Customer Type: Private and Public Companies
Mastering Board Recruitment: Strategies for Attracting Top Talent
Strategic leadership forms the crux of organizational development and success. Just as the driving force of a car is its engine, so too is a high-performing board the engine of an organization, guiding strategic decisions and growth.
The assembly of a board requires careful selection of individuals, each possessing diverse expertise and perspectives that complement one another, fostering a rich ecosystem of leadership. This is where the concept of board recruitment becomes essential.
READ MORE: Best Practices for Board Recruitment
“Bringing on a board member who comes from that industry and can bring in-specific experience is a value add to any organization,” says Scott Bellinger, BluWave’s co-head of research and operations. “They can work closer to the management team and give outside insight of someone who’s been there and done that previously.”
It’s a process that goes beyond filling seats. It’s about attracting the top talent that can steer your business. For organizations looking for professional support in this crucial process, BluWave is ready to connect you with industry-specific resources that can guide your process with expertise and precision.
Defining Your Board Member Needs
The journey toward effective board recruitment begins with understanding your unique needs. An assessment of the specific gaps in your current board composition and identification of skill requirements helps direct the recruitment process.
By aligning the desired attributes and expertise of potential board members with the organization’s strategic goals and challenges, you can ensure the recruited individuals will provide the most value.
Job Description
When beginning your board recruitment journey, a comprehensive job description serves as your map. By clearly outlining the board’s purpose, responsibilities and expectations, you set the course for attracting qualified board candidates.
A well-crafted job description, complete with the organization’s mission, board member roles, committee involvement and time commitment requirements, helps filter in individuals who align with your needs. To maximize impact, use concise language, focus on essential qualifications and illuminate your organization’s unique value proposition.
Benefits, Responsibilities and Skills
The board position comes with a wealth of benefits, including opportunities for personal and professional growth, networking and the privilege to make a significant impact on an organization. These benefits should be presented upfront to attract motivated individuals.
Board members shoulder several responsibilities, such as fiduciary duty, strategic planning, risk management and providing guidance to the executive team. Ensuring these duties align with your organization’s needs and strategic direction helps attract the right talent.
“They can be a great outside partner to the CEO – and it’s a portco, the PE firm – to ensure everyone is growing in the same direction and on the same page,” Bellinger adds.
Term and General Duties
Board member terms typically have a defined duration, and adopting staggered terms brings a mix of continuity and fresh perspectives into the proceedings. General duties could span from regular attendance at board meetings and active participation in committees to fulfilling fiduciary responsibilities. Clear articulation of these expectations can help potential members better understand their role.
Time, Legal and Financial Commitments
Time commitments for board members can range from regular board and committee meetings to additional engagement requirements. Alongside time, potential board members should be aware of any legal or financial obligations, such as adherence to regulatory compliance, potential liability issues and the expectation of making personal financial contributions or securing sponsorships.
Strategies to Find Potential Board Candidates
Sourcing potential board candidates requires a multifaceted approach. Utilizing board posting programs and matching platforms, such as LinkedIn and Executive Search Firms, can offer access to a pool of qualified board candidates. Local Chambers of Commerce can also serve as valuable resources for finding candidates.
Oftentimes, though, you can save time and resources by connecting with a service provider who already knows exactly who you need and where to find them. The Business Builders’ Network from BluWave is full of exact-fit third parties who know how to do just that.
Word-of-Mouth and Referrals
Existing networks and relationships form a treasure trove of potential board candidates. From board members of other organizations and industry leaders to professional associations and community influencers, your network contacts can be a rich source of referrals. Clearly articulating your organization’s mission and the specific qualifications you seek in potential board candidates can help garner more suitable referrals.
Publicizing Within Network and Local Community
Promoting board opportunities within your network and local community allows you to target individuals already familiar with your organization or industry. Email newsletters, social media platforms, industry events and community-based publications can be effective channels for publicizing these opportunities. A compelling announcement combined with engaging storytelling can pique interest and attract potential board members.
