There's a Problem With Consulting

Consulting has become a game that most everyone plays the same. Most consulting firms are set up in the same fashion, hire the same type of people and go after the same types of clients. Really, is one Harvard MBA different than another? Does having 15 of them as Senior Managers make you a better, smarter, more competitive company? Once every company has adopted the same model it won't be long until they can only compete on price. After you become a commodity it's a long, hard road.

This is the trap that most industries fall into after a certain period of time. The best way to categorize it is "Group Think." Once everyone is trained the same way, they work on the same types of projects, then begin to fall into a certain silo of specialty and you can't expect them to actually see the world through a different shade of lens. Out of all this comes your typical consultants that spout buzzwords like it's going out of style and offer generic solution after generic solution to every problem that they see.

Any consultant that you get out of the typical top firm is going to be out of this mold. They certainly have their strengths which usually include sales, client relations, asking the right questions, creating informative presentations and spotting trouble spots in an organization. The problem becomes their weaknesses. Traditional MBA programs are designed to train a certain style of thinking and decision process. That process is typically financially driven and risk averse. It leads to the natural selection of a low risk solution that creates good net present value, internal rate of return and acceptable payback period. This is all great if all you want is to be average.

Great companies all assume some element of risk. Great solutions require people to think outside the box. Great value requires a project manager not just thinking about how to get the next sale. I won't sit here and say that we here at Integrated Strategies don't ever look for the next sale, but I will tell you why we're different. We think our next sale is in the implementation of our recommendation. We'll take more consulting work but what we're really in this business for is to implement our ideas, make them work and then make them successful. Next time you get a consultant in for a meeting ask him if his firm will personally do construction management and implementation of their plan. I'll bet that they won't.

The trick to changing consulting is getting the answer from people who will do the work after they show you their solution. Consulting firms that hand you the solution and walk away accept no responsibility for your success. Wouldn't you rather have a partner than some abstract adviser?

Giving Away Your Thoughts

One of the biggest arguments people make against company blogs is that it seems like the equivalent of giving away our intellectual advantage. If we tell people what we think and how we do things what is to keep them from simply doing it themselves? It's a valid question that is worth deeper examination. It's a question that goes to a deeper argument about giving away services or products in hope of selling additional or other services and products.

The argument against giving away knowledge makes a few assumptions that I don't believe are entirely valid. To be specific, the two assumptions I disagree with most are 1) people can completely grasp and execute the topics being discussed and 2) people have the time to do the work themselves. This isn't to say that most people who read this blog don't or can't understand what I'm talking about, it's that they probably don't see and understand the nuances that go beyond the high-level theory. Execution of an idea will bring up every exception, variance and incorrect assumption that cannot be covered in a one page article. It's one thing to talk about warehouse design but until you've done it 3, 20 or 50 times there are aspects you simply won't pick-up on.

There are people that grasp it, have done it in some form and could do it again. Here is where assumption 2 comes in. Those people already have a job that they are expected to perform at a certain level and that job has likely been already balanced to fill a 40 or more hour work week. It's hard to simply divert the attention of these people onto a new task. Their plate is already full.

Here's where the value of giving away the knowledge comes in handy though. If someone understands the value of a certain job and decides that they need it they typically go through some sort of RFP or interview process to decide who can best execute and meet their expectations. If you've been explaining your thoughts on the subject through a blog or newsletter then they have a way to become comfortable with you and your methodology. Especially if their internal experts look at it and approve of it. Assuming that prices are similar, or separated only by some level of tolerance, a company is going to contract someone they trust and feel comfortable with most of the time. In that perspective a blog becomes a means of relationship management and trust building.

Anyone with the time and desire to do what we do themselves can find the articles, whitepapers and processes online for free somewhere. Between Google, Wikipedia and the other millions and millions of websites it is possible to find anything that you want. You could do a search and find thousands of opinions contradicting mine on this topic if you wanted. It comes down to believability, trust and relationship. The same concepts that any strong business is built on. The same traits that most employees are held to. The same words that most people try to live by.

I wouldn't hold back information from a friend just so that I could try and sell him my services and make some extra money. I also don't think anyone who reads this blog would be dumb enough to stick around if I were simply selling my company and making everything we do sound impossible to execute without us. Good businessmen realize that there are always other options for people to hire, products to purchase and opinions on an issue. We want to help everyone that we can with their real estate issues and that may be by simply sharing our opinion on a topic, giving out some free advise or getting hired to do that thorough evaluation that we are good at.

