3 July U.K. based energy company entered North America July 3, 2024 By Administrator Account Project Management Ideas 0 The Situation: A U.K. based energy company entered North America and was not able to support it's product and customer growth plans with the existing Call Centre and Data Centre Infrastructure. The forecast call volume for sales and billing could not be supported. The Intervention: Working with the head of IT and head of Call Centre, Stephen developed a business case based on current operational statistics, growth forecasts, and measurable success objectives. After some negotiation, the executive team approved a hi-level scope, budget and schedule. A key success factor was the establishment of a structure and process for executive updates on escalated issues and decision making. Stephen went to work within the organization recruiting key project leads in Operations, IT, Human Resources, Facilities and Legal. Build out of Contact Centre capacity would be a seminal initiative. Therefore tried and true Project Management processes were used such as Work breakdown planning, task sequencing, cost estimates, and assignment individual accountability for various activities. A critical turning point in the project was the finding that the customer service applications were likely to be a significant bottleneck in increasing capacity. What began as a simple exercise to itemize the various applications lead to the acceleration of a future project to build an Enterprise grade North American Data Centre. A critical success factor identified was retention of existing contact center staff and recruitment for the new center. Contact Centre staffing has high turnover so it became critical to start and early and engaging communication plan for existing employees and develop support for the transition such as researching solutions for transportation and child care. The Result: The opening day was a massive success of readiness. The backup plan was to stop or slow the migration of agents from the old to new location if glitches arose, but instead, the migration was accelerated as soon as word got around about the well-designed office space, the inbound call queue/routing system, and the improved responsiveness of the customer information systems. Service capacity for inbound and outbound calls was increased 3x. Customer impact (measured in wait times and first call resolution) during the cutover was very low. The project finished on schedule and slightly under the $6 million budget. Related Articles AI Trends in Energy - Executive 1-pager AI Trends in Energy and Climate Introduction While the focus of this article is on AI trends, it is important to note that other significant non-AI developments are driving many of the changes in the field. Solar Energy: New photovoltaic materials and solar panel design. Nuclear Power: Developments in fusion technology and small modular reactors. Hydrogen Fuel Source: Advanced techniques to reduce production costs and explore new sources. Bioenergy: Use of materials like hemp and algae for biofuel. Emerging Energy Forms: Commercial viability of wave and tidal power, and energy solutions mimicking photosynthesis. Innovations and Trends Optimization: By analyzing data from real-time sensors, AI algorithms can identify patterns and anomalies for opportunities to adjust energy use in manufacturing processes and other business operations. Forecasting: Utility companies and energy suppliers who need to balance supply with demand effectively will use AI, such as Machine Learning, to integrate and manage load distribution and energy storage. Assessment: AI models help predict extreme weather events and their potential impact on operations and supply chains. Companies can create more robust contingency plans, reducing potential disruptions and costs associated with climate-related events. Opportunities The surge in AI-driven technologies offers multiple opportunities for businesses: Cost Reduction: AI can lower operational costs by optimizing energy use and reducing waste. Innovation Leadership: Early adoption of AI technologies in energy systems can position companies as leaders in innovation, enhancing their market competitiveness. Issues Despite the benefits, several challenges persist: Investment Costs: Initial investments in AI technology can be high, requiring significant capital and strategic planning. Data Security: The interconnectedness of operational metrics, consumer data, and infrastructure details increases vulnerability. The consequences of breaches can be severe, affecting everything from individual privacy to national energy security. Regulatory Compliance: Navigating the evolving regulatory landscape regarding AI and energy can be complex and resource intensive. #AI #energy #trends #1pager #integrationprofessionals https://IntegrationProfessionals.com AI Healthcare trends – Executive 1-pager The intersection of AI and biological sciences is innovating treatment options. These innovations will transform patient outcomes and operational efficiencies. Breakthroughs in brain function applications. Potential vaccines for chronic diseases. Diagnostics and treatment customization. Risks/Opportunities Increasing economic pressures and consumer expectations. Expanding telemedicine. Leveraging health data. Implementing remote patient monitoring systems. Enhancing care delivery and patient engagement. Issues Ensuring interoperability across diverse health data systems. Address privacy and ownership of health data. Short-term Reducing dependency on traditional health care settings and facilitating efficient disease management. Telemedicine. Personalized medicine. Digital home health solutions. #AI #healthcare #trends #1pager #integrationprofessionals https://IntegrationProfessionals.com https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-trends-healthcare-executive-1-pager-stephen-wise-f8nfc