News Articles and Blog Posts

Transforming a PMO and Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Dan Feely — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 21:59:39 +0000

Business Challenge

Transforming Solutions Inc. (TSI), was engaged by a Southwest University Health Science Center to create an organizational culture of continuous improvement. As background, the institution is one of the nation’s premier graduate academic medical centers, with five schools that specialize in patient-centered education, research and health care. They are part of the University system.

Spearheaded by the Chief People Officer, the University sought to explore new ways to address problems and continuously improve through guidance and training to transform the institution into one that embraces LEAN and Agile in an employee-centric and pragmatic way.

Starting with pockets of exposure to Agile and LEAN methodologies, the University wanted TSI to help the overall organization take this, along with other cultural attributes (such as their vision, mission and values) and transform the culture to improve quality and gain efficiencies.

TSI’s Approach and Role

Approach

To accomplish the identified goals, TSI engaged in the following:

In the initial phase, the University sought to develop and prioritize processes for improvement and initial process improvement implementation for critical need areas to help build a business case with proven effectiveness and value for further buyin. This work intended to implement and share best practices and training with internal LEAN coaches and key stakeholders for process improvement, establish a usable, sustainable communication plan, evaluate improvements through metrics, and estimate return on investment for the improvement initiatives.
In the second phase, TSI was asked to develop a Continuous Improvement methodology to be shared with University staff through training with follow up coaching. This methodology was intended to be sustainable and usable for improvement initiatives across the University.

TSI collaborated with the University Leadership Team to identify and prioritize business processes to implement a practice-based training and mentoring program to enhance LEAN and Agile understanding and development of implementation skills. TSI created a training program for continuous improvement and led a cohort of leaders through process improvement methodology using processes that were identified as critical processes including Budgets, Contract Administration, HR Hiring, and the University Leadership as a pilot. Once the pilot was complete, phase two was implemented that provided full training and mentoring to the cohort for implementation of business process improvement and other continuous improvement strategies throughout the University Health Center and coaching for growth and development for future Continuous Improvement sustainability at the University.

Role

TSI served as a methodologist, project manager, continuous improvement leader, trainer, coach, and facilitator throughout this project. TSI provided and tailored its methodology as the basis for the methodology that is currently in place. After that, TSI evaluated trainees and quality of deliverables after they were trained and did a variety of “hands on” activities to get familiar with the tools.

Results

This project was viewed as a huge success. Based on TSI’s involvement the University achieved the following:

Developed and used a repeatable methodology to use on areas deemed “ripe for improvement”
Took dozens of areas through the methodology which resulted in hundreds of improvement ideas implemented
Trained over a dozen practitioners thus improving their skillsets
Realized tangible savings, from the improvement ideas mentioned above, that resulted in hard dollar savings of over $1 million dollars annually.

The post Transforming a PMO and Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Jim Gallo: A Moment of Silence for the Death of Office Space…or Maybe Not

Admin Account — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:00:00 +0000

For today’s #TransformationTuesday we are mixing it up. Jim Gallo, our first Guest Contributor, is sharing about all things office space vs. remote work, employees’ reactions, and the question we’ve all been asking…”Will we return to the office full-time?”

Jim Gallo is a Managing Partner at Gallo Associates, LLC. He is also a long-time friend and partner with Transforming Solutions.

Our Guest Contributor series aims to focus on new voices, new perspectives, and new stories of success. If you are interested in sharing your perspective or a story, please contact us.

Every morning, you can watch CNBC or any business channel and hear the constant drumbeat of the demise of office space. Offices are vacant, employees are at home, video meetings are all the rage, and not only do employees no longer have to sit in the morning rush hour, but they also don’t even have to buy new clothes or iron their shirts. Who could see wrinkles when just your face is on the screen? What could be better?

Each week for the last 15 months, the news outlets are reporting that companies in Chicago and other big cities will reduce their office counts by two-thirds. Rents will plummet. REITS will go broke, and office space is dead…

Well, probably not. It’s not time to back up the hearse just yet – and probably never will be. That’s because many companies are calling all their employees back – some quicker than others. But sooner or later, they want them back.