Time Makes All Things Better

I've recently been buried in project work and have not had the time to update this blog as regularly as I'd promised myself that I would. A funny thing has happened in the time that I've been away though. Traffic has actually increased since I've been gone. Organic hits from Google, Yahoo and AOL have actually been keeping traffic to the site growing even with a lack of posting on my part. We have gained subscribers to the email update as well.

I'd been growing a little disenchanted at the time it takes to make these regular updates but it looks like it actually does pay off as time goes along. It seems like we are striking the right cord with the audience at large and they want to hear what we are talking about in the industry.

Going back through some of the keyword searches that drive people to this site it seems like it's primarily warehouse and industrially focused. That could be in part because that's the focus I tend to have and it reflects posts I put more thought into but regardless I believe that is the direction I'm going to continue to lean towards moving forward.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around this far. It looks like we're going to be back in business because it does actually work. I think it's safe to say it won't be a post everyday necessarily, but a few posts a week should be about right. Remember to invite your friends to read, invite coworkers and lets get some conversation going on the site.

The purpose of this medium is to provide an avenue for deeper thoughts on the subjects presented here. There are too many small business owners buried in the long-term operations to see that they may not be doing right on the day-to-day. There are too many operators who don't have the time to keep up with the latest trends in their industry. There are too many people who don't fully understand supply chain and logistics. Hopefully we can continue to educate and improve the state of business Supply Chains.

The Joys of Risk

Taking risks is one of those things in life that can really get the adrenaline flowing and make big things happen. There is a surprisingly high number of people afraid of risks that like to follow the proven paths until they reach the end. The issue becomes that success takes risk. Anyone who avoids risk can never really find success.

Any large project will require decisions to be made without knowing all of the information. The risk avoidance method is to wait for more information before making a decision. Not making that decision is a decision in itself though. The opportunity cost of the decision timing is often the difference between success and mediocrity. A project that comes in two weeks ahead of schedule and 10% under-budget is a success. A project on-time and at budget is expected. Sure, the risk is that every assumption made for the early decision is incorrect resulting in more delays or costs but those can be mediated down the road to offset and get back to the expected result.

Decisions come down to statistics in the end. You can wait until you are 95% sure to make a decision or you can make it with only 70% certainty. The difference is an evaluation of the opportunity cost for development of the 25% separation. Strategy decisions usually will never even reach the 70% mark. Evaluating the alternatives and roads to success is a skill that certain people develop because they respect risk and are not afraid of it.

Innovation is a risk driven process. People afraid of risk will not be as innovative and creative. New ideas are always clouded with uncertainty. The margin for error can be quite small and the risk/reward ratios are daunting. However, every well respected management magazine, website or writer will tell anyone who listens the necessity to innovate and evolve as time goes along.

Growth is a risk decision. It is possible to grow without changing the business or branching out, but growth without change is a limiting alternative. With growth comes the need for expanded responsibility, complementary product/service lines, additional product variations or research and development.

Risk should be embraced as part of a business culture. Not blatant jump and guess risks, but the thoughtful decisions with an effective reward potential. If you are not taking risks as a company or individual, you are probably not reaching your potential.


Technorati Tags: risk, consulting, statistics

Strategy for Building Owners

One of the more difficult tasks for building owners is knowing and keeping up with everything that is happening with their building(s). If you own multiple locations it can be nearly impossible to keep track of all the changes being made, keep track of leases, make sure operations and maintenance is consistent, and stay on top of new ways to lower costs. Sure, you could try and keep up with it yourself or you could hire a crack team of consultants to constantly come in and look at everything and propose changes they find on any given day of the week, but those just aren't quite the best solutions.

A new solution is being offered at Integrated Strategies. We have the capabilities to track every lease (and their details), help implement a low-cost procurement plan, keep you informed about the latest technologies and work with you to continually lower operating costs. Our solution is that we have gone out, formed all the relationships and invested in the best technologies already to help you. We have relationships with carpet manufacturers to deliver carpet at sometimes 40% less than traditional dealers. We have relationships with lighting vendors to audit your current lights and deliver a high ROI solution to lower your utilities and improve operations. Our consulting services are second to none when it comes to helping with strategic decisions.

