The Professional Services Pursuit

Ray Grainger is the Executive Chairman of Kantata. He’s also a professional services leader who is on a mission to reinvent the way businesses deliver work. In this episode Brent and Ray discuss the importance of the networked economy and how it is evolving into a critical element of the IT revolution; Including: The evolution and importance of communicationBusiness conditions and pressures on the service businessAccess to talent networks to ensure client satisfactionSupply chain orientation of optimizing across a talent networkRemoving technological constraintsHow to scale without acquisition Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With over 20 years of experience leading change on enterprise-wide transformations, Peter Hadas specializes in providing leaders with practical, measurable solutions to adoption and sustainability challenges. In this episode Peter shares his top tips for managing transformational change, including: Change leadership Setting success criteria early onThe importance of celebrating key milestones Developing a change management networkMaking change management sustainableFollow through with a new processArchiving old processes and developing new habitsEncouragement and performance based reviewsApproaches to adoption and trainingCreativity is key to support adoptionOpenly communicating changesUnderstanding 10-15% will not be onboardAddressing cultural changesThe benefits of remote training Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us as we welcome in our newest co-host Banoo Behboodi to the Professional Services Pursuit podcast! Brent and Banoo sit down to discuss Banoo's business experience, her insights and what she is looking forward to most with her interviews. We also get to learn a bit more about her favorite books and why she is excited to ask her guests what they are reading right now.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author, keynote speaker, and Managing Director of Mirren Business Development, Brent Hodgins, joins us on the show to discuss the resilience of agencies and the major growth shifts happening in the industry right now; including:The lasting impact of the Pandemic on the Industry:Historic levels of growthNavigating the changing market conditions The positive shift to organic growthOvercoming the new biz addictionBetter allocating resources for goodUnderstanding qualification in the RFP process…favorite or fillerClient-side marketing vs Marketing AgenciesDNA difference / overcoming the disconnect Balancing business impact and creativityElevating the RFP brief to differentiateTo learn more about Mirren go to www.mirren.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Schoen, CEO and President of BTM Global, sat down with us to discuss some of the downfalls of the business requisition process and dealing with procurement, as well as the most overlooked aspect of the implementation process once the business has been won, change management and adoption. Topics included in this discussion are:The ups and downs of the RFP processThe role of procurement for strategic enterprisePlatform and in-strategy services acquisitionsProperly gauging the commitment of new clientsEnterprise software acquisitionsChange Management and adoptionHow to prevent low adoption ratesWhen to begin the change management stage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brent sits down with the Co-founder and Executive VP of Strategy at Hero Digital, Owen Frivold. Owen shares what it takes to successfully productize services to better utilize your talent and differentiate where it really matters. Owen expands by discussing the importance of:Setting a North Star vision that aligns with your value systemThe benefits of productizing your agencies services to serve clients and employees betterDefining the foundational elements in your toolboxReinvesting in the people that helped guide your successAdapting in unforeseen situations Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Matt on this episode is Randy Mysliviec, the President and CEO of RTM Consulting and Managing Director of the Resource Management Institute (RMI). They explore top trends and how organizations can improve their utilization based on the data gathered for the RMI Research Report, including:Training to a standardAllowing your resources to grow and develop without negative influencesBetter increasing utilization in your organizationThe Just-in-Time Resourcing ProcessGetting on the 20-80 StandardThe future with automation solutionsHow automating helped during a global pandemic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Head of Operations at ORM, Andrew “Bear” Forsyth, calls in from the UK to talk to Brent about his journey into operations and his approach to technology, data and change management in a modern agency, including:Bear’s journey from a resource manager at the Olympics to his current roleHis love/hate relationship with spreadsheets and the need for a more reliable solutionSolving the problem of siloed, incomplete dataThe need for automation and how he approaches implementation of new tools The different metrics Bear uses to measure successSelling people on change Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Senior Consulting Executive, Author and Founder/President of TechVentive, Brian Sommer, joins Matt Finch on the podcast. Brian has published over 600 articles on the technology space during his career and came on the show to share a countdown of the top 5 biggest IT trends that are shaping the Professional Services industry today, including:The value of legitimate Net Promoter ScoresThe “Age of the Global Service Firm”Why proprietary and standalone internal systems hinder scalability“The End of the Bespoke Era”How advanced technology changes service processes and outcomes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brent sits down with former Neustar Sr. Director of Product Marketing (now VP of Product Marketing at Infosum) and podcast host, Devon DeBlasio.  They take a deep dive into marketing, privacy, and the need for more data science unicorns to bring a human factor to data and automation! The conversation includes:Neustar and Devon’s previous role within the organizationPrivacy within marketingThe big focus on consumer privacy by the government and news organizationsConsumer expectations of advertisersThe importance of transparency to create a better customer experienceHow Neustar approaches identity resolution, and the focus on the householdSolving for the decline of the cookieFinding and retaining really specific talentCheck out NeustarListen to more of