Embracing Change pg 05
Wellness that Works pg 08
Road Map to the Cloud pg 10
SPRING 2014
SPEED THE
OF SUCCESS BUSINESS IS MOVING FASTER THAN EVER. HERE'S HOW TO PULL AHEAD.
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SPRING 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.2
Features
Departments L ETTER TO THE READER
2 + S PE CI A L SE CT I O N
12
Taking the Lead in Today's Marketplace GROW IN G
5 “The Best Business Change I Ever Made"
p.
The
SPEED of SUCCESS Fail Fast to Win Big | Blow Up the Bottlenecks | Bring Your Team Up to Speed, One Hour at a Time
08
p.
EMPLOYEE WELLNESS PROGRAMS: WHAT WORKS
Your program options are virtually limitless— but success requires these six factors.
SUCCESS IN ACTION
Chief Talk: Business Leaders Share Key Lessons They’ve Learned 16 Liz Elting, Co-CEO, TransPerfect: Staying Fast and Future-Focused 17 Chris Van Gorder, CEO, Scripps Health: Building Healthy Relationships GUIDE TO GO
20 Backup Revisited Not-so-obvious ideas to bolster your business continuity plan F IEL D REPORTS
04 At ITW Welding, Speed Sparks Success 07 Bandwidth Boosts Education in Yuma 10 Road Map to the Cloud 19 Colleyville’s Information Transformation Spring 2014
1
LETTER TO THE READER
Taking the Lead in Today’s Marketplace WELCOME TO THE SPRING 2014 EDITION OF SOLVE MAGAZINE! In this issue, you’ll find solutions and ideas from exceptional business leaders who, like you, are coping with the challenges of today’s rapidly evolving business climate. To thrive now and in the future, working faster will be critical. Can your business become more efficient, more nimble, and more prepared to jump on new opportunities? Absolutely. In the “Speed of Success” special section, starting on page 12, you’ll hear from some of the smartest thinkers in the marketplace about the joy of “failing fast,” blowing up bottlenecks, and bringing your team up to speed. As your company meets the future, you’ll want your technology and applications to be the best tools possible for collaboration and achievement. Often, the fastest route to that result is a cloud-based solution. In our article “Road Map to the Cloud” (pages 10-11), you’ll get insight into why forward-thinking companies like AAA Western and Central New York are making the decision to save time and money by moving to hardware and software solutions that are hosted on and delivered over the Internet. Of course, none of these ideas for speeding up your company works without an excellent technology infrastructure—one that lets employees communicate clearly and access data without delays. That’s where Time Warner Cable Business Class comes in. We have grown to serve more than 600,000 business customers by understanding that, in order to compete, businesses must constantly adapt and change. We enable success by providing advanced telecommunications services over a state-of-the-art, and growing, fiber-rich network. And we support it all with talented folks who are dedicated to business services—and to your success.
Sincerely,
Jeff Greenberg Group Vice President – Mid-Market, Channels and Alliances
SOLVE IS A TWO-WAY STREET Talk to us! How did you like this issue, and what should we cover next? Write to SolveMagazine@twcable.com. See the last issue at www.solvemagazine.com. And if you've worked with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology challenges, we'd like to hear about it for future issues. Visit business.twc.com/ nomination to share your story.
2
Spring 2014
SPRING 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.2 RSL MEDIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Robert Levin SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR
Lee Lusardi Connor ART DIRECTION
Jim Nissen DESIGNER
Marisa Bigler
TIME WARNER CABLE BUSINESS CLASS CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Stephanie Anderson GROUP VICE PRESIDENT – MID-MARKET, CHANNELS AND ALLIANCES
Jeff Greenberg DIRECTOR – CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MARKETING
Orlando Betancourt
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FIELD REPORT
GASTON BROWN SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR, ITW WELDING
At ITW Welding, Speed Sparks Success Advanced IT was the key to an Ohio company’s continued growth. THE CHALLENGE: In the welding industry, Troy, Ohio–based ITW Welding is a superstar. A key part of the global manufacturing company Illinois Tool Works, ITW Welding is a group of companies that includes leading manufacturers of metals, equipment, welding components, and accessories for a wide variety of applications. As ITW Welding grew and thrived, however, success stressed its technology infrastructure. Growing communication needs for its many sites were overwhelming its costly legacy T1 connection. The T1 service, delivering bandwidth in the range of 1.5 Mbps, wasn’t nearly robust enough to handle the rollout of a large-scale Cisco Unity voice over IP (VoIP) system to 1,500 employees across five sites. That shortcoming had the potential to affect the company’s growth. “As with most businesses, information technology is a critical component of our evolving operations and success going forward,” explains Gaston Brown, systems administrator. “We 4
Spring 2014
needed to access advanced Internet-based applications and integrate more with other business units across the ITW Welding family. Our T1’s limitations stood in the way of our progress.”
Our T1's limitations stood in the way of our progress. THE SOLUTION: Already a Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) customer since 2005, ITW Welding now turned to TWCBC for an up to 100 Mbps point-topoint Ethernet Private Line (EPL) link from the company’s headquarters to its consumer welding production facilities across town. In addition to security and reliability, the EPL service provides an Ethernet virtual connection that delivers speeds from 5 Mbps up to 10
Gbps. ITW Welding also relies on a TWCBC Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) service to power a site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) between its headquarters and its Appleton, Wisconsin, locations. With a simple phone call, Brown upgraded ITW Welding’s DIA service from 5 Mbps to 20 and then to 25 Mbps. The DIA service provides private, redundant connectivity as well as fast speeds and a robust bandwidth to maximize the performance of VPNs and VoIP services.
THE RESULT: The cost has decreased, and productivity and customer service are measurably improved. • Running VoIP over the new high-speed infrastructure helps cut local and longdistance phone bills. • The growing use of video conferencing between locations helps ITW Welding save on travel costs and boost productivity. • The DIA upgrade answers the growing bandwidth needs of the company’s dispersed sales force and network of 10 US warehouses, as well as the need to increase access to critical applications and data for major remote sites. • ITW Welding is able to maintain customer service at a world-class level. “Having the ability to provide our locations and people high-speed and reliable access to our servers means we’re able to enter and fulfill orders accurately and on time,” Brown says. “And being able to keep our service up 24/7/365 is obviously critical to meeting our customers' needs and driving our success. “We need reliable, high-quality connections to help meet all our business needs. Time Warner Cable Business Class makes it easy.”