It can be frustrating to deal with different vendors for every different aspect of a facility. Tenants keep introducing their own wrinkles into the process as well. If you haven't put anything more than a day-to-day operations plan in place then you are leaving money on the table that you could be using to improve your margins. At the end of the day if you can reduce your operating costs by $1 a square foot then you are only helping yourself.

Being a building owner is an investment of your capital. Your goal is to get the best return possible for what you have put in. If there is a better, easier way to improve your business isn't it at least worth a look? We would love to come in and show you where we can add value to your operation either as part of a one-time project or as part of a long-term relationship. It can't hurt to see what's possible.


Technorati Tags: real estate, building, consulting, services

Six Sigma and the Workplace

I am an active participant on LinkedIn and particularly LinkedIn Answers. One of the most frustrating topics I see come up again and again are various company managers asking if Six Sigma is right for their particular issue. Almost as soon as the question is posed there will be five or six responses from either Six Sigma Black Belts or
others who work in a Six Sigma environment that say of course it will work for you and by the way...would you like any help implementing it? Usually I am the only person who steps in to ask what the reasons behind looking at Six Sigma are and that there are other options beyond Six Sigma (and its many, many offshoots).

Six Sigma is a set of practices that is used to eliminate defects within a process. It was originally intended to improve manufacturing processes but has since been adapted to improve any system or set of processes. The latest trend is using Six Sigma as a way of improving office functions or specifically the operations within a given department. To implement Six Sigma you first have to define the process that is going to be improved and then measure the on-going metrics. Herein lies the biggest problem with Six Sigma.

There is an inherent assumption made within a Six Sigma process that the baseline process is an effective starting point to improve against. Many times it is the existence of bad process and procedures that drives a business to implement Six Sigma in the first place. Companies with the worst base processes are the ones looking at improvement strategies and often find Six Sigma. These companies will see almost no significant help.

Most companies somehow make it along without the help of Six Sigma. For some reason they don't need a bunch of Black Belts evaluating their processes to recommend changes and fixes to stay successful. If you are looking into a process improvement methodology, first look internally to see if it is simply bad processes that are driving the issues. If you feel the issues go beyond what you are capable of diagnosing and repairing on your own then bring in an outside consultant to help. Their job is to identify problems and help you fix them.

I'd love to give more information on this and probably will at some point, but I want to really emphasize that most issues are internal and not something that can be fixed through a Six Sigma program.


Technorati Tags: six sigma, consulting, business processes

Greening the Warehouse

Helping the environment is the big push in business. We've talked about the advantages to the marketing side of the business before. Today I'd like to go over some of the options out there for making your warehouse more environmentally friendly and why it's a good idea.

Warehouses are typically looked upon as industrial and environmentally unfriendly. This perception is holding back many companies from making real progress at cleaning up their act in the distribution centers. The opportunities available to reduce waste and energy are immense because of the purpose and operation of warehousing. Just like with offices, it is much more difficult to "Green" an existing warehouse than a new one but it is still possible and will save you money in the short and long-terms.

What areas are most ready to cut your costs and help the environment? To name just a few, you have paper reduction, transportation efficiency, lighting and air conditioning/heating. With all of these you can implement simple equipment or procedures than can provide you with quantitative results.

Paper Reduction

Old warehouse methods typically generate a large amount of paperwork. The less warehouse technology in place means that there is more paperwork needed to track all the transactions taking place. Some warehouses have room upon room for file cabinets filled with paperwork. Paper is may be recyclable but generating it and using it is not environmentally friendly. Technology is a way to reduce the paperwork generated by an operation and improves productivity at the same time. Advance Shipping Notifications (ASNs) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs) are the two best ways to reduce paper usage in a warehouse. Storing and backing up all the data across a building server or servers is the best way to enable quick retrieval and efficient storage.

Transportation Efficiency

Trucks stopping and going at your distribution center let out exhaust which releases greenhouse gases into the environment. Minimizing the impact of the trucks in your control can further reduce your environmental impact. Carbon footprint studies take into account the transportation associated with your company and products during the calculations. Moving trucks through faster or putting procedures in place for them to shut off engines when waiting is minimal cost but provides an impact.

