ClearVision Consulting

The key to achieving sustained advantage over your competitors is understanding and managing your market and your business better than they do.  With the crush of everyday business pressures, that’s a tall order.  When the urgent matters of making payroll, difficult suppliers and impatient clients clamor for your attention, it’s difficult to step back and make the critical assessment of your clients, your competitors, your staff and your business processes that’s crucial for the long-term health of your business.  That’s where ClearVision can help.

ClearVision will bring precision to your long-term business plans.  We’ll break down those long-term plans into bite-size pieces.  We’ll develop step-by-step tasks that will position your business for sustained growth and a long-lasting leadership position in your market.

ClearVision starts with an extensive interview process with key leaders in your business.  We also spend time with front-line employees, learning your business first-hand.  We can’t help you make good decisions unless we intimately understand what you do.  We’ll examine the things you do better than anyone else in your industry and find ways to leverage that success into greater volumes with existing clients or into other markets.  We’ll look at the way your industry evolves and ensure that you are adding the skills and technology that not only keep you current, but also position you to expand.  We’ll review vendor relationships, including the vendors that provide benefits for your employees.  We’ll examine your processes, tracing your product or service from the beginning until the end.  We’ll look at your competitors and determine how you can deliver products or services of greater value than they do.  We’ll look for untapped resources and information in your business that we can leverage for greater revenue and increased customer loyalty.  We’ll assess the technology in use at your business, making sure that it’s effective in streamlining work processes and delivering customer service.

After the assessment, we’ll provide a written report of your company’s strengths and opportunities for growth.  We’ll work with you to identify several strategic options for continued success.  Then, we’ll develop a tactical plan that you can implement.  As you implement your plan, you choose the level of ClearVision’s involvement – we can work side-by-side with you to execute new initiatives or you can lead the charge, using ClearVision as needed.

Every business has a finite amount of capital for growth.  So, how do you decide whether or not to invest that scarce capital in a new piece of manufacturing equipment, a new delivery truck or a new computer system?  ClearVision can help.

We use capital budgeting formulas that accurately compute the effect of the money you’ll spend for the new equipment and the money you’ll make from the new equipment.  We help you recognize and calculate how much the new equipment is going to cost.  We take into account the purchase price, the loan interest and principal, the year-to-year funds to operate it, the tax consequences and much more.  Then we calculate how much additional revenue you’ll earn with the new equipment.  We’ll look at additional capacity, new products, increased sales to existing customers and other factors that drive increased cash flows.  We’ll weigh the costs of the purchase against the lost opportunity of not making the purchase.  We’ll look at the cost of doing nothing and keeping the money in its current investment vehicle.  We’ll also look at lease versus buy options.

If the purchase or lease makes sense, we’ll help you navigate through the sea of vendors who provide that good or service.  We’ll help evaluate products, services and after-the-sale support.  We’ll work through the negotiation process.  And finally, we can help with the installation and rollout.  ClearVision will ensure that you maximize the value of your capital investments.

Beating your competitors boils down to meeting customer needs better, faster and cheaper than the competition.  ClearVision can help.  We will conduct a complete analysis of the activities in your business that create value for the customer and revenue for the company.  We’ll talk to the principals in your company so we understand what’s important to you and how you want customers to perceive your business.  We’ll talk to employees, review vendor relationships and observe the steps you take to get tasks accomplished.  We’ll identify areas of waste and inefficiency.  We’ll look for ways to speed delivery of raw materials, reconfigure workflows and eliminate unnecessary steps.  With your permission, we’ll interview customers to make sure that you’re delivering products and services the way they want them.

After we’ve gathered and analyzed this data, we’ll provide written recommendations that will streamline processes, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.  We’ll work with you, your employees and your vendors to implement these recommendations.  An added benefit to ClearVision’s approach is the extra step we’ll take in training your employees to consistently innovate and re-invent your business processes.  We won’t create a cycle of dependence so that every time you want to reevaluate your processes you call us.  Instead, we’ll help employees get in the mode of constant improvement so that your business is always working as efficiently as possible.  This is the optimum way to create maximum revenue for your business and value for your customers.

Chances are you have several different information systems running in your company.  These constitute a portfolio, much like a group of stocks, bonds, annuities and mutual funds constitute an investment portfolio.  Investors typically look at the various investment vehicles that constitute their portfolio and divest themselves of the ones that diminish the value and invest their holdings in other vehicles that increase the value.  Companies must do the same with their portfolio of information systems.  ClearVision will look at the hardware, software, telecommunications, personnel and data in use in your company and identify those components that bring the greatest value.  Conversely, we’ll identify those items that require extra attention to maximize the value of your technology investment.

