Leadership wanted to upgrade technology from TDM to VoIP and eliminate six multimillion-dollar Nortel networking switches to decrease overhead. New infrastructure could support less than half of TDM capacity, but had significantly more VoIP capacity available. Account management was resistant to this change; key customers wanted to remain with TDM capacity and threatened to cancel business.
Created tracking report to gauge how targets could be reached and reviewed capacity to determine opportunities that would reduce costs with zero impact. Met with managers to build consensus on grouping capacity that could be moved to VoIP and which connections could be reduced or eliminated. Reduced some connections despite disagreement with account managers and met regularly with all affected management teams.
Switch reductions were resulted in a savings of $14 million in six months with no impact to revenue stream and a total of 40% is expected to be fully realized by May of 2009.

Negotiating team needed to be fully prepared with information to execute multi-million sale of business unit. Information needed by potential buyer was not readily available and time was short. Data needed to be collected and plans needed to be developed.
Assembled cross-functional expert team that collaborated by collecting, preparing, and analyzing business impacts of different scenarios. All information requested by potential purchaser was prepared and placed in virtual data room on schedule.
Deal was near finalization and purchaser was prepared to execute when capital markets froze and buyer could not get financing. This information was useful in preparing plans to initiate consolidations of business units even though transaction did not occur.

Revenue dropped unexpectedly during period of management changes. Overhead costs were too high to support revenue streams. New management did not know how all functions of business executed, but had limited time to react.
Discussed presentations that were conducted to facilitate business asset sale with executive; initiated series of lunch-and-learns to present in detail how operations teams were structured including functions, policies/procedures, and technology tools.
New management team quickly learned business operations. New technical projects were initiated as result of discussions to automate and consolidate functions. Operating costs were reduced more than 20%.

Analysis team was not delivering necessary information to business unit management team. Management was reluctant to review information and felt data provided by analysts wasn't always accurate. Analysts lacked clear sense of direction and did not know whether to focus on quick reports requested by management team or provide deeper analysis.
Separated team into two functional groups; one was creative team to develop new analysis, and second was delivery team to execute and standardize process for business unit. Required interpretation of data to be separated from results, and no analysis could be sent to business team unless it was actionable and could be monitored with metrics.
Creative team generated more than 100 ideas for business improvement. Company experienced 133% in gross profit improvements.
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Sales team gave poor reviews to sales support team because support team was not proactively reviewing accounts and dealt only with problems once escalated by sales team. When problems were escalated, support team was not effectively resolving issues. Group's morale was low, and several employees received excellent reviews despite sub-par work performances. Skill levels were not adequate among support team.
Renamed team and revised objectives so team would become proactive and help grow largest accounts; changed bonus targets to be tied directly to results for targeted accounts. Leveraged corporate RIF to eliminate lowest performers and move other members. Recruited skilled employees and introduced cross training.
Reduced headcount and staff expense more than 5%, but still yielded increase in targeted accounts by 7%. Morale on new team was very high and earned respect from sales team. Several members of group were promoted within six months.

Identified key knowledge function that drove 30% of business profit, but was supported by one analyst with key industry knowledge; analyst was outstanding employee who could not grow due to expertise. Sales team did not want analyst to be moved into another role.
Developed training program for back-up analysts and convinced skeptical sales team to allow new staff to learn function.
Trained three analysts and executed role successfully; enabled analyst to move into new role. Costs were reduced 20% with 5% increase in volume.
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High-performing manager received little guidance from director and was at risk of transferring to competitor during time when several critical projects were in progress. Manager reported to peer with close relationship with CIO.
Met with peer and CIO then offered to coach manager to turn around situation. Provided manager with insight into priorities and background for projects that director did not provide and fostered basis for improved relations.
Critical projects were completed as planned, and manager stayed with organization for several years.

Company's largest business unit was losing revenue in double digits. Business team needed new strategies and insight to turn around revenue decline. Competition was developing possible unethical strategies by cheating customer on promised minutes. Business unit's senior management team believed general practices did not need further analysis.
Organized team of top analysts and dispersed normal workloads to other team members. Team was given freedom to ignore any preconceived notions and examine any idea that might have positive impact. Team gave brief presentation to show business unit some ideas, which convinced business unit to fund team as consulting unit.
Team produced new sets of key performance indicators that provided insight into business that senior management team could not take action against. Team implemented five different projects that reduced business unit's revenue decline 10% and profit decline 12%.

Recruited to ensure successful implementation of off-the-shelf business intelligence solution that stalled; key management did not trust data provided by system and was hesitant to change tools. Old solution provided incorrect data, and new system's data source was more accurate.
Established criteria to validate which solution provided most accurate information. Trained group of product champions within key influencer's teams to test new tool; provided step-by-step instructions with mutually agreed upon criteria that new data was more accurate. Reporting mechanism was developed within new tool to mimic old user interface.
More than 90% of management utilized new tool quickly and was among most-used software solutions within company.

Company's scanning and imaging system was experiencing major component failure that invalidated all scanning programs. Company had SLAs with customers to process forms within 48 hours of receipt and was already scheduled with full staff on two shifts to process current workload. Scanners would not be operational during repairs and DR site/vendors could not help.
Communicated issues to senior management and account management teams; prioritized customers with tightest SLAs and largest revenue impact. Developed work schedule with programming and operational staff in order to allow programmers time slots to utilize imaging program as well as operations team time to process forms over three shifts.
Met SLAs for major customers, and all scanning programs were back online in three days.

New strategic alliance was signed, and sales had scheduled demonstration for RFP that could not be changed. Executive management needed business and was ending successful, internal product to resell new partner's software.
Internal teams in Atlanta were unfamiliar with product. Demonstration was for key industry customer located in New Jersey. Product had to meet requirements to pass to next round of bidding, but did not have industry-standard functionality.
Evaluated internal teams to determine if product could successfully be modified to meet requirements; convinced executive management teams in both companies that development efforts should be moved into partner's offices to leverage developers and New Jersey.-based industry experts. Developed timeline to monitor project as well as initial script and set of operating screens to be created for demonstration; revised script and screen to resolve issues.
Demonstration was performed as scheduled; successfully passed RFP requirements and rigorous Q&A session. Company was allowed to proceed to next round of bidding process. Company did not win bid due to pricing issues. Internal product was subsequently reintroduced into marketplace.

Business operations needed 20x6 coverage. Staff was in place in various global offices to support local business teams, but most locations had one person with no backup. Budget would not allow more staffing. Most team members were located in New Jersey or London with some in Hong Kong and Israel.
Created set of standardized monitoring procedures to monitor most critical business metrics and implemented communication processes that meant Hong Kong team would communicate issues to Israel office, which would then be passed to London and New Jersey and back to Hong Kong. Higher-staffed centers took on additional duties and responsibilities, and all teams shared weekend duties on rotating basis.
Staff reviews and bonuses were set on team process metrics, not just individual performance. Process experts would teach other team members how to monitor and react to issues. Policy guides and procedure documents were written and monitoring metrics were automated. Higher skilled workers monitored daily profitability. No shift-based workers were needed.
Saved more than 60% or $270,000, staff morale increased, and team became talent pool for rest of organization.