In an interview with Jamie Dimon, Chairman, and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, there is no human bonding when employees are working from home. He said,

[Working from home] “doesn’t work for people who want to hustle, doesn’t work for culture, doesn’t work for idea generation. By September it will look just like it did before,” Dimon said at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council event last month. “We are getting blowback about coming back internally, but that’s life.”

Why Employees Like Working from Home (as Opposed to the Office)

I’ve spent a lot of hours behind the wheel in rush hour traffic, and there were times when it was at least three hours of my day. Working from home seems pretty appealing. I can sleep in, get out of the shower and dressed and join a 9:00 am Zoom call while my hair is still wet and no one would know. At 6:00 when the day is done, I wouldn’t have to rush home to catch my kids’ soccer games because I’ll be able to take them to the games. In addition to all that, I save gas money, put fewer miles on my car, have fewer maintenance costs, and it just gets better. Or does it?

What’s Not To Like?

Many employees are simply better employees when in an office environment.

This one is true for me. Many workers are more efficient, more diligent, and they are not easily distracted when in the office. But move them to work from home and there is no shortage of things to take them away from the desk. Go in the kitchen and grab a snack. Pet the dog, feed the dog and walk the dog. Check social media. Throw the wet load of clothes in the dryer. And on it goes…

Working from home can be a lonely experience.

Most humans feed off the energy of others. Many have set up offices in their basements and they’re “down there” in solitude trying to stay alert, and productive. It’s difficult.

Conversely, many people thrive in a collaborative work environment.

When brainstorming or problem solving, it’s much quicker to get up and walk into the office next to yours than it is to send an email arranging a Zoom call. And people who feed off of others excel when they see better positive body language and facial expressions.

When we go into an office, we can talk sports, we can talk weather, we can talk politics (or at least we used to). But most importantly, we can easily collaborate and brainstorm on ideas or problems in search of a solution. There are certain occupations where being by yourself is not the optimal way to get things done. In creative fields like marketing and advertising, can you imagine someone trying to come up with an ad campaign all by themselves? Of course not.

You may feel like you never get away from work.

Many studies have shown people are more productive at home. What they omit is, if they’re not commuting three hours a day, are they working those three hours? And is that a good thing? Many employees report they work eight-hour days or more, but it takes them sixteen hours to do it. Moreover, because you never get away from work, you have little work life-personal life boundaries. One of the nice things about going to work is leaving work because then your day is done.

On-Boarding new employees is especially difficult.

It’s very difficult to train someone on their job when you’re not face-to-face. New employees may have trouble grasping certain tasks and can spend (or waste) hours trying to solve them. They don’t know who to call or even how to reach them. So they’re at home, feeling pressure to be productive, and wait for help. This was one of Dimon’s main points: new employees have trouble or may never bond with a boss or peer, have no one to help build morale, no one to go to lunch or drinks after work, and in the end, nothing that mentally attaches them to the company. The net effect is the company will see higher turnover as new employees haven’t grown roots.

Many managers can’t manage what they can’t see.

It may sound old school but many managers simply don’t trust workers if they can’t see them. In a recent non-scientific survey of tech workers by Blind Blog, more than seventy percent of the respondents said they work six hours or less on an average day, more than 40 percent said they work less than four.

Maybe go Hybrid: A Mix of Office and WFH

Some companies are attempting a happy medium where workers come in 2-3 days per week. The theory is companies will reduce their office space. Employees, instead of going to their office every day, will come in two or three days a week and simply take any empty office. While this seems like a possible scenario, it seems wrought with pitfalls. If you’re working on a team, and some of the team members come back the next day while others stay home, the lack of continuity is going impede progress. In addition, you’ll have employees jockeying for the best window office. Employees will have no office to call their “home away from home.” No family pictures. No Feng Shui. Nothing. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like someone sitting at my desk.

One recent projection for office occupancy by Moody’s estimates offices will return to their 2019 occupancy rate by 2026. I’m betting much sooner.

About the Author

Jim Gallo is a Managing Partner at Gallo Associates, LLC. and a long-time friend and partner with Transforming Solutions. Connect with Jim on LinkedIn.

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Planning for a Better 2018

Dan Feely — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 16:29:37 +0000

What’s on your project horizon?