Lighting

The lighting industry is beginning to take off on the back of environmentally friendly solutions. The reason for this is the extremely aggressive pay-back period for the technology in almost any application (both new or existing). If you are currently using metal halide, high-pressure sodium or t-12 lighting you fall into the category of prime candidate for an upgrade. Typically the payback period is going to be less than 2 years and the on-going savings are fairly significant. New environmentally friendly bulbs also give you the ability to discard your light recycling program that is draining money because you can throw the new bulbs away with the regular waste.

T8, and more commonly now T5, lights offer significantly lower energy usage and higher light output which means fewer lights required for the space. It's the best of both worlds. When you implement the light fixtures in combination with motion detectors to deactivate unneeded lights the savings becomes even more significant. Every major light manufacturer is moving to provide attractive T5 solutions and replacement plans to existing operations. More often than not they will come to your site and perform a free lighting assessment to show you the potential savings for your warehouse. Again, if you are using the older technology the Return on Investment will probably fall in at less than 2 years. As far as green technology goes, that is hard to beat.

Air Conditioning/Heating

Unless you fall into one of those great parts of the country (like San Diego) that has nearly perfect weather all year long, there is a good chance you spend money on heating and possibly cooling for your warehouse. Most warehouses in the country typically only provide heating unless there is a business need for air conditioning. The utility costs for heating a warehouse can be fairly significant though. There are three areas of the warehouse that can help you cut the cost you spend on heating and cooling.

First is the roof. If you are in an existing facility it is probably unlikely that there is anything that you will be able to do to upgrade this. New roofs are costly affairs and would probably result in operational downtime which is usually difficult to justify. However, in new warehouses the roof should be evaluated as more than just a way to keep out the elements. Look at the insulation value of the roof to determine the potential savings on heating and cooling. All that warm air in the warehouse rises to the top and a poor roof will exchange the warmth from inside for the cold outside forcing you to heat more on the inside than you would otherwise. Work with a specialist in HVAC if necessary to run the calculations.

Second is the warehouse doors. Dock doors are the primary contributors to warehouse air leaks. Cheap dock doors offer almost no insulation value from the outside. During the winter the cold air outside will cool down the air inside the warehouse. The principle is the same as with windows in residential housing. High performance windows offer better insulation and lower your heating/cooling costs every month. Doors with higher insulation factors are more expensive but could lower your monthly operating costs. However, the second problem with dock doors is that they are often not aligned correctly to be flush with the warehouse floor or dock leveler. Leaving doors open or gaps under and around the door will defeat any added insulation the door many have. Even with regular doors, make sure that they are flush with the floor and stay closed as much as possible during cool months.

Third is the walls themselves. Warehouse walls are usually not the most insulated construction materials in the world. Concrete tilt-up panels or metal walls offer more protection than dock doors, but still let in the cold. Adding additional insulation around the inside of the building will also reduce energy usage. The additional insulation keeps warm air in and the cold air out. You don't need to add it from top to bottom on the walls. Usually all that is needed is from the roof to about 15 feet above the floor. The goal is to protect the warm air in the warehouse (which has risen to the rafters) from trying to exchange heat with the outside. This is the same reason why upgraded roofs are good ideas.

Finally, use energy efficient equipment. Heating and cooling equipment is slowly becoming more energy efficient and you should take advantage of that fact in your operation. It is the simplest and easiest method to quantify the savings on.



Focusing on these four areas of the warehouse will give you the greatest environmental improvement for the cost. There are many different ways to green your warehouse and many of them will also improve your business and bottom line. Evaluation for potential impact by a professional consulting company will often cost little if anything. There is almost no reason not to try and find the areas you can help.


Technorati Tags: green, warehouse, environment

How We Became Integrated Strategies

8 years ago our company began as a Project Management firm that helped companies manage their construction, renovation and relocation projects. Since then project management work has still been the one constant in the company. Project Management firms are a great case study in the current economy and the life cycle of service industry companies.

The trick when you are striking out and starting your own business is to find an un- or under-served area of the market where you excel and can provide value. Our niche happened to be that we were great at running projects and could provide the resources to manage these one off jobs for clients that didn't have the time or skills in-house to handle it. We were very successful at this and project management was enough for awhile. As outsourcing these functions became more wide-spread and accepted within the business world more and more companies entered the project management field bringing down margins across the board and creating a very competitive environment. When something like this happens it's time to change the way the game is played.

