success stories
SourceHorizon
In 2007, SourceHorizon, Inc., a startup company in Greensboro, NC, was looking for a strategy that would take the business to the next level. The company's major product was the online marketplace SourceAuthority.com. This web site brought together buyers of custom manufactured parts and the machine shops that produced such parts. The site automated the Request For Quote process on a platform that let buyers find suppliers, issue RFQs, and award contracts.SourceHorizon had won two business plan competitions sponsored by the Triad Entrepreneurial Initiative: the 2002 Spark Business Concept Award and the 2003 Fuel Comprehensive Business Plan Award. The company had an advisory board with broad domain expertise, and had forged strategic alliances with several major publishing companies in the manufacturing sector. The CEO and the COO had extensive custom manufacturing experience. SourceHorizon had raised research and development capital and had built, deployed and sold subscriptions for SourceAuthority.com.
Still, the company was not performing as the management team had planned. StreamingStrategies was hired to help create a strategy that would give SourceHorizon a competitive edge to boost performance. The RiverWatch program was executed with the CEO, COO, and CIO. The goal was to align the crucial strategic capability the company needed with the strategic projects to implement that capability.
The result was a revised business model, an enhanced technology platform, a revised product offering, a competitive pricing structure, and a shift in focus from machine shops to buyers in large companies and the public sector. In March 2008, SourceHorizon entered the public sector market by winning a contract with the North Carolina Military Business Center and the NC Aerospace Alliance. In the spring of 2009, due to the success of the initial project, the original contract was expanded to fund ongoing operations and newly requested features. .
"StreamingStrategies helped us see where our true strategic strengths lay," said SourceHorizon CEO Perry Gathings. "The RiverWatch program put us on the right track to rapid growth. The unique green learning approach left us with a blueprint we still use today to solve strategic problems and grow revenues."
Commerce-Web International
In 2008, Commerce-Web International, Inc., a customer recognition card service startup company in Pittsburgh, PA, wanted to improve the business processes of its beta product before starting a national rollout. Purchase transaction data and other customer information were the focus of C-WI's services at that time.
C-Wi services were delivered via a hardware/software platform that included a very sophisticated database and reporting engine. Consequently, its business relied on seamless integration of its processes, functions and features as they pertained to its software and hardware. C-Wi engaged StreamingStrategies to analyze its major business processes and evaluate them for effectiveness and utilization of technology. C-Wi put together a team consisting of the CIO, the COO, and programmers.
The C-Wi team went through the StreamReader process of business process analysis and assessment. The team generated improvements to existing processes, eliminated unnecessary processes, defined a major required change in the database architecture, and created new processes that generated a totally new line of business for C-Wi.
"StreamingStrategies has an intuitive, well-devised training method," CEO Shawn Pleska said when his team had completed the StreamReader process. "Our program included an analysis that examined the logic of our processes, and an assessment tool that looked at the business side to ensure our business and processes were properly aligned. We saw our business processes from a new perspective and adjusted to capitalize on efficiencies and opportunities we had previously missed. Today, we are better positioned for a rapid, smooth national rollout thanks to StreamingStrategies."