As universities face the “enrollment cliff” and shifting fiscal realities, evaluating your operating model is essential. Here are five critical success factors to keep in mind for optimizing campus shared services in 2026:

1. Culture – Shifting to a Service-Oriented Mindset
When many campus SSCs started, it was essential to create a culture focused on operating with professional efficiency. This remains mission-critical in 2026. SSC leaders play a key role in bringing to life a value proposition that resonates with faculty, students, and staff alike. Academic units will continue to sign up for shared services only if the SSC achieves a steady track record of lower administrative burden, relevant subject matter expertise, and world-class service. Processes must be re-designed to focus on the student and faculty “customer” experience.

2. Continuous Improvement (CI)
This is a massive driver of success. Campus stakeholders want responsive service and reduced “shadow IT” or administrative bloat. SSC leaders must own end-to-end processes—such as the student lifecycle or grant administration—and focus on continuous improvement. Leveraging frameworks like Lean or Six Sigma provides the ROI and employee ownership needed to drive results. A key point: Measure everything. Balanced metrics and broad communication of successful milestones will sell your value to the Board and the Provost.

3. Technology, AI, and the Cloud
In 2026, you must go “all-in” on cloud technology and AI integration. The landscape is complex—modern ERPs, student information systems (SIS), AI-driven predictive analytics, and workflow automation. You cannot afford to operate without an up-to-date technology strategy. Spreading the costs and benefits of these tools across multiple academic and business units lessens the risk and increases the odds of achieving institutional goals.

4. Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
SLAs are a necessary continuation of your improvement efforts. It is a worthwhile exercise to develop and iterate comprehensive SLAs that include in-scope services, turn-around times, quality of outputs, and clear dispute resolution. In a university setting, these must be balanced—they should provide accountability without becoming overly bureaucratic or rigid, ensuring they support the academic mission rather than hindering it.

5. Centers of Excellence (COEs)
Determining your institution’s operating model is one of the most challenging tasks. What are your core competencies? Which functions—such as HR, Finance, or Research Administration—should be shared across the entire university system versus kept within a specific college? As processes become standardized, they are prime candidates for a COE. However, high-touch areas like specialized faculty research support may require local subject matter expertise. Collaboration across the institution will provide the guidance needed to strike this balance.

Evolving your institutional operating model to optimize shared services in 2026 can pay handsome dividends. By keeping these success factors in mind, you can increase your odds of long-term sustainability.

Contact TSI at tsi@transforming.com to learn how we help institutions navigate these transformations.

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Through repetition, successes, and errors, as well as guidance from the Project Management Institute (PMI), my hypothesis was proven accurate. At the time, I was checking the boxes and reaping the rewards. Yet, not every Project Manager saw the same success. Was I that much better at managing projects than my peers? Or was something in the system hindering them from realizing success?

The Ecosystem of Project and Portfolio Management

Not until I moved into consulting (and began holistically working with organizations of all shapes and sizes) did I conclude that the approach of managing projects was not as singularly focused as I once thought. Rather, there is a much more complex “ecosystem” in which project managers operate.

In 2026, this ecosystem is the key to truly effective project management, and truly effective project management is a key input to the ecosystem. Although many organizations understand this concept, they often struggle to materialize its value in an increasingly automated and data-driven landscape.

PPM Defined

Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) is the foundation of the project management ecosystem. According to the PMI Community, “Project Portfolio Management is the centralized management of one or more portfolios, and involves identifying, prioritizing, authorizing, managing, and controlling projects, programs, and other related work, to achieve specific strategic business objectives.”

PPM is not a new concept, but it has blossomed alongside the rise of shared service centers like the Program Management Office (PMO) and the ongoing shift of transforming IT organizations from cost centers into value centers.

The PPM Hierarchy 

At TSI, I’ve helped organizations understand their current state of PPM capabilities and evolve using our PPM Maturity Hierarchy. Whether an organization currently sits at Level 1 or Level 3, the goal is to evolve toward Level 4 Optimization and beyond to stay competitive.