External Promotion
Expanding your search beyond your immediate networks through external promotion can attract diverse candidates. Digital platforms and industry-specific networks can reach individuals with the desired expertise who might not be in your immediate circle. In addition to LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook can be effective platforms.
Screening and Selecting Board Members
Choosing the right candidate requires a structured process. An efficient application process, including resume, cover letter and reference submission, can facilitate the evaluation of potential board candidates. Initial screenings through phone or video interviews can help narrow the candidate pool. Utilizing behavioral-based interviewing techniques and strategic questions can further help assess the qualifications, values, commitment and potential contributions of board candidates.
Short-listing and Final Selection
The final stage of board recruitment involves short-listing and selecting the ideal candidates. Reviewing candidates based on predefined criteria and qualifications ensures an objective selection process. Thoughtful deliberation among board members, consensus-building, conducting reference checks and considering overall board dynamics can further aid in the selection of the right candidate.
“The main thing is getting someone who’s willing to be an active board member and not just meet once a quarter, but actually help with some value creation plans throughout the period and stay engaged between quarterly meetings,” Bellinger says.
A successful board recruitment strategy is a meticulous process. It doesn’t have to be an uphill task, though. BluWave’s research and operations team can be your ally in this process, connecting you with exact-fit service providers. Connect with us here to start your journey to master board recruitment.
Best Practices for Board Recruitment
An outstanding board is invaluable to an organization. The power to make strategic decisions, the ability to drive innovation and the capacity to inspire stakeholder confidence is all within its power. Having helped countless businesses with this very process, BluWave has a unique perspective into the fundamentals of the board recruitment process and the best practices that make it efficient and effective.
Working with one of the expert third-party resources in the Business Builders’ Network can save you time and money while ensuring that you make the right selection for your company.
Let’s take a deeper look at the details that go into this critical decision.
Understanding the Board Member Recruitment Process
Board member recruitment goes beyond the confines of structured interviews – it is a crucial facet of organizational governance. A well-executed process determines the structure of leadership, influencing decision-making and strategic oversight.
“We’re starting to see some PE firms look for those board members during due diligence to help with some of those diligence opportunities as senior advisors then convert post-close to board members,” says Scott Bellinger, BluWave’s co-head of research and operations.
Industry-specific third parties not only know how to run the process for your business, they’re also connected with the most qualified candidates for your specific situation. Access to these resources can save businesses from the headache of sifting through unknown or unproven options.
Best Practices for Recruiting Board Members
Identifying Desired Board Member Attributes
First, you must identify the qualifications, skills and diversity that board members need to possess. These attributes should be aligned with the objectives of the organization, facilitating its growth trajectory.
Developing a Comprehensive Recruitment Strategy
A clear blueprint and timeline form the foundations of a robust recruitment strategy. Tapping into various channels – from professional organizations to networks and referrals – can greatly enhance your reach to potential board members.
Navigating these channels can be intricate, though, highlighting the need for expert third-party resources to guide the process.
Implementing an Effective Screening and Selection Process
The backbone of successful board recruitment is a comprehensive screening and evaluation process. The stages – ranging from interviews, application reviews, reference checks, background investigations, to skills assessments and board observations – require careful execution. Thorough due diligence, particularly during reference checks and interviews, should never be rushed or downplayed.
Utilizing a Board Recruitment Matrix
A board recruitment matrix can be a game-changer. This visual tool evaluates the current composition of the board, unveiling gaps that need to be addressed. The matrix ensures that new board members are appointed based on the required skills, expertise and diversity, fostering a team that’s well-equipped to navigate organizational challenges and stimulate success.
READ MORE: Effective Board Recruitment Strategies
So what does a great board member look like?
“Someone who has scaled a business in the same space at a larger size company,” Bellinger says. “Someone who knows what best-in-class looks like in this industry.”
BluWave is prepared to connect you with an exact-fit service provider, equipped to streamline and optimize your board recruitment process.
When you’re ready to elevate your board recruitment process, get in touch with us. Our research and operations team will scope your needs and provide best-fit candidates for you to evaluate within a single business day.