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Share your company’s story for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story.
GROWING
LEADING WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY
THE BEST BUSINESS CHANGE
I EVER MADE" “The only constant in the world is change,” said the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. No doubt change made the guys in the agora uneasy even back then—well before the advent of the global competitiveness, industry consolidation, rapid technological change, and newly empowered consumers that business leaders engage with today. Nonetheless, many of today’s leaders find change in business exhilarating. As that modern-day philosopher Steve Jobs said, “The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” Here’s to the business leaders, some of whom you’ll hear from here, who made decisions that changed their companies’ world.
“In 2008, our health insurance advisory firm released version 1.0 of BerniePortal, a web-based benefits administration platform. We took a big financial and business risk when developing it because it distracted from other business activities that were profitable—and we had never designed software before. But we saw a need for a platform for employers in the under-500 employee segment that could be built out in 45 minutes. (Most platforms are focused on the 1,000-plus market and require a six-week lead time for buildout.) Six years later, the BerniePortal is the leading platform in a very hot space. It enabled us to get ahead of the competition quickly and gave our business model a more expansive reach.” —Alex Tolbert, CEO, Bernard Health, a healthcare consultancy based in Nashville, TN
FINDING THE COURAGE TO FIRE AND HIRE “My company’s differentiator is that we build modern, eco-friendly homes that exceed the area’s green code by 15 percent. As demand for our services grew, I had to take a hard look at my staff’s capabilities to see if they could keep up with the company’s journey. I realized my staff didn’t have the resources to facilitate the extensive marketing we would need to maintain our growth. With each person, I asked, ‘Considering the dynamics of our growing company, does this person have the potential for longevity here?’ I had to pivot my company by letting go of certain individuals and then hiring fresh, lasting talent. This was the most intelligent business decision I ever made. I now have a staff that reflects the strength of my company.” —Mayer Dahan, CEO of Prime Five Homes, a full-service real estate development company, Los Angeles, CA CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 >> Spring 2014
5
<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
BRINGING MANUFACTURING BACK TO THE US “I decided to take our foreign competition head-on by becoming the only one in the industry to make our products in the USA. We offer licensed rubber ducks with an unmatched intricacy in sculpting and painting. The small, hand-painted toy industry that also uses rotational molding was virtually gone from the US and was not easy to bring back because of the level of skill needed, EPA regulations, the disappearance of factories with the proper equipment, and so on. “I always joked that if I didn’t own the company 100 percent, I would have been fired. There was no way I was ‘maximizing shareholder value’ in the short run! But I knew in the long run it should put us in a fabulous position, because we would own our niche. We can also make shorter deadlines and do smaller production runs than our competition, and the quality and safety of our items is as good as it gets. The truth is, a lot of people want things that have been made in America. We get a lot of emotional support from consumers, and that’s huge.” —Craig Wolfe, president, CelebriDucks collectible celebrity rubber ducks, San Rafael, CA
6
Spring 2014
RAISING PRICES TO WIN BUSINESS “A few years ago, I was scared to raise our rates, but it ended up being the best thing we have ever done. By increasing our prices, we were able to pay higher wages and thereby attract excellent employees. This solidified our place as a high-end care provider. “We then began to offer different tiers with different rates of service, enabling us to provide our clients with more targeted service levels. This, in turn, allowed the company to increase our customer base, which resulted in sales growth and a decrease in labor costs as a percentage of revenue. We have now embarked on a nationwide franchising effort.” —Denise Stern, CEO of Let Mommy Sleep, overnight baby nurse agency, Washington, DC
REMAKING A BUSINESS TO MEET THE FUTURE “I hung up my badge as a Maricopa County detention officer to pursue a long-held dream of entrepreneurship by starting a successful medical staffing agency. However, after one eye-opening visit to a nursing home, I realized there were many people who could and would stay in their own homes if they had access to in-home care. I did some research and saw that the senior population in the US is expected to double to 70 million by 2025. So, I took the risk of changing the nature of my company, though it took every dollar I had and years of my life working 70 hours a week. I opened SYNERGY HomeCare in 1999, and started franchising in 2005. We now have 260 operating units in 42 states.” —Peter Tourian, CEO, SYNERGY HomeCare, franchised senior in-home care agency based in Gilbert, AZ
TAKING A LEAP INTO THE DIGITAL UNKNOWN “The best business change I ever made was going digital before it was cool. At a time when businesses were just on the cusp of discovering the need for these things called ‘websites,’ and advertising agencies like ourselves had their hands full making ads for print and broadcast, we took a big leap— and a huge financial risk—to launch Fingerprint Interactive in 1999, the first digital agency in Philadelphia (and one of the first in the country) for building and marketing websites. “The risks were abundant, just because there were so many unknowns with digital. What we did know was that we couldn’t do anything quietly. We had to be brazen and let people know what we were really capable of in order to attract business leads and top talent. “It took a while, and many conversations, sales pitches, and presentations until we had a critical mass of clients who shared our vision for the importance of shifting to digital strategies and tactics. Landing Microsoft as our first client helped with the credibility of our story. “A mantra that I always try to live by in business is ‘evolve before you have to.’ You only get one shot to get out ahead of the changing landscape. If you hesitate, you get left behind.” —Marc Brownstein, CEO, Brownstein Group, brand communication firm, Philadelphia, PA
FIELD REPORT
DEAN FARAR, DIRECTOR OF IT SERVICES, YETC
Bandwidth Boosts Education in Yuma
A test: How to get more speed, greater reliability and ever-increasing bandwidth for schools—for less money? THE CHALLENGE: Technology has become a crucial component of managing school districts. Two large districts in Arizona—the six-school Yuma Union High School District and the 17-school Yuma Elementary School District One—rely on the Yuma Educational Technology Consortium (YETC) to enable and facilitate all their technology services. More than 2,500 employees and 22,000 students use laptops, tablets, and smart phones in their daily work. However, slow speeds and inconsistent service from YETC’s T-1 provider could not keep up with the schools’ increasing bandwidth needs. In addition, YETC’s cost to maintain and upgrade the T-1 network was becoming exorbitant.
