Strategic recommendations for increasing AMR Research competitiveness

Strategic Planning Outline

AMR Research

Strategic Recommendations and Plans

Strategic recommendations

Role of trusted advisor is critical

Recommendations how to make AMR more competitive

Increase and augment customer service

Continue to nurture and foster more of a focus on being a learning and knowledge-accumulating organization iii. Enable analysts to be more creative and innovative in their completed research and support of clients.

Recruiting, retaining and rewarding their workforce which has highly specific skills that are not easily replaced

Strategies for increasing the use of technology in core operations.

Change management strategies critical for AMR Research both from the research process standpoint but also how they interact with clients.

Explosive growth of Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2005) and social networking (Bernoff, Li, 2008) the speed and very nature of knowledge

Making AMR Research More Competitive

AMR's unique value proposition is the ability to translate complex process, system and role-based analyses of their Fortune 500 clients into software specifications that can be accurately filled by enterprise software providers.

a. Services both Fortune 500 clients' needs for IT guidance and also enterprise software vendor's needs as well.

b. Unique business model requires the need to continually refine the process of strategic learning as it relates to defining new opportunities for performance gains in the part of Fortune 500 clients on the one hand, and vendor clients on the other.

i. Strategic learning is a critical skill set for any firm that needs to assist in new market, product or services development as well (Garrett, Covin, Selvin, 2009).

c. Recommendation to make AMR Research more competitive, the need for creating strategic learning as a core value is critical.

i. Create the role of Chief Learning Officer.

ii. Responsible for creating taxonomies or collections knowledge by functional role, process areas of interest of Fortune 500 accounts, and taxonomy specifically created to track the highest performance by process areas as well.

d. Process-based performance levels can be used for creating a framework or taxonomy of "best practices" or optimal levels of performance by each area of their clients (Tallon, 2008).

e. Creates substantial credibility across their entire customer base, across both sides of their business model.

f. Ensuring that knowledge gets captured in taxonomies or structures, creating the Chief Learning officer position and benchmarking process-based performance are all critical to ensuring AMR Research stays and grows more competitive over time.

III. Ensuring a Higher Level of Customer Service

1. Need for renewals is critical to AMR Research financial stability

a. Critical needs across Fortune 500 accounts and enterprise accounts

i. Fortune 500 value AMR for their expertise in interprocess integration, system integration and ERP planning needs.

ii. Vendor clients value on product strategies.

b. Need to continue offering personalized service despite rapid growth

i. Threat of being discontinued due to so many IT advisory and consultancy service firms being available (Rhoads, 2008).

c. Key to competitive strength in customer service for AMR Research is responsiveness, accuracy of responses and the level of trust earned over time.

i. Recommendation: What AMR Research needs to consider in the context of service is how the highly collaborative aspects of Web 2.0 technologies can be used to further strengthen their service strategies.

ii. Using Web 2.0 technologies to also effectively manage knowledge as well. Source: (O'Reilly, 2005)

IV. Making Learning and Knowledge Management A Priority

1. Management to stay competitive over time and must continually seek greater knowledge and learning to better serve clients.

a. Most critical factor in selecting a consultancy is expert-level intelligence and knowledge of a company's unique business processes (Tallon, Kraemer, Gurbaxani, 2000).

b. Creating best practices methodology will assist with this process.

c. Role of Chief Learning Officer critical to this recommendation as well.

i. Serve as the person who will define strategic priorities across both customer bases.

ii. Tasked with redefining the internal processes AMR uses to fulfill client requests is central to making learning and knowledge management a priority.

iii. Mission of Chief Learning Officer is to create long-term value from the accumulated process-based knowledge of enterprise accounts.

iv. Timeframe to accomplish: It is anticipated that it would take 60 days or less.

V. Unleashing Creativity and Innovation in AMR Research Employees

1. Keeping a highly educated and competent workforce challenged and continually growing is critical for the viability of the company.

a. Strategic goal of transformation process-related knowledge and selectively applying it to the product strategy needs of vendor clients very valuable.

b. The pervasive role of social networking (Bernoff, Li, 2008) as a learning platform internal to AMR.

c. The mapping of the latest technology innovations to the unmet and emerging needs of enterprise customers is critical for the growth of AMR Research.

i. Need to use of Web 2.0, social networking combined with analytical frameworks critical for service to clients.

ii. Integrating Value Chain Analysis (Porter, 1990) with Web 2.0 shows potential as value-added service for Fortune 500 clients.

iii. Defining strategies for streamlining ERP and order management systems.

d. Timeframe required to accomplish this level of transformation within AMR will take 30 days or less as intensive knowledge management programs could quickly be put into place.

i. Thought leadership is a critical area of focus for the company.

