Background: In order to manage the large volume of user requests across all corporate administrative functions (e.g. finance, legal, human resources, marketing, etc.), reporting and analysis tools were needed to define user requirements, estimate resource requirements and allocations, estimate level of effort, prioritize concurrent and potentially conflicting activities and analyze the business case to evaluate the return on investment for new projects.

CTS Impact Solution: Using industry best practices, CTS performed the following:

• Project management
  • Develop and prepare project plans
  • Status reporting and updates to Steering Committee
• Program design and development
  • Design standard tools and templates
  • Develop prioritization model to evaluate organizational impact and level of effort
  • Formalized communications plan for frequent updates to user-community
  • Deployment of request management tracking tool (Primavera) to manage in-flight projects
• Conduct pilot
  • Meet with business owners to define requirements
  • Develop business cases to analyze ROI
  • Prepare project charters and projet plans
  • Liaison to IT and business community
• Program roll-out and on-going support
  • Train new Business Analysts on usage of standard processes and tools
  • Provide Interim Business Analysts to preform day-to-day activities

Background: Due to the extensive number of concurrent projects underway within the Finance function of this Fortune 500 multi-national manufacturer, this client needed to launch and support a PMO to manage progress, and to provide an efficient way for status reporting and resource allocation across competing priorities.

CTS Impact Solution: To support this client through the launch and on–going management of the PMO, CTS Impact provided strong project management expertise to perform the following:

• Develop PMO tools and templates
• Standard project charter
• Standard tool to analyze business case and project ROI
• Workload/resource allocation and prioritization model
• Standard project planning templates
• System and user testing
• Standard status reporting (for management, executives, steering committee, etc.)
• Post–implementation review analysis tool (budget, deliverables, etc.)
• Hands – on project management (CTS Impact staff)
• PMO Lead – pilot and implement tools
• Project Managers – assigned to specific client projects

 

Background: The international operations of this Fortune 500 CTS Impact client did not have standard processes or systems across its 13 production facilities, which limited transparency and consistency of data available to the corporate management team.

CTS Impact Solution: With extensive work experience in foreign operations (along with foreign language proficiency), the CTS Impact Project Manager leveraged his significant financial and supply chain industry expertise to lead efforts as follows:

• Workflow analysis
• On-site data-gathering at 13 foreign plant facilities
  • China (Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen)
  • Europe (UK, Poland)
  • Latin America (Argentina, Chile, Mexico)
• Facilitate joint-design work sessions to define future state requirements
• Gap analysis  to design future state processes
• Develop and document standard operating procedures
• Develop web-based reporting tools to map to Hyperion

Background: In order to manage its global import function consistently, and to manage the enterprise risk associated with Import activities, this CTS Impact client needed to establish formal standard policies and operating procedures.

CTS Impact Solution:

• Data-gathering
  • Coordinate business unit self-assessments
  • Serve as key liaison to plant management to obtain survey responses
• Data analysis
  • Prepare reports to track and monitor compliancy and audit readiness
  • Development of database tool to collect plant data
• Documentation of standard operating procedures
  • Develop procedures manual
  • Provide training
• Customs Audits
  • Provide first-level support for business units and plants
  • Interface with Legal department  for information requests related to Customs Audits
  • Design and execute pre-audit reviews to ensure compliance in future

Background: To leverage its massive purchasing power for the procurement of raw materials, this CTS Impact client needed to formalize its sourcing process for certain goods and services through a strategic sourcing program.

CTS Impact Solution:

• Analysis
  • Perform risk assessment
  • Define requirements & key metrics
  • Vendor analysis of commodity families
  • Vendor negotiation assistance
• Design and implement
  • Conduct pilot of selected providers
  • Select preferred providers
• Monitor compliance & performance
  • Develop Access database tracking tool to monitor vendor compliance and performance

Background: With the concurrent upgrade of its human resources, financials and supply chain ERP system (PeopleSoft), CTS Impact provided operational expertise in finance & accounting, supply chain and HR with specific PeopleSoft implementation and user experience throughout the entire life-cycle of the upgrade to perform the following:

CTS Impact Solution: Using PMI-based project management methodologies, CTS performed:

• Business process analysis
• Workflow design and documentation
• Data mapping
• Data conversion and clean-up
• UAT and system testing
• User-training and roll-out support
• Design reporting tools (reports and queries)

Background: To support its management reporting requirements, this CTS Impact client needed a user-friendly tool that could be implemented on an expedited basis across its worldwide business units.
Key considerations for the evaluation were the need to support standard distribution of reports, expanded drill-down capabilities, and dashboard of key performance metrics.

CTS Impact provided hands-on project management expertise who applied their first-hand knowledge of various business intelligence tools to perform the following:

• Requirements definition and prioritization — business and technical requirements
• Vendor analysis and scoring (Hyperion, SAP BPC, Cognos)
• Perform business case analysis
• System and reporting design (SAP BPC)
  • Report design
  • Business process workflow
  • Data architecture
• Conduct testing and troubleshoot exceptions
• Develop end-user training program and manual
• Provide end-user support during ‘go-live’

Background:  In order to manage a global Sarbanes-Oxley 404 corporate compliance program, business tools needed to be developed and maintained to analyze and track progress, manage resource utilization and control costs.  The diverse program encompassed a team of 30 professionals across numerous legal entities in over 50 countries.  Due to the varying levels of detail to meet the information requirements of the constituents (e.g. field operations, Steering Committee, Audit Committee), status reporting presented some unique challenges.

CTS Impact Solution: As the Global SOX Project Manager, CTS Impact supported the full life-cycle of this multi-year program:

• Project plan updates and status reporting
• Develop standard reporting tools to monitor and analyze progress on a global basis
• Functional design of project intranet site
• Coordination of  all compliance activities (financial operations and IT systems)
  • Documentation of key controls
  • Testing
  • Remediation oversight
• Foreign operations support – CTS Impact staff worked on-site across Europe and Latin America to provide hands-on assistance to the operating business units with all phases of this compliance program.

Background: With over 850 business units globally, this de-centralized IT function needed to establish formal IT governance standards and guidelines as part of its Enterprise Risk Management program.

CTS Impact Solution: Using the COBIT / ITGI standard framework as a best practice, CTS Impact performed the following:

• Conduct risk assessment
• Develop and document IT policies and guidelines
  • Disaster recovery and business continuity
  • Physical, environmental and system security
  • Access controls
  • IT operations
  • Change management – applications and technical infrastructure
  • Data management
  • SLA compliance
• Monitor and review compliance
  • Coordinate self-assessments on annual basis
  • Perform testing of high risk business units
  • SOC 1 review of significant third-party providers

Background: As part of its annual operational audits of this CTS Impact client’s 850 manufacturing facilities, field audits were performed globally on a rotational basis, driven by an annual risk assessment.
Due to resource-constraints, this client needed experienced auditors with manufacturing industry experience who could quickly ramp-up to execute audit plans related to operational efficiency, financial controls and IT systems controls.

CTS Impact Solution: With significant depth in large, complex manufacturing environments, CTS Impact deployed a team of experienced Internal Auditors to perform the following:

• Develop test plans based on internal control questionnaires (ICQ)
  • Operational
  • Financial
  • IT (using COBIT/ITGI framework)
• Perform testing and document audit findings
• Identify operational inefficiencies
• Conduct closing meetings with business units to communicate findings and recommendations
• Prepare audit reports