Level 1 – Infancy: Organizations in the Infancy stage manage projects reactively, focusing only on individual execution. Leadership often scrambles to stay on top of daily demands. Work is captured project-by-project with little transparency into synergies or risks. In 2026, this lack of visibility often leads to significant “technical debt” and wasted resources.

Level 2 – Emerging Discipline: This stage replaces isolated decision-making with the identification of the best collection of projects. Organizations at this stage successfully prioritize and align projects with their 2026 strategic initiatives.

Level 3 – Initial Integration/Value Management: At this stage, organizations introduce technology, models, and tools to quantify the value derived from projects. This allows them to identify which initiatives in the pipeline provide the most “bang for your buck.” Proactive, standardized PPM enables value-driven decision-making.

Level 4 – Optimization: Here, the focus shifts to maturing PPM capabilities through optimized processes, analytics, and quantitative metrics. In 2026, this often includes leveraging automated data flows to improve value creation in real-time.

Level 5 – Innovation: At this most advanced stage, PPM has full buy-in from executive leadership. It is a core competency that utilizes best practices. The organization is focused on continuous innovation, ensuring they are not just “doing things right,” but “doing the right things” as the market shifts.

Is your organization looking to take the next step in Project and Portfolio Management?  Do you have questions on where to get started? If you’d like to brainstorm with one of TSI’s consultants, or have any questions on how we help organizations similar to yours, feel free to reach out to me directly at dfeely@transforming.com. You can also visit our website at transforming.com for more information.

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Investing in consultants is a significant commitment. Yet, without thoroughly validating all aspects of the consultant or their team, organizations risk ending up with outcomes where the value delivered doesn’t justify the expense.

Typically, organizations focus on assessing a consultant team’s skills, experience, pricing, and solution fit. While these factors are essential, they only provide part of the picture. Even if a consulting firm checks these boxes, they may still struggle to deliver a solution that generates real, lasting value for the client.

A more comprehensive evaluation process is key to ensuring your investment yields the outcomes your organization needs.

What is the missing component?  Aligned Organizational Values!

More specifically, how do your organizational values match up with the values of the consulting firm, and how does that firm demonstrate their own values?

A scenario that I have heard from more than a few clients is that past consultants have come in, dominated the conversation regarding solution design, and failed to take client feedback and insight into account.  In short, the client team feels that the solution was pushed upon them rather than developed with them. As a result, the client will take the findings of prior consultants (which often have great content) but will put the findings on the shelf and will not look at unless prompted.  This amounts to a waste of time and money for the organization.

The difference in values between a consultant team and their client throughout the project can cause a solution delivery and implementation value gap for the client.

To be able to identify whether a consulting firm will be compatible with your values, use values based interview questions within your RFP / RFI as well as during your finalist presentations. While there are many sources of interview questions to choose from, many focus on interviewing the individual for hire rather than a team.  Below are a few questions (with the associated value) you can try out to evaluate a consulting team/firm.

1. Tell me about a time when your firm intentionally improved the relationship between your firm and the client. What did you do?  How did the client react? Why was that important? (Compassion)
2. Give me an example of when you and your team really “clicked” with your client. Why did that relationship work? (Collaboration)
3. Tell me about a time when your team encountered resistance from a client during your project. What did you do as a result?  What was the outcome of the project? (Collaboration)
4. What is the most innovative solution you and your team developed? How did you get there? What were the results of this innovation?  Did the client implement your solution? Why/Why not? (Innovation)
5. Tell me about a situation where your patience was tested with a client. How were you able to complete the assigned task?  How did you resolve the situation?  What was the result? (Responsibility)
6. Tell me of a project that required you to pay attention to the smallest details to achieve the desired outcomes. When was this?  How did it turn out? (Quality)

And last but not least, don’t be afraid of the obvious question…

7. How do your values match up with ours? Please provide an example.

Values based interviewing has been around for a while now, but is still under-utilized. Try using this technique when interviewing potential consultants and watch for the interesting responses you will receive.  I am confident that many consultants are not accustomed to answering such questions during a finalist presentation.  This technique will absolutely be quite revealing as to whether they will be a good fit for your organization.