Now in order to win business we were forced to provide differentiation between us and every other project management firm in the market. Our successful history, client recommendations and broad spectrum of experience wasn't enough to compete with the low cost providers. As a way to differentiate we began bringing other outsourced functions onboard that relate to project management. Workplace Strategies, Design and Construction Management were added as additional services. Suddenly we had a new set of competitors. No longer were we just competing with Project Management companies but we were offering similar services of Architectural firms and Consulting firms. This worked fine for awhile because we were new to that world and our focus was still different from them.

As our growth continued though we were bidding against traditional consulting firms more and more instead of simply the regular project management companies. They had a set of differentiators that we weren't able to compete with. We had entered the gray area in the service world between the smaller PM firms and the larger Consulting houses. It was an awkward position to be in to say the least. Too small to win big projects and too big to win small projects. In the same situation many other companies have struggled and finally failed. We decided that it was time to fight the stream and go toe to toe with our new competition.

To do this we brought in Financial consulting, Supply Chain and Logistics consulting, Real Estate consulting, many top professionals from partners we had worked with in the past for this type of work. If it wasn't going to work we would at least go down swinging and knowing that we gave it our best. We developed so many services that the name Integrated Strategies just came naturally. That was two years ago now and we are still growing successfully. We are working on several currently non-existent differentiators that will help us continue to grow our market and capabilities. It is a very exciting time now that we are playing with the big boys and playing very successfully at that. We have the tools to walk into any executive interview and offer superior services over the FTIs, Deloittes, and others of the world.

We would love to work with your company and we believe we can provide value to any company that we work with in at least one of the service lines we offer. If you are interested in us please feel free to subscribe to our email updates or send us an email. We know that not everyone needs something now and that not everyone wants to outsource. Please bookmarks us and keep us as a reference even. This blog is free for everyone to read, comment and enjoy. We hope this is useful and think that every company can benefit in some way from us.

If you see a topic and want to ask us a specific question feel free to contact us and we'll give you the answers you need.

Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to do so!


Technorati Tags: consulting, integrated strategies, history

Integrated Strategies - What We Do

I've received a couple of comments recently that say the topics are a little too broad to develop a targeted audience. There is a reason for that. Remember that this is a company blog (still very young in terms of number of articles) and the goal is to try and cover as much of what we offer as possible. Right now we are still in the ground laying phase. There is a lot to do in order to get an established archive of background and to begin putting some more organization around the posts. Everything is sort of scattered but not for long. To my point, let's review what Integrated Strategies offers to our customers and clients:

1. Real Estate Consulting
2. Supply Chain Consulting
3. Workplace Strategies and Design
4. Project and Construction Management
5. Strategic Facilities and Operations Planning
6. Facilities, Property and Portfolio Management

When we talk to clients about our scope of available services they are usually fairly doubtful initially. How many firms will actually evaluate, plan, design, execute and maintain a project from beginning to end. Typically you need 3 or more consulting firms to get through something of that size. Having the real estate planning team execute a construction project is traditionally out of the question because of over-specialized consulting houses. In the end you pay extra for each additional extra group you have to bring in. Why not bring in one company that can support your internal Real Estate and Facilities teams.

You will see on the right hand side a new area called Service Lines. I have gone back and tagged posts with each of our service lines plus a 7th tag for posts that show our thoughts on business and how we operate. This will help readers identify where the topic of any given post falls in our range of services and give them a better way of researching their needs.

It will be hard for this blog to fit into a specific category because of everything our company covers. However, if I had to say what internet "niche" we fall in it would be Business Improvement. The responsibility we assign to ourselves internally for every project we are involved in is to fill the role of client advocate. We want every one of our clients to be in a better position at the end of the day to grow and develop their business successfully. If we haven't put them in a position to do that then we were not successful in what we were hired for.

We are new at the blogging game and apologize if things seem a little random. There is a lot that we want to cover with you and a wealth of information that we have to share. I hope that this clarifies what we do and that this gives you some sense of who we are. Please feel free to contact us either through the new contact area on the side or leave us a comment. We want to drive discussion around all of our topics and want to help you (either through this blog or through our company).

Thanks,

David Music


Technorati Tags: integrated strategies, consulting, services

Power of Intellectual Capital

As a consulting company, the value that we provide our customers is the gathered intellectual knowledge we have in our company. The solutions that we are able to bring to the table are developed based on the tools our employees have picked up and developed over the years. Sometimes we come up with a truly unique idea that is able to bring something new to the table, but those are often developed out of simple modifications to existing ideas.