THE SOLUTION: The Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) proposal was a winner. “The overall solution fit our budget and the growing technology needs of our school districts,” says Dean Farar, the consortium’s director of IT services.
TWCBC installed an Ethernet Local Area Network (ELAN) multipoint-to-multipoint managed network configuration, which includes 20, 40, 60, and 100 Mbps circuits, based on school location requirements. This robust network solution also provides a 200 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit. TWCBC’s managed MEF-compliant Ethernet Wide Area Network (EWAN) is a good choice for an enterprise like the YETC to provide consolidated IT services to school districts. It is a cost-effective alternative to legacy technologies that comes with guarantees defined as part of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). The switch from the T-1 provider and overall installation were without issues and met YETC’s urgent timeline. In addition, TWCBC was able to help YETC’s districts apply for a federal E-Rate program that provided funding for 80 percent of the Ethernet outlay.
THE RESULT: TWCBC’s services have helped YETC and its districts save money while enhancing the delivery of education.
• In addition to the E-Rate funding, TWCBC helped the consortium save money because employees no longer have to work during off hours to restore services. • As the bandwidth needs of the schools continued to increase, YETC was able, with a simple phone call, to upgrade to 1Gbps Metro Ethernet and DIA circuits. There were no additional costs for routers, switches, or hardware.
I can’t explain to you the peace of mind. Looking ahead, YETC has the ability to scale bandwidth up to 10Gbps+ with TWCBC’s network. This enhances the consortium’s ability to support the future convergence of data, voice, and video services for the two school districts. The ease of access to educational resources has helped strengthen YETC’s reputation as a trusted IT organization for school districts. “You don’t really have any kind of success in a school district unless you have student success,” Farar says. “Time Warner Cable Business Class has become an integral part of the education of students.” As a bonus, school administrators and YETC management can sleep better. “Without TWCBC, our network would come to a halt,” Farar says. “I can’t explain to you the peace of mind.”
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Share your company’s story for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business. twc.com/nomination to share your story. Spring 2014
7
EMPLOYEE WELLNESS PROGRAMS:
WHAT WORKS Your program options are virtually limitless— but success requires these six factors.
B Y G I N A PAY N E
E
mployee wellness programs are in demand in companies of all sizes, and not just because the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides incentives for implementing them. Businesses are finding that well-designed programs pay off in improved productivity, reduced absenteeism, and increased employee engagement. Moreover, they’ve been a proven success in helping to rein in the rate of increase in medical premiums. A recent study by the National Business Group on Health found that, over the last eight years, companies that performed best in managing the health of their employee population saw average premium increases between one-half percent and 2.5 percent each year. Meanwhile, the worst-performing saw average yearly increases of 8 to 10 percent. But what does it mean to have a welldesigned and effective program? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Countless types of programs exist, with varying degrees of focus on education, participation, and intervention. However, in our
8
Spring 2014
work with companies around the country, we have found that successful programs share certain common characteristics.
1
THE SUPPORT OF SENIOR LEADERSHIP
This is the single strongest influencer in creating a culture of health. Some CEOs don’t think it is their business to care about their employees’ health, because they think it is a “private” matter, or that wellness is “fluff” that the HR team handles. The truth is, no matter what business you are in, labor is a huge part of your budget, and you need healthy
and productive workers. Wellness is more than a buzzword; it is a strategy. True support is much more than an occasional memo that says something to the effect of, “I support wellness and care about our people because they’re our most valuable asset.” It means participating, advocating, and sharing information with your department leaders. Commitment has to be embedded in the operation of the business. Just as you talk about the company’s business performance, discuss how your company has been moving toward its wellness goals.
2
61% OF EMPLOYERS SAY ONE MAJOR CHALLENGE OF MAINTAINING AFFORDABLE HEALTH-CARE COVERAGE IS THE POOR HEALTH HABITS OF EMPLOYEES. SOURCE: 17TH ANNUAL TOWERS WATSON/NATIONAL BUSINESS GROUP ON HEALTH EMPLOYER SURVEY ON PURCHASING VALUE IN HEALTH CARE, 2012
A MULTI-YEAR PLAN
Wellness is a process, not an event. In terms of results, you can probably get at low-hanging fruit in 18 months, but it takes time to effect sustainable behavior change. In addition, without a plan for what you ultimately want to achieve, you will find yourself repeating the same program year after year, with diminishing returns. The strategy should focus on the health risks of the population, but also how the environment, policies, leadership engagement, and rewards will mature over three years to achieve the business’s objectives.
As a general guideline, in the first year, define vision and strategy, set expectations, and reward participation; in the second year, reward participation in health actions and improvement, setting attainable and measurable goals. In the third year, begin to reward achievement as well, and use the data you’ve collected to report outcomes and assess ROI.
3
A WELLNESS LEADER AND A TEAM OF “AMBASSADORS”
Don’t try to make a stretched-thin HR department solely responsible for the wellness program. Your wellness leader should be experienced in health promotion and able to customize a program for a specific organization. Consider outsourcing this position, even on a part-time basis. The wellness leader will coordinate a cross-functional team of people from all levels of the organization who have an interest in and enthusiasm about health and wellness. These employees help create the program’s brand and goals, assist in assessing and promoting employee interest, and volunteer for programs, such as healthy-living fairs, as needed.
