Owner of start-up company with tight budget was reluctant to part with contacts and networking data retained in his personal files until he felt it absolutely necessary to do so. This information was vital to new company's success and critical to consistent flow of information within company, particularly to new Marketing and Sales VP.

Selected robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and identified key elements to use and launch software among staff. Determined best method to capture and translate Business Plan into measurable process, focusing on strategic progress against company plan. Chosen CRM fit early stage of company growth at affordable cost, allowing for expansion as company grew.

Documents and proprietary information were stored in Internet-hosted document repository, which provided easy, anywhere, and anytime access to employees. Communication became immediate, effective, and productive. CRM software provided VP of Marketing with valuable tool for tracking customer contacts, follow up, and facilitating communication with founder relative to his strategic plans.

Field offices were unhappy with amount of time and resources required to complete internal quality audit activities. Budget approved only one internal quality auditor for 90 offices. Because it was necessary to audit all offices sometimes twice in three years, it was crucial that company had confidence in internal audit results.

Devised system to conduct audits of offices remotely rather than onsite, ensuring acceptable degree of confidence in audit results.

Reduced physical audits 33% and local resource allocation 100-400% (sometimes from four employees to only one), providing evidence of compliance. Physical audit days were reduced 50-150%.

Company needed to define and establish its niche in ocean freight forwarding business. This product was new, undefined, and insecure in its new operating processes and regulatory compliance. New staff and operations needed to be melded with existing air operations at minimum costs (not at expense of reducing air operations' revenue) as well as meet new division's operating plan for year-end.

Assisting VP of Ocean Services, hired personnel and established operations to operate alongside airfreight operations in same offices. Led coordination of establishing policies and procedures from which to operate.

Supported creation of $25 million new revenue stream by enabling company to enter ocean freight forwarding business.

Customer bid proposals and RFPs (Request for Proposals) required vendors to demonstrate stronger commitment to quality processes, quality planning, and objectives. Six operating profit centers within United States, eight offices in Canada, four offices in Mexico, and lack of individual resources made improving quality challenging.

Assembled cross-functional teams to plan and implement strategy for building quality system and pursuing ISO certification.

Within two years, company was only second organization in associated U.S. industry to secure ISO 9002 certification; achieved zero non-compliance in first round of external audits.

Employee access to documented policies and procedures was critically needed in order to correctly perform job duties. Identifying and documenting key processes proved extremely challenging, due to sheer magnitude of task as well as insufficient staff available to work on project team.

Coordinated teamwork throughout company to identify, develop, and document policies and procedures for all key processes in 14 divisions. Established centralized methods for documentation ownership, maintenance, updating, and distribution of policies and procedures.

Productivity was enhanced and optimum customer service was realized. Timeframe for determining correct process was reduced to less than 15 minutes and rate of errors decreased companywide 50-200% per month. Resulting basis for standards and foundation for global quality management system diminished possibility of employees obtaining inaccurate or incomplete information.

Customers' and vendors' quality and compliance surveys were frequent, but not centrally received or organized. Task of completing multiple-page surveys was labor intensive and information garnered was frequently disparate.

Established SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) in every area for each portion of survey. Created electronic database easily accessible by all SMEs for updates then established standards and policies for corporate quality compliance surveys. Designed process and electronic real-time tool to complete task.

Task that had previously taken days was drastically reduced to just 30 minutes. Corporatewide communication was improved by having one system Process and policy now provided agreement to critical elements of company's commitment to quality. Unintentional improvements were realized from productivity gains in other laborious tasks, such as corporate communications information, agreed standards for ROI analysis of various projects, unplanned or impromptu point-of-contact customer inquiries, marketing collateral, and so on.

Maintaining ISO certification was labor-intensive for local management, straining already reduced resources. More productive and simpler methods for quality activities, such as capturing customer complaints and nonconformities and documenting quality review meetings, were sorely needed in order to continue management's support.

Securing development budget was difficult, because of department's non-revenue generating status. Successfully made case for building on synergy with similar, established e-tool. Successfully secured and transferred dedicated IT applications developer into department, saving on outside vendor fees.

Developed activity-based accounting metrics then won buy-in from operating centers to use new metrics as basis for ROI and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

Saved company more than 300% in productivity costs for some quality tasks; paved way for additional tools being embraced globally with even further savings through development of significant suite of e-tools (Continuous Quality Improvement Request, Non-Conformity/Customer Complaint, and Quality System Review Meeting).

Publication, review, approval, distribution, and maintenance of documented policies and procedures to more than 200 recipients was extremely labor intensive and burdensome for Quality Department, process owners, and recipients.

Few resources were allocated to complete these tasks - only one support staff within Quality Department. Field resources were already thin and not dedicated to said tasks. Management was resistant to additional activities being placed on department or location managers to ensure compliance.

Worked with IT programmer to develop Lotus Notes database, which provided global repository for more than 40,000 documents and enabled real-time review, approval, and maintenance of every document.

Eliminated maintenance and distribution of 14 hard cover, three-ring policy and procedures binders to more than 200 locations. Local-level productivity for updating, reviewing, and approving documents was reduced 500% (from in excess of five hours to one hour or less). Man hours decreased two hours per week at each location (100-200 hours/week total) and number of measurable quality objectives increased from average of two to five year-over-year.

New Ocean Services division was established with no defined set of standards, policies, or procedures for each of its new locations. Each manager had either established what they felt were most productive and profitable processes or was unskilled at how to do so. Buy-in by both management and employees was difficult, because staff allocations were thin; training had to be made on-the-job and time was limited.

Identified, wrote, and produced ocean shipment policies and procedures. Developed OJT and CBT modules (On-the-Job Training and Computer-Based-Training) to minimize amount of time employees would be required to devote to training away from job.

After implementation of standards, productivity savings were 100-200%. Offices were meeting their plans and synergies with other global ocean freight forwarders and vendors were realized.

Recognized that without adequate, system-wide education and training for Quality Managers, company would not be successful in meeting quality objectives or able to pass ISO certification audits.

Training Department resources were strained, and staff was not versed in ISO compliance nor CQI. Also, lack of agility and experience with using CBT (Computer Based Training) module was problematic.

Obtained authorization to access CBT software module in order to develop and build Quality Manager training. During course of 14 months, distilled 23 company-defined quality system policies and procedures as well as core Total Quality Management (TQM) system philosophies into one simplified, effective, user-friendly training course.

More than 100 quality managers were trained in quality without incurring travel expenses or additional training resources. Training course provided most efficient, cost effective, and accurate training method.

Due to lack of standardized policies and defined processes, customer complaints were not escalated through management system. Customers were dissatisfied with lack of follow-through and authority to resolve problems given to employees handling their complaints.

Developed and implemented companywide policy for escalation of customer complaints and internal non-compliances (NC) by working with executive management, field management, and field employees who were first line of contact with customer complaints. Developed system for reporting elements of complaints and internal non-conformities to organization.

Customer complaints to senior management were reduced 100-500%. Customers realized immediate action to complaints and local management's involvement was reduced. Companywide visibility allowed for process improvement assessments at all levels.