Benicorp Insurance
Medtronic Minimed
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power I
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power II
Los Angeles World Airports Residential Acquisition Division
Clarent Corp. (now a part of Verso Technologies)
Cooperative of American Physicians - Mutual Protection Trust

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Client: Benicorp Insurance
Project: Balanced Scorecard
Grace Consulting Services: Process improvement, Balanced Scorecard implementation

The challenge:
Benicorp Insurance wanted to make the most of its recent acquisition of a tightly-controlled company still in start-up mode after two decades of operation. They turned to the proven Balanced Scorecard discipline to enhance productivity and profitability — and to Solartis Inc. / Grace Consulting to help jump-start their implementation.

The solution:
After reviewing and documenting the company’s current companywide processes, from marketing and sales to underwriting, claims processing, customer service, and financial reporting, Grace Consulting was able to identify several gaps, or roadblocks, such as weak customer focus and redundant activities. With these targeted areas in mind, Grace developed a roadmap for balanced scorecard implementation, as well as a list of “quick wins” that would more swiftly help Benicorp realize a return on their financial investment. The plan also included long-range objectives designed to save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. To ensure success, Grace helped Benicorp communicate proposed changes effectively throughout the company and created a new company culture that was more customer-focused. (Top)

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Client: Medtronic Minimed
Project: Process improvement
Grace Consulting Services: Process Improvement, Culture Change

The challenge:
Though the marketing department staff was working harder and longer hours, they had less to show for it, putting department-wide morale on life support. Clearly, they needed a better way to work in order to make the most of their resources and fine-tune their efforts into a productive, highly effective marketing machine.

The solution:
To get to the root of the problem, Grace Consulting immediately analyzed workflows and created a set of process maps for the marketing department to demonstrate all the bottlenecks, dropped hand-offs and missing links between workgroups. Grace then facilitated heated discussions between inter-dependent parties who had to agree to work differently and more effectively together. The outcome was a blueprint that outlined the best way for the department to work and interact with other company departments, such as sales, customer service, and, in particular, research & development because of marketing’s growing need to drive the product development process. Grace also defined performance metrics to enable marketing management to gauge re-design success. This effort ultimately changed the culture of the groups from focusing on what is convenient for individuals to what is optimal for the team. (Top)

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Client: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
Project: CIS business process mapping and requirements definition
Grace Consulting Services: Process Mapping, Business Requirements Definition
Distinction: Nominated for MBE Supplier of the Year by LADWP

The challenge:
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power desperately needed to upgrade their 30+ year-old Customer Information System, but didn’t have their CIS-related processes or business requirements in place to issue an RFP. Not only were process maps outdated, but manual workarounds were undocumented. Concurrently, the department was trying to build a Customer Relationship Management system which made the actual scope of the CIS project more ambiguous and difficult to define.

The solution:
LADWP selected Grace Consulting from among 20 larger competitors because of their superior scalability and flexibility. Grace showed the department how they could get better results for less by reconfiguring their project approach. It was the right choice — one that earned Grace an achievement award for their problem-solving excellence, customer-focused management principles and their contagious entrepreneurial spirit. To accomplish the task at-hand — and to do so $500 under budget — Grace took a very structured, rigorous approach that cut through bureaucratic barriers, improved quality of the project deliverables and built strong relations with the customer service staff. In fact, LADWP was able to put the initial work of completing maps and devising requirements to task for a small unrelated upgrade and to use the information as a foundation for large-scale upgrades in the future. (Top)

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Client: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
Project: Customer Information System (CIS) upgrade
Grace Consulting Services: Change Management, Technology Implementation

The challenge:
It was four months and counting until LADWP faced an expired CIS ASP contract. However, the staff was still feeling the pain of the last upgrade and was, therefore, hesitant to act and dreading the deadline.

The solution:
Grace immediately addressed the department-wide emotional roadblock by fully engaging the staff in a change readiness assessment and assuring them that their voices would be heard. Thanks to an open-minded fact-finding approach, combined with a proven track record with the department, Grace quickly built trust and turned cynicism into collaboration.
The Grace team traveled to each location to meet in person with people whose jobs would be impacted by the change in technology and documented their concerns. Grace then customized communication and training materials to address these areas of concern as well as other key skill deficiencies, building confidence among the staff and focusing the department’s scarce training resources on areas of greatest need. The conversion was a success and a proud accomplishment for all associated with it. (Top)

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Client: Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Residential Acquisition Division
Project: Residential Acquisition Division Strategic Plan
Grace Consulting Services: Strategy, Process Improvement

The challenge:
LAWA created a master plan for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that called for acquiring all residential properties in two adjacent neighborhoods near the airport within three years, including approximately 2,500 single-family homes and multi-dwelling units. Since selling a residence to LAWA was voluntary, the process was slow — at about 100 per year. At this pace, LAWA would never meet its goals on time. Additionally, the delay left many homes within still occupied neighborhoods empty, inviting criminal activity.

The solution:
Grace Consulting created a market-driven strategic plan designed to more quickly relieve LAWA of its role as a real estate manager as well as change LAWA’s approach from reactive to proactive. This plan included developing process maps for all acquisition and relocation activities as well as ways to streamline and accelerate the process. Grace also helped to create a communications plan to encourage residents to sell their homes; devised a budget to ensure LAWA didn’t run out of public money; identified lost revenues; and conceived ways to recover back rent. The plan eliminated operation redundancies and showed how to increase efficiency and productivity tenfold. (Top)

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Client: Clarent Corp. (now a part of Verso Technologies)
Project: CRM implementation
Grace Consulting Services: Process Improvement, Project Management, CRM Implementation

The challenge:
With more than 400 sales representatives worldwide, Clarent was looking to double the number within 12 months. To accommodate this growth, they planned to implement Saleslogix, a customer resource management (CRM) system, which would automate tracking sales leads and activities and improve sales forecasting. However, because each sales engineer had a different style and sales approach, none could agree on how to best implement Saleslogix.

The solution:
Working with sales representatives in the United States, Grace Consulting narrowed down the sales processes to just two based on best practices — one for direct sales and the other for indirect sales through distributors and external agents. Grace also developed a sales forecasting methodology to increase the accuracy of their sales estimates in the US. After the client saw our full capabilities, the project director asked Grace to oversee all design and implementation, managing a large, diverse group of stakeholders and an external vendor (Deloitte Consulting) while effectively leveraging the company’s organizational resources. (Top)

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Client: Cooperative of American Physicians - Mutual Protection Trust (CAP-MPT)
Project: Process / Productivity Assessment
Grace Consulting Services: Process, Skills Assessment

The challenge:
CAP-MPT was growing tremendously and business was booming, primarily because of a surge of new customers from competing firms who had recently gone out of business. Yet, their prospecting, quoting, application processing, claims processing, membership services, account and financial management processes remained unchanged since the company was founded 25 years before. In fact, much of the original staff remained as well, continuing to maintain a family-style culture which had worked well when the company was much smaller. The growing pains were evident.

The solution:
Grace Consulting interviewed some 20 key company people across all departments and documented current workflows, from first customer contact through enrollment, claims adjudication, billing, accounts receivable, to delinquency collection. The resulting recommendations for improvement formed the basis for further work automating these processes and transitioning to an electronic document management system. (Top)