VI. Recruiting, Retaining and Rewarding the AMR Research Workforce

1.

Human Resource Management (HRM) goal at AMR is to create a corporate culture that underscores the freedom of independent thought and in-depth industry expertise.

a.

Focus on recruiting strategies that concentrate on those skills sets that will enrich the entire knowledge base of the company is critical.

b.

Potential for thought leadership on the part of new hires critical.

c.

Defining profiles of each employee and their unique strengths.

d.

Key employee motivators are autonomy and independence.

e.

Recommendation: Create and continually use personal growth plans to ensure the highest levels of motivation and performance over time and fight turnover.

f.

Timeframe: It is anticipated that it will take 30 days to complete this task.

VII: Using Technology to Improve Company Performance

1. Web-based collaboration and process-sharing technologies that Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2005) are critical for AMR's growth.

a. AMR Research relies on Intranets or private portals for storing their information and knowledge.

i. There is however no single knowledge management system in place and no easy way to quickly search through the accumulated research.

ii. Excellent grasp of static, historical data in fixed format through portals, they lack context-based and unstructured content management expertise -- an area where the majority of the knowledge of the company is stored.

b. Recommendation: AMR needs to use their expertise it has in-house to define a knowledge management system that can manage unstructured content queries in real-time to support customer service in conjunction with assisting analysts with queries.

i. A long lead-time activity and as a result requires intensive planning to complete

ii. Timeline: It will take 90 days to successfully accomplish.

VIII. Overcoming Resistance to Change at AMR Research

1. Technological pace of change in enterprise software is quickening.

a. There is significant change nearly every year with new product introductions, the development of entirely new technologies such as social networks (Bernoff, Li, 2008)

b. Fortune 500 companies are considering hosted applications online, often called Software as a Service (SaaS).

2. Critical for AMR to continually grow experts in emerging areas and established ones that require expertise

a. As new technologies emerge, roles must as well.

b. A more collaborative approach to getting work done, not relying on title alone to connote value or superiority.

3. Recommendation: Create smaller, more agile teams of analysts that form trusting partnerships with each other.

a. Need to get away from individual contributors dominating a given area.

a. Need for creating the role of a Chief Learning Officer

i. Duties include concentrating on unifying all the disparate sources of knowledge in the company into a single version of the truth, a single repository of knowledge that could easily be queried for unstructured content.

4. Managing employees to greater levels of creativity and innovation.

a. Creating more opportunities for individual growth

i. Use personal growth plans which would also support the strategies mentioned in this analysis for recruiting and retaining a competent workforce as well.

5. Technology Improvement

a. Today the company's reliance on corporate Intranets provides useful for certain tasks

b. AMR needs to consider how Web 2.0-based technologies can assist in the development of more effective collaborative workflows internally.

i. The use of collaborative platforms is essential for the growth of the company.

6. Overcoming resistance to change.

a. AMR must nurture small teams of analysts who can readily support and help each other learn and serve clients.

7. Timeline

Article I. Table 1: Summary of Timeframes by Objectives in Each Key Area

Area

Objective

Timeframe to Complete

Competitiveness

Best Practices Methodology

90 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Customer Service

Web 2.0 & Social Networking Adoption

60 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Learning Organization

Chief Learning Officer -- creation of taxonomies for capturing knowledge

60 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Creative and Innovative Employees

Web 2.0-based platforms for information and knowledge sharing

30 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Human Resource Management (HRM) including retention & reward

Personal Growth Plans

30 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Technological Adoption

More collaborative app usage and more reliance on communication with external sources of knowledge as well

90 days or three fiscal quarters to create and implement

Overcoming Resistance to Change

Creating teams that allow for greater information sharing through more trust being created by project teams

Immediately

Worst-Case Scenario Planning

Pricing and Contract Negotiation Service

Immediately

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