Consulting Services

Pebble provides consulting services to help companies with long-term systems plans, system selection, implementation, getting the most value from existing systems, and process improvements. We address a wide range of business systems, such as ERP, CRM, SCM, PLM, MRO and BI.

A special note on Business Intelligence (BI) solutions: BI can provide dramatic benefits to companies and a lot of companies have acquired BI tools. However, deployment, user-adoption and user-satisfaction has been disappointingly low. Developing an appropriate strategy and deployment plan is absolutely critical for success.

 

Long-Term Systems Plans
We work with the senior management team to identify the objectives and outlook for the company. In particular: expected functional changes, organizational changes that would affect system deployment, activity-level changes that would affect technology requirements, and critical areas for success which sets the priorities for system solutions.

The next step is to assess the current systems in terms of how well they support business requirements and how well they are being used. Often, effective use of systems is eroded over time as people introduce workarounds and point solutions that could be better addressed by the primary system. Many problems with current systems can be traced to a lack of clearly defined accountability. Replacing systems without addressing this issue will result in fragmentation and under-utilization of the new systems. As such, this is an important part of our assessment.

Once we have completed the assessment we can determine what systems need to be replaced or added. We then work with the management team to develop action plans to address:

• Organizational changes that are required for better use of systems
• Immediate improvement opportunities (things that can be done quickly with minimal effort and cost to provide better results)
• Interim-solutions for systems that need to be replaced or added
• Enhancements for systems that are to be maintained
• System selection efforts for systems to be replaced or added
• IT support requirements.

 

System Selection
Selecting a package is similar to selecting a house, or automobile, for purchase. The objective is to identify a few key requirements that define the solution class. For example, a 3 bedroom house with about 2200 square feet in a specific geographic area for $700,000.
 
With these requirements the buyer has quickly and effectively narrowed the number of potential candidates. While such things as doors, windows, and electrical outlets are important to have in a home, all houses have them. Telling someone you want a house that has doors and electrical outlets doesn¹t help narrow the search; these are not differentiating requirements. 

Having established a solution class you then want to see candidate solutions. If you are buying a house you do not request a structural analysis for every single house in your solution class. You usually review a listing description, eliminate some candidates and visit others. For houses you visit, some of them will be readily eliminated while others you will investigate further.

This is same process that should be used to select a package: get to see potential candidates as quickly as possible; spend your time investigating packages and vendors that appeal to you.

Often, it appears that issuing a Request For Proposal (RFP) is a logical step once requirements have been identified. The desire is to identify vendors that will fulfill as many of the requirements as possible for the least cost. Unfortunately, this process does not produce the desired results. A vendor might indicate they can do something but, their system involves six steps to accomplish what another package does in one step. The six-step package might be less expensive to purchase but, implementation and use could be considerably more cumbersome. In the end, the user might want modifications that would have made the other package a more cost-effective solution. Similarly, there are often misconceptions about stated requirements in an RFP, or in the responses. A company might find out after they purchase a package that the vendor thought they meant something entirely different.
 
We work with management to establish the selection team and guide management and the team through the following steps.

• Establish key requirements
• Determine a short-list of packages to be reviewed
• Evaluate demos/ presentations
• Obtain cost estimates (software and implementation)
• Identify a preferred package and vendor
• Establish an implementation plan
• Prepare for contract negotiation.

 

Implementation
Implementing a new system is all about change. The intent of a new system is to do things that couldn’t be done before. This means changes to existing business processes. Workflows will change, roles and responsibilities will change. The key to successful change is accountability.
 
Pebble's role is to act as a ‘super-user’, providing an integrated view of the business and best practices for system use. Our objective is to improve business processes, which will improve system processes. We work with the software provider to develop a ‘strawman model’ for using the new system. We use a ‘vanilla’ version (no custom modifications) of the software to address a ‘day in the life of’ your company. The intent is to handle as much of your company’s operations as possible with the standard software and use the software to help improve business processes. Where the standard software cannot handle functional needs, alternative solutions are identified and evaluated. If the software needs to be customized, specific customizing requirements are identified. The result of this is the target system model that describes what the final system solution will look like and how it will be used.
 
Just as moving data to a new system involves mapping a conversion plan, so does moving an organization to a new system.
         • Map Current Organization to New Organization
             - Organization Structure (Workflows; Span of Control; Resources)
             - Individual Jobs (Roles; Job Concepts; System Concepts; Technical Skills)
             - Culture
         • Determine Ability to Handle Change
             - Organization Structure; Individuals; Culture
         • Develop Transition Plan
             - Communication Plan; Action Plan; Measurements
         • Implement.

It is important to note that organizational change usually takes longer than the system change. As such, the organization transition plan should be longer than the system implementation plan. The objective for implementation should be on transitioning to the new system in a way that minimizes transition shock and confusion for users, and then begins to take advantage of the new capabilities to improve business processes in a progressive manner.
 
 
Existing Systems
Pebble has helped many companies address the issue of under-performing systems. In many cases the existing systems are not being utilized effectively. This could be a result of many things such as:
         • insufficient training
         • insufficient access to needed functions or information
         • user’s continued reliance on old tools (e.g. Excel)
         • data not set up properly
         • processes and system not properly aligned
         • accountability not properly defined
         • lack of controls or effective monitoring.
 
Over time, a company goes through changes. Personnel changes occur, functional needs change and roles and responsibilities change. Often times, people forget what they were trained on because they only perform the function once or twice a year. Sometimes personnel changes mean the new person is not fully trained on all aspects of the system. As changes occur, people are not sure how to handle them within the current system and because they need to get something done now, they begin to look for workarounds, such as Excel. The greatest problem is that it goes unnoticed until it becomes so overwhelming that processes collapse. The issues with workarounds are:
         • data are being entered into multiple systems – potential for keying errors
         • extra time and effort is required
         • potential for the various systems to get out of sync
         • users tend to rely more and more on the workaround systems which then become the operational systems.
 
There are times when the current system simply does not handle a new requirement, so, it’s either modify the system or use a workaround. The first step should be to check with the software vendor to determine if this requirement is addressed in any new release that the company has not installed or is in an upcoming release. If the requirement will be addressed in a new release due out in a few months then the interim workaround solution need only be a relatively inexpensive, temporary solution. If the vendor does not have any plans for addressing this requirement contact other companies using the software system to see if they have addressed this requirement. The key question here is whether to create a solution outside your current system or modify your current system. If you do any modifications, review them with the software vendor to ensure they will not impede implementing future releases from the vendor. If you create an external solution make sure you identify any points of ‘connection’ with the current system and develop controls to keep the systems in sync.
 
In some cases, the company has simply outgrown the current system and it is better to transition to a new system than to continue investing in the existing system.
 

 

Process Improvements
A few months after implementing new systems and processes the changes begin to unravel and gains are lost for many companies. This can be traced to one common problem: focusing on transaction processes instead of control processes.

 

Poor controls result in poor performance. We focus on establishing control-process requirements before designing transaction processes. We start with: what are the ‘right results’ and what is needed to ensure these results are delivered. One of the key components for effective control that is often overlooked is ‘Advance Notice’; better visibility = better predictability = better control.

 

Finally, we ensure the organization is aligned for effective control. When a process is not performing well it is usually because no one is accountable. We address who should own the results, do they have the right span of control, does their job description need to be clarified for roles and responsibilities, and how will they be held accountable.

 

 


For more information please call (310) 915 - 5265 or send an email