5 Steps to an Effective Voice of Customer (VoC) Strategy
In today’s competitive market landscape, understanding your customers’ perceptions and needs is paramount. This is where an effective voice of customer (VoC) strategy comes into play, allowing businesses to capture and analyze customer feedback for informed decision-making.
But without a strategic approach based on proven voice of customer best practices, deciphering customer pain points and optimizing your business operations can be challenging.
This guide will take you through five essential steps to building and implementing a successful VoC strategy.
Building a Customer-Centric Company Culture
An effective VoC strategy begins by cultivating a customer-centric culture within your organization. This involves adopting a mindset where customer needs and feedback are the driving force behind every decision. From the C-suite to the front-line employees, every team member should understand the value of the customer’s voice and its impact on business success.
The integration of a VoC strategy extends across all departments, with each having a unique role and benefiting differently. For instance, the marketing department might prioritize understanding customer preferences for promotional channels, while the product development team might focus on feedback about product usability.
Building a Robust VoC Data Collection Framework
Your VoC strategy is only as good as the data you collect. Diverse methods of data collection provide a multifaceted view of customer preferences, expectations and pain points. As you adopt different VoC methodologies, you’ll gain a more comprehensive understanding of the customer journey.
Select feedback channels that align with your customer’s preferences and your business sneeds. Whether it’s through direct interviews, surveys, social media or customer support interactions, diversifying your feedback channels is crucial. Continually assess the strengths and weaknesses of your current channels to fine-tune your data collection strategy.
Transforming VoC Data into Actionable Insights
Collecting VoC data is just the beginning. The power of your VoC strategy lies in transforming this raw data into actionable insights. Analytical tools are indispensable for interpreting the data and identifying patterns that signify customer sentiment, preferences and pain points.
READ MORE: The Power of AI and Data Analytics
For instance, you may notice a recurring theme of customers struggling with a particular feature of your product. Grouping similar feedback points helps you identify and prioritize areas for improvement. By mapping these themes against customer personas and journey stages, you can gain a deeper understanding of specific customer experiences and expectations.
Prioritizing and Implementing VoC-Driven Initiatives
Having extracted insights from your VoC data, the next step involves implementing VoC-driven initiatives. Prioritization of these initiatives depends on several factors, including the feasibility of implementation, expected impact and alignment with business objectives.
A VoC roadmap can help you systematically execute prioritized initiatives over time. Transparent communication is key during this phase, ensuring everyone understands the changes and is on board with the new initiatives. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be set to measure the effectiveness of these initiatives, providing tangible proof of your VoC strategy’s success.
Enhancing Customer Engagement and VoC Program Evolution
A successful VoC strategy doesn’t stop at implementation—it’s an ongoing process that evolves with your customers’ needs and expectations. Keep your customers informed about the changes you’re making based on their feedback. This not only shows your commitment to their satisfaction but also encourages their continued participation in your VoC program.
Regular reviews and updates to your VoC program are essential to stay in sync with changing customer needs. Your VoC strategy should be flexible, allowing for continuous improvement and adaptation.
Building and implementing an effective VoC strategy may seem like a daunting task, but the rewards of increased customer satisfaction and business growth are worth the effort.
Working with a trusted third-party expert can help ease this process, and BluWave is here to connect you with the perfect resource.
“There are providers with networks of contacts across different industries,” says Keenan Kolinsky, BluWave co-head of research and operations. “Not only is it interesting to survey existing customers, but also potential customers to gain their insights and perspectives, and that’s really where these third parties can add value, is helping businesses get insights from potential customers – not just the ones they already have.”
Whether you need help refining your data collection methods, analyzing VoC data or implementing VoC-driven initiatives, our research and operations team is ready to assist. Contact us today and let us guide you to success in your VoC journey.
Voice of Customer Process: Methodologies for Better Service
Customers shape the success of your business. Their feedback, preferences and expectations guide your strategies, refine your services and bolster your bottom line.
Enter the world of the Voice of Customer (VoC). This indispensable tool – often part of a specialized commercial due diligence project – empowers you to tap into what your customers desire and harness their insights for growth.
