A name brand SaaS company had a new C-level commitment to Innovation, desiring blockbuster new products faster than the current new product development cycle time. Product Management was developing their process, without including input from IT, even though IT materially contributed to the majority of new product development initiatives. Then-current procedure was throwing proposed new products ‘over the wall’ for sizing and pricing, resulting in multiple iterations, questions/answer sessions, and general frustration, often resulting the Product group engaging ‘Shadow IT’ external development resources .

Leveraging RoE’s Innovation and New Product Development experience and working shoulder to shoulder with the Product Management innovation process redesign team, IT was given a ‘seat at the table’, starting with Ideation. ROE actively represented IT in the creation of the replacement innovation process, including participating in global rollout and training. An interdisciplinary Team B approach was implemented upfront in the innovation process, rapidly eliminating potential dead ends, allocating deep evaluation/exploration resources to the most promising ideas and concepts.

The client has a well-received higher-velocity innovation and new product development process, eliminating inter-group information requests and delays.

A Global technology company’s IT and Product groups were misaligned and finger pointing. Mutual trust was broken, infighting and blame gaming was rampant. Everyone ‘knew’ the reasons, but no one understood root causes and, therefore, remedial action was impossible.

RoE performed a Global deep-dive survey across 60 factors of all IT and Product leaders. Given company culture and recent history, RoE had to expend significant efforts to gain participant trust for them to open up and give accurate (and, therefore, actionable) answers.

Data was analyzed, and trends and themes identified, many of which shattered prevailing ‘urban myths’. The Chief Product Officer and CIO reeived the detailed results, issue threads, and action plan. Since the CIO sponsored this study, the Product Management organization was able to see IT had a sincere desire to improve the situation, which on its own, helped preliminary bridge the gap. A need to identify failure as a learning experience, and not career ending, was implemented, including creating a Fail Fast Lessons Learned logging system and Quarterly Failure Report process.

A global SaaS Analytics provider did not have an Enterprise view of Demand, resulting in missed deadlines and descoping to meet promised dates. The PMO was report oriented, and not managing demand vs. developer throughput and timing. Since several applications were directly customer facing, the brand was impacted, and the company was being seen as a laggard instead of a market leader.

RoE senior consultants actively participated in and materially influenced, the creation of a Global Book of Work, identifying for the first time, over $100M of IT spend by project by product by IRR and revenue stream. Key Project and Program Managers provided qualitative information during ROE led interviews, leveraging RoE’s Managerial, Development and Project Management expertise.

The first time Enterprise Book of Work was presented to the CIO for discussion with the Product Organization to show support and alignment. Key issues and themes were uncovered and analyzed. Operationalizing the process for ongoing updating and active Management was begun in cooperation the client’s newly created Tech Strategic Operations Team.

A SaaS vendor was experiencing customer drop-offs (and decreasing revenues) not replaced by new subscribers. Senior Leadership recognized their need to transcend to the next level of vendor maturity. This included transforming the internal viewpoint from inward facing to outward/customer oriented.

Working with Senor Leadership, RoE formed a blended team, reviewing their software applications and services suite, including benchmarking to competitors and incorporating the Voice of the Customer. RoE created and internally sold a customer-centric a vision of the market’s trajectory, created roadmap for both the products and the organization to attain the vision. This also included developing and implementing a new High Performance Culture and KPIs.

Despite some initial push-back, the client realized their applications suite needed significant refreshing and in some cases, replacement (based on RoE’s recommended replacement applications and renegotiated financial terms). A new customer oriented website, including white papers and product/service specification sheets, was well received in the market. A new position, Enterprise Architect/CTO was created to formalize the development process. ROE trained the entire employee base in the new culture, related KPIs and sales process.

A global financial institution paused implementation of a large licensed application at the point of minimal functionality, relying on manual steps to overcome processing obstacles. Increasing period close times, delayed visibility into Quarterly revenue and customer affecting errors started to have multiple impacts. Processing costs increased faster than budgeted, while customers and sales people were annoyed by the lack of billing and commissions statement transparency.

Working on behalf of the COO and Senior Leadership, RoE analyzed the As-Is processes and application shortcomings, identifying significant Gaps and broken interfaces, dimensioning which repairs would be necessary to fulfill the agreed-to Future State processes. A right-shoring model was created to pull non-customer facing processes from class-A NYC space, and high salaries, to lower cost venues. A new Operating Model was created and agreed to by each affected business unit, including specific responsibility boundaries and governance.

The project was restarted with an accurate cost estimate and timeline. Several legacy applications were retired, to be implemented within the core licensed application, reducing the number of interfaces and SOX mandated control points. Via a newly created Predictive Capacity Model, the near-shoring initiative aligned OpEx and CapEx to keep costs within company parameters while fully supporting aggressive CAGR targets.

A large licensed software company had lost its market momentum, had a high-turnover sales force with little customer (and internal) credibility, and was being threatened with delisting by NASDAQ due to a falling stock price (based on sequential Quarterly losses). It’s once leading technology/core product had fallen behind competitor offerings.

In cooperation with the Board and Senior Leadership, took over the Professional Services (PS) unit, starting with NYC, Toronto and CA, then globally, improving skills, implemented tight project estimation and risk management-processes.