Please give a warm welcome to Senior Managing Director, Alan Goeke, as he joins the TSI team!

Al comes to TSI with over 35 years of experience with three leading software vendors and ran Operations, including IT for multiple fast-growing, for-profit companies. Mr. Goeke will help TSI’s clients to make the best, business-centric and technology-savvy decisions to help their organization continue to scale. Al will be wearing both a business development and a client-solution delivery hat at TSI, with a focus on growing TSI, as well as our client organizations in 2018 and beyond.

Visit our website to read more about Al, and the rest of The Experienced TSI Team, or reach him directly at agoeke@transforming.com, or by phone at (847) 705-0960 x205!

Planning for 2018?

We understand both the financial and operational pressures that come to life around the end of the year. It’s important to not only plan your projects for 2018, but know who’s going to help you drive results. What are you planning for 2018, and how can we help?

Check out our Service Offerings, and connect with TSI’s President and Managing Partner, Dan Feely, at dfeely@transforming.com to schedule a call!

TSI’s Fantastic Finds – articles and content we want to share with you!

The holiday season is upon us; where did 2017 go!? Whether you’re planning 2018’s most challenging projects, or predicting your next BIG change, here are some interesting reads we’ve found lately that you might benefit from. See below, and contact us via tsi@transforming.com if you enjoy this content!

On reinvention, redirection, and determining your their next move, read – How Intuit Reinvents Itself;

“Since its founding, Intuit has done what every company today must learn to do,

disrupting itself continuously, reinventing its products and its business model before

any competitor can beat it to it.” (Colvin, 2017)

Editor’s Pick – Why Memory Is Your Most Powerful Tool For Building Customer Relationships – Forbes’ Contributor, My Say

Some Quick Hits on what to consider when retaining interactions and data from customers

and prospects:

What data sources are you putting into memory?
How quickly is that data available for processing?
How well do you connect those things to create a single view of the customer?

The post Planning for a Better 2018 appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

TSI’s Customer Experience and Student Experience Articles, Training Workshops, and our Newest Team Member!

Dan Feely — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 16:00:17 +0000

Are You REALLY Enhancing Your Customer Experience (CX) To Create an Unfair Advantage For You? Or For Your Competition?

According to Gartner, “89% of companies surveyed plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience by 2016”. According to Oracle, the percentage is even higher. Regardless, few professionals would argue that
the emphasis on an organization’s Customer Experience, (i.e., CX is the product of an interaction, including the resulting perceptions, between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship) is not simply a fad, but an important tool to achieve what industry leaders like Seth Godin and Clay Hebert (among many others), recommend to connect to those vital to that organization. As Ian Altman says in Forbes: “it has become clear that we are in a Connection Economy. “

As we say at TSI, “the Customer Experience is the glue to make the connections come to life.”

CLICK HERE to read the full article from TSI’s President and Founder, Dan Feely!

TSI also has a fantastic relationship with Illinois Technology Association (ITA). In fact, this exact article was recently published in their Member Blog!

Customer Service in Higher Education

What are the Pros and Cons of Viewing Students, Alumni or Donors as Customers?

The topic of whether universities and colleges should view their students, alumni and donors (Constituents) like customers is a debate that has been taking place for many years. Recently, TSI has noticed this debate is occurring with increasing frequency, especially in light of our recent Customer Experience training.

Now more than ever seems to be the right time to continue the discussion of how to best utilize customer service/experience philosophies when working with Higher Education constituents.

CLICK HERE to read the full article from TSI’s Manager of Client Solutions, Jeff Wyatt!

Upcoming Workshops in 2017; Customer Experience and Higher Education Student Experience

Our next training workshops will take place in September, 2017!

Coinciding with our Process Improvement service offering, TSI’s team also specializes in Customer Experience and Student Experience training for industry leaders. Since our last Customer Experience training workshop took place in February, we’ve received some fantastic feedback from attendees.