VoC is a research method that captures customers’ expectations, preferences and aversions. By leveraging this approach, you can cultivate a customer-centric culture that not only boosts satisfaction but also propels your business to new heights.
READ MORE: Voice of Customer: Definition, Importance
VoC (Voice of Customer) Methodologies
VoC methodologies are a collection of techniques to gather valuable customer insights. They pinpoint customer needs, expose pain points and reveal opportunities to improve.
BluWave co-head of research and operations Keenan Kolinsky says using an industry-specific third-party can make this process more efficient.
“The study can be much more targeted if there’s a specific customer segment they’re interested in. Additionally, when a VoC is part of a due diligence activity, the acquisition target could introduce the fund to a targeted and select group of customers to get their insight specifically,” he says. “They’re much more targeted insights from the key accounts that can make or break the business.”
READ MORE: 5 Steps to an Effective Voice of Customer (VoC) Strategy
Customer Interviews and Surveys
Nothing beats a conversation when it comes to understanding customers. Interviews unveil the “why” behind behaviors, offering rich qualitative data. On the other hand, surveys, whether online, email or SMS, yield quantitative data, transforming feedback into measurable insights.
By pairing these methodologies, you gain a holistic understanding of preferences and experiences. But managing and interpreting both qualitative and quantitative data can be complex. Collaborating with expert third-party services can alleviate this burden, allowing you to focus on leveraging the insights.
READ MORE: Buy-Side Commercial Due Diligence: What is it?
Social Media
Customers often voice their opinions on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok and more. Monitoring these platforms uncovers real-time feedback and sentiments. Social listening tools identify trends, track brand mentions and facilitate customer engagement. This goldmine of unfiltered opinions can equip you to refine your products and services.
Doing this on a regular basis, though, can become unwieldy. Experienced third parties who do this on a regular basis can save you time and help you get capture core customer sentiments.
Focus Groups
A small group of customers, a structured discussion and a skilled moderator – that’s a focus group in a nutshell. It’s enables customers to freely express their thoughts.
This format often reveals hidden perceptions and enables you to understand how group dynamics influence feedback. Nevertheless, coordinating and moderating focus groups can be time-consuming and requires expertise for accurate interpretation. Here, experienced third-party firms can step in, streamlining the process and ensuring valuable takeaways.
Customer Support Data
When customers reach out for support, they reveal their needs and frustrations. Scrutinizing inquiries, complaints and feedback from support channels can reveal recurring issues and areas for improvement.
Website Behavior Analysis
How do customers interact with your website? Analytics tools – like Google Analytics 4 – offer the answer. By tracking page views, clicks and navigation paths, you gain behavioral insights.
Heatmaps, user recordings and conversion funnels also unveil usability issues and help streamline the customer journey. But analyzing such granular data and deriving meaningful insights isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It demands deep technical expertise and significant time investment. A third-party solution with a knack for analytics can be the key to unlocking these valuable insights, sparing you from getting lost in the complexity of data.
READ MORE: Understanding Voice of Customer: Metrics, KPIs, Analytics
Online Reviews
Customer feedback thrives on online review platforms. By monitoring them, you can understand customer sentiments and address concerns. Engaging with customers on review platforms also shows your commitment to their satisfaction.
Feedback Forms
Feedback forms on your website or app offer a structured way to gather feedback. Well-designed, user-friendly forms capture specific information, enabling customers to express their thoughts in detail.
Net Promoter Score® (NPS®)
How likely are your customers to recommend your business? The Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) offers a clear answer. NPS® surveys categorize customers into promoters, passives and detractors. Analyzing this data uncovers the reasons behind customer ratings and helps craft strategies to boost loyalty.
VoC (Voice of Customer) Processes
Data Collection and Analysis
Gathering data is only the first step. VoC methodologies call for structuring and organizing data to facilitate effective analysis. Tools and techniques for data analysis spotlight key insights and patterns, making sense of what you collect.
Insight Generation
Converting data into actionable insights is the heart of VoC. Analysis uncovers customer preferences, pain points and emerging trends. Triangulating from different methodologies offers a comprehensive understanding of your customers.