How to Improve Sales Revenue in Your Company | Stephen Wise A typical business goal is to execute the sales strategy and increase revenue by X% over the period. The sales process is an ongoing operational activity and is usually not suited to being treated like a formal project. However, the sales process needs to be managed and there are similarities between managing a sales process and managing a project. A sales process needs: Management of key milestones and timing Identification and assignment of people to assist Encouragement of teamwork at client site and internally Risk identification and mitigation planning Tracking and reporting of selected metrics Feedback/improvement loop Management of key milestones and timing in the sales process I recommend every sales team to work with an expert project manager to develop a template of tasks and estimated timing which gets stored in a central library. At the earliest reasonable time, the template should be fired-up and customised to suit the opportunity. That is, tailor it to needs by modifying the tasks that need to be accomplished, the estimated durations, and dependencies. This plan, will guide all stakeholders to manage expectations and keep everyone on track for what needs to happen next. Identification and assignment of resources within the organization to assist with the presentation Once an opportunity has been identified, team members need to be called on for assistance in various parts of the proposal. It is important that the sales person ensure that everyone has time to take on the work, understands how to do the work, and understands when and how to report that the work is completed or that some sort of issue has caused work to slow down or stop. The sales person may not have the authority to prioritise everyone’s time and therefore it is important to keep the lines of communication open. Risk identification and mitigation planning Sales people are able to identify unique risks because they are the closest to understanding the client’s expressed needs. These insights are extremely relevant. Combined with their own experience dealing with other customers, sales people can see risks that no one else can. Positive risks, those that have upside potential lead to new items in the sales funnel. Negative risks, those that can push a deal off the rails should not be pushed under the carpet. The (negative) risks, should be identified and reviewed. Each risk has a likelihood/ probability of occurring and severity/impact on the sale should it occur. The sales person’s team and management should periodically develop and review tactics to reduce the probability and lesson the severity of impact, should it occur. Tracking and reporting of selected metrics back to the team and management Peter Drucker, has been paraphrased, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. The selection of appropriate measures and metrics is a cornerstone of sales management. Most sales people are keenly aware at all times of the status of their metrics and how much they are exceeded or failing short of their objectives. In addition to short-term results, frequently communicating a sales dashboard may be more beneficial then you thought. The benefit is to improve organizational alignment with the sales strategy. Having visibility to the sales dashboard could be the trigger to makes those changes Feedback/improvement loop Deals get won. Deals get lost. The salesperson will obtain lots of knowledge about the client or at least they should. Knowledge represents a significant asset for most businesses. Left unmanaged knowledge tends to quickly fade. When deals are lost, it is important to learn from the process. Are there changes that can be made to the sales process? A lessons learned process and central repository for the post-mortem will help the next sales rep and also help when it comes time to review the process for a complete over hall or investment in technology to automate parts of the process. Stephen D Wise Stephen Wise Integration Professionals Dramatically Improve Traction Derivatives Trading Situation This engagement was based on a referral from a colleague. Stephen held a series of phone meetings with the London based Head, Funds Strategy & Global Fund products. The client described the International joint venture for management of funds on behalf of institutional clients. A $30 Million project to implement a new derivatives trading system was stalled. Unknown to the executive at the time, the project team had hit the wall. The subject matter expertise was highly specialised (Derivatives Trading) and staff were dropping everyone. Sick leave, quitting, and asking to be moved. Morale was at an all time low. Intervention First of all, within a few weeks Stephen’s recommendation to temporarily halt project work was accepted. Job postings were developed, previous team members were asked to return, the vendor was asked to bring additional full-time support, and leadership within the project was tweaked. The leadership team was in Toronto, London, Paris, and Luxembourg. Cultural awareness and communication skills were important for re-building team morale. Effectively taking the reins of the project required a hi degree of sensitivity and careful learning on the job. Stephen coached executives in advance of difficult meetings and eventually the differing norms of accountability, styles of communicating issues, and general leadership across the regions became less and less causes of impediments. The turning point was three months in. A built up team created a productive meeting cadence. Developers, testers, and the Executive identified and agreed on the priority work areas. Derivatives Workflow, Reporting, Trade capture, Pricing, and Accounting all had significant gaps or critical issues. Daily team meetings were held. Co-location was intensified, and