We help companies eliminate waste.

Recently we had an interview with our client Kaarin Mantz, Administrative Lead YMCA Camps, YMCA of the North.

Here’s what Kaarin had to say about her company’s challenge, the CTC solution and the results:
Challenge:

“I have been with the organization 13 years and have observed the following issues that were affecting our productivity across the entire organization:

• Communication
• Organization
• Internal Project management
• Lost knowledge with staff turnover

As a non-profit we needed a smarter way of working that would streamline the way we communicate and collaborate and ensure we were capturing knowledge in people’s heads.”

Solution:
“I had been attending the CTC Productivity webinars and reading their blog posts. I started to make the connection between how our business challenges could be solved by Microsoft 365. We had invested in Microsoft 365 but were not fully using it to our advantage. Although the IT team knows how it works, they don’t know how to use it on the ground in the day-to-day business operations.

I realized working with someone that knows how to apply it to solve the organization’s business issues was critical. So, we decided to bring in CTC Productivity to guide us.

I just loved their approach. We identified the business problem areas and they explained how 365 could meet our needs. This method made it easier for me to see how we should leverage the tools.

Looking back on the project I didn’t realize what we needed. I thought we needed a communication plan but when working with the CTC team I learned there was a better way to approach it. I had no idea all the ways we could be addressing the issues with 365.

I also learned when working with CTC that this was too big of an endeavor to try and change the entire organization all at once. The CTC team suggested we pilot the new approach before rolling it out to the rest of the organization. We needed to start small with one location and hone in on exactly how we should be using it. This was a critical step before training everyone.

I also learned it was very important to get some momentum going on the project and create a team of champions that were sharing the value of the tool with the rest of the organization before the broader rollout.

Piloting the approach was pivotal. We needed the right team, so we piloted in an area where I have intimate knowledge and was confident the pilot team would be up for the challenge. I knew we picked the right team because they saw the struggle and were willing to invest their time and energy. They understood the issues and were passionate about finding a solution.

The CTC monthly retainer model was perfect. It kept me on task as the Client Project Manager and was a great incentive to ensure we were making steady progress every month. In this busy world it’s easy to let projects slide but this made sure things were progressing and we were getting our full value for the investment.”

Results:
“The pilot was a great success and now other areas of the business who have heard about our success want to know more. Doing a pilot was the trick to ensure full adoption.

Our Learning and Development team has decided to create a handout that will be adopted throughout our organization on best practices on how to use 365 the way we have designed it.

The immediate business benefits are:

• Having a better communication process where we can easily separate work and home life.
• Keeping things organized.
• Going paperless. Paper binders are now a thing of the past.
• A more streamlined approach to onboarding new team members. I’m very excited about this one as it will help make transitions easier. When we have turnover, we will save months of training new people as now all the information is saved and stored in a way that is easy to access.

Now we are primed and ready for busy season this summer!

I am much more knowledgeable about Microsoft 365. I never knew all these tools and options were available. I can’t believe we had been paying for but not leveraging these features to solve our day-to-day issues.

One of my biggest aha moments was learning how to approach a project like this through the help of CTC. I now feel more confident with my project management skills going forward.

I discovered the most effective way to leverage technology to solve our issues is to start with identifying the business problem. Then explore if technology can help and how to configure it correctly. That shift in mindset, the need to focus on the area of improvement first was a different way to look at it and was a great learning opportunity for me.

What is most exciting for me about this project is that we now have a plan on how to fully utilize Microsoft 365. Our organization had no plan prior to this.

I would highly recommend you have CTC Productivity guide you through the process. There is no way we could have done this on our own. I would not have had the time to research everything and figure it out. It was a valuable investment and now that I have been trained, I can train others.”

We recently interviewed our client Jeremy Cave, Director of Technology for Dions.

Here’s what Jeremy had to say about his company’s Challenge, the CTC Solution, and the Results: 

Challenge:

We needed a new solution. We had aging physical infrastructure and were faced with a myriad of downsides to replacing them.

1) The associated capital expenditures.

2) The difficulties with volume licensing.

3) The time and money, as well as the challenges of managing, securing, and ensuring safe backups of on-premise servers.

I knew what the organization needed. However, technology these days is so complex.  The idea that there is one guy in the basement of every company that knows everything is not the reality anymore. There is no way one small team can do it all. I knew where we needed to go, but the path was unclear.

Solution:

Roll out Microsoft 365 and bring in a partner that knew how to do it right. At the time, we didn’t know the value CTC Productivity would deliver at every step along the way. CTC Productivity guided and assisted us to achieve our vision. From initial set up and planning to the migration of the data, helping us to streamline workflows, change behaviors, and assist with the full adoption of this new way of working.

From an infrastructure standpoint, CTC provided and continues to provide the safety net, safety map, and directions. It’s not a maze but it is complex. I didn’t want to risk unintended consequences. CTC has provided us with a traveling partner and the security of knowing that someone can help us with the challenges (and celebrate with us at the end!).

One of the key decisions we made during the project was to create a better process for managing our KPIs. So, in addition to helping us migrate to the new and improved platform, we prioritized creating a dashboard even before we migrated. The dashboard will handle our top 5 KPIs. There was a huge fear that this house of cards that we had built from multi-nested Excel spreadsheets would break during the migration.  This alone is one of the best decisions we made. The CTC team members building out our dashboard are fantastic.

One piece of advice I would offer other companies is that Power BI a fantastic tool, but it is complex. When professionals that know the settings and how they can be tweaked do the work you can create something on a completely different level of performance. There is a huge difference when it is done perfectly by a professional. It helps make a company vision a reality.