P.S. if you are not using values based interviewing for your internal hires, I recommend utilizing this immediately!!

The post What is the Forgotten Dimension of Hiring a Consultant? appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

This kind of bold self-awareness is a hallmark of great leaders. Admitting there’s room for growth takes courage, but it’s a necessary step toward lasting improvement.

“The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize,” is attributed to Shigeo Shingo, a prominent figure in the field of Lean Manufacturing.

Here are four critical questions to help you evaluate your processes and customer experience:

1. When was the last time we thoroughly evaluated what our customers go through to do business with us?
2. Is our process easy and seamless, or does it present unnecessary hurdles?
3. How have we differentiated ourselves—not through our products or services—but through the way we onboard clients, deliver, and administer those offerings?
4. What have we done recently to create a competitive advantage in this area?

At TSI, we thrive on solving these challenges—whether they’re big or small. As process improvement experts, we are excited to help businesses transform how they operate and deliver value to customers.

If these questions resonate with you, we’d love to explore how we can help you create a smoother, more competitive process. Reach out to us today!

– written by: Dan Feely, TSI’s President and Founder – Visit The TSI Team page for more information on Dan and his talented team.

The post How Leaders Look at Process – 4 Questions to Ask Yourself (and improve) appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

• A while ago I was in Montreal checking in a hotel (part of a major chain) at about 10 PM. The night desk clerk spent close to 10 minutes trying to look up my loyalty account, with no success.  Then he informed me I should go look it up, come back down to the front desk, and he would input my information. Note, the per night cost of this hotel was about $300.
• While merely trying to sign up at one of those indoor skydiving places, I discover a poorly organized website that is cumbersome and does not show accurate availability. I called to make a reservation, and after being put on hold for 8 or 9 minutes, the worker says she cannot sign us up.  All because she is too busy.  She asks for my number to call back when she has time, but never actually does.
• My flight is delayed due to mechanical issues (on an airline that I’m a Platinum member); this will cause me to miss a connecting flight and this 1 hour delay, will ultimately cost me 12 hours due to no open seats on other flights to my destination.  I never receive a call or text to attempt to problem solve this.

If you’re thinking, “Dan, if this is all you have to worry about, you have it pretty good”.  Well you’d be right, I do have it good.  These are definitely not awfully inconvenient problems for me. Not even close.

However, if you are a leader at any of these three businesses, or if your organization is not that ETDBW (Easy to do business with), know that you are inadvertently creating a a few lasting impressions:

1. They don’t care about my business
2. They would rather maximize profit on one transaction than have me as a customer for a lifetime
3. My time does not matter to them.

In short, a positively memorable CX matters!  Why?  It’s certainly a logical leap to think that a customer who has an excellent experience, remembers it.  Because of one positive experience, they can tell others about it; sometimes even becoming mini marketers for that product or service.  Further, those that are loyal, having had a positive experience are retained, will buy a product or service over and over.

Consider the following:  Studies[1] by Bain & Company, along with Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School, have shown that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.

There are several reasons why this small increase in retention can have such a large impact on profits. Here are two important considerations:

1. Customers are likely to spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Particularly with small businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition, a customer’s first purchase or two can be considered somewhat of a risk. So they are likely to keep the cost relatively small, and then increase spending as the relationship grows.
2. Repeat customers are more likely to refer others. Bain & Company’s research showed that after just one purchase from an online apparel retailer, an average shopper was likely to refer three other people to the site. But a customer that made ten purchases from an online apparel retailer was likely to refer seven different people to the site.

Now, you might find yourself asking: “So what?”  I can tell these organizations do not believe in Design Thinking or Voice of the Customer ways of looking at their processes.

Well, creating a positively memorable experience is HARD! Especially for an organization that has any degree of complexity around the following:

1. The types of products/services your customers want;
2. How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
3. How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for them to order it, receive it, process the invoice, and actually pay for it.
4. What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
5. Do you have numerous people involved, sometimes with “less than ideal” coordination when you think about those involved from a contracting, pricing, order processing/execution, set up, training, implementation touchpoints?