Teamed with Sales, Product Management and R&D leadership to verticalize the company, focusing on Healthcare and Financial Services. Represented the Office of the President in creating a Financial Services and Healthcare suite of products utilizing existing functionality to create market specific functionality, dashboards and reports. Led first sale and implementation. Managed a difficult Joint Venture relationship, maintaining momentum and eventual success.

Within 18 months, increased Services Gross Margins from a loss of 23% overall to +42%; increased Utilization from 60% to 97%; reduced employee turnover from 100% annually to 5%; reduced DSO from 90+ to 55 Days and dropping. Reestablished Professional Services credibility was used to sell new customer and Enterprise licenses, as well as reversing customer drop-offs, resulting in moving Quarterly losses to profitability. New vertical products and related services opened entirely new non-commodity markets, out-flanking former competitors.

A SaaS startup was growing beyond the managerial capabilities of the founding team, creating product development delays, cost escalations and extensive key-employee turnover. The resultant needs for numerous subsequent rounds of funding had diluted employee options value, affecting morale, further exasperating the problems. Key Beta customers were actively searching for safer alternatives, straining Management’s forecasting credibility with its personnel and investors.

On behalf of the key investing fund, acted as COO in cooperation with the founding President. Reduced legal, and non-compensation operating costs. Addressed key employee concerns affecting tenure and productivity. Led re-strategizing of the product and business model, retaining key beta customers. Restarted a stalled joint venture with a leading emerging markets broker. Established Customer Service process and Capacity Model to ensure highest levels of service, with OpEx aligned to revenues. Overcame surprise disputed IP ownership issue, avoiding potential conflict regarding ownership of the underlying Patent applications and hence, company valuation (with bank contingency and ownership implications).

Reduced monthly burn by over 30%, restored product delivery according to Beta customer agreed feature set, business model. Successfully handled IP dispute, retaining Patent validity and company value.

One of the world’s largest insurers was globally implementing SAP’s FICO suite to reduce Period Close times to an SEC acceptable timeframe. Complexity included operations in 86 countries, over 4,000 legal entities and numerous regulatory agencies, each having their own reporting and financial requirements. The Board approved project budget and timeline had both grown by 200% and 300%, respectively.

Working tightly with the International unit’s project representative, RoE determined the identified and published scope was insufficient to process the full range of required transactions, requiring rescoping and re-budgeting midway through the in-flight Global Design phase. Provided the first ever end-to-end analysis of the Global Close process, identifying reoccurring errors requiring thousands of manual journal entries and which would not have been eliminated in the new system. This was folded into the early-stage Finance and Administration Transformation Initiative, modifying this effort for greater operational efficiency as well as cost reductions. Determined per-country and per-site (deployment criteria and eligibility/prerequisite) initiatives. As part of the larger Legal Entity Simplification initiative, managed the closing of a high-profile specialty lines insurance subsidiary, including calculating RBC and the amount of freed capital to be returned to the Parent. Coordinated decisions as required with Legal, Compliance, Risk Management, Product Management, Finance and Senior Leadership.

Over the course of this 1 year engagement, the International unit’s SAP project contribution was both reduced by over $50M, and the deliverables were refocused to support their requirements. The Root Cause analysis resulted in eliminating most sources of reoccurring intercompany adjustments and reconciliations, reducing close times by over 15 days. By properly closing the high-profile specialty lines carrier, over $100M was returned to the Parent. By taking tax strategy into account, reduced the Institution’s potential liability by a significant amount. Worked with the Board Level Comprehensive Project Management Office to define and monitor insertion of newly standardized KPIs and milestones in relevant local project plans, allowing first Board level, consistent, Enterprise view of mission-critical remediation initiatives, and associated Enterprise Risk Management considerations.

A leading aerospace and defense company was experiencing increasing re-work related costs and DoD audit identified weaknesses on new, state of the art airplanes, affecting future contracts, profitability and stock price.One of the world’s largest insurers was globally implementing SAP’s FICO suite to reduce Period Close times to an SEC acceptable timeframe. Complexity included operations in 86 countries, over 4,000 legal entities and numerous regulatory agencies, each having their own reporting and financial requirements. The Board approved project budget and timeline had both grown by 200% and 300%, respectively.

On behalf of the Office of the President, identified a minimum set of absolutely mission-critical remedial KPIs, presented via a multi-level real-time dashboard with drill down capabilities to the originating work station. Based on these KPIs, introduced Lean Manufacturing techniques focusing on defect elimination and immediate repair.

The customer rapidly achieved a 30% reduction in cycle times, in excess of $50M in cost reductions, higher quality and much improved audit results. Revised manufacturing philosophy took a fix-at-the-end philosophy, developed over decades, to a fix-as-incurred orientation and with increased quality of JIT supplied components.

One of the largest Global food, beverage and snack companies had experienced cost-creep hidden by ever increasing revenues. These costs had to be reduced to keep profitability in an ever increasingly competitive market.

In coordination with senior F&A Leadership, trained over 60 Kaisen and Lean Ninjas in both Lean and consulting techniques. Mentored and performed ‘heavy-lifting’ in over 50 Kaisen events. Developed and implemented a Lean Management technique to ensure identified operational improvements were sustained.

In addition to the new internal consulting capability to ensure ongoing sustainability and increasing adoption of Lean techniques, identified in excess of $48M in 3 year savings, with $15M cost reduction in year 1, a 1 year ROI of 15X project fees.