POOR DIET
4
A BASELINE HEALTH SCREENING FOR ALL PARTICIPATING EMPLOYEES
ADJUSTMENTS TO THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
These can include establishing access In this process, biometrics such as cho- to physical exercise—for example, a “Walking Wednesdays” program, or lesterol, glucose, blood pressure, body flexible lunch hours to accommodate mass index (BMI), and tobacco status will be measured. Employees should be workouts. Many companies enhance reassured that a number of laws, includ- the appearance of stairwells with lighting, a fresh coat of paint, and artwork ing the ACA and the Health Insurance to encourage their use. Others remind Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), require that individual results employees of the importance of taking three minutes to stretch during every be kept private. The employer will only hour spent at a desk. Enhancing the receive an aggregated, de-identified environment can also mean providing report of the population’s risks. healthy snacks and water in a break While individual employees can use their results as motivation to get health- room and having healthy food guidelines for meetings that occur in ier, companies can get the big picture the office. of what issues they may need to tackle. Maybe the company’s average BMI is ENGAGEMENT AND 35 and a goal becomes to get it down to RECOGNITION 30. Maybe 21 percent of employees are These are the critical aspects that tobacco users and the company’s goal is sustain long-term behavior change. to get that down to 5 percent. Companies often start with a moneIn addition to helping you set goals tary incentive for participation. This is and develop the needed programs, a habit-starter, a short-term attentionhaving this baseline data will enable you getter. Ultimately, you want to create to measure the impact your wellness ini- ways for employees to transition to tiative has over time. intangible, intrinsic motivation.
6
PHYSICAL INACTIVITY
SMOKING
EIGHT MODIFIABLE HEALTH LACK OF HEALTH SCREENING
5
HABITS ACCOUNT FOR
80 %
OF HEALTHCARE COSTS
POOR STRESS MANAGEMENT
You do this by giving people experiences that are emotionally meaningful, such as public recognition, sharing of inspiring stories by co-workers, and creating a sense of belonging through participating in a group competition. People also need to develop a sense of “behavior efficacy”—an understanding that this time, unlike the other times they’ve tried to get in shape or lose weight, they have the skills they need to succeed. For example, a way to support behavior efficacy could be hiring a nutritionist (or going to a local cooking school) for a healthy cooking demonstration.
Gina Payne is national director of wellness solutions at CBIZ
POOR STANDARD OF CARE
Employee Services, a national
INSUFFICIENT SLEEP
EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
SOURCE: BENEFITS QUARTERLY, SECOND QUARTER 2013; RECONSIDERING EMPLOYER-SPONSORED HEALTH CARE: FOUR PATHS TO LONG-TERM STRATEGIC CHANGE, JIM WINKLER, AON HEWITT
provider of professional business services. Spring 2014
9
FIELD REPORT
Road Map
cloud to the
How AAA Western and Central New York used cloud technology to plot a winning course for its future
hen a call comes in to AAA Western and Central New York, it may not just be member satisfaction that is on the line. It could be the health and safety of the member, as well. Because of AAA’s promise of emergency roadside assistance 24/7/365, it is critical that the company’s technology perform reliably all the time. In addition to roadside assistance, AAA Western and Central New York offers a multitude of other services to its 860,000 members: directions, travel booking and travel advice, insurance, and more. The company’s 16 branch offices rely on its technology infrastructure to keep them connected and delivering world-class service. 10
Spring 2014
THE STARTING POINT: RELIABILITY In the late 2000s, that infrastructure, along with all of the company’s applications, was supported internally by its own data center. But while business was growing, the technology platform was aging. “I think it’s a problem for a lot of companies,” says Joe McLaughlin, vice president of information technology. “The business gets ahead of the technology, because technology represents cost. We were at a point where our reliability was, in my mind, threatened.” “Our technology environment is complex,” explains Frank D’Arrigo, director of technology and support.
“Instability in any one component can lead to system performance problems while processing member requests.” The CRM middleware servers were requiring frequent rebooting—once every seven days, on average—because of excessive memory consumption and hung Windows services. The debate began: to upgrade or outsource?
A QUESTION OF CONTROL Some AAA employees were apprehensive at the thought of moving from an on-premise data center to a remote one, and even more worried about moving data to the cloud. As executives were considering their options, a local accident took down a transformer, and the resulting power outage affected their data center for a week. “That helped make our decision for us,” D’Arrigo says. “We realized we had to give up the perception of control. The paramount decision point became, who can make sure the lights stay on?” AAA’s meetings with NaviSite, a Time Warner Cable company, convinced them they had found the best partner to ensure reliability. Internally, the business conversation began to evolve. “We needed to shift the IT discussion from ownership of the physical hardware to service delivery—that is, email, database, CRM, and so on,” D’Arrigo says. “We had to stop thinking about servers and start thinking about services.”
CONCERNS ABOUT COMPLIANCE AAA Western and Central New York regularly conducts PCI DSS [Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard] assessments to ensure that its member data is protected. Not only was NaviSite confident in its controls, it could also provide compliance efficiencies. “The process of documenting and certifying controls required significant time from various internal teams,” D’Arrigo says. “With NaviSite’s SSAE-16 certification [an audit standard for service organizations], they can provide a single resource to respond to questions, provide documentation, and manage our compliance process.”
THE COST CONSIDERATION AAA made the move to NaviSite for reliability, not for cost savings. However, McLaughlin notes that he is no longer burdened with having to look at purchasing additional servers or refreshing hardware each year. “And when we looked at the numbers, we realized we would need at least two more full-time staff to keep the reliability of our network at the levels that we have by using NaviSite,” he says.
THE RESULT: IMPROVED PERFORMANCE The partnership kicked off in February 2012. Today NaviSite’s NaviCloud Platform hosts nearly all of AAA Western and Central New York’s data servers, including database servers, applications servers, middleware,
IT’S A COMMON PROBLEM. THE BUSINESS GETS AHEAD OF THE TECHNOLOGY.
WHAT'S THE RIGHT PATH FOR YOUR COMPANY? Many IT leaders have found that the most successful approach to the cloud is to take one step at a time, starting with small, low-risk applications. To learn more, get NaviSite's free whitepaper, "The Cloud: Beyond ROI" at www.navisite.com/ download-white-paper-beyond-roi.
the CRM system, and the main ERP system. In the process, AAA made a host of fundamental changes that simplified its entire network infrastructure. Since moving to NaviSite’s managed cloud, AAA Western and Central New York rarely has to reboot the servers that once required weekly rebooting. AAA’s service desk also experienced a 29 percent reduction in service tickets—from about 17,000 to about 12,000—in the year after the move. And AAA personnel, freed from the day-to-day grunt work of managing a data center, can now be deployed more efficiently.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES As an organization that is open 24/7, AAA gets full value from its access to NaviSite’s engineers and project managers. “They’ve become our army of experts,” D’Arrigo notes. The relationship extends to senior leadership. “NaviSite has a road map where they can clearly articulate their plans for expanding their current services and exploring new services,” McLaughlin says. “They have asked for our input on any areas they should explore. That signals that they think of us as a long-term partner. “Now, I don’t have to think about best-of-breed technology for my customers. I can trust that NaviSite will do that.” Spring 2014
11
THE SPEED
OF
SUCCESS
In a connected, rapidly changing world, working faster is critical. How can your business become more nimble and more prepared to jump on new opportunities? Here, smart thinkers share what’s worked for them.