One of the reasons that we maintain and update this blog so regularly is to provide an output for some of the knowledge we have that others may be able to use as well. We try and advertise this site to our current and previous clients in case there is additional value hear that they can use. We advertise it to our internal clients and business partners as a way of keeping them up to date on the latest methods we have and to remind them of things we can do they may have forgotten about. The third reason is to help establish ourselves as thought leaders in the industry.

It would be nice to be the size of the CBRE Consulting group or FTI. We eventually hope to get there and we believe that we are at least as good as them and probably better at most things we do. Our goal is to drive the industry towards constant improvement and create not only a company that is innovative and continually increasing the value we bring to the table but also to create an industry that continues to innovate and improve. We look out at the software industry and see the stagnation that came around because market giants became comfortable with their position. New companies like Google and Yahoo came along and is slowly eliminating the software industry as we knew it. Software as a Service is becoming more and more accepted and popular.

The way we push the giants in our industry is by letting them know where we are and letting their customers know where we are. We'll get our business if we do a great job of helping out clients, we'll continue on our growth curve. We want the industry to be forced to react to us because their clients require them to provide what we are providing. We don't want to hide behind proprietary services that no one else has. Everyone should know what we have and what we offer because we are more than happy to offer our services even to CBRE or FTI when they can't do what we can and their client demands it. That's how you become the industry leader, that's how you grow your business and develop a solid reputation.

Toyota helped to create a legacy with their Toyota Production System. They developed a better way to manufacture cars and tighten up their supply chain. Response time improved, inventory carrying costs went down and they were noticed by everyone within the manufacturing industry. Not just by auto manufacturers or vehicle manufacturers but by anyone who produced anything in a manufacturing environment. Everyone did not put the system in place but everyone knew about it and its benefits. We want to be Toyota. We want to be the company that changes the way people look at our industry.

The Business Services sector has a lot of room to improve. We offer value to any business in America whether they realize it or not. Our job is to find that value we can bring and extract it for our clients. We work with outside service providers ourselves and understand as well as anyone that not everything can be kept inside. No company can gather every type of intellectual capital they need to run their business to its fullest potential.

The biggest reason that companies decide not to use consulting companies is not that they are running a great operation but that the cost of extracting value is high even if the Return on Investment is under a year. How much are you willing to spend to save $10 million every year if you are a $100 million dollar company? $1 million? $5 million? $15 million? What is that capital worth? Why wouldn't you spend $10 million to save $10 million on a repeating basis? This is exactly the situation that many companies find themselves in but instead of making the decision they stick to the status quo. They've lived with it so far, why not continue and not spend the money.

It won't be long before someone figures out the way to bring down the cost of extracting value. A venture capital company will eventually come along that invests in saving other companies money. We'll be there to help them lead the way.


Technorati Tags: consulting, intellectual capital, blogging

Entrepreneurial America

Small business is the backbone of America. Economic growth depends on new businesses and small businesses. Sometimes it can be scary to hear the success rate statistics or about the flash in the pan businesses. A lot of people that would like to break away from the corporate world decide not to because they hear that only 20% of businesses survive past 4 years.

Fear not though. According to many recent studies most small businesses actually make it past the four year mark. 50% according to some studies. If ever there was a time to break out on your own and ride that idea that has been sitting in the back of your head it is now. Most people have that one idea that they think could be their key to independence and financial security. Deciding to actually break out and execute it is the hardest part. Leaving a secure job and pay check is a scary thing to do.

Fortunately, it has never been easier to find assistance in starting up your business. Venture capital companies seem to be everywhere giving out money to all kinds of new businesses. Small business loans are fairly easy to get for the common entrepreneur. Consulting companies are around to help you plan out every aspect of your business you don't have the know how to set up perfectly yourself. Consulting companies specializing in every aspect of business exist: Real estate, management, recruiting, logistics, inventory, workplace, business strategy, strategic assessments, site selection, etc. The list is as long as your imagination.

Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to find a consulting company that specializes in everything you are looking for. Who wants to bring in five different companies to help them. Life would just become more complicated than if you tried to figure everything out yourself. Those people that pull the trigger and start their business go out and get their financial backing, find a real estate broker and start getting everything lined up. All the ducks seem to be in a row, but are you sure you aren't missing anything?

