Overview of Technology
Consulting Services
Winter 2009

Services Summary
Firm Overview
Who Needs Our Services
Services Approach
Advisory Experience & Expertise
Typical Engagement Timeline
Customer Success
Pricing
The QuickStart Package Option
Contact Information
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Firm Overview
Productivity Advisors is a technology consultancy that
advises companies on how to solve their business
problems using web-based, on-demand
technologies and applications.
Our Goal: Deliver the insights and advice
necessary to help our clients achieve
greater business productivity
.
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Who Needs Our Services
Any business operating without an
ERP system, is probably in need of
additional IT business functionality
Many small to medium sized
businesses still use email and
spreadsheets to solve the following
IT business process issues:
Project, task & time tracking
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Business intelligence & analytics
Knowledge mgmt & collaboration
When adding functionality to your
core systems, companies need to
make sure they:
Understand the problem their trying to solve
Define their business requirements
Iteratively, design and deploy their solution
Do some software lifecycle planning
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Who Needs Our Services (cont.)
Delivering a software system in any environment can be time
consuming and resource intensive.
Most web-based software solutions are easy to use and quick to configure,
providing you have the right skills and support in place.
Your development, deployment and roll-out will require planning and
management, and may initially demand more technical skills and capacity than
is available.
Following deployment, in the early stages of usage, there may be an increased
need for technical support, which could prove challenging with limited resources.
Ongoing support may likewise be a challenge, since responsiveness to users‘
issues is critical to building and maintaining a positive experience for internal and
external audiences.
Whether your role is Business, IT or some combination, we
can assist your organization in its design, development,
delivery and ownership of an on-demand, software solution.
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Services Approach
Envisioning a system (defining requirements)
What problem(s) are you looking to solve? what is your business issue?
What features and functions are key to your organization?
How have you “documented” your business requirements (business story)?
Delivering a solution (implementation)
Vendor Selection: do existing solutions exist in the marketplace?
Design: define the feature functionality of the system - e.g. what will be built
Development: build-out or customization of a system solution
Deployment: phased roll-out of system to user base and system owners
After your deployed (maintenance)
Develop training materials and system documentation
Determine/define integration plans and options
Set-up a maintenance & support plan
Prioritize future enhancement efforts
Audit system usage (back-up procedures, account size, provisioned users)
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Advisory Experience & Expertise
Vendor selection experience
Business Management: Business Intelligence (BI), Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) and Project & Time Management
Collaboration: File Management and Knowledge Management
e-Commerce: Chat, Content Management (CMS), E-Mail Service Providers,
Order Management, Payment Systems, Web Analytics and Website
Development
Web-based, solution delivery expertise
QuickBase for custom database development
Google Apps, Sites & Analytics (Collaboration, Wikis & Web Analytics)
Salesforce.com for CRM & Support
Zoho Notebook for collaborative research & note taking
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Typical Timeline for Services
Standard project tasks (time is duration, not effort)
Determining business requirements (1 week)
Data analysis (1 week)
Prototyping a solution (1 week)
Iterative development (2-4 weeks)
Deployment planning (1-2 weeks)
Deployment & Training (2-3 weeks)
Time required varies based on:
Crispness of requirements
Legacy data consistency, cleanliness and migration needs
Availability of Client team
Organizational readiness and adoption
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Customer Success
Catapult Learning (formerly Sylvan Education – CA & MD)
Introduced QuickBase to the organization in 2002. Have provided strategy,
design, development and ongoing support services on more than 10 QuickBases
to over 200 users in the Company.
Gap Inc - Direct (online division – San Francisco, CA)
Provided strategy and vendor selection assistance to their online team in
selecting a web analytics platform provider.
Intuit (owners of QuickBase – Mountain View, CA)
Have worked with several internal teams on QuickBase deployments to manage
legal, marketing, finance and HR programs in-house.
Nautica (a division of the VF Corporation - New York, NY)
Worked with both merchandising and purchasing teams to develop a global
collaboration system for the brand that is used by over 50 employees.
Warner Bros. (international division – Burbank, CA)
Have provided QuickBase design and support to their unit focused on managing
international film efforts (production and distribution).
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Pricing
Fee structure options:
1) Hourly
2) Packages of hours (discounts for bulk purchases,
i.e., our 20hr QuickStart package)
3) Fixed bid: With adequate requirements from our Clients, we can
provide a fixed bid proposal
4) Retainer relationships: Some Clients require a longer term
relationship, structured to their particular needs (weekly/monthly)
Project time estimates always depend on scope of deliverables
and timing
We work with your business team to develop a phased, budgeted
approach
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The QuickStart Package Option
Productivity Advisors offers QuickStart packages, of 20 hours
of consulting time, for several, web-based solutions like Intuit’s
QuickBase, Google Apps and Salesforce.com’s products.
QuickStarts are an excellent choice for jumpstarting your team’s
project to deploy web-based applications in your business:
Determine business requirements (problem to be solved)
Initiate data analysis (data structures, relationships and data clean-up)
Prototype a solution
Start iterative development, independent or alongside your team
Please refer to our “10 Steps to Defining a QuickBase Solution” for more details on our development methodology.
(http://productivityadvisors.com/10.html)
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Contact
Greg Robin, Founder & Principal
greg@productivityadvisors.com
415.425.5374
Or visit us on the web at
http://productivityadvisors.com
Thank you for your interest in
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