Fail Fast to Win Big BY GILBERT MAURER THE WORLD IS CHANGING SO FAST that not even the wisest among us dares to forecast one year ahead, much less five. So how should we behave? How can we chart a course that weights the odds of our success more favorably? In short, how do we build a successful business when we can’t predict the future? The answer, I believe, is this: Fail Fast. Adopt a policy of speed. Innovate and probe in a lot of different directions. Recognize that the only sin in a cloudy marketplace is to stay too long with an effort that doesn’t immediately exhibit Exit Velocity. Know that the most dangerous phrase in today’s business climate is, “Let’s give it another month.” In the 1920s, an MIT scientist, Dr. Norbert Wiener, studied mice in a maze to try to discover why certain mice got the cheese more often than others. Even when they were put in a new and different maze, these mice came out winners. Was there a strategy that could be discerned? It turned out that the successful mice 12
Spring 2014
never went too far down a blind alley. They probed a direction, but turned back more quickly than others. Because they were able to identify and abandon an unsuccessful direction faster than their cohort, they eventually got the cheese. Time and again. Business leaders can use the same strategy. Try lots of things and be sensitive, not only to failure, but to the absence of success. Starve ventures that are not quick winners and feed successful ones until they prove they are no longer successful. Never fall in love with an investment of money, time, or energy, because it will only grow heavier and it will never fall in love with you. Fail Fast is a great organizational strategy that leads to high morale and creates an ideal
atmosphere for innovation. People will not innovate when they feel the rise or fall of a project is going to get hung around their neck. When that is the case, they become conservative and say, “Let’s give it another month.” But when you have a Fail Fast approach, a new idea that does not work out does not become a blot on
(c) 2014 Gilbert C. Maurer
“I created this visual of a new product innovation and testing cycle, which I call ‘The Virtuous Circle,’” Gilbert Maurer says. “Every segment of that circle represents money. The objective is to make the circle spin as fast as you can. Speed equals profit.”
an employee’s record or reputation. It is small enough to be accommodated in the larger business plan. You will find that employees act like different people when they know they’re operating in a no-fault environment. You’ll start hearing, “What if we did this?” or “How about if we tried that?”
The Toughest Test The key to a successful Fail Fast approach is getting information very quickly from your customers and the market. I’m not talking about focus groups; I’m not a big fan of those. Where the rubber meets the road is in the marketplace, where someone is making a decision about spending money. In the old days, magazine companies would test new concepts by sending out expensive promotional mailings with invitations to subscribe. Years ago, at Hearst, we realized that was nonsense. You didn’t really know whether you had a hit until 12 months later when it came time to renew, and in the meantime you had been paying salaries, office expenses, and production bills. So we created our own special teams to go out to supermarkets and newsstands and collect sales data within hours, or at most a few days, of when an issue hit the marketplace. Unlike other publishers, we never launched anything. We evolved new product into the marketplace. Some never made it.
Fast information gave us the opportunity to analyze why an issue did or did not do well, make product or distribution changes even before a second issue, or drop the effort altogether. That was just one of a number of strategies we have used to get quick feedback. The reason we have so many successful magazines is because you seldom saw the unsuccessful ones. We have been decisive and unemotional in discontinuing the effort and expense of those that did not have Exit Velocity. Of course, it is easy to make decisions about ventures that are either abject failures or huge winners. The real test of the boss’s mettle is the project that is not making much money or losing much, neither falling to earth nor breaking out of the gravitational pull, but sopping up precious management time. The question to ask yourself is, “What is the least amount of information I need in order to make a decision?” Recognize that you will never have “enough” information. No matter what you do, you will always be operating in the absence of all the information you want, or need. You need to be somebody who can call a shot and not lose sleep over it. If you do this regularly, you may eventually realize that yeah, somebody made a success five years later from something that you pulled the plug on. But by and large, you probably will have more cheese than that other guy because you tried more, failed faster with less consequence, and succeeded faster with bigger reward. You did not know what the future would be like, but you put yourself in a position to let the future choose you.
