I wanted to give insight into my experience with our Cogent Analytics project, coordinated by Bob Hahn.
I was introduced to Bob Hahn and was very impressed with his business knowledge and experience. Upon starting our project, I was skeptical of how much help Cogent could provide, not knowing the technicalities of our industry. However, I still trusted in Bob’s process and decided to see it through to completion. My skepticism was disproved; every week that passed I felt more confident in Cogent’s capabilities and looked forward to each additional week to come. Bob forced me to make the changes that needed to be made and in a timely fashion. Knowing that you need to restructure, or do things a different way, is important. Most managers may put these items on hold because they feel too busy and never complete them. Bob’s short time here forced me to make these changes promptly, and without the typical excuses that may have accompanied them.
I believe most small businesses are run by people with great technical knowledge of the industry they are in. However, these owners (myself included) may not have the business knowledge required to properly and effectively run the company. Cogent Analytics has the experience to properly restructure small businesses to these Fortune 500 standards and set the baseline for effective growth and expansion.
Overall, I am extremely happy with the Cogent Analytics experience and recommend them to any business looking to get to the next level. My word of advice to other skeptical business owners is to be open-minded. While you may know all the technical knowledge of your industry, Cogent can provide you with the business expertise to take your company to levels you never previously imagined.
Cogent has positively affected our business and my personal life. Cogent forced me to make difficult decisions like “letting go” of the micromanagement and enforced delegation through the company. By delegating more tiers of management, I have noticed a substantial decline in the amount of workload and stress each day. Because of the Cogent project I took a week-long vacation and the company ran itself! For the first time ever, I didn’t have to run every aspect of the company. My new managers handled every issue that arose, and I was rarely bothered the entire week. I finally have a separation between work time and personal time. This is an invaluable benefit I received from Cogent Analytics and I will be forever grateful.
Bringing Cogent Analytics into PES was the best decision we have made in our 25 years of business.
Sincerely,
Daniel R. Staudt
Senior VP of Operations
Power Engineering Services, Inc.