ClearVision’s IT portfolio analysis includes a review of off-the-shelf software in use in your organization.  We’ll make sure that your staff has the right tools to do their job.  We’ll look at the applications you’ve purchased from vendors.  We want to make sure they are delivering the value that the vendor promised when he made the sale.  We’ll look at the ongoing maintenance costs for those applications.  We’ll look at other vendors who sell competing products to see how their product compares with the one in use at your organization.  We’ll assess any applications that you’ve developed in-house.  We’ll make sure they’ve evolved as your business has changed.  We’ll also ensure that you have a solid support structure in place for keeping the applications current.  We’ll review the hardware and telecommunications in use in your organization.  We’ll make sure it’s a stable and scalable platform on which you can build your business.  We’ll make sure your data is secure and protected from intruders.  Finally, and most importantly, we’ll examine one of the best assets your company possesses – the information you have about your customers.  We’ll find ways to leverage that information for increased revenue for your organization.  We’ll identify opportunities to extract extra revenue from existing customers.  We’ll discover patterns in existing customers that will help you identify new customers.  We’ll look for operational trends that will help you schedule more efficiently and purchase more economically.

ClearVision will help you build a strong stable of information technology tools that will equip your company for future growth and sustained competitive advantage.

As your company grows, the need for the right technology becomes more acute. There is no shortage of companies who would like to sell you their hardware, software and telecommunication products.  So, how do you know that your technology purchases move you closer to your goals for growth, customer service and efficiency?  How do you know which technology tools to buy?  How do you “right size” your technology purchases so that the system you buy today won’t be too little or too big tomorrow?  ClearVision can help.  In truth, the formation of your company’s information technology strategy isn’t about technology.  It’s about your business.  At ClearVision, we understand the technology, but we focus on your business. 

We’ll spend time looking at your plans for future expansion, your business processes, your customer-facing activities and your technology budget.  All technology tools fall into two big categories—those that differentiate you from your competitors and those that are somewhat generic but are necessary for the day-to-day operation of your business.  The key to a great technology strategy is to be judicious in your spending on the day-to-day technology tools so you can maximize your spending on the tools that build differentiation and subsequently, competitive advantage.

ClearVision’s approach to helping clients build a technology strategy starts with a thorough inventory of the information and processing needs of each discipline in your organization.  We’ll layer on top of that the information needs of your clients.  Finally, we’ll identify the information you need to effectively manage your organization in both day-to-day operations and for long-term planning.  We’ll then identify the right tools and sources for each of the systems needed.  We’ll lay out an operational and financial plan to get you there.  We’ll help you decide which technology functions should reside in your company and which would be better handled by an outside organization.  ClearVision will ensure that your technology investments yield the greatest returns.

Starting a new business or adding a new business unit to an existing organization requires a tremendous amount of planning.  There’s market research, marketing plans, facilities, equipment, staffing, benefits, financing and much, much more.  ClearVision can help.

ClearVision can walk you through the maze of tasks required to get your business up and running.  We’ll help with market research as you determine the number, location and characteristics of potential clients.  We’ll assist with marketing plans to reach and secure those potential clients.  We’ll walk through operational plans that will ensure that you have adequate staffing and physical resources to meet client needs.  We’ll determine the best organizational form for your business then navigate the activities necessary for registering that business with federal, state and local jurisdictions.  Finally, we’ll help with revenue and expense projections.

Our final product will be a thorough, well-organized business plan that will act as a roadmap for your opening months in business and as documentation that you’ve done your homework as you seek financial backing.

You’re already busy with the day-to-day press of running your business.  But that doesn't stop necessary initiatives like plant renovations and software installation projects.  You need to execute these with the same degree of care and urgency that you give to your day-to-day responsibilities.  ClearVision can help.

ClearVision can assist early in the project with feasibility studies and vendor selection and then manage the project all the way through to completion.  We’ll work with each stakeholder group in your organization (customers, managers, employees and others) to ensure that the needs of each one is addressed during the project planning and implementation.  We will work with vendors, acting as an advocate for your business.  And since ClearVision is committed to thoroughly learning your business, we can identify additional value and capabilities in the equipment or software to ensure that you’re maximizing your investment in new business resources.

ClearVision can manage the project—keeping track of schedules, resources and costs.  We can help deliver your project on-time and on-budget.