READ MORE: AI Data Analytics: Business Intelligence Tools
Action Planning and Implementation
Insights are the foundation for action. Prioritize improvements based on both customer input and business goals. For instance, if feedback consistently points to slow website load times, prioritize website optimization. Effective implementation requires cross-functional collaboration to effect change.
Monitoring and Continuous Improvement
The Voice of Customer process is not static, but rather a dynamic, ongoing endeavor. It evolves in sync with market trends and customer needs. Establishing continuous feedback loops, gauging progress and refining strategies based on the evolving customer landscape is essential.
“You could also incorporate price sensitivity into a VoC to help a company determine if there’s room to increase prices,” Kolinsky says. “Basically what the customer thinks about how the product or service is priced.”
READ MORE: How To Analyze Sales Data: Tools, Examples, KPIs
This is where BluWave steps in, bridging the gap between understanding your customers and implementing that understanding into actionable strategies. Our research and operations team works diligently to connect you with industry-specific, vetted service providers who specialize in Voice of Customer methodologies. They assist you in maintaining the momentum of your VoC efforts, from the initial data collection to the final stages of strategy adaptation.
Through our extensive network, we’ve got you covered whether you are a private equity firm, a portfolio company, or a private or public company. Our exact-fit resources are at your disposal to ensure you remain customer-centric, adaptable and progressive in the ever-changing market landscape. We understand that your goal isn’t just to listen to your customers but to hear them, comprehend them and ultimately grow with them.
Business Intelligence & Analytics: What is it?
Business intelligence and analytics is a key facet of modern-day business building.
“BI gives you the ability to dig deeper in to all the operations of your business to track KPIs and other metrics, which can then help you steer your business,” says Houston Slatton, BluWave’s head of technology.
Leaders at private equity firms, portfolio companies and private and public companies use data to answer questions about their business. This could give them a better understanding of their customer base or product, for example.
What is Business Intelligence and Analytics?
“It’s using very large amounts of, and sometimes real-time data to paint a whole picture of your customers, your business and your products or services,” the founding partner at one of our expert service providers says. “The difference between business intelligence and analytics and maybe traditional financial analysis is the scale at which it happens.”
In the past, business leaders would get information from an old database and manual analyze it in a spreadsheet program. That very spreadsheet fundamentally limits the analysis, according to the data firm’s founding partner, Mike Datus.
“Once you enter the realm of business intelligence or analytics, or data science is sometimes used synonymously, you’re talking about a bigger, more comprehensive, more real-time picture,” Datus says.
READ MORE: Business Intelligence Infrastructure: What is it?
Different Aspects of BI&A Process
One key way to maximize portfolio company performance is with private equity analytics. The right data helps a firm make better investment decisions while maximizing portfolio company performance.
The right information also helps with risk management, and eventually, increasing a portfolio company’s exit value.
Of course, non-PE firms can reap the same benefits to build their business. Slatton says this process starts with putting your data in a data warehouse and formatting it in a way that’s “analytics ready.”
READ MORE: Data Consolidation: Benefits, Challenges, Process
“The next chunk is building or doing analysis on top of that data,” he adds. “Probably a lot of defining KPIs or metrics. All businesses are generally going to agree on revenue, but most of the operational metrics, there’s probably a little wiggle room around. But you can’t build a visualization with wiggle room.”
Precision, then, is key to actionable analytics. Once you have reliable, accurate data in place, it’s time to put it to work.
“You’re going to build some visualizations on top of that analysis so you can build some metrics over time and build some historical results and predict future results as well,” Slatton says.
How PE Firms, Businesses Use BI&A
By monitoring key performance indicators and market trends, organizations can identify weaknesses. The right data can help develop strategies to address these issues and strengthen a firm’s portco or a company’s operations.
“Most companies don’t have great insight into the actual operations of their business at the granular level that you can have now,” Slatton says. “It’s an investment to put in a full data stack and to build the visualization capabilities. But you can really unearth a lot of highly impactful insights about your business once you have access to the granular data sets.”
