Title 2 Business Services was launched to create economic efficiency. Most professional service organizations were created to meet that end, even if they don’t think of it that way.
Economic efficiency is simply a situation where resources are used to create the greatest benefit for producers and consumers. Professional services organizations are a great resource for clients that need resources for a limited time or in some fractional capacity. The client gets the benefit of resources that have a concentration in a specific situation without having to bear the cost of that resource long-term.
Title 2 Business Services’ original intent was to provide resources to help clients redesign processes, facilities, products or cultures. The intent was to help high rate-of-change clients manage through complicated situations caused by operational failure, economic downturn, explosive growth… T2 resources have long histories of transforming struggling operations into highly effective and efficient units.
A core philosophy of the group is that software systems (ERP, WMS, TMS, MRP, etc.) are secondary to a well-defined, disciplined operation. Fix the operation, then support it with systems. Implementing software to support a faulty operating model is like trying to teach a chicken to juggle bowling pins. The chicken will never juggle the bowling pins and everyone just ends up frustrated. At least trying to teach a chicken to juggle doesn’t cost a lot. Software implementations can cost millions of dollars.
Title 2 does not work for any software company, VAR or reseller. We do not look for implementation work. But through our work helping businesses define themselves, we often end up working implementations. Clients can benefit greatly from an outside advisor that does not work for the software company (or VAR, reseller, etc.) Facts can be interpreted differently when viewed from the client perspective versus the supplier perspective. That remains a valuable relationship if the discussions can be frank.
While we do not seek implementation work, we are currently involved in seven implementation projects at different clients. Four of those projects are new implementations or planned major revision upgrades. Three of them are re-implementations or major overhauls.
When we are involved in the beginning, we always drive the same concept. We must define exactly what the system does and how that supports the defined operation. We clearly define what each function is expected to do before we start. We clearly define what “go-live ready” means before we start. All involved parties know where we are and where we need to be. Each party can determine his or her path to get to that final state. The project is an assembly of closely correlated, dependent tasks that work together to move the project output to the final, “go-live ready” state. Tasks are scheduled based on timing and dependencies and the entire project can be laid out and tracked. Changes in completion dates of tasks may affect the critical path. Those changes will immediately reflect in the overall project timeline allowing adjustments in resources allocated to tasks if the results are not acceptable.
The projects that we are called to support after launch are usually a different story. Typically, the lack of a solid plan caused the failure that prompted the call. More often, the plan is missing because no “go-live ready” state has been defined. Often, the implementation is “complete”, but the results are disappointing or disastrous. It is tempting to call the problem “scope creep”, but that is a misnomer due
to the fact that no solid scope was ever defined. Or the scope was “we want it to do what our current system does”. At the risk of sounding snarky, why would a firm spend a ton of money and subject itself to significant risk to get what it already has?
Economic efficiency dictates that resources be used in a way that is most beneficial to the producer and consumer. In this case, the software is the product. It is most beneficial to the consumer (client) when the cost of the implementation creates the greatest value when compared to the results. That only happens when we define the desired outcome and apply only those resources necessary to create that outcome. To do so requires that the outcome be clearly defined, that the resources are well-understood and applied appropriately to meet that outcome and that as little effort as possible is wasted in reaching that desired outcome. Having a third party that can subjectively match resources to tasks, ensure those tasks are the most effective means to that desired outcome and give honest assessments about how well the project is meeting expectations increases economic efficiency. The cost of that outside resource is generally returned in multiples in implementation cost or continuing operating costs.