Having lived this firsthand, I know onboarding new clients/customers is not only challenging, but it is very time-consuming, and candidly, frustrating.  Now with even more awareness in the marketplace around this elusive goal of creating an ideal customer experience, the typical customer is more perceptive to whether you (or any) organization is truly “easy to do business with”.

In fact, check out this article on customer service expectations – https://www.alltius.ai/glossary/millennials-gen-z-customer-service-expectations 

If you feel that you may have some opportunities for improvement in this area, TSI can help. We’ve created a very hands-on training workshop that is short + sweet, and worth your investment. You will learn solid foundation of concepts and perspectives as well as tools to be used so they may be applied for your organization. If you are interested, email us at tsi@transforming.com.

The post Why a Positively Memorable Customer Experience (CX) Matters appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

I have to admit, as sure as that HBR article just over 34 years ago by Michael Hammer, Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate (FROM THE JULY–AUGUST 1990 ISSUE) sparked my interest in this area and sent a lightning bolt of perspective change through a wide variety of organizations, I was wondering if there was another article or trend that somehow I missed that no longer made being efficient relevant.

From our experience, working with some of the fastest growing companies, as well as progressive higher education institutions, looking at how to make or keep an organization focused on efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction and profitability has never been more relevant.  But, to be fair, a lot of things have changed in the past 34+ years.

From TSI’s perspective, here are the top 5 things that have happened to process improvement over the years:

1. It has evolved and now incorporates User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), Transformation or another synonym. Plenty of process definition and analysis is still being done, but it’s done with a greater awareness of what the total experience is.  Further, many organizations are more holistic, looking not just at processes (or operations) but people, culture, technology, strategy, metrics and a number of other dimensions. This is one of my favorite ways that PI has evolved.
2. Tightly coupled with ERP, CRM and other major systems – years back, many organizations optimistically and naively assumed their new ERP/CRM would fix their processes automatically. “We’ll just implement the same processes that (insert Software Product/Vendor name) implemented in (insert similar company name) and we’ll be fine”. Sadly, these organizations learned this is a fallacy and implementing an ERP without looking at processes is a recipe for disaster or just wasting a lot of time and money.
3. Process Renovation – Some organizations are taking a fresh look at the processes that have been re-engineered 10-20 years ago. In some cases, as their business model has changed with acquisitions, divestitures etc. and they realized that it is time to take another hard look at how they operate.  Just because you did this in 2005, does not mean you shouldn’t do it again.
4. Nothing – believe it or not, some organizations missed that wave 34 years ago and still haven’t taken a fresh review of how they operate. Unfortunately in many industries such as retail, publishing, higher education, pharma, high technology manufacturing and many others, we have seen the peril of failing to proactively streamline processes, systems and customer experiences.
5. Lean/Continuous Improvement/Six Sigma Culture – some organizations have reaped the rewards and feel strongly that a periodic review of how they operate is one of the most differentiating characteristics in the marketplace. They strive to be “Operationally Excellent” in all aspects of their business from how they go to market, develop products/services, hire new employees, pay vendors, service customers.

Your Call to Action

In summary, after 34 years, this notion of “process re-engineering” that was set in motion by an article describing a project at Ford Motor Company is alive and thriving.  Granted, this is taking on more adaptive and holistic dimensions, but I would ask you to contemplate the following:

When is the last time you reviewed how your company is to do business with through the eyes of your customers?  When is the last time you analyzed these areas?  When is the last time you had an outsider who is committed to telling the truth, assess your organization? 

TSI (transforming.com) is a leading performance improvement, process re-engineering, technology strategy and organization change management consulting firm based in Chicago. We collaborate with our progressive growth-oriented and higher education clients to define and implement recommendations that help our clients become more efficient, cost effective, higher quality and more customer focused.  Dan Feely is the founder of TSI and can be reached at dfeely@transforming.com

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Lo and behold, through repetition, successes and errors, as well as my good friends at the Project Management Institute (PMI), my hypothesis was proven to be accurate.  At the time, I was checking the boxes and reaping the reward as a Project Manager.  Yet, not every Project Manager saw the same success.  Was I that much better at managing projects than my peers?  Or was something in the system hindering them from realizing success?

