We want to help you address the issues that may get in the way of your business success. Meet your problem solvers from Cincinnati who work to deliver an unmatched experience just for you while providing solutions to your business challenges.
While helping find solutions to our clients’ toughest problems, we’ve learned a thing or two. In this series, we share insights from our Cincinnati team of seasoned solvers on overcoming today’s business, technology, industry, and people-related challenges.
Business
Meet Your Problem Solver
Robert Sinkhorn | Practice Lead, Cincinnati | Business Consulting Services
THE BUSINESS PROBLEM
Leadership isn’t getting any easier. Our client leaders and teams are under immense pressure to innovate and scale their businesses. Their operating models are under assault daily. Emerging capabilities continue to blur the lines between B2B, B2C, and employee experiences, requiring leaders to move quickly just to keep up.
That said, innovating an operating model isn’t for the faint of heart, and it really demands focused time and effort. Sadly, the noisy, day-to-day business often gets in the way of spending the intentional time to think holistically about strategy and operating model innovations.
All too often, leaders rush their well-intended changes, and the desired outcomes fall short, costing them creditability in the eyes of the customers and team. This cycle is conditioning some leaders to not drive for innovations but rather focus on tactical thinking rather than the needed innovations to unlock scale. The good news is there is a way to change this pattern and break this cycle.
OUR INSIGHT
A recent client experience with a fast-growing services organization started with helping the client think holistically through the critical elements of their operating model that influence performance.
By understanding elements like market dynamics, stakeholder experiences, and business outcomes from outside in and inside out, organizations can assess their today and envision a differentiated tomorrow. These insights and the dialogue that flows from this work often lead to further discovery about how people, processes, structure, metrics, data, and technology should operate to maximize an organization’s potential. It is through this lens that companies can achieve innovation and scale.
In our client’s case, the sponsor felt the enterprise was stuck in a pattern of incremental improvements. Using a series of conversations, we engaged cross-functional stakeholders and identified several step-change opportunities. We selected a pilot area and partnered to demonstrate how quickly innovation can occur.
In a matter of weeks, we innovated their existing operating practices using new processes and analytical tools. We shortened cycle times by 75 percent, reduced processing times by 55 percent, and improved controls, all while accelerating visibility to key information. This approach allowed us to help them think differently while showing how to quickly innovate and unlock scale across the enterprise.
Technology
Meet Your Problem Solver
Matt Gordon | Senior Architect, Cincinnati | Data & Analytics
THE TECH PROBLEM
A common challenge I see is that there is so much available in the cloud that clients simply aren’t aware of — they don’t know everything they can do in this space. I don’t know if that’s a challenge per se, but there’s a lot of, “Gee, I wish there was a way to do X.” We know how to get “X” done and can expose them to those new methods and tools.
Our clients have important day jobs keeping their company’s processes working, so they need help keeping up with current technology and how to use it. Even for those of us who keep up with the changes day-to-day, it’s difficult. But for people in data and analytics who don’t purely focus on all cloud providers or what other technology providers are doing, it’s basically impossible.
They want to do certain tasks but aren’t aware of all the existing tools. Alternatively, they know what they can do, but their teams are not progressing toward their set goal.
OUR INSIGHT
We recommend you read a lot and lean on colleagues, peers and partners who work with technology day in and day out to help educate you on what exists.
For example, when visiting a client in Cincinnati, I was able to share information that wasn’t public knowledge yet about certain Microsoft products – with permission, of course! That new information impacted their internal roadmap in a meaningful, positive way. As one of nearly 400 Microsoft Data Platform MVPs in the world, I have behind-the-scenes access to Microsoft’s product roadmap and features. While strict non-disclosure agreements prohibit me from sharing everything I know, once I’m cleared to do so, I can relay what’s coming in the Azure data space, usually four to six months in advance.
A technology that’s getting a lot of attention right now – which you will want to embrace – is artificial intelligence (AI). But while everybody is now learning how to leverage this technology, some of us were there years ago. Turn to the existing information and books on AI to quickly figure out how it will impact your business and employees, putting you at a huge advantage over competitors who haven’t done so.
People
Meet Your Problem Solver
Jessica Jones | Senior Manager, Cincinnati | Merger and Acquisition Integration and Program Management
THE PEOPLE PROBLEM
Many of our clients excel in their day-to-day business operations but encounter difficulties when it comes to integrating acquired companies. This lack of experience and know-how can hinder the smooth transition of operations, leading to potential setbacks and missed opportunities.
OUR INSIGHT
For instance, a technology industry client sought our assistance in preparation for day one, executing key pre-closing activities, and creating a comprehensive after-day-one integration plan.
They weren’t sure how to keep both businesses running seamlessly while aligning the newly acquired company with their existing operations. That required understanding the client’s team, industry, and overall objectives for the acquisition to establish the appropriate structures to enable effective decision making and ensure the companies holistically and thoroughly managed any risks and issues.
We recommended establishing lines of communication and escalation paths to ensure they could address obstacles as quickly as possible – and establishing a roadmap to achieve those goals.
As the economy continues to evolve, we expect mergers and acquisitions to increase, but when leaders and teams come together with unified goals and have the right structures in place, they will meet (or beat) their goals and find success every time.
Industry
Meet Your Problem Solver
Matt Cotter | Partner and Director, Cincinnati-Louisville Business Unit | Lead, National Financial Services Industry Vertical
THE INDUSTRY PROBLEM
Adopting modern technology and tools continues to be a challenge within the financial services and payments industry. Those of us in the industry see many kinds of applications popping up, emerging payment technologies coming out, and legacy mainframe systems moving to the cloud.
While a lot of organizations do have cloud strategies, adopting those – while still maintaining a positive customer experience and focus and making sure they meet customer expectations – continues to be a challenge. These processes need to be seamless, enabling an omnichannel experience for customers, no matter where an organization is in executing those strategies.
When you look at both payments and banking right now – from a customer convenience perspective – a lot of advancement comes from the areas of real-time payments and embedded payments in different applications or solutions. This is contributing to disruption and a change in customer demands.
OUR INSIGHT
Organizations must modernize their banking and payment technologies, gateways and overall processes so their customers can easily leverage and connect for a better user experience. They must also adopt those infrastructures and enable change in the organization to make sure the employees or organizations know what modern technology is and its benefits of providing an omnichannel and seamless experience for the customer.
Start by defining the strategy and execution approach to modernize the organization. To ensure a seamless and integrated approach, you must consider all angles: the strategy lens, the people and change lens, the modern technology lens, and the customer experience lens. By applying all these perspectives, you can ensure your organization meets and exceeds customer needs, employees are excited about and adopt new technology, and new processes help employees work more efficiently.
We partnered with Pharma Logistics to improve their technology and business processes, increasing fulfillment center processor throughput by 98 percent.