TACG

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We are an electric utility company in Arizona with more than one million customers, and we have about 4,000 employees. We are consistently trying to improve the customer experience in the utility industry.

What’s your position?

I am the manager of Business Process Solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals for this project?

My company developed an enterprise process framework from levels one through three on what our organization does. In some areas, our team went down to a level seven in the step-by-step process describing who does what and when. Everything is broken down in our organization by roles, technology, process, and information.

SOLUTION

Why did you select OpenText?

We’ve had OpenText since 2006, when we implemented it for a new CRM system. Our management decided on OpenText which, at the time, was Metastorm. Our team wanted to understand the processes and enhancements before we spent millions on the upgrade. We decided that Open Text fit our needs for a huge organization.

What was your process for selecting TACG?

We have used them before for other projects. We were impressed by their knowledge and expertise with OpenText. We had success with TACG in the past, so it was an easy decision to use them again.

Can you describe the scope of the project?

TACG was hired to document all the processes and information for implementation on SAP. We didn’t use TACG for design and configuration. We used TACG for blueprinting what we wanted to do, and how to do it. TACG also assisted us with cost analysis and other analyses.

Besides OpenText, were any other technologies used?

No.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or personnel hours?

It was a multimillion-dollar project.  At its peak, we had around 230 employees working on the project.

When was the project completed?

It was completed May 6, 2013. We are currently getting ready for phase two.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have results of the project, such as statistics or metrics?

We’re still collecting that data. Nothing to report on yet.

Do you have any feedback from employees?

Yes. Our employee feedback has been positive. We now have a backlog of work because employees have requested more projects to improve efficiency.

It was successful, and it was a huge benefit for our employees to understand the IT process. It was also helpful for our IT team to understand the business side. Now, we’re able to pinpoint upstream and downstream effects, our employees really like that.

How did TACG perform?

They were wonderful. They brought in a lot of knowledge, and a lot of expertise. The great thing about them is that although they have ownership and pride in their work, they still know that there’s an endpoint. They are very open to knowledge sharing and mentoring my team and others. This helps my team understand the knowledge necessary to carry on after TACG exits.

TACG creates training manuals and job aids to help our team for post-project questions. It’s really nice to have that knowledge-sharing aspect from them. Most consultants come in, and do the work and simply leave. Everything is detailed and documented with TACG.

When working with TACG, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies?

TACG’s personality is unique, they are definitely go-getters. They’re always looking for new opportunities to help our organization. TACG brought in a lot of really good ideas. My company is able to implement those.

They were always willing to make a presentation and turn it around very quickly. They work carefully, and the quality of work is wonderful. They’re always working. They’re just always busy, always working to aid the project.

Is there any area that TACG could improve upon or you would do differently?

Our biggest lesson learned was to bring a consultant company in sooner to start the process earlier. We should have partnered with TACG earlier in the process to help both sides understand each other’s business and learn from each other.

Are you happy you chose Open Text?

Yes. We would make the same decision looking back.

BACKGROUND

Please provide a brief description of what your company does?

I work for HIB in Business Enterprise Services for a military organization. We are in charge of the sustainment systems and all the legacy apps. There is little to no new development since we are on sustainment mode. If there is new development,  it’s just upgrades

The other group I work with is logistics. That includes all of our maintenance, depot, and systems within my organization for aircraft and warfare items. There are around 80 total systems that I work with.

What is your position?

I’m the chief architect.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your business goals or reasons for undertaking the project?

We have used TACG for several of our different systems for business process reengineering. They haven’t worked on just one single project. They worked on numerous systems. This particular project used Open Text and Provision.

My experience has been solely from the Open Text perspective. They’re able to get answers for us. They do a lot of business process reengineering and architecture perspective using ProVision.

SOLUTION

What was the process used to select TACG?

The government uses the 8A procurement process. TACG was selected along with another vendor in that process because TACG offered the skills that the other company lacked. They complemented each other well and cooperated to complete an outstanding project.

Brian Chaney [President of TACG] is very experienced in this field. If he can’t do the work, he hires the right people to do the work for us. We’ve always gotten a great response and a great product. We have a very good relationship with him. It’s allowed us to build more work and get the programs to understand the value reengineering our business processes. This has allowed us to save a lot of money and time. Not many companies offer this value.

Why did your organization decide to use Open Text?

I’m a very big advocate for ProVision and OpenText and their BPM tool. I feel like they’re the most efficient. I feel like they’re the most robust. I think that they produce what we’re looking for. There are many things that you can do with BPM that you cannot do with SharePoint. The cost is more, which we must consider being with the government. I just think it’s easier to use. I think it’s more user-friendly in a holistic perspective. But there’s no other tool that I found that I like as well.

That’s how I feel about ProVision, the architecture tool. The Open Text BPM tool is very good but it’s also very expensive.

What parts of the project was TACG involved in?

Using the Open Text BPM tool and ProVision, TACG did the architecture for the contract. We need to look through our systems and make sure they are running efficiency. We sift through the data and look for redundancies with TACG’s help. They are experts at helping government organizations save money.

Were any other technologies used besides the OpenText BPM?

Not to my knowledge.

Can you give us a sense of the initiative in dollar terms?

 The contract that they’re working on alongside Copper River is about a $3.5 million. They have a significant portion of that dollar amount.

And the contract is still ongoing?

Yes, we can exercise the contract again for up to five more years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Does your organization have any stats or metrics to track improvement from the project?

The government keeps what we call a CPAR. TACG has always scored excellent on their CPARs.

Do you still feel you made the right decision to work with Open Text and TACG?

Absolutely.

How has TACG performed?

They’ve been great.. We have no complaints with them at all. They’ve been timely. They’ve been efficient. If I’ve ever needed to call Brian Chaney and talk to him about somebody or an issue, it is dealt with immediately.

What’s unique or special about them compared to some other companies you may have worked with?

Brian [President of TACG] has the experience of being a program manager in the Air Force. He understands our limitations. He understands the language that we have to use. He understands how we work. He understands our needs. And then he takes that back into his company and he tries to generate support and the talent that we need and can afford. Sometimes, vendors come to us from the corporate world without understanding the government world.

It’s just been very easy to work with TACG. They’ve been very supportive. TACG’s staff really understands Open Text. They have a lot of talent in the field and there’s not much out there. Architecture is a unique field. It’s hard to find good people. For them to have that many good people, is impressive.

Looking back on the project, is there something that TACG could improve upon or anything that you would have done differently?

All of the other companies and TACG don’t do formal training with their teams. They don’t pay for formal training. I’m sure some of that comes from how long are they going to stay and if their contract’s long enough. I feel they would be up to speed a lot faster if they had had the formal training.