Whether you’ve attended our events in the past and would like to expand on your knowledge base, or you’re a first-timer, let us know if you or your colleagues are interested in a quick and sound walkthrough of CX (or SX) fundamentals, so we can:

Teach you to map your current customer (or student) experience so that you can see how your organization operates through the eyes of your stakeholders without your internal bias and rationalizations;
Give you actual tools and templates to define and analyze YOUR CUSTOMER’S or STUDENT’S EXPERIENCE using our CX and/or SX analysis frameworks.
Guide you to create your desired vision, or a future-state experience so that you can create clear differentiation in the marketplace;
Help you envision what this “unfair advantage” can look like to create a contextual basis for your organization, and;
Determine how to implement this future state for your organization.

Upcoming Event Info:

September 20, 2017 – TSI’s Customer Experience training workshop.
September 27, 2017 – TSI’s Higher Education Student Experience training workshop.

Stay tuned for more updates, as we continue to plan these events.

For early access to tickets, simply send an e-mail to tsi@transforming.com with the subject line “Experience”!

TSI’s Newest Addition – Jessica Schein

Higher Education Business/Program Analyst

Jessica joined the TSI team in 2017 specializing in higher education. She’s currently a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University in the Department of Higher Education Administration. Prior to joining the TSI team, Jessica worked as an independent consultant with a range of post-secondary education providers including research universities, bootcamps, and edtech start-ups. Jessica has a M.S. in Molecular Biology and six years of experience in both scientific and social science research.

Jessica has four years of experience working in molecular biology research and authored several publications in various peer-reviewed journals. She spent two years working as a Research Assistant with the Center for the Integration of Research Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), a National Science Foundation-funded network of research universities aimed at improving undergraduate STEM education. She has presented her work with the CIRTL Network at national conferences and published papers in peer-reviewed higher education journals.

To read more about Jessica and the rest of TSI’s team of expert consultants, CLICK HERE!

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TSI Service Offering Announcement & Customer Experience (CX) Training Updates

Dan Feely — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 17:25:36 +0000

“Raise the BAR” with TSI’s Business Advisory Retainer Services (BAR)

What would you do with one free day of expert consulting assistance?

What if you had immediate access to top notch external business and technical talent? What would you have them do? Would you have them…

Conduct a health check on a key project?
Facilitate a process improvement session to address nagging performance issues?
Perform a walk through at a site or store to identify opportunities for improvement?
Interview customers, suppliers or employees to obtain critical feedback?
Analyze working capital or operating expenses for cash flow improvement opportunities?
Facilitate a key meeting or session?
Test internal controls?
Cycle count inventory?
Gather independent research to support a product launch or key business strategy?
Participate on a special project?

TSI has developed its Business Advisory Retainer Services (BAR) to assist organizations like yours, especially start-ups and high-growth companies, get the talent and help they need for a fraction of the cost of full time resources. To request a free day of assistance* and learn more about how you can “Raise the BAR,” visit our Business Advisory Retainer Services page, or contact TSI at tsi@transforming.com.

*Free day of assistance subject to capacity and availability of TSI resources

Customer

Experience

Madness

(A Customer Experience (CX) Update) from Dan Feely

TSI held its first CX Training workshop of 2017 on February 15th, downtown Chicago, with some highly-engaged senior leaders from financial services, high technology, construction services and higher education sectors. The diversity of participants added to the discussions as we had a chance to learn new CX analysis tools, and apply these tools in a manner that will have an impact on each of these organizations.

Here are some interesting takeaways from our day together:

Many organizations confuse CX with simply having some type of a rewards or loyalty program
At times, too much emphasis is placed on the digital aspect of a CX (or looking only at the UX – user experience when using a website or application)
Organizations see real value and benefit in pursuing CX in a very intentional manner; in fact, many feel that this can be a significant differentiator in their industry
Participants do NOT feel that this is a trend that only pertains to retail or hospitality
Some have some done some rudimentary journey mapping; others are using TSI’s tools as their first attempt at CX improvement
Most on concerned with the impact this work will have on their culture and how culture may need to change to enable a better CX.

According to Gartner, CX Management is “Customer experience management is the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions.” Beyond TSI’s research and training workshop, we continue to monitor a variety of good sources of research for updates in this area. Here are a few for you to check out:

“Do You Really Want to Create a Frictionless Customer Experience?” By Adrian Swinscoe
“Customers Don’t Buy Products and Services – They Buy Experiences” By Ross Beard

If you have come across some insightful research or whitepapers, please share them with us and we will include it in our next newsletter.