BLOW UP the BOTTLENECKS BY JEREMY EDEN AND TERRI LONG MANY CEOS AND TOP EXECUTIVES believe they are already pushing hard for speed. Asking for “more, faster” will be, they fear, the straw that breaks employees’ backs. This rationalization is simply not true. If it is like most organizations, your company has developed bottlenecks that stall idea generation and approval. Your employees know what those bottlenecks are, will tell you if you ask, and will be happy to fix them to help work move faster. Begin to replace the “culture of slow” that kills innovation, and realize significant productivity gains, by engaging employees with simple steps like these:
Foundations, and serves as a director for
FIX THE PROBLEMS THAT FRUSTRATE THE STAFF. Many of these issues are detrimental to the customer experience, as well. For example, one trading house produced extensive daily research to give their brokers a competitive advantage. However, it took brokers up to 90 minutes each day to digest all the great research, which cut into their client-calling time. Working collaboratively, brokers and the research department came up with a new plan: Research would produce a daily one-page highlight version of its work. If a broker needed more information during a call, he or she could go to the research department for more. Similarly, one bank had a rule requiring tellers to reconcile their cash drawers based on a certain cash level, even if it meant closing down their stations when lines were
many business and arts groups.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 >>
Gilbert Maurer was president of Hearst Magazines for 14 years and COO of the Hearst Corporation for 8 years. He is currently on Hearst Corporation’s board of directors, is director of the Hearst
Spring 2014
13
<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
long. This problem was deemed a necessary compliance evil. But when managers were given an opportunity to discuss a solution with their internal audit department, they found that the rules could be altered slightly so that reconciliations were done at slow times. Now the audit and branch operations departments, as well as customers, are all happy. SET SHORT DEADLINES. “Give us an update at next month’s meeting” practically guarantees procrastination until just before that next meeting. When you create short deadlines, you squeeze out the unimportant but in-your-face activities that slow a company down. Give your teams one week to identify and report on the key cause of the problem. Then give them one more week to identify different ideas that might address the cause. Finally, give teams two weeks to evaluate and recommend which ideas will go forward. Some ideas will be quick wins and some will need a bit more analysis. REQUIRE THAT PROJECTS, IDEAS, AND PROBLEMS BE PRESENTED TO A “TOP DOG.” The “top dog” may or may not be the CEO, but nothing motivates most people to make progress more than an upcoming meeting with their boss’s boss’s boss. Bonus points for having all three of those bosses in the room together for the presentation. Jeremy Eden and Terri Long, authors of Low-Hanging Fruit: 77 Eye-Opening Ways to Improve Productivity and Profits, are the co-CEOs of Harvest Earnings, an advisory services firm. 14
Spring 2014
IS YOUR TEAM DOING
YESTERDAY’S JOB? B Y R I TA G U N T H E R M C G R AT H
WHAT’S PREVENTING YOUR ORGANIZATION FROM BEING ABLE TO MOVE FASTER AND SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES? It may be the way you and your team are doing your jobs. It is common for habits that arose from early-stage crises to linger as an organization develops. People often continue to perform yesterday’s jobs, even when conditions have changed. Of course, you cannot ask people to overhaul their personalities or ways of working overnight. What you can do is change how you and your team spend just one hour a week. To help your people shake comfortable but unnecessary habits and focus on the future, try the “one hour more/one hour less” exercise. Here’s how it works: Ask every member of your team to provide input about every other member of the team on a form with four headings: Team Member; Should Spend 1 More Hour Per Week; Should Spend 1 Less Hour Per Week; Additional Feedback. Have someone trustworthy collect the feedback sheets and collate the comments, without attribution, for each individual. Give each person the feedback relating to him or her, then give everybody some time to digest the messages. Next, have a meeting in which each person presents what he or she thinks the feedback is saying, and asks the group for advice and coaching. Make sure you end the meeting with some clear action steps. Here are a couple of items of feedback that the CFO of a 30-person travel agency that I worked with received from her team: TEAM MEMBER
SHOULD SPEND 1 HOUR MORE PER WEEK…
SHOULD SPEND 1 HOUR LESS PER WEEK…
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK
Nina
Creating two-month leading indicator reports so that we know what action to take now
Micro-managing financial reporting of past information
We have editors who can check the monthly report; not a good use of your time
Nina
Helping connect younger finance team members more closely with the sales teams
Sitting in meetings with the door closed
You need to be more visible and engage the younger staff
As the group discussed the feedback, it became clear that the CFO had brought practices into her current role that were more appropriate to her former, more-junior role and the company’s earlier, more-precarious financial state. Continuing to do her old job was interfering with growth and was slowing things down as her staff waited for her to approve small decisions and create “perfect” reports. At the meeting, the team decided the following: to authorize other members to handle some of the approvals, delegate proofing reports to others, dedicate less time to internal meetings, and resolve to make sure that time for working hands-on with the staff was in the CFO’s calendar every week. The improvement in agility was so substantial that the executive team now repeats this exercise once every quarter. Rita Gunther McGrath is a globally recognized expert on strategy in uncertain and volatile environments. The author of The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business, she is a consultant, a professor at Columbia Business School, and was named one of the top 10 management thinkers of 2013 by Thinkers50.
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SUCCESS IN ACTION
CHIEF TALK BUSINESS LEADERS
share KEY LESSONS THEY’VE LEARNED
INTERVIEWS BY LEE LUSARDI CONNOR
capable of taking on complex projects. The company launched with $5,000, provided by Elting and Shawe. By 2013, TransPerfect had offices on six continents and revenue of $401 million—all without any outside funding. As the world has grown smaller, TransPerfect’s range of services has expanded. It now includes not only translation and interpretation, but marketing, staffing, legal services, and more—and they’re not done yet. “We are always in growth mode,” Elting says. The secret of TransPerfect’s success, says Elting, is no more mysterious than this: great customer service. Here, she explains what that means.
Know What Clients Need First
LIZ ELTING, TRANSPERFECT STAYING FAST AND FUTURE-FOCUSED
L
iz Elting started TransPerfect with her co-CEO Phil Shawe in 1992 after the two met as MBA students at New York University Stern School of Business. A veteran of several years in the translation industry, Elting felt there was a business opportunity for a service-focused enterprise that was 16
Spring 2014
Our goal is always to WOW our clients, and there are two main ways we try to do that. First, we maintain a consultative approach to working with the client to determine what’s best for them, which becomes a partnership as the years go on. We ask questions, make sure we understand the needs of the situation, and offer clients the best solution for them. With our proprietary technology—for example, terminology management tools—we can ensure consistency, increase quality, and save time. If we have technology that can cut costs in half, we use it. That builds trust and wows the client. Our commitment to clients has at times helped direct our corporate strategy by motivating the establishment of new offices or service offerings. For example, one of our clients, a major multinational corporation, needed to do an
SAP implementation in Brazil. We decided to relocate a senior-level client service representative—a native Brazilian and a Portuguese speaker—to a completely new office in São Paulo. We’ve done this on several occasions, where a major strategic opportunity was best served with local service that we did not yet have. The other thing we do, which has been a core value since the beginning, is to cultivate a sense of urgency. We handle each client as if that project is the most important thing we have going on. If somebody requests a quote, we respond right away, often within 30 minutes. Starting out, we felt that this was one of the ways we could differentiate, and it still is. And now that we’re in 85 cities on six continents, we have shifts around the clock, so it has become much easier for us to maintain 24/7 service.