The Ecosystem of Project and Portfolio Management

Not until I moved into consulting (and began holistically working with organizations of all shapes and sizes), did I conclude the approach of managing projects was not as singularly focused as I once thought.  Rather, there is a much more complex “ecosystem” in which project managers operate.  This ecosystem is the key to truly effective project management, and truly effective project management is a key input to the ecosystem. Although many organizations are beginning to understand this concept, those same organizations are struggling to materialize its value.

PPM Defined

Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) is the foundation of the project management ecosystem.  According to the PMI Community, “Project Portfolio Management is the centralized management of one or more portfolios, and involves identifying, prioritizing, authorizing, managing, and controlling projects, programs, and other related work, to achieve specific strategic business objectives.”  Conceptually, PPM is no new concept.  It has been around for years, but has especially blossomed alongside shared service centers like the Program Management Office and the recent trends of transforming IT organizations from cost centers to value centers.

The PPM Hierarchy 

At TSI, I’ve helped organizations understand its current state of PPM capabilities and
evolve using our PPM Maturity Hierarchy.  Beginning at the Level 1 “Infancy” stage (or whichever stage an organization currently sits), the objectives is to evolve the organization’s PPM capabilities to a Level 4 Optimization stage and beyond.

Level 1 – Infancy:  Organizations within the Infancy stage tend to manage projects in a reactive manner, singularly focusing on the execution of individual projects.  The organization often scrambles to stay on top of daily demands.  Work is captured on a project by project basis with little to no transparency of synergies and risks between projects. Project financials and risk is not monitored closely.

Level 2 – Emerging Discipline:  The Emerging Discipline stage replaces project by project decision making with identification of the best collection of projects. Organizations at this stage are successfully prioritize and align projects with strategic initiatives.

Level 3 – Initial Integration/Value Management:  Within the Initial Integration/Value Management stage, organizations are introducing technology, models and tools to quantify the value derived from projects.   This allows organizations to identify projects within the pipeline that provide the most “bang for your buck”.  Proactive, standardized PPM enables value driven decision making.

Level 4 – Optimization:  Once the Optimization stage is reached, the focus of an organization moves to maturing the PPM capabilities.  This involves a focus on optimizing process, analytics, quantitative metrics and improving value creation.

Level 5 – Innovation:  At the most advanced stage of PPM maturity, Innovation, PPM has full buy-in from executive leadership.  It is now a core competency of the organization that utilizes best practices and processes. The organization is now focusing its attention innovation and continuous improvement.

Is your organization looking to take the next step in Project and Portfolio Management?  Do you have questions on where to get started? If you’d like to brainstorm with one of TSI’s consultants, or have any questions on how we help organizations similar to yours, feel free to reach out to me directly at dfeely@transforming.com. You can also visit our website at transforming.com for more information.

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At one point in my career, I had a wonderful opportunity to speak at a global trade organization in Puerto Rico at their annual conference.  This organization is comprised of many engaged members, largely small and mid-sized business owners, many of whom started their businesses, and compete in an extremely competitive marketplace. Like many organizations, their customers range from extremely discerning and focused on high quality and service, to others who are highly price sensitive and view their services purely as a commodity.

So we titled this speech/workshop as “Defining Your Unfair Advantage” but it’s really about trying to answer a tough question:  What is truly unique about your organization?

As a background, TSI (transforming.com) is a growing consulting firm and like all companies that grow, at one point in our company’s life cycle, we were hitting a plateau.  So a few years back, we put a small advisory group – consisting of a few people both in and outside of the consulting industry.

One of our advisors asked me a basic, yet poignant question.  He asked, “Dan, what is TSI’s Unfair Advantage?”.   In other words, what are the most compelling 1-2 things that you do or you know that completely differentiates you?

So I began going through our services (albeit somewhat generically) – helping to improve a company’s efficiency…help them select technology to run their business more effectively.  And one of my advisors replied “Dan all kinds of companies do that”.

I’ll come back to TSI’s story in a minute, but the real point of this article is about you and your organization.

