Every day, organizations have the opportunity to make decisions. That daily opportunity also presents people with the chance to make bad decisions. When individuals make a bad decision, it curtails organizational grown and success, and potentially impacts careers. TAC clients utilize our Expert Decision Support Network to ensure that they make good decisions by receiving the advice of our Experts in order to achieve the best decision outcome possible.

The results on this page highlight some of advice that we have provided to our clients, and the benefits they derived. Click through on the link to see a more detailed explanation of the circumstances that were affecting the organization and results from utilizing TAC’s expert advice.

Multi-Channel Distributed Inventory and Order Management
IT Subject Area #51

Issue: The client is a nationally know retail company whose organization was split into three separate sales channels (web, catalog, and retail stores). While each channel shares the same product offering, they operated with separate P&Ls and order management systems. This had led to significant inequities in inventory, saddling the organization with extra costs and some unhappy customers.

Question: They were evaluating order management and warehouse management applications to support the business, and wanted to ensure they had the correct vendors on the short list.

Solution: Through a series of two phone calls, TAC Thought Leader Beth Cohen provided them with feedback about what systems integrated across functions to provide an “end-to-end” solution. While the organization was looking for an out-of-the-box solution to solve their issues, Beth made clear the reality that a significant portion of companies were performing large customization to the applications which they had selected.

Client Action: The client took our advice and selected an inventory management solution which resulted in a savings of $225K.

Vetting a Project Risk Assessment Methodology
IT Subject Area #856

Issue: Our client, a leader in the life sciences equipment industry, was seeking advice on implementing a project risk assessment methodology for their Project Management Office.

Question: How does our methodology compare to leading industry practice for ranking projects based upon criteria that are as objective as possible?

Solution: TAC Thought Leader Doug Hubbard, who has authored two books on IT risk management, wrote a Personal Advisory Report (PAR) in response to their question. He recommended against implementing their proposed methodology because their assessments would have overlooked risk factors that could have let to a significantly different outcome than what their model would have predicted. Click Here to Read the PAR.

Client Action: The client was dissatisfied with our initial advice, to which TAC responded to by convening a conference call — at TAC’s expense — to discuss the issue further. The conference call included the TAC Personal Advisor assigned to the client, the Expert, the client employee who requested the PAR, and the client CIO. At the conclusion of the phone call, all parties agreed that not implementing their methodology was the correct decision for the company.

Very Niche Event Management Software
IT Subject Area #210

Issue: TAC’s client is a world-renowned arena with multiple venues to manage; booking everything from professional and college sports, to graduations, meetings, concerts and more. They were searching for software to effectively manage the various events they were scheduling at various facilities. However, when they went to identify vendors, they found a lot of information on hotel conference-center software, which did not fit their needs.

Question: We are interested in anything you may have or know about event and venue management software.

Solution: TAC Expert Ron Gandiza delivered a PAR that outlined the “marketscape” of the players highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the various solutions. Click Here to Read the PAR.

Client Action: The client was “Very Satisfied” with the PAR we had delivered. While they had identified a couple of vendors on the list, they had not identified all that were there including the one they ultimately selected. Their feedback to TAC was “Gartner had nothing.”

CIO and CSO [Chief Security Officer] Role Definitions
IT Subject Area #439

Issue: The client’s enterprise, a health-care organization, was undergoing some pressure to establish a chief security officer to oversee the wide variety of HIPAA and other regulatory privacy and security issues affecting their patients. As the new role was being crafted, the proposed structure would have created a difficult reporting structure for the IT organization. The situation was creating a difficult political situation for CIO and others on the IT team.

Question: What is the current thinking about the CIO and the CSO roles? Are these viewed as two separate roles or does the CIO typically assume the CSO responsibilities.

Solution: The Expert delivered a PAR which outlined the roles of the CSO and how they diverge from that of the CIO. It also included specific examples of when it is important to separate the roles and the ideal reporting structure for similarly sized organizations.

Client Action: With a physical report in hand, the client distributed the information to those involved in crafting the new role. They utilized the information to describe the responsibilities of the CSO and it defused the political situation.

Implementing IT Workforce Planning
IT Subject Area #835

Issue: Our client — a Fortune 100 technology company — was looking to kick-off a workforce planning initiative. Workforce planning is an HR-type function of ensuring that the workforce you currently have will meet the challenges of tomorrow. The organization had done some work towards implementing the project, but recognized that it would be very complex in their enterprise.

Question: Before they did that, they asked TAC: What enterprises are doing it? How are they measuring it (costs, career impact, etc.)? What are the trends?

Solution: TAC set up a phone call with on of our Experts, Steven Venokur, who is well versed in workforce planning and benchmarking issues. At the conclusion of the 60-minute phone call the client determined that the project would be huge in scope and would consume a considerable amount of resources to implement. More importantly, the client recognized during the discussion that they did not yet have the top-management support aligned to successfully execute the initiative.

Client Action: Because of the scope and lack of management support, client decided not to green light the project. The organization had been prepared to commit significant funds, in the seven-figure range, to the project for software, training, and processes to support their effort.

Assessing the Appropriateness of a Vendor’s SLA
IT Subject Area #807

Issue: Client was outsourcing their data center operations, and during the negotiation with the selected vendor, the vendor proposed a three-month SLA for any new technology brought into the datacenter. The client thought that this was too long, and had spent considerable time searching research databases and speaking with various analysts to quantify their objections. They received nothing concrete and then turned to TAC.

Question: Is vendor XXX’s SLA appropriate?

Solution: TAC provided a phone consultation with an Expert who had worked for the vendor, and who had first hand knowledge of the systems and processes used to order new equipment. The vendor determined that based on their knowledge, the SLA was too long, and it was a “under-promise / over-deliver” scheme which would always make the vendor look good.

Client Action: Client was able to take the knowledge of the vendor”s processes back to the vendor negotiations and craft a more acceptable SLA.

Identify Vendors to Support the IT Needs of State Public Health-Care Providers
IT Subject Area #224

Issue: As a vendor-management group responsible for managing the state procurement schedule, our client wanted to ensure that they were providing the right mix of offerings for the state’s public health-care providers.

Question: The State needs to better understand the IT needs of our public health-care customers and their potential IT spending. The department’s customers include hospital districts and university health-care systems.

Solution: The TAC Expert delivered a PAR that outlined the “marketscape” of the players and solutions that are typically needed to run public health-care organizations.

Client Action: The client matched the identified products and service offering suggested by the Expert against that of the state’s procurement schedule.

To learn more about The Advisory Council and how we might assist your organization in making good solid IT decisions, contact us.