Setting You Up for Success

It’s safe to say that we all want to be set up for success – including the employees we manage.

And the best providers (vendors, consultants, etc.) want to set their clients up for success. Your success is their success.

Speaking of vendors – are you setting your department up for success when it comes to collaborating with outside providers?

After 20+ years in the life sciences commercial training marketplace, I’ve seen some great successes (and some dismal failures) when it comes to client-vendor relationships and projects. Many of the failures are avoidable, and can be traced to four basic practices:

1. Selecting the wrong vendor for the project.
2. Lack of clear definition of the project – goals, process, resources, deliverables.
3. Lack of training on appropriate project management skills.
4. Lack of collaboration skills working with internal and external (vendor) stakeholders.

By and large, people do not join our training departments with these skills already developed. That’s where Impactiviti comes in.

We set you, and your department, up for success by providing training and consulting services to implement best practices in vendor and project management.

Here are our unique offerings to set your department up for success:

• Focused workshop on Best Practices in Vendor and Project Management, imparting the skills and knowledge necessary to transition from field sales, to effective training management and collaboration (coming soon – on-demand eLearning version!)
• Targeted vendor recommendations – we talk about your needs, and I identify (through the Impactiviti network) the ideal vendor(s) to consider.
• Vendor Optimization/Alignment Consulting – see this post about the benefits of a strategic “reset” of your vendor roster.

So, call me and let’s talk (973-947-7429). There is no charge for discussing your training needs, or for receiving vendor recommendations. I can explain more about how that works when we talk.

Let’s set your people up for success!

Steve Woodruff, President, Impactiviti

Also on the blog: Tossing Trainers into the Deep End of the Pool

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Hitting “Reset” on Your Vendor Roster

I recently had the opportunity for most of a week to sit down with a number of my T&D clients and talk about their outsource vendor landscape. As you may relate, every department comes up with a series of vendors that are accumulated over time (by various people, for various reasons), until the picture looks somewhat like this:

Look familiar? Don’t worry, you’re in good company!

It’s called accumulation by accretion, and it happens all the time (this is especially prevalent in companies that have been growing rapidly, have re-organized recently, or have been through a merger).

In that collection there are a few go-to vendors (who may be getting overloaded), there are under-performers, and there are definitely some mis-matches. And, with the turnover of training personnel over time, there is often a lack of clear understanding of vendor competencies.

Every once in a while, a department needs a Reset, which is what several clients were discussing with me:

The Reset process involves a department-wide analysis, evaluation, and categorization process, including an aligning of current vendors with their core competencies, and the identification of new suppliers to fill in current and future gaps. The outcome? Strategic resource alignment and a go-forward Vendor Map.

This brief video explains:

Operational excellence only comes about by intelligent planning. It’s something we do here at Impactiviti – partnering with clients to bring order to the outsourcing process.

This process, joined to a training workshop on Best Practices for Project and Vendor Management, is a big step forward in Operational Excellence for the department. Optimization of outsource resources can result in major budget savings and far more successful execution of projects.

Also on the blog: Tossing Trainers Into the Deep End of the Pool

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