Promote from Within Almost everyone we bring in is just out, or recently out, of college. They are Millennials, enthusiastic and tech-savvy, they know what their peers want, and they are our future. Phil and I interact with new employees constantly, because we know this will help us get to the next level. As the company has grown, virtually all our promotion has been from within. People who are motivated, hungry, and
We cultivate a sense of urgency --LIZ ELTING
work hard can come in at entry level and after two years be managing a small group of people, then five years later be managing 50 people. That’s how we get our leaders. They learn the business from the ground up and love the culture. They’ve learned the ropes and are now responsible for teaching the next generation. This way of managing also ensures consistency. With such a strong network of homegrown talent, it is easy to trust that our core business philosophies are being followed anywhere in the world.
Encourage Evolution We try to run TransPerfect as a very flat organization. Because my partner and I spend so much time talking with employees at all levels and around the world, we help create an open environment where people can speak their minds and offer suggestions for change. I think it is easiest to embrace change when the positive results are visible, and having a flat organizational structure makes them much more easily noticed. People realize they can make an impact. I tell people that the worst thing is staying exactly where we are. Complacency is not going to get us to the next level; we need to always improve.
Tell Employees to “Own It” We do not want “yes” people. We do not want people to sit in a room and listen; we want back-and-forth discussion. We want people who give opinions and have no problem challenging or bringing things up. The more of that, the better the answer we arrive at. One of our most important values, if not the most important, is “run it like you own it.” The same thing goes whether you’re managing two people or a 20-person department, whether you’re in IT, HR, or sales. We want employees, no matter what their positions, to act as if they own the company. In that way, people will not worry about whether they will get in trouble, but will do what is in the best interest of the company.
CHRIS VAN GORDER, SCRIPPS HEALTH BUILDING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS
W
hen Chris Van Gorder was named CEO of Scripps Health in 2000, the organization had big problems. “There had been a vote of no confidence in my predecessor, we were losing $15 million a year, we had 55 days of cash on hand, and everybody was angry,” Van Gorder says. Fast forward to 2014, and Scripps Health, a San Diego–based $2.6 billion private, nonprofit, integrated health system is in the black and has been recognized by Truven Health Analytics as one of the country’s top five
large health systems. Moreover, from 2011 through 2014, Scripps Health will have eliminated $300 million in operating costs by cutting inefficiencies—all without layoffs. Van Gorder’s achievements are, of course, all the more remarkable given the immensely complicated and fast-changing healthcare landscape. Here he tells how he got employee buy-in—and why he likes email so much.
Fill the Information Gap When I came to Scripps, we had become super-centralized and people felt completely disconnected from decisions that were being made. I had learned from my CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 >> Spring 2014
17
SUCCESS IN ACTION
VAN GORDER AND TEAM AT A PHYSICIAN LEADERSHIP CABINET MEETING
<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
years of experience, beginning when I was a police officer, that trouble often springs from a lack of knowledge. If people do not have information, they will make it up or believe every rumor. So I created structures designed to fill the information gap. I started a Physician Leadership Cabinet with the idea that we would run the company together. They would give me the clinical information I needed, and I would give them business information. Smart people, given the same data, will generally agree. We have accepted 100 percent of the recommendations coming from that group. We also created a Leadership Academy, in which a small group of middle managers spends one full day each month with me and the members of the executive team. The first few hours of the day are a wide-open Q&A with just me. I tell them I will not violate HIPAA privacy laws, and will not violate labor laws by talking about personnel issues, but other than that they can ask me anything. If they don’t ask me tough questions, I chide them. Eventually people get comfortable, and you build a relationship. When they graduate, I tell them, “You’re my agents of change. Now go out and demand more from, and deliver more to, the people who work for you.” We have now had 300 managers go through the course.
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Trust Can Lead to a Turnaround Email Does Not Have to Be a Burden When I realized we needed to cut costs by taking out inefficiency and non-valueadded variation, I went to my front-line employees and middle managers even before I went to senior management. After all, who is in a better position to see where waste is? I told them I wasn’t going to attempt to make these changes unless they could support the effort. And both groups said they absolutely would.
I use email as a teaching tool. --CHRIS VAN GORDER I also told them we would have a policy against layoffs. People have told me I'm extraordinarily naïve to say that, but human nature is human nature. Why would people help me change if it was going to cost them their jobs? We also developed a Career Resource Center to re-train and redeploy people within Scripps, if needed. In this way, we have taken out $300 million worth of costs in the past three years. To have a no-layoff policy, you have to have contingency plans and do a lot of forward thinking. Ultimately, though, it makes my job easier. I don’t know any chief executive who enjoys layoffs. And an engaged workforce helps you change when you need to change.
The secret to email is, for me, very simple: Do not fall behind. For me, email is a way of conveniently conversing with people. I carry my phone with me and I set it on vibrate. If I am home watching the news or a TV program and it vibrates with a new message, I pick it up and answer. I meet with every new manager and tell him or her to feel free to email me. I will usually answer within 12 to 18 hours. The best emails I get are from front-line staff with suggestions or questions. I can tell them, “Here is who you might want to talk to,” or “This is what we are already doing.” I get great joy from this. I also use email as a teaching tool. Every day of the year, including Christmas, I get up at 5 am and check a number of different sites—local and national newspapers, healthcare management journals, and more. Then I summarize key articles and send an email to hundreds of people, inside and outside my organization. I call it Market News. It takes 45 minutes to an hour to do this. Since I need to do the research anyway, I figure I might as well share it. It gives me a personal connection to all these people. And every person that receives those emails knows that’s what I believe is important information.
FIELD REPORT
CHRIS PEÑA I.S.M. MANAGER, CITY OF COLLEYVILLE, TX
Colleyville’s Information Transformation How a Texas city significantly upgraded its ability to serve the public THE CHALLENGE: In the past decade, the population of once-rural Colleyville has grown rapidly. In 2004, the city built its first IT department and began linking six data centers, which supported seven city buildings, each with its own telephone system and servers. As Colleyville’s communication needs grew, the city moved to a centralized voice over IP (VoIP) network and other bandwidth-intensive online applications—but its old copper T1 network came up short. Colleyville also learned that its T1 costs were rising drastically. "We were really in trouble with the amount of service delivery we could offer to our customers and our employees," says Chris Peña, Colleyville's I.S.M. manager.