READ MORE: Data Warehouse Types: How To Choose the Right One
One of the key considerations in BI & analytics is the selection of data sources. As Slatton mentioned earlier, accuracy is imperative, along with up-to-date information that’s aligned with the firm’s overall strategy.
“One of the most important parts of BI is figuring out what the actual KPIs are that are going to be the real levers of the business and making sure to track those,” Slatton says.
Once the firm knows what it wants to monitor, it must decide how to securely collect and store that information.
Integrating new private equity analytics programs and tools must be done with existing systems in mind. These might include portfolio management software, investor reporting platforms, website analytics, payroll management and more.
Lastly, and most practically, the data must be accessible for the relevant parties. That means reports that are easy to analyze and share. That way, everyone from partners to C-suite executives to the most junior employee in the organization understands what’s driving the decisions that affect them.
READ MORE: Business Intelligence Automation: What is it?
Whether you’re the CTO at an independent company, an interim CFO at a portco, or any other business building role, we have expertly vetted analytics and insights resources on standby.
The BluWave-grade network of service providers have helped hundreds of companies like yours choose, implement and distribute data platforms that have a positive impact on their organization’s value.
“You want a group that can define the right, limited set of KPIs,” Slatton says. “The C-suite or leadership team should bring that to the table, but you want a group you’re going to be able to work with to define and refine the KPIs that you use to drive the business.”
Contact us to set up an initial scoping call, and we’ll connect you with two or three best-fit resources for your exact situation within a single business day.
*Privacy is important to us. While the source and company name have been changed, these are real quotations from a real service provider in the BluWave Business Builders’ Network.
‘A Player’ Needed To Lead Portco’s People Operations
Service Area: Executive Search
Client Type: Portfolio Company
Service Provider Type: Vice President of Human Resources/People Operations
Industry: Technology – Software
The Need
High-Performing Executive To Lead HR Department
A portfolio company engaged BluWave to orchestrate a targeted search for a vice president of people operations to lead a technology software company’s HR endeavors. The company’s vision to maintain high employee engagement, foster a growth-oriented culture and optimize the recruitment process necessitated a skilled HR leader.
The Challenge
Cultivating Culture and High-Performing Teams
The primary challenge was to find a VP of HR who could uphold the existing culture’s vibrancy while growing it. The candidate needed to blend strategic HR expertise with an ability to manage and integrate a dynamic culture within a growing technology company.
How BluWave Helped
Tailored Search for People-First Leadership
BluWave collaborated with the portfolio company to craft a tailored executive search strategy that aligned with the software company’s values-driven culture. This approach identified a rising star – the “A player” the company sought – capable of not only driving HR strategies but also contributing to organizational health, diversity and inclusion, and talent acquisition.
The Result
Empowering Organizational Transformation
The transformative HR leader resonated with the company’s values and growth mindset. He brought a blend of high-tech experience and a strategic yet hands-on approach. With the new leader in place, the company is poised to enhance its employee engagement, build a robust hiring system and propel its organizational excellence journey.
BluWave’s tailored approach to executive search ensured a seamless integration of an HR leader who shares the company’s vision, values and goals.
Industry-Specific Growth Experts for PE Firm’s Portcos
Service Area: Growth & GTM
Client Type: Lower-Middle Market Private Equity Firm
Service Provider Type: Growth Strategy Consultants
Industry: Various
The Need
Structured Planning for Unleashing Potential
A forward-thinking lower-middle-market private equity firm aimed to empower its newly acquired portfolio companies through a comprehensive onboarding and strategic planning process. The objective was to shape a clear five-year plan encompassing customer segmentation, core value proposition development, investment allocation, sales and marketing strategies and an integrated budget.
The firm sought experienced consultants, ideally partners or associate partners, to lead the analysis, guide strategic planning sessions and establish a cohesive plan with actionable steps, ownership, deadlines and budget distribution.