Lastly, back to CX training, TSI plans to hold our One-day CX training workshop every three months. If you are interested in one of our upcoming workshops in May, August or November, please contact us at TSI@transforming.com, or visit our Customer Experience and Process Improvement page for more information.

Here Come the Digital Employees – 5 Things you Should Know About Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA has created quite a stir recently in terms of the potential impact on real people and their jobs. McKinsey estimates that 49% of time spent on work activities, or the equivalent of 1.1 billion jobs, could be automated using current technology. Forrester predicts that by 2019, “one-quarter of all job tasks will be offloaded to software robots, physical robots, or customer self-service automation.”

What does this all mean for workers and companies who want to thrive and stay competitive?

Visit our website to read more about Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

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TSI’s Latest Updates – Customer Experience Updates and More!

Dan Feely — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 18:30:28 +0000

New and Improved (and discounted) Customer Experience (CX) Training

Improving your customer’s experience is one of the best improvements you can make this year. You’ve probably read some of the recent research (see below).

We’ve been generating our own buzz lately around our CX Training Workshop that we’ve made some of our own improvements to.

TSI will be leading a full-day Customer Experience (CX) training workshop on February 15, 2017.

You will leave this work session:

1. Thinking differently about your customers/students/constituents;

2. Understanding what your customers go through;

3. Knowing how to use a tool to define the current customer experience

4. Analyzing the Moments that Matter

5. Creating an experience that gives your organization an “unfair advantage”

If you are in an industry where the experience that a customer has when they receive a quote or proposal, make an order, receive that order, or pay for the order occasionally requires “customer service”, this workshop is for you.

We have reduced our price from $525 per ticket to $375. This is now our standard ticket price, but you can also take advantage of a promotional discount (referenced below) if you have multiple people from your organization you’d like to attend.

Click here to sign up

Promotion: If you, or someone from your organization would like send 2 or more team members to our fantastic event, be sure to reach out to us at tsi@transforming.com, and we will give you a discount code in return!

We hope to see you there and we are certain you will become a CX zealot!

Related (and Updated) Customer Experience (CX) Articles

Whether you provide products or services to your customers, it is critical to spend time evaluating the experiences your customers go through when working with your organization. We call these “Moments That Matter”.

It is more important than ever to understand what bottom line value that a great CX can mean for an organization. But ask yourself, how prevalent is this thought process in your department? What about your company in general? Is it part of your culture?

See the short list below for a few of TSI’s recent article finds, which we think you’ll benefit from perusing:

Our first article comes from all the way back in 2014, (I know, that seems like ages ago) when Forbes contributor, Martin Zwilling, published an article titled: ‘Customer Experience’ Is Today’s Business Benchmark.

Our favorite tips from Mr. Zwilling are:

Listen to the individual customer.
Exploit your product and service differences.
Demonstrate the value of your offering.
Show your passion and creativity in every solution.
Demonstrate your personal commitment.

Much more recently, however, another Forbes contributor, Blake Morgan, wrote an article titled: Five Trends Shaping The Future of Customer Experience In 2017. Morgan took a different, more modernized approach at looking at customer experience. The five trends “shaping the future” in her eyes are:

A whole lot of IoT.
Machine learning can improve most customer experience.
Data defines your customer experience.
Smart diagnostics.
Mobile everything.

Our point is not to say that either of these lists is the “correct” list, but rather to demonstrate the ever-evolving realm of customer experience. From our work in Customer Experience, here are a few of our trends:

Far more people are simply talking about CX, rather than actually doing something about it.
Organizations seem to be taking a piecemeal approach to CX.
Some are simply addressing this in Customer Services as opposed to looking at processes on the business development side of the organization.

Lastly, we also wanted to bring to your attention an article written by Dan Feely, TSI’s Founder and President, who recently published a CX focused article titled: Why a Positively Memorable Customer Experience (CX) Matters.

If you enjoy reading insights like these from TSI, please consider following our website and Social media accounts for more updates in 2017 and beyond.

Transforming in 2017: What’s on Your Horizon?