THE SOLUTION: In 2010, Peña explained the situation to a Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) rep, who then customized a plan that would meet all of Colleyville's needs. A few weeks later, TWCBC won the business, providing about six times the bandwidth with a series of up to 10
The service delivery has been tenfold. Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuits. In 2012, Colleyville upgraded to up to 20 Mbps circuits at two locations and added eight up to 20 Mbps Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) point-to-multipoint circuits to connect the City Hall with the Justice Center (police department), three fire stations, a public-works building, a senior center, and the town of Keller. Built on industry-standard, MEF-compliant Ethernet, EVPL helps local governments streamline network management by providing multiple configuration options so that the network is supported, regardless of building location. TWCBC also provides three fiber Primary Rate Interface (PRI) circuits to City Hall and the Justice Center.
THE RESULT: Centralization made possible by TWCBC’s secure and fiber-rich EVPL network has streamlined government processes—and enhanced public safety. Benefits include: • Greater efficiency in routine government tasks, such as document retrieval, invoicing, and permit creation. • Hardware and electricity cost savings through centralizing servers, applications, and terabytes of data storage at six data center facilities into just two. • Data synchronization across all facilities. • Centralized sewage- and water-monitoring systems. • Online training for firefighters and police officers. • Desktop virtualization. • Implementation of the 24/7, 12-camera police surveillance SUV. This alerts Colleyville’s Justice Center when a scanned license plate matches a stolen vehicle’s license plate, which is stored in a database at the centralized data centers. • A citywide digital signage system to allow Colleyville to provide critical information to residents on large television monitors placed in key buildings around the city. Now Colleyville's IT department can keep up with the city's rapid growth. "It [TWCBC] is our backbone here. We run everything across it," says Peña. "The service delivery's been tenfold."
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Share your company’s story for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business. twc.com/nomination to share your story. Spring 2014
19
GUIDE TO GO
Backup Revisited
Not-so-obvious ideas to bolster your business continuity plan B Y R O N N I E PA R I S E L L A
THE TO-DO LIST Give credit to El Niño, or the polar vortex, or Superstorm Sandy. In the past five years, most businesses have become aware of why and how to back up and have adequate redundancy for their data in the event of a catastrophic weather event or other disaster. Now that you know you have the ability to recover all your data, the question is, how long would that take? And can you make it happen faster? Recovery time after a disaster can be the most painful part, so consider the following.
Prioritize your data. Many business leaders are shocked to realize just how much data they have to protect. When you include email, servers, databases, and all other critical data, the amount is too large to recover quickly and easily. With your team and possibly the help of outside IT experts, identify all of your data. Then, categorize it: need it now, need it next week, need it next month. Any items in the first category should be prioritized for ready access when or if the Stuff Hits the Fan. Reduce your data. Yes, fast Internet connections help by saving time when backing up remotely. Even so, try to reduce your data stores, and archive old data to minimize the amount you back up. Speak to your IT vendor about consolidating your servers and defragmenting your databases, such as Microsoft Exchange, or your applications, such as ERP. This can save hundreds of gigabytes and speed your recovery time. Test, test, and test again. In my experience, even the most prepared businesses fail to test their business continuity plan sufficiently. Instead, they wait until something goes wrong, implement the plan, then run into problems. The only process that will reveal your vulnerabilities is testing. Test your plan quarterly with various scenarios that identify critical service unavailability. What happens if your server loses power? What if your Internet router goes down? Revise your plan after every test.
20
Spring 2014
Check your vendors’ business continuity plan. If the power is on and your phone systems are working, your continuity plan worked. But if your providers’ lines are down, you are down. Therefore, you should not only be aware of your vendors’ plans, but build them into yours. Ask your vendors to provide documentation of their redundancy. They should be able to describe their infrastructure and provide the most common outage scenarios. Your customer service rep may tell you, for example, that if the company has to cut over to a completely separate site, it will take eight hours, or a day, or two days. You need to be okay with that—or pick a different vendor. No matter who you choose to work with, keep a vendor contact list with account numbers and key contacts ready to go in case you need it.
Have redundant Internet lines and email services. Entry-level Internet connections are very costeffective these days, especially in and around cities. In many cases you can get a backup cable modem Internet circuit for less than the price of a daily gourmet cup of coffee. If your primary email goes down, at a minimum your employees need to be able to log on to a different site to check their email. One consideration here is to make sure your firewall will support two concurrent connections. If not, upgrade first.
Think about alternatives. What if you cannot reach your PC? Your office? Your building? If you are worried about getting access to your data quickly, know that USB drives are great for small amounts of critical information. Consider backing up your My Documents folder or financial data to a portable device monthly, and keep it in a secure location (away from your primary data location) for access if needed. In addition, some companies simply use the business owner’s home as a backup site. Ronnie Parisella is director of information technology at Net@Work, a full-service business consultancy and technology solutions provider.
BENEFITS OF A MODERN NETWORKING STRATEGY
THE NETWORK OF POSSIBILITY
100% or more
40%
bandwidth capacity increase
How Modernization Can Propel Businesses Forward
or more
32%
network throughput increase
end-users extremely or very satisfied with network performance
When it comes to network connectivity, innovation matters. The Aberdeen Group surveyed businesses about their connectivity strategies, and found that new approaches, like Ethernet over Fiber, are key components to high performance and reliability.
TOP STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
36%
36%
n
r e to matmoni o t u a 38%formance per
unsupported planned growth
over-utilization of network resources
GES OF CHALLEDNNETWORKS E OUTDAT
74% rising user demand for services
35%
lack of tools to resolve critical events
Top Pressures for Network Initiatives
ity
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READY TO ELEVATE YOUR NETWORKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S POTENTIAL? Read the full industry report from the Aberdeen Group at business.twc.com/possibility or call (877) 857-0727 today.
53%
increased highbandwidth traffic
Data Source: Graduate From Old-School Networking. The Aberdeen Group on behalf of Time Warner Cable Business Class (2013). Products and services not available in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions apply. Š2014 Time Warner Cable Enterprises, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
TIME WARNER CABLE BUSINESS CLASS
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Becomes the 1st North American Service Provider
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Call your dedicated Account Executive today at
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