team recognition events were held every two months. Accountability was still critical to forward progress – gaining everyone’s trust was a daily effort and this also meant that continuing to weed out poor performers or negative influences enabled the overall team to grow stronger and perform better. Results Implementing the new system was critical to adding new products to the offerings and retaining existing customers. Based on the original business case, the objective met included: Improved competitive offering relative to BONY, J.P. Morgan and State Street; Improved reliability of pricing; and, Improved straight through processing. However, the big win for the client was the re-building and assembly of a working team that would also transition to operational support once in production. How confident are you with the project forecast? As every project progresses through it's lifecycle, the team’s forecast will evolve. The forecast value may move up or down, however, the accuracy of the forecast should always increase. The basis for increasing accuracy is that all estimates are forecasts with some level of uncertainty and as the project progresses the unknowns/uncertainty will decrease. This holds for forecasting any of duration, work effort, or cost. There are two important concepts in the below figure: 1) We see the team’s forecast (solid middle line) moves up and down as time progresses; and, 2) the range in value between the High and Low Estimate decreases in steps at each phase. A key action for the Project Manager is to communicate to all stakeholders that early estimates have higher uncertainty. As part of communication with management and finance stakeholders, I usually ask for a reserve to be added onto my estimates based on the higher uncertainty of estimates and potential negative impact of risks. This amount can be progressively reduced and “given back” as the project progresses over time. Some types of projects inherently have high uncertainty during initiation and planning. For example, integration of custom software. When faced with projects involving high level of unknown, the Project Manger should use “Three-Point Estimating”. This technique will include the full range of possible values of the estimate and reduces bias that can lead to a highly optimistic or pessimistic estimate. I usually create custom fields within Microsoft Project 2010 to capture and calculate the three point estimates. The approach is also called PERT. The formula is PERT Estimate = (Optimistic Estimate + 4 X Most Likely Estimate + Pessimistic Estimate) / 6. Other project teams that work on a high number of similar projects will develop good enterprise knowledge for making estimates. An example would be an energy and gas company that knows 2 resources can lay pipe at 20 metres per hour and the material cost is $150 dollars per foot. Estimates in these situations can be very accurate, from an early stage. A Project Manager may have little control of the level of uncertainty or risk when handed a new assignment. However, appropriate application of the concepts above will lead to successfully managing and quantifying estimates of duration, effort, and cost. Stephen Wise www.IntegrationProfessionals.com M&A: Top Ten Drivers | Stephen Wise | Integration Professionals I believe that under-estimation of the importance of the post-merger integration planning is the single greatest factor leading to this high failure-rate phenomenon. The preventative action is development of a robust post-merger integration plan that aligns stakeholders’ activities with the deal thesis. Objectives, Measures, and Benefits A critical first step to creating this plan is for leaders to communicate a deal thesis with clear success criteria. The objectives, measures, and benefits must be detailed and well defined. For example, if they are not tangible or they are vague, it is highly likely they will lose gravitas as they timeline moves forward. As a starting point, to creating a robust deal thesis, here are the top ten drivers of M&A acquisitions[1]. I believe that under-estimation of the importance of the post-merger integration planning is the single greatest factor leading to this high failure-rate phenomenon. The preventative action is development of a robust post-merger integration plan that aligns stakeholders’ activities with the deal thesis. Top-Ten Drivers of M&A acquisitions 1.Industry Synergy Achieve economies of scale by buying customer / supplier, or competitor. Acquisition of a competitor is horizontal, and acquisition of a customer or supplier is vertical. 2.Strategic Planning Accomplish strategic goals more quickly and more successfully such as entering new markets or acquiring technology or people assets. 3.Differential efficiency Realize a return on investment by buying a company with less efficient processes and making them more efficient. 4.Inefficient Management Realize a return by buying a company with inefficient managers and replacing them. 5.Market Power Increase market share and ability to increase price/profit. 6.Financial Synergy Lower cost of capital by smoothing cash flow and increasing debt capacity. 7.Under valuation Take advantage of a price that is low in comparison to past stock prices and/or estimated future prices, or in relation to the cost the buyer would incurs if it built the company from scratch. 8.Corporate Governance Assert control at the board of directors’ level in an underperforming company with dispersed stakeholder ownership. 9.Tax Efficiency Obtain a more favorable tax status. 10.Managerialism Increase the pay and/or power of managers. STEPHEN D WISE INTEGRATION PROFESSIONALS DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE TRACTION [1] Lajoux, Alexandra Reed (2019). The art of M & A : a merger, acquisition, and buyout guide. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Comments are closed.