Generally, on IT projects we expect consultants are going to speak over the heads of the end users (and IT staff!). That is one of the key differentiators with CTC. They are brilliant people and understand business and speak at the level of the audience. Going at your pace to ensure you are comfortable, but then speeding up as you adapt.

Once the foundation is in place, we will dive deeper into the Optimization phase of the project. Looking at our processes and how to streamline those workflows. This will be a huge benefit.  Just initial discussions with the CTC business process improvement folks have opened our eyes to what is possible. They are insightful, detail oriented and do excellent analysis on complex workflows.

To be an outsider and be able to quickly understand complex workflow is a powerful skill set. It’s like describing the Mona Lisa to someone. So complex and difficult to even explain. Their ability to understand complex workflow and put it together in 3D in their minds is amazing.

Also, we didn’t directly ask Jan to coach us along the way, but that was another awesome benefit. We didn’t expect it and honestly, I didn’t necessarily realize it was happening along the way until later. Working with her to help manage the whole process was a huge perk. Her experience in coaching and helping people through personal development and professional change is relevant in this space. Each of us needs help at a different level and I felt reassured by our check-ins. When I was unclear, Jan’s coaching and guidance were very valuable.

Results:

The estimated long-term benefits to the company with just the technology migration and changing to the new architecture is that we anticipate spending 5-10% less over the course of a 5-year period. Beyond 5 years we will realize even more savings. Plus, it eliminates the risk of exposure from a catastrophic event.

But most of the gains are in the improvements in soft costs. Improving the way we collaborate has no price tag. O365 is a solution that will eliminate risk and provide improvements across the board as well as efficiency and how quickly we can share information and make faster decisions. Just getting to the place where we have only one version of a document will have financial benefits by eliminating rework and confusion.

One of the improvements that surprised me the most about this new technology is that the importance of knowing where something is saved goes away. You can get to it in so many ways you don’t need to remember the directory structure to find something. Eliminating this time waster will have a huge impact on everyone’s productivity.

Here is one piece of advice I would give to other businesses. Do it.  Move to 365. The benefit of the cloud is where the future is. You will be glad you did. Also partner with experts that know what they are doing. It doesn’t matter how good your IT group is. They could be spending their time and energy in other areas furthering your business and letting experts that understand Microsoft 365 do what they do best.

My experience with CTC Productivity has been fantastic and I would absolutely recommend them.

Recently we had an interview with our client Jenn Pensa, COO of Ardent Credit Union. 

Here’s what Jenn had to say about her company’s Challenge, the CTC Solution and the Results: 

Challenge      

 “I recently changed jobs and the new company had decided we would stay with the hybrid work model. To do this properly it’s important to provide a work environment that allows everyone to work effectively no matter how many days they’re in or out of the office. It is critical for us to leverage tools like Teams and Microsoft 365 and all the efficiency that comes with improved communication and collaboration as well as reducing email.  Since we installed the Microsoft licensing 2.5 years ago, we had everything we needed – we just weren’t using the software to its capabilities yet.    

We knew it would be painful to do a full rollout on our own because the internal IT team members may not understand how to configure 365 and how all our current systems would connect with 365 as well.    

For companies our size typically, you can’t have all the technology resources in-house to effectively go where you want to go with our long-term technology strategy. You need your in-house IT to be the boots on the ground and have strong outside partners to define the strategy and be subject matter experts on the various technologies you are deploying. That outside voice ensures a smooth and efficient rollout. The in-house team and outside expert approach would allow us to have the best of everything.” 

Solution   

 “I knew immediately that we needed to bring in CTC Productivity to optimize our Microsoft 365 technology because of the quality work they did for us at my last company. CTC has focused subject matter expertise in Microsoft 365, with up-to-the-minute learning. Using subject matter experts allowed us to be educated, innovative and cutting edge without having to hire a new expert for each area. That’s an important solution because we don’t need some of these skills long-term.    

We realized our tech team members (internal and external) had pockets of knowledge on certain aspects of Microsoft 365 (configuration, licensing, Intune) but couldn’t provide the full service that CTC could from migration to optimization.  

Also, when it comes to security and compliance internal team members may not understand the best way to configure the tool and often rely on non-tech people to make decisions outside of their skillset. CTC did the compliance and security assessment and made recommendations on how to optimally configure the environment. This was a huge benefit. CTC really understands client needs and the world of compliance and security – and knows the right security framework to keep our data safe and compliant.”   

Results     

“From the first day we engaged CTC we didn’t stress. CTC guided us through the process. They told us to ‘Trust in the fact that there is an algorithm for this’ and that there is a process that will work every time. It’s agnostic to your business. It doesn’t matter what industry. Trust you can do this with their help.    

I would highly recommend CTC’s 365 Assess/Migration/Optimization Roadmap. It’s critical to get the foundation in place first. Then you can determine how to leverage it across teams. CTC knows what to do, just follow their lead. 

CTC is easy to work with. They listen. It’s a fantastic experience working with them. Their team members are amazing and some of the smartest people I have worked with. It’s nice to work with tech pros that are humble, and client focused.    

I have worked with many Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and technology partners that provide services and scope in different models. CTC has a retainer model that is fantastic because our company gets a lot of bang for our buck. I really appreciated the additional thought leadership hours.  In my opinion, CTC does not charge enough.    

What we got in spades is the one-off questions answered quickly. My team is not wasting time trying to figure out the answers when the CTC team knows them already and can quickly answer our questions and make sure we are not making mistakes. They know how to do it right by laying out the groundwork, so everything is set up correctly the first time.   

Microsoft 365 works so well when it’s done right! Sometimes applications promise a lot and they do not really work. 365 actually works. The integration between desktop and phone is so helpful since we all live on our phone. Using 365 optimally is imperative in this hybrid work model that is here to stay.”