Integrated Strategies works with real estate brokers. Our job is to help those brokers' clients be in the best position to succeed long-term. Our goal is to create partnerships with businesses so that we can help each other over the long-term. We see our role as that of client advocate, setting up everything necessary. We can set you up with procurement strategies with the vendors you will need on an everyday basis. We have the capabilities to manage your facilities or assist with your asset tracking. We have the tools to implement, design, or manage any physical work you need completed. And we aren't outsourcing any of that work, it's all done in house so you can meet, know and have that single point of accountability for the entire aspect of your business that you need help with.

America has become a small business, service economy. Specialization is the key to success anymore. Specialize what you do well at and we'll help you with the rest.


Technorati Tags: consulting, entrepreneur, small business

Supply Chain Importance

Do you have someone that keeps their finger on every layer of your supply chain? A Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) so to speak. If your business involves moving a product(s) to an end user there should be someone in charge of supply chain health. Ignoring the supply chain is quite possibly the number 1 way to add unnecessary cost to products, force you to lease more real estate than necessary, and eat away at overall profit margin.

Supply Chains are not sexy things. They are composed by your greedy suppliers, transportation companies that find new ways to make your life difficult, buildings that are ugly and expensive, workers you wouldn't want to associate yourself even when you are at work, and equipment that just keeps sucking down your money. This is the last way you should envision your supply chain. In the end there are three types of supply chains. Those that:

1) Put you ahead of your competitors, reduce your costs, and make you a superstar to your customers.

2) Keep you in the race with no advantages.

3) Drain your money, make your customers hate you, and put you out of business tomorrow.

More companies than not fall into that #2 category. Probably 80% of all supply chains exist because they have to. They have minimal thought put into them and simply operate on their own. 10% fall into the superstar category and 10% fall into the quickly going out of business category. How many companies realize they are in the wrong one? Probably not many until it is too late.

Designate a person who is in charge of keeping the supply chain healthy. This person should understand the workings inside your distribution centers, know the suppliers and track product and order lifecycles. Processes should be in place to track the key metrics around these areas. If you do not have anyone who can do this, it may be time to look for outside help. There are many consultants or consulting companies willing and capable of assisting you in your evaluation of what you have and what you need. Do not be afraid to bring someone in, the future success of your company could be at stake.


Technorati Tags: supply chain, consulting, distribution

Site Selection (How It Should Be Done)

One of the most important decisions that a business needs to make is where they will locate their facilities. Traditional Site Selection firms take a limited cross-section of markets into consideration that varies from industry to industry. Call Centers can only go to these markets, Technology companies can only go to these, and Transportation companies to another set. Their process is driven by past successes within a certain industry or where the majority of companies in a given industry are located.

Unfortunately, past success is not a reliable indicator of future success. Many traditional call center markets are becoming oversaturated to the point where turnover is beginning to damage the bottom lines of companies located in those markets. Technology companies are becoming centralized in such a way that incentives decrease in value because a market no longer needs to draw these types of companies. But the biggest problem with traditional Site Selection is that it does not accurately account for the fact that a company can exist in multiple industries at one time. Where should the research center for a company doubling in size every year that is an outsource provider of IT services to the Healthcare industry be? It falls under research, IT, and Healthcare.

The ideal process for site selection should start by evaluating the internal facts about a company and what their needs for the new site are. Then it should look at a completely blank map and evaluate the relative characteristics of each and every city or county with a labor force capable of supporting their facility. If a non-biased, full geographic approach is not used there is no way to verify that the best site was chosen.

If you are currently going through a site selection process either internally or with an outside consultant you should stop and analyze the approach taken to finding the correct location. If there are only a few options on the table why aren't other cities included? If your team tries to tell you that it is too expensive or impossible to evaluate every market in the US then they aren't really performing site selection are they? There are firms capable of looking at every market across the board to find the best one for you. The amazing thing is that these firms are also charging less for their services because they are leveraging available technology to decrease their costs and increase their accuracy.

The non-biased approach allows emerging and non-traditional markets to enter consideration in the Site Selection process. Many times these markets offer aggressive incentives to bring in new businesses. These markets have the same infrastructure, labor force, and financial costs as traditional markets without the intense competition for land, labor, and attention. If traditional site selection processes were used by everyone then Austin, Texas wouldn't be what it is today and many other mid-size markets wouldn't be getting the attention they deserve for having wonderful demographics and superior infrastructure.