The Challenge
Aligning Visions and Establishing Accountability
The private equity firm faced the challenge of harmonizing diverse visions and strategies across their portcos. The businesses possessed strong product insights but required support in fostering an accountable team culture. Additionally, the PE firm sought a leader who could implement an OKR framework to enhance alignment and execution across the organization.
How BluWave Helped
Industry-Specific Strategic Implementation
BluWave connected the firm with industry-specific consultants for its portcos. They quickly absorbed diligence materials and external market data, creating a comprehensive approach to guide the five-year planning process.
Starting with a 100-day plan scope, the firm developed of a three- to five-year strategic plan. This included defining core value propositions, strategic initiatives and aligning them with budget considerations and executive scorecards.
They also designed and implemented an OKR program for each organization. This framework facilitated alignment, empowering the CEOs to elevate operational efficiency and accountability.
The Result
Operational Efficiency Across Portcos
The portfolio companies established clear trajectories for growth. The result was a meticulously crafted five-year plan encompassing strategic initiatives, actionable steps and budget allocation, all aligned with the private equity firm’s overarching objectives.
Paul Stansik, ParkerGale Capital | The Sales Metric Playbook: A Private Equity Guide to Measuring Sales Growth
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Accelerating Growth in the Tech Sector: Crafting Product Vision Roadmap
Service Area: Growth & Go-To-Market (GTM)
Client Type: Middle-Market Private Equity Firm
Service Provider Type: Product Roadmap Consultant
Industry: Professional Services: Technology: Software
The Need
Charting the Course for Future Growth
A middle-market private equity firm engaged BluWave to assist one of their portfolio companies, a managed IT service provider specializing in financial services and life sciences sectors. The company sought a consulting partner to craft a robust three-year product vision roadmap. This roadmap would serve as a strategic guide, outlining the offerings, sales, delivery and performance measurement aspects of the company’s future direction.
The Challenge
Identifying Expansion Opportunities in a Niche Market
The managed IT service provider needed a comprehensive roadmap to inform its business strategy over the next three years. This required a deep understanding of the target customer profiles, their purchase journey and emerging market trends. BluWave’s challenge was to collaborate with a consulting partner that possessed a strong background in IT managed services, particularly in the financial services and life sciences sectors, which are heavily regulated.
How BluWave Helped
Experienced, Niche-Specific Resource
BluWave immediately reached out to the consulting firms it already knew that had a proven track record in developing product roadmaps for IT managed service providers. The selected consulting partner brought hands-on experience and a deep understanding of IT MSP products to the table.
The consulting partner’s team undertook a meticulous customer and market assessment, conducting interviews with existing and potential customers to understand their needs and preferences. Simultaneously, they performed a comprehensive competitive analysis to identify opportunities for expanding the company’s offerings.
The Result
Clear Path to Growth
Thanks to the consulting firm with which BluWave the company, the managed IT service provider successfully crafted a the-year product vision roadmap. It incorporated customer and market insights, defining the target customer profiles and outlining the path to delivering unmatched value.
The company’s leadership gained clarity on their future direction, aligning product offerings, sales, delivery and performance measurement. Armed with a well-structured roadmap, the managed IT service provider is better positioned to navigate the complexities of the financial services and life sciences sectors.
The collaborative effort between BluWave and the consulting partner culminated in a strategic plan tailored to the company’s unique position in the tech sector. As they continue to serve their niche markets, the managed IT service provider can confidently implement their growth strategy, expand their offerings, and unlock new opportunities for success.
The Road to AI Implementation: Strategic Planning, Data Management, Cybersecurity
What’s worse than not implementing artificial intelligence tools into your business?
Implementing them without a plan.
While it might feel like you’re falling further behind competitors every day you’re not adding AI to your tech stack, you’re better off waiting a little longer to get it right. Rushing out a half-baked product will only cause you more harm in the long run.
Let’s dive in to some of the key precursor activities for implementing artificial intelligence into your business.
Aligning AI with Business Strategy
As you choose your AI use cases, it’s essential to align them with your broader digital and business strategies.
Nik Kapauan, principal at Access Holdings, recently talked about this on a BluWave-hosted webinar, Activating AI.