TSI’s expert consultants have authored a number of Whitepapers, tailored around our service offerings, to help our customers and clients assess their organization’s needs.

Before diving into what we have available, ask yourself the following critical questions around your current or planned technology initiatives/implementations:

Are you undergoing any major technology or process focused changes in your organization?
Are your technology platforms (e.g., ERP, CRM, other) still serving their intended, and value-added purpose?
Are you striving to improve your own CX or efficiency?
Do you have complex projects or programs with an important change management dimension?

Opportunities like these are TSI’s “sweet spot”. Our experienced consultants, utilizing our proven methodologies, help our client’s project tremendously.

If any (or all) of these questions seemed to hit home with you, you can read more of TSI’s insights through our Whitepapers page, or Contact Us to speak with a member of the TSI team.

The post TSI’s Latest Updates – Customer Experience Updates and More! appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

TSI Insights – All About Customer Experience and Change Readiness

Dan Feely — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 15:38:03 +0000

Trending Customer Experience (CX) Articles

Recently, there have been some amazing articles highlighting the value of taking a fresh look at what YOUR customers experience when working with your company and what bottom line value that a great CX can mean for an organization.

See the short list below for a few of our recent favorites:

TSI’s Founder and Managing Partner, Dan Feely, recently published a CX focused article titled: Why a Positively Memorable Customer Experience (CX) Matters
Late last month, Forbes published an insightful article involving 2017 trends in customer experience and service, titled: Millennial Customers Will Dominate In 2017. Is Your Customer Service Experience Ready For Them?
Another great article focused on customer experience, with excellent info from Forbes contributor Shep Hyken, titled: Ten Customer Service And Customer Experience Trends For 2017

New, Improved (and discounted) Customer Experience (CX) Training

As we have been announcing our CX training workshop (that we are completely excited about), rather than splitting this up across 2 days, we have consolidated this to one full day and have discounted the price for this.

If you (or someone at your organization) is wondering “what is all the buzz about CX?,” or you feel like you need to learn how to take a fresh look at your organization and how you can differentiate your company by defining an amazing customer experience, THIS IS FOR YOU.

The workshop will be held at Tech Nexus, which is located at 20 N. Upper Wacker Dr. in Chicago, IL in Suite 1200, in Conference Rooms C & D.

Click Here to visit our Eventbrite page, and sign up to guarantee your attendance at this great event.

Specific event details can be found in TSI’s latest blog, as well as on our Customer Experience Training page. If you have any further questions, you can reach Dan directly at dfeely@transforming.com or (847) 705-0960 x202.

2017 Change Readiness – Free Survey

With new programs and change initiatives getting launched, perhaps it is time to see how ready your team or organization is to change.

Although change is part of the process to any one of TSI’s projects, effective change management requires understanding your organization’s needs and resources to meet your business objectives.

TSI’s Free Change Readiness Assessment is one of our most popular links. You can use it (and share the results amongst your team) to see how ready you really are to make organizational changes stick.

Click here to take our Change Readiness Assessment. You can also schedule an appointment to discuss your results, or business needs with one of TSI’s expert consultants, by e-mailing us at tsi@transforming.com.

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TSI Newsletter – Positively Memorable Customer Experience; Shared Services Optimization; Future Technology Disrupters for 2017 and Beyond

Dan Feely — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 21:01:47 +0000

Why a Positively Memorable Customer Experience (CX) Matters

A positively memorable Customer Experience can mean the difference between retaining a customer for years to come, or losing them forever due to issues that may have been easily overlooked. Click Here to read more of Dan Feely’s latest blog on this exact topic.

Our events’ details can be found in Dan’s latest blog, as well as on our Customer Experience Training page. If you have any further questions, you can reach Dan directly at dfeely@transforming.com or (847) 705-0960 x202.

Five Critical Success Factors for Shared Services Optimization

Over the last couple of decades, organizations have made significant progress utilizing shared services and outsourcing to optimize and improve performance. Over this time period and even in a more accelerated manner in the past 5 years, Shared Service Centers (SSCs) have tended to become more global, multi-functional, virtual and cross-organizational (i.e., operated by more than one entity/business partner) … Click Here to read more.