Technorati Tags: site selection, consulting, decision making

What is Knapsack and Why We Use It

Knapsack problems are a type of problem that involves deciding which of a number of items should be placed into a limited amount of space. The problem type gets its name from trying to fill a backpack (knapsack) with items needed to go camping. In the classic scenario the items are a compass, matches, map, portable grill, food, clothes, tent, books, hunting equipment, etc. Each of these items has an assigned weight and value to the packer. If only 30 pounds can be held in the backpack which items should be chosen?

The problem boils down to a cost/value association in it's simplest form. Matches have a value of 10 and a weight of almost nothing, while a book has a relative value of 2 and a weight of maybe 2 pounds. It's a fairly simple decision to pack the matches before you pack the book. More decisions fall under this philosophy than realized. Anytime there is a choice between two items there is a potential knapsack problem.

Why am I explaining this? Well, not all problems are that cut and dry. Think about a distribution center and deciding the storage medium that should be used. It's a form of knapsack problem with several expandable size bags. Each rack type is a knapsack (Pallet Rack, Carton Storage, Floor Storage, Bin Shelving, etc.) and each item needs to be placed into one. Imagine the costs involved: real estate, labor, material handling equipment, cost of the storage medium. They all vary by rack type. The Value of each item is how quickly it moves through the warehouse (lines per day and seasonality). Now run this evaluation over 5,000+ SKU types. Not a simple problem anymore but it can make a big difference in the effectiveness of your distribution center or distribution network.

Thinking in terms of Knapsack provides definition to problems that previously would not have had much form. It allows an evaluation method for each of the options that must be considered as long as there is an ability to assign a Cost and Value. Cost could be anything from money to size to weight to business flexibility. Likewise, Value could be money, growth potential, profit potential or speed. Assuming that a very reliable and understandable Cost and Value are assigned to each decision variable, a solution can be reached.

Obviously not all problems can fall be solved using Knapsack and not all solutions reached by using this method will be optimal. There are some grey areas around the theory. For certain Cost/Value ratios it is better to not fill up the bag than to continue filling it. Some decisions allow you to pick an option multiple times with decreasing value each time (if you want to pack three books and two boxes of matches). However, it provides the framework to begin thinking through some of the decisions facing you today. Making decisions is one of the most difficult jobs in business and sometimes it is near impossible to make them without outside help. The cost of making a bad decision usually outweighs the cost of bringing in help to make the right one.



Technorati Tags: knapsack, consulting, decision making

What is Consulting

It seems sometimes that every company out there has its own definition of what consulting actually is. Add to that the fact that many people have an image ingrained in their mind about it that was formed by pop culture (most notably the Bobs in Office Space). I feel it is important for me to lay out what our definition is to help readers better understand why we do things the way we do.

Consulting to Integrated Strategies is about helping to improve a client's business. Not just to come up with some ideas about how to save them money, but honestly improve their business so that they can continue to grow and support their core mission. Sometimes the answer is that they need to add costs to their structure so that the have the flexibility to face a new challenge awaiting them down the road. Sometimes it's to outsource their entire Real Estate function to a third party. Most of the time it's something more simple.

A lot of consulting companies talk about Six Sigma and how they do Six Sigma and what Six Sigma can do for a business. No one talks about the basics behind Six Sigma anymore. We do. We don't sell ourselves as being a Six Sigma firm. Can we do it? Yes, but for most clients they don't need Six Sigma. They need the fundamentals. They need to understand their processes and why they do the things they do. Six Sigma is a continuous improvement process. In the perfect world it helps to always improve processes down to the point where errors are nearly non-existent. Unfortunately it does not help processes that are out of alignment with business practices to begin with. It does not provide a platform for broad reaching reform.

The way we do consulting is to work with companies to really understand their business. Then we take our expertise and experience to help them put in place the correct processes to enable their on-going success. Not only do we make the suggestions, but we stay around to help them implement and adapt to new information. We stake our reputation and our partnership with the client on actually putting our recommendations in place and showing success.

What it comes down to is that every client is a partner to us. We aren't looking for one-off engagements. Will we take them? Sure, but we still look to expand the relationship. Our sales and marketing isn't based on the latest buzzwords, fads or trends. Consulting is about results and making those results happen on an on-going and regular basis.


Technorati Tags: consulting, six sigma