot-enabled warehouses. Bot-enabled warehouses order picking costs are very low (from 22 to 45 cents as opposed to typical manually run warehouse with cost of $14 to $25 per order.
Millennials are becoming bigger and bigger part of the workforce and they prefer access to any and all information without having to interact with sales staff.
New digital only competitors are springing up.
Online web and mobile interfaces have improved post-recession enough to deliver an excellent customer experience that maybe better than a typical full-service order placing experience.
Customers are getting more sophisticated and these sophisticated customers are armed with a lot of data and demanding better discounts and better promotions on more and more commodity products.
Lack of in-house know-how regarding digital transformation.
Overwhelmed with choice when it comes to new digital ‘tools’.
As manufacturers and customers gain leverage through consolidation, some are forming strong relationships that cut out the middleman—leaving distributors out of the picture.
The industry returns have lagged those of the overall industrials sector for 15 years;
Margins have remained narrow even in the recent economic recovery and under increasing pressure.
Many industrial distributors may lose strong customer relationships in the next few years and become mere links in supply chains, rather than business partners who add value.
As many manufacturers and customers consolidate, they are gaining new leverage in negotiating pricing with distributors;
Some manufacturers are building their own distribution platforms or going direct with enhanced digital platforms.
Who is our ideal customer, what are they looking for and why should they choose us?
For Industrial companies engaged in B2B businesses that want sustainable digital success, we offer an innovative value-focused engagement model and on-demand top talent deployment that helps teams succeed and focuses them on the right details in the right order to grow profitably by making small investments in their future business models.
Our clients are overwhelmed by digital complexity. On the one hand tech suppliers are building more and more software features; on the other hand it’s hard to extract business value from these software products. The real pain comes after the tech supplier leaves and clients have to use and maintain the systems. It’s estimated that 80% of IT budget goes to maintaining the current systems. We help simplify IT, reduce tech burden and extract business value from IT investments. We don't sell software. A company that leverages all your technology investments and helps you extract maximum value out of them. A company that builds a bridge between tech suppliers and business outcomes.
We have delivered on many projects on “Results as a Service” model.
Our engagement model is simple and ensures maximum value exchange among all team members and stakeholders
We are able to leverage remote talent and achieve great results
Team and technology integration is one of our core competencies which allows us to automate processes that improve team productivity.
Our secret sauce is our internal talent deployment, micro-training and micro-coaching services that brings the collective intelligence in the teams we work with.
We exclusively work with companies whose core values are aligned with ours so we can create enterprise value on solid foundations.
What's unique about what we offer?
Innovative value focusd engagement model
Tech savvy management team with platform development experience on multiple projects
Highly efficient systems of team and project management with optimal use of technology and team mentoring, coaching and training best practices
Help with as needed talent sourcing and on-boarding
Help with onboarding software integration for automated information flow.
Project focused micro-training and micro-coaching
Built on omni-win foundations.
What are some of the "recipes" that have worked for our clients in other projects?
Here is a general outline of activities in a certain order that generally work well for our clients:
Assess technology stacks and fill gaps
Integrate technology to improve information flow
Assess internal digital skills and help fill gaps
Onboard and organize internal and external teams to collaborate and work as a single team
Organize quarterly projects and performance measures on a project portal
Provide tool how-to- training and skill training and as-needed coaching to in spoonfuls based on what is required at task and project level.
Improve individual and team productivity by leveraging the right technology tools and by removing waste from transactions, interactions and decision making practices.
Make small investments in pilot projects before making larger ones
Deploy revenue producing B2B websites and ecommerce stores
Focus on people side to improve returns on technology investments that result in operational efficiencies.
Use a holistic approach and consider our clients' business as a living and breathing unique organism that has survival needs but must be ready to change as the environment around it changes.
What’s our point of view on how B2B technology and related services are purchased?
We believe that perfectly well-intentioned people sometimes end up making suboptimal choices in what they bring into the business environment because of the following reasons that become obvious to an outside neutral observer but are often “hidden” in plain sight to the people on the inside.
We all know how our personal biases and preferences can lead us to bad choices when we look back but they are not so clearly visible when looking into the future.
Information that technology vendors share in brochures and demos is incomplete and comes with a built-in bias. When is the last time you talked to a technology software sales person who gave you all the flaws in their product?
Really good sales people are good at reading personality styles of their buyers and prepare really good answers to various questions and objections.
Your peers in the buying committee bring their own biases, preferences and power plays unconsciously. Before you know it, some voices are not heard. People don’t want to stick their neck out even if they have reservations.
People with most power in the buying decision are sometimes overwhelmed by day to day pressures, they maybe technophobes, they be misguided and misled by really good sales pitch or overly influenced by the opinion of their golf buddy. They are humans too. If they fail to create a team dynamic where healthy conflict is encouraged and dysfunctional behavior and power plays are discouraged or minimized, teams can make better decisions.
Sometimes the decision has to be made because of the pressure that the company feels overall from what the competition is doing and quick action results in hasty decisions.
The key building blocks of a good technology procurement team are team dynamics, deep understanding technology stacks and how they affect each other and vendor neutral advice from subject matter experts who understand both business and technology.