Understanding Your Unfair Advantage

If I was to ask you, “what is your company’s unfair advantage?”, how easy or hard would it be for you to come up with something unique?  Let me put you at ease – this is normal and it’s something that, just like we did, can be overcome by a little focused thought and work.

Keep in mind the following – a real unfair advantage has the following characteristics:

• Takes investment to define/try/refine;
• Can and should change over time;
• A well-defined and real unfair advantage is one that cannot easily be copied or bought. In other words, it truly creates an unfair advantage for your organization;
• Will likely require you to increase your performance (that may include process, technology or people) in meaningful ways AND includes how articulate your employees are at describing your organization.

Here are 4 great questions you can ponder to get started:

1. What is your organization really good at?
2. How does that compare to what your customers want/need?
3. What are your competitors good at and how does that compare to what you are good at, specifically in the context of what your customers want or need?
4. In parallel, think about this from a customer’s standpoint; are there other alternatives than what they have? This may include choosing not to do the work.

Ultimately this way of thinking is looking at the Value Proposition of your organization doing work that is perceived to be of value – this is the heart of your company’s service offering. Regardless of what industry you operate in, if any one of these dimensions is out of whack, then your business model is out of alignment.

Important Factors of Your Unfair Advantage (UA): 

So now the “nickel question” is, how can you move from defining your value proposition to carving out your organization’s Unfair Advantage?  That is definitely a great question.  At TSI, we see the UA as a function of:

Quality x Originality x Service x Convenience x Price

Therefore, in the context of your target customer segment(s) and your service offering, define the following (this is a great “homework” assignment):

• Quality – what is the quality of what you deliver? What should it be?
• Originality – how unique or different is what you offer compared to your competitors?
• Service – how do you deliver – are you punctual, polite, understandable? Also consider how comfortable your customers are working with you. Think of this as a sort of user interface for your customers.
• Convenience – how accessible are you? This can be defined by location, or your relationship to your customers.
• Price – how much do you charge and how do you charge it?

As you can probably guess, these questions are appropriate for those of you who might lead a department, such as; IT, Finance, HR, Admissions, or any other function.  How are you branding that service?  How should you and what will it take for you to live that brand?

TSI is a leading consulting firm based in the Chicago area.  We help our clients to transform; this includes the work to define key strategies and then bring them to life.

For more information on TSI’s transformation expertise, click here – https://transforming.com/services/business-transformation/

You can request more information about our service offerings by emailing us at tsi@transforming.com. To speak with TSI’s Managing Partner, you can reach him at 847-705-0960 x202, or via email at dfeely@transforming.com.

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By some estimates, over 20 million Americans are starting and operating new businesses. The good news is, these brave entrepreneurs can harness easy to use and economical cloud-based apps/tools like Salesforce, Workday, and NetSuite to enable important functions and activities like sales, finance and collaboration right out of the gate. For the start-ups that grow and survive, more sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software will be needed to support and control the business and better serve customers.

Some key signs that you may need to consider an ERP system include the inability to easily obtain critical information about your business from a multitude of separate applications and an increasingly difficult time producing reliable and timely financial results.

The Cloud has made it possible for companies as small as $1 million in sales to access ERP capabilities for a reasonable investment. But buyer beware, many ERP implementations still fail to deliver the needed capabilities on time and on budget.

As your business ascends the growth curve on its way to future stardom, here are 5 tips to significantly raise your odds of success when choosing and implementing an ERP system:

1. Be prepared – Define your core business processes and mission-critical business requirements before choosing a system. Understand how they will most likely change as you grow. You shouldn’t buy a new car without understanding your current and future needs and choosing ERP software should be no different.
2. Consider the Cloud and then consider it again – This advice applies to small and large companies alike. Gone are the days where you will need your own hardware, software and IT staff to maintain it all. The Cloud reduces your up-front investment, minimizes the number of support people you need to hire, and gives you the flexibility to migrate to better options much faster in the future.
3. Consider more than one Cloud application to meet your functional needs – The typical middle-market ERP implementation can include 3 or more Cloud-based applications. The good news is that  integration platforms such as Dell Boomi and Jitterbit make the integration of Cloud software easier than ever before. When sourcing project assistance, check to make sure your technology partners have recent integration experience and expertise.
4. Hire consultants to fill skill gaps and manage risk – This sounds self-serving but it’s not. I have been in more than one start-up and high growth company – there are many hats to wear and there never seems to be enough time to build systems and necessary capabilities. Furthermore, your expertise – product, R&D, raising capital, serving customers – is probably not designing, selecting and installing an ERP system. Software providers will offer their own implementation consultants or trusted integration partners to help get the job done. If you are going to spend over $100,000 for an ERP solution, consider part-time or full-time help from an independent consultant with no ties to the ERP software providers. Your ROI and peace of mind will make it a worthwhile investment. Click here to learn more about our technology assessment and strategy framework.
5. Fix your implementation fee and pay on milestones – Avoid time and materials based contracts. Back to the car shopping analogy, get at least three fixed price bids and insist on a warranty to cover major issues. As part of your fixed price contract, pay for completed work based on the quality of key deliverables and the attainment of major milestones (e.g., blueprint complete, acceptance testing done, go-live date met). Make sure the software vendor and any integration partners have skin in the game. Finally, a good consultant can help you negotiate the best price and service terms for all aspects of your ERP deal.

One thing is for sure, the technology world and ERP space will continue to rapidly evolve and change.

Following these tips will help assure your ultimate success and improve your ability to serve your customers. Contact TSI to discuss your specific needs and to learn more.

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Do you remember when you graduated from college? I’m guessing if we try really hard, we can remember all the way back then. Like you, I was filled with excitement and had so many questions after I graduated, ranging from what my first projects would entail to how soon I might be able to be promoted. While everything was new, naturally, all of us were filled beyond capacity with questions about nearly every aspect of that first “real” job.

However, sadly, over time, for many of us, this natural curiosity dissipates. In fact, within many organizations we are encouraged to “shut up and do our job” versus slowing activity down to ask clarifying questions.  This is unfortunate since that exact sense of wonder is exactly what so many organizations need to innovate, reinvent, remain relevant to customer and employees, and just stay ahead of the competition.

Over years of consulting and being involved in a number of diverse industries, I believe one of the best tools we have as business leaders, organizational change leaders and business analysts is asking a well-crafted question (and of course carefully listening to the response). Based on the response given, or the response you do NOT get, both verbally and non-verbally, this well-crafted question is one of the most valuable tools you have at your disposal and should be used on a daily basis.

At TSI, we’ve crafted a handful of questions that we use both internally and with our clients.  While some of these may seem basic, these questions have yielded insightful, poignant responses time and time again.  And based on this information, we’ve made remarkable progress in refining our clients’ strategic direction and even more so, in implementing key changes that make a difference for these organizations.

Here are 7 questions that we use with regularity. Some of these are intended for discussion with small groups and others are more appropriate for individuals. Regardless of the audience, feel free to leverage these for your own transformation needs and ask these questions with regularity, ranging from daily to monthly:

1. What specific organizational goals related to growth, quality, customer service, efficiency and profitability do you have that shape the context of how the organization, or parts of it, should improve?
2. What specific targets or metrics do you have for each of these goals?
3. What is your personal “brand” and what evidence do you provide that makes your brand apparent to those around you? How is this brand working for you?
4. What threats exist that you must address to be competitive and grow in the manner you are expecting?
5. What area in your organization operates in largely the same way as it has for the past 5 years or more? Does that hold it or other areas back?
6. What do your customers say your organization’s key overall strengths are? Relative to any differences in price, how “bullet proof” are your key customer relationships?  How differentiated is your product or offering?  How about your business model overall?
7. What is going well at your organization that you can possibly replicate in other areas?

On a different level, another tool that organizations find useful when they need to take a step back and see the forest through the trees is the Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas was proposed by Alexander Osterwalder based on his book: Business Model Ontology. Here is a link where you can create one for your organization.

This way of thinking, leveraging well thought out questions, has served TSI well over the years. Hopefully these questions will elicit valuable responses for you as well. Feel free to send us your favorite to tsi@transforming.com or post a comment.

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