Business Process Solutions - Value Stream Analysis

Whether your business operates from a single region or country, whether your business has five locations or thirty, many of your competitors are global or trying to expand globally. To compete, you must first level the playing field. Continually enhance the quality, control, transparency and visibility of your business workflow. Telamon's Business Process Solutions division embraces these challenges with our proven Business Process Value Stream Analysis and Solution Builder consulting services. We know evaluating business processes can be daunting, especially amid rapid change and growth; our team is committed to sharing our expertise and knowledge sense so your team can make accurate business decisions.

Traditional business process outsourcing is primarily about reducing costs through labor arbitrage, with little incentive to improve business processes through automation or transformation. Our "transformational business process" approach offers more than just quoting a cheaper price. First, we work onsite with you to assess processes and identify potential game-changing opportunities.

Our process engineers will analyze our workflow and draft a value stream analysis map. The map provides insight to your process-based workflow, your assets and resources enabling the right focus, helping you decide where to innovate and what not to change. We then drive this to execution - aligning technologies, mobilizing people through change management, and making rapid adjustments to both.

While many companies offer technology as a one-size-fits-all solution, we provide customized workflow solutions that consider all elements of your unique business processes. The combination of skills, approaches, assets and tools generate value quickly for our customers, delivery measurable and sustaining results.

One of our specialists will spend two to three days onsite proactively collecting, collating, and managing all relevant scanning, document management, and workflow information into a single centralized view of your value stream analysis map. Once the information is collected and organized, a value stream analysis map is drawn. If we determine that a customized solution offers our client the best value, we will propose to develop a custom system for their operation. We are only interested in promoting process improvement while delivering value.

Similar expert business process consulting services usually target large Fortune 100 clients exclusively. We focus on empowering middle market companies with valuable business insights. We apply proven methods to improve processes, integrate technology and establish meaningful reporting mechanisms while gaining overall operational efficiencies.

Medical Solutions - Trade Show Takeaways

The last medical solutions blog introduced 3 key events that the medical solutions team would be participating in. Read on for the takeaways:

Owens & Minor Healthcare Supplier Diversity Symposium: Creating a Formulary for Sustainable Success in the Healthcare Supply Chain 

The 8th Annual HealthCare Supplier Diversity Symposium (HSDS) was held in Short Pump, Richmond, Virginia on September 23-24, 2013. From humble beginnings - the first symposium originated in a conference room - to the fanfare of opening the 8th Annual Symposium: The symposium provided an excellent format for discussion and discovery this year. 

Sponsored by Owens & Minor in partnership with Virginia Minority Supplier Development Council (VMSDC), the Healthcare Supplier Diversity Alliance (HSDA), and the National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE), this year's HSDS discussed: 

• The challenges of minority businesses to scale and innovate in the face of healthcare reform and healthcare technology convergence  
• The opportunities for minority businesses to partner together and identify single source and innovative solutions to support healthcare systems  
• The importance of technology in supporting efficiency, effectiveness and validating measurements and continued improvement 
• The importance of understanding the healthcare use case 
• The power of healthcare - diverse supplier relationships in Virginia - the extension of the model throughout the US 
• The opportunity for thought leadership and true diversity of thought in healthcare through impacts and influences from all other industries - must adopt mental shift to adapt to physical change 

For daily promotion of how to create a formulary for sustainable success in the healthcare supply chain, continue discovery by: 

• Reading Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect.  Excerpted from the medicigroup.com [Johansson takes us to a] place where ideas and concepts from diverse industries, cultures, departments, and disciplines collide, ultimately igniting an explosion of ideas leading to extraordinary innovations. THE MEDICI EFFECT has been translated into 18 languages.  
• Researching and leveraging your local National Minority Supplier Development Council - www.nmsdc.org 
• Signing up for supplier diversity partnerships in the healthcare industry: http://www.hsdafordiversity.org 

Indiana Employee Health & Wellness Summit 

Behavior Change Process
Wellness Programs are built to inspire behavior changes in the population. Within the behavior change continuum:

• 5% of the battle is making the population aware of what programs are available through education
• 25% is to equip providers and participants with the skills and tools necessary to administer and participate in those programs
• 30% of the process is spent on motivating providers and participants to be a part of the programs
• 40% of the effort is spent on setting the environment and policies to cope with the programs

Actionable Results
In the continuum, the medical solutions group aims to help organizations:

• Collect the (biometric screening event or wellness) data
• Convert that data in to useful information (benchmarks and integrated data)
• Use that information to gain insight through (custom reporting)

Employers' Forum of Indiana

Discussions were centered around the Affordable Care Act and its impacts on the self-insured employers as well as Wellness Program changes. The Act is supposed to create new incentives and build on existing Wellness Programs and encourage opportunities to support healthier workplaces. The Act goes on to define categories for workplace Wellness Programs:

"Participatory" Wellness Programs generally are available without regard to an individual's health status (i.e. fitness center membership discounts, no-cost health education seminars, incentivizing employees to complete health risk assessments, etc.).

"Health-Contingent" Wellness Programs generally requires individuals to meet a specific standard related to their health to obtain a reward (i.e. providing rewards for those who do not use/decrease the use of tobacco, providing rewards to those who achieve a specified biometric reading target, etc.)

The Affordable Care Act also increases the maximum permissible reward from 20% to 30% of the cost of health coverage and further increases the maximum reward to as much as 50% for programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use (http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fswellnessprogram.html).