“Your strategy for using AI obviously needs to tie to your broader digital strategy, which needs to tie to your broader business strategy as a firm,” Kapauan said. “I’d also bifurcate it because when we say AI, it’s a broad spectrum of things. You have your traditional analytics, which is descriptive analytics, just getting stuff on a screen and reporting. And then you have your more predictive analytics for predicting the future.”
In either case, Kapauan reiterated the importance of aligning with your overall goals, noting that predictive analytics allow for more flexibility.
“The way you’d approach that strategy is a bit more iterative, a bit more experimental,” he said, “trying to get use cases and experimenting as soon as you can to figure out where the value is.”
Tackling Data Challenges
Data is at the heart of any AI initiative. The service providers in our network say the number one hurdle businesses face to adding artificial intelligence tools is not having a good sense of data availability or hygiene, respectively.
“A lot of people want to jump to the model or the technology. ‘What if we could do this with customers?’ I think it’s really important to start with, ‘What is the space of data that we have at our disposal?’” Michael Woods*, the CEO of an AI consulting firm BluWave works with regularly, said in an interview. “Then just as importantly, ‘Do we have any sense of the inaccuracies or things that could really lead us astray in that data?’
On the AI webinar, Kapauan said that handling data is often the most significant part of large analytics projects.
“That centralization of data, the cleaning of data, the ongoing maintenance of data, is the lion’s share of the effort,” he said.
BluWave CEO & Founder Sean Mooney said the effort, however, is worth it.
“You’ve got to do the unglamorous data cleanliness part… the only thing worse than no data is bad data,” he said. “Keep [the data] good because it’s like a piece of equipment that’s gotta be maintained. Anytime there’s rotation and force in anything, it wants to lose calibration.”
READ MORE: AI Data Analytics: BI Tools
Change Management: A Key Component
Kapauan emphasized the need for a high-level leader to drive the change internally when significant changes are being made to the way a business operates.
“I think one of the biggest predictors of success is a champion inside the organization that could really own the vision and drive the opportunity. And often that’s the CEO or someone the CEO directly holds accountable for the digital agenda,” Kapauan said. “Having that leadership voice to set the vision and drive the organization and mobilize change is critical to success for analytics and any other kind of major digital transformation.”
Mooney added that this is a key part of change management.
“AI’s going be part of your strategy,” he said. “It’s a tactic, it’s not your strategy.”
Securing Your Data Assets
Finally, as businesses build up their data assets, it is vital to safeguard them.
“We want to make sure that we protect [our resources] from theft, making sure that if someone gets into our organization that they can’t pull that model out and take it with them to use somewhere else,” said Keith Thomas, the Cybersecurity Operations National Practice Lead at AT&T. “There are some ways that we protect using different security tools, and different security capabilities support the idea of a [data] model theft by attackers.”
Thomas also emphasized the importance of having a robust disaster recovery plan. If an AI system goes down, the team must be prepared to mitigate any negative impact on data and analytics.
“Even if it is to go to a manual approach, that’s OK. Having the plan is the most important part of that,” Thomas said.
Mooney pointed out that various resources are available to help businesses of all sizes protect their most critical asset: their data.
“Once again, we’re seeing this theme of, ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail,'” Mooney said. “You’ve gotta do the work in advance. Not just even on the data and the analytics side, but also in protecting your data.”
BluWave has seen a rapid uptick in demand for AI-related services recently. What many firms lack, though, is the necessary foundation to get started.
Aligning your AI tactics with your overall business strategy, preparing your data, identifying an internal champion and protecting your data assets are crucial precursors to implementing these powerful new tools.
Whether you’re at a private equity firm, portfolio company or private or public organization, BluWave’s Business Builders’ Network is full of expert third-party AI resources. These highly vetted service providers can not only help you with the aforementioned preparations, but will also work with you to implement these tools.
Contact our research and operations team to learn more, and we’ll connect you with an industry specific expert to assist your digital transformation using artificial intelligence.
*Privacy is important to us. While the source and company name have been changed, these are real quotations from a real service provider in the BluWave Business Builders’ Network.