Top Three Future Technology Disrupters for 2017 and Beyond

We live in fascinating times, where the pace of change and innovation never slows down and continues to accelerate and disrupt our world in ways we couldn’t imagine a short decade ago. It is only fitting as 2016 comes to an end, that I share my Top 3 Future Technology Disrupters … Click Here to read more.

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TSI Newsletter – Upcoming Customer Experience Training, Creating an Unfair Advantage, and Project and Portfolio Management

Dan Feely — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:11:08 +0000

Upcoming Events – Customer Experience (CX) Training Workshops:

Are you curious about:

Where are you having customer retention problems?
In what scenarios are you dissatisfying customers? Why is this occurring?
Is there a pattern when you are wowing your customers?

Join TSI – Transforming Solutions, Inc. for our upcoming Customer Experience (CX) training seminar and workshop in Chicago!

This workshop is broken down into 2 parts, described below. You will benefit the most by attending both of these (and we’ve discounted the price of the second workshop to entire you to attend both).

Each workshop will provide an outstanding basis for you to take an objective look at what your customers, clients and/or accounts experience when they work with your organization. And, you will learn key fundamentals to create an experience that provides a differentiated experience that builds loyalty and satisfaction with your customers.

The workshop will allocate time to begin using the tools and apply what you’ve learned to your organization.

Event Details:

Session 1 – Understanding and Analyzing Your Current Customer Experience –

Click Here to sign up for our first upcoming event on Jan. 18, 2017!

Session 2 – Designing and Implementing a Customer Experience that Creates a Competitive Advantage –

Click Here to sign up for our second upcoming event on Feb. 15, 2017!

Important – This is the 2nd of TSI’s Two Sessions. It is essential to complete TSI’s 1st Session on January, 18, 2017.

Each event has a limit of 25 participants, so sign up before time runs out!

What is YOUR Organizations Unfair Advantage? Where Do You Begin?

Regardless of what your position is in your industry, or what industry you operate in, every organization needs to craft and refine their unfair advantage. In order to maintain a competitive edge, as well as attract (and retain) as many customers as possible, there has to be a reason as to why customers would choose your product or service over that of your competitors… Click here to read more

Project and Portfolio Management – The Evolution

Early on, I was conditioned to learn project management independently and in its most simplistic form; to ensure delivery of a project(s) on-time, under budget, and within quality levels satisfactory of its stakeholders and sponsors…

Click here to read more

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TSI Newsletter – QuickBooks, Customer Experience, and Staying Sharp

Dan Feely — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 23:50:15 +0000

Outgrowing QuickBooks Software – Next Steps in Technology Strategy:

TSI is a management consulting firm that has led the charge on many technology strategy initiatives over our 20+ year lifespan. We are based out of the Chicagoland area, but we assist growth-oriented organizations across the country that may be now, or have already outgrown their current QuickBooks package or “starter system”… Read More

Mapping Your Customer Experience – Updated:

During our most recent newsletter we shared information about an Upcoming Customer Experience (CX) training workshop we are planning. In case you missed this, our intent is to provide you with tools and an approach to design an efficient, differentiated experience for your customers that creats an unfair advantage for your organization.

When you reflect on it, when was the last time that you detailed, mapped, illustrated or even described what your customers actually experience when they work with your organization? Is it an experience that is so amazing they are loyal, committed advocates and promote you by name?

Since TSI has been helping our clients in this area for years, our vision is to create a series of short, but effective in-person workshops that, in a highly interactive manner: 1. Help you envision what this “unfair advantage” can look like to create a contextual basis for your company 2. Teach you to map your current customer experience and analyze this using our CX analysis framework 3. Guide you to create your desired vision and decide how to implement it.

These will be the same tools and techniques that TSI consultants use on our projects in this area. We will be scheduling these workshops in Chicago very soon. If interested, provide your contact information and we will keep you informed when this is scheduled. Click Here

Staying Sharp:

TSI has several excellent sources of research and case studies:

Click here for the link to our Case Studies page, the most recent of which discusses a recent cloud ERP selection and 100 day implementation that TSI led on behalf of a Start-up Biotechnology company.

The post TSI Newsletter – QuickBooks, Customer Experience, and Staying Sharp appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..