EXTRA: Life Sciences Summit

This year, the Indiana Life Sciences Summit had three focuses:

• The politics of innovation in healthcare with Indiana's answers to the politics of innovation in healthcare (participants were: Hill & Knowlton Strategies, Cook Group, Wellpoint, Biomet Biologics and Roche Diagnostics). The politics of innovation in healthcare analyzed the healthcare trends, government regulations and political influences in the healthcare industry. 
• The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute: A Collaboration to Innovate Smarter, Faster and Better
• Weathering the Capital Crunch Life Sciences Funding Opportunities and Challenges

 

Telecom Solutions - What Does Telecommunications Mean?

The term telecommunications may have different meanings to people even those in the telecommunications industry.  To some, it might describe either equipment - such as your phone or a digital switch – to others, it might describe voice or data traffic carried over copper or fiber cables.

In Telamon’s world, we cover all aspects of the telecommunications spectrum.  From the office desktop to the cell site or central office, we have the capability to design and build a data or telecom network end to end.  From our humble beginnings in the integration of high tech digital switch equipment, we have broadened our horizons to include capabilities within low voltage enterprise networks, video broadband services,  RF and microwave as well as outside plant.  For someone not involved in the industry, these specialties are meaningless but to Telamon each of these areas require a unique skill set and specialized training.  

Telamon has dedicated time and capital to develop not only the personnel but also providing the tools required to deliver the highest quality products at a competitive price.  We pride ourselves on the ability to meet a customers initial needs and then dazzle them with our additional capabilities.  Just as the telecommunications networks of yesterday have evolved to today's marvels of engineering and technology, Telamon has evolved and grown to support these exciting advances in this broadly based word called “telecommunications”. 

-Suzanne Beck

VP Business Development

Telecom Solutions - Telamon Corporation

Industrial Solutions - Fish Where The Fish Are!

On Tuesday of this week, I was in Peoria, Illinois for the Heart of Illinois Business to Business Symposium where Ulice Payne, Jr., Managing Member of Addison-Clifton, LLC, was the Keynote Speaker. 

Mr. Payne told us to “Fish where the fish are!” He then explained that the statement is not as obvious as it sounds.

If we take a step back and are honest with ourselves, we may realize that there are times that we are either fishing where there are no fish or trying to herd fish into a space they were never destined to be in so that we can fish in that particular spot.  Once realized, these are easy enough to correct.

However, what is even harder to believe is that sometimes there are fish in places that no one knows are there.

I’m not a fisherman but I have several friends and family members who are and one of the most common discussion points is where and when to fish.  There never seems to be any clear agreement as each has their own idea that they believe is best.  The fun part of these conversations is when someone has to admit that someone else was right.

Pride.  What a nasty thing!  Pride prevents us from so much because we are afraid of how we will look to others around us – and even worse – to our superiors!

One of the hardest things for me to do in selling Telamon Industrial Solutions is to convince potential customers that they actually do need us.  In a way, it is like telling them that we know something about their operations that they don’t.  In essence, it’s like telling the guy who owns the lake that you can find fish in his lake that he can’t.  So the first thing to overcome is the customer’s own sense of personal pride. 

We approach our customers differently in order to avoid or overcome this potential stumbling block.  We approach our customers as potential life-long business partners…not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, same-as-any-other…customer.

We aim to partner with our customer to simplify their business.  We don’t challenge them so as to make them defensive but rather offer a fresh set of eyes to their situation, often knowing that our customer – make that the actual person we work with – often feels like they are all alone in what they do.  Everyone likes to feel validated. 

So, if you are not currently a Telamon customer-partner, then contact us today and tell us what your pain points are…what keeps you up at night…and let us come along side and help you fix them!

It’s your lake; we just want to help you find all your fish so you can make the most out of your lake!

-John Weeks

Director of Sales
Industrial Solutions - Telamon Corporation

Energy Solutions - Where Green Meets Green

“I am a greedy capitalist.” So began a discussion in Chicago recently by executives of Walgreens to discuss their soon-to-be opened “Net Zero” store in Evanston, Illinois. It is a living laboratory demonstrating what is possible with current energy technologies available today – a regular operating store that produces more energy than it consumes during the course of an 18 hour day.

In the process, they have received INTERNATIONAL coverage on their commitment to the environment. Through the design and construction process, they have already identified technologies and practices that can be implemented throughout the entire network of stores to help further drive energy costs down.

More importantly however are those so called “intangible benefits” that cannot be bought and are seldom handed over on a silver platter. Creating a brand is one thing.

Living your brand – in the case of Walgreens, “Where Happy Meets Healthy” - is quite another.

In a tight and competitive marketplace, they will single-handedly capture a significant percentage of the environmental demographic; simply because they chose to be leaders instead of followers.

It is these types of benefits that change “Happy” to “Healthy”, and is the point where “Green meets Green”…in other words, where environmental sensibility meets economic impact. It’s time to throw off the shackles of “metering this” and “auditing that”. It’s time to examine the big picture as a whole; a building, even an entire organization, as a single living unit.

As I write this today, a dysfunctional political system plays out in the news every hour that I would attribute to slaves of thinking “inside the box”. I say the world needs heroes – people that will challenge the conventional ways of thinking. Maybe your company is the one that can lead changed attitudes in your industry. There are only a few pioneers; the rest are followers.

As the speakers dug into the details yesterday, it was interesting to note some similarities with Telamon’s Energy Lifecycle Management program – that were independently selected as “best practice” efforts. We would be happy to share those with you and to introduce you to a new way of evaluating energy, finances and operations. With proven expertise, and best in breed products, services and strategies; my suggestion is to engage with us and let Telamon’s Energy Solutions be your map to a place where green meets green.

-Mark Brown
Channel & Business Development
Telamon Energy Solutions