I would sincerely like to thank you, and the team at Cogent Analytics for a job well-done! A seven-week project seemed daunting in the beginning, but due the well-defined process time has flown by.
Opening up one’s business to an outside source for close review is very uncomfortable. Frankly, in the beginning I was not real receptive to the process. We were a successful, and profitable company despite of somewhat reactive way of managing our business. I knew we had many challenges and areas for improvement, but as a business owner my ego told me I could fix them on my own. I was wrong.
From the first day, Jim was on task. He laid out our timeline and reviewed items from the discovery process. Within a day or two we had a defined project plan and it was off to the races! While I had always worked long hours and would call myself a “hard-worker”, I was working “in the business”. Quickly, Jim shifted my focus to working on the business and taking a more proactive approach to management.
The scope of our project was broad but the improvement areas were well-defined by our Project Manager.
- Organization-This included understanding our work process, productivity issues, developing a framework for organizational management and training for Senior Management
- Financial Controls-reshaping the way we looked at our financial information and development of reports that allow us to quickly determine our financial performance; developing realistic and functional budgets
- Business, Sales & Marketing Planning-Fine tuning how we manage our customers and growth through sales execution, marketing and better understanding our competition
Now that we have come to our project’s official end, I will truly miss having Jim here with us every day. He has become a valuable part of our team and will always be recognized as an “honorary” S-2 employee. While the project is complete I know we will always have a trusted advisor to lean upon not only during the follow up phase but into the future.
I highly recommend Cogent Analytics, and our Project Manager Jim Merkle, to any business who wants to set the stage for growth and long-term success.
