Jim was the busy COO of a software firm in Manhattan. His morning usually started around 7AM with a request from the CEO for updated profitability and utilization numbers ASAP. While brushing his teeth, he sent an email to the controller who informed him that finance is behind on last month’s financial statements and cannot get around to forecasting until tomorrow at the earliest. After a quick shower, Jim pinged his resource manager for utilization forecasts and she responded that the pipeline is not steady enough to produce reasonable projections. While getting dressed, Jim mentally rehearsed the email he would write to the CEO, explaining that it will be at least 2 days before he can provide the numbers requested. This was all before the first cup of coffee.
After caffeinating himself, Jim checked on his Slack before diving into the work of the day. The team is kicking off a project with Client Numero Uno in one week and Jim needed to make a critical hire. He messaged HR, who consulted their Google sheet and responded that there were a couple folks still in the pipeline. “What percentage of people made it to the second round interview, “ Jim asked. “I’ll get back to you later,” came the reply. Jim’s email was starting to blow up with requests from other directors who want to know everything from how many defects the last delivery had remediated to what expenses were approved on the account. His answer was always the same as everyone else: “I’ll get back to you later.”
If your day sounds like Jim’s, you’re not alone. Although it is convenient to chalk all of these delays up to “corporate inertia” and “workflow delays” these are really just excuses. What you have is a systems, data and decision making problem. There is a better way.
What if the CEO never called Jim, because the CEO logged into his management portal and already had the most recent profitability and utilization forecasts, updated live from Quickbooks and Workday. What if the controller didn’t need to do anything to update forecasts, because that data also was fed into an FP&A tool like Adaptive? What if the resourcing and HR managers never responded to Jim because he could log into his own portal and get their numbers directly from his performance dashboard? What if Jim “slept in” until 8AM and didn’t even open Slack until after his coffee?
Automation and Insight was created to help organizations like Jim’s reduce unnecessary workflow and data busy-work and make decisions faster. We use tools like Power BI and Azure Data Lake to disseminate real-time information across business units. With powerful tools like these, designed and implemented to suit your business model, we can reduce operational overhead by as much as 40% and create availability within your team to better serve your customers and win new business.
How do I know that this approach works? Well, about 7 years ago I was the busy COO of a software firm in Manhattan that finally had too much coffee and enough of “I’ll get back to you later.” By using A&I’s approach, I was able to reduce my number of direct reports, communicate with my team better and get more sleep! Let’s make your business a lean-mean, decision making machine.
