VargasAndrews

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of corporate development at Ramcar Batteries Inc. We’re an automotive battery manufacturing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with VargasAndrews?

We’re currently going through a transformation and in the process of building a new team. We brought on VargasAndrews to assist us with those efforts.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In addition to a business transformation, we’re also going through a digital transformation. Currently, our leaders fax documents to each other. Everything is paper-based and very old-school technology. The VargasAndrews is assisting us in this transition. We’re pilot-testing everything with our North American group.

We’re moving into a completely new system and utilizing Microsoft Teams and Office 365. VargasAndrews is also helping us with recruiting with our business transformation. They provide strategy on mergers and acquisitions as well as handled an EOS implementation.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with Andrew (CEO), Alonso (Managing Partner), and Nick (Junior Partner).

How did you come to work with VargasAndrews?

I knew Andrew from college.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $270,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in July 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

VargasAndrews has given us a lot of value. They’ve recruited five people to our team. Their team also helps with interviews for some of our analysts and back office team members in Manila. They’re very reasonably priced compared to the market. What’s more, they’re very thorough. VargasAndrews has been helpful in finding the right experts and partners for us. They do their due diligence and manage the project.

How did VargasAndrews perform from a project management standpoint?

They provide a lot of high-touch communication and updates. They hold us accountable. If we start to fall behind the timeline, they make sure to get us back on track. Their team is very on top of everything; they focused on the highest priorities. Nick was an excellent project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very helpful with us in terms of our company culture and ensuring there’s coaching. There’s a lot of transition happening and our team is constantly growing. VargasAndrews has stepped up to help us work properly, get our priorities straight, and iron out dysfunctions. This is outside of their scope; they’re doing it willingly. It’s clear that they’re deeply embedded in our business and have a large stake in it. They do consult but they’re also building and shaping our culture; that’s very unique.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Naturally, there were growing pains. There were times during the recruiting cycle when no one was assigned to do certain tasks. There was a lack of clarity and some things fell through the cracks. However, these things have since been addressed. They were great at addressing feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set your expectations and make it clear about who owns what part of the process.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of an access management platform. We provide a modular Physical Identity and Access Management platform designed to manage physical and logical identities and credentials of employees, visitors, vendors, contractors and drivers.

We unite global identities from disparate physical and logical access control systems to provide compliance and continual risk assessment from a centralized platform.

Our modular workflow engine allows for simplistic automation of complex processes thus aligning identities with properly controlled access across global organizations.

For what projects/services did your company hire VargasAndrews?

Refine our Zoho CRM functionality and help us hire a CFO.

What were your goals for this project?

Better actionable date and dashboards for CRM. Competent intelligent CFO as a hire.

How did you select VargasAndrews?

They are one of our investors. Got to know their skill sets and hired them.

Describe the project in detail.

Several Vargas Andrews resources are dedicated to help us upgrade our CRM. They are doing a good job of creating information flows which help us understand opportunities better. Hired a star CFO. Work in progress.

What was the team composition?

What is the question?

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Not finished with CRM work. Mike Jerman is our CFO. Under his watch, we have consolidated onshore and offshore 2020 books, switching from cash to accrual. basis and creating consolidated accrual based books for 2021. We are almost done with January.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

So far so good.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very responsive. They also are very knowledgeable about stages and technology needs as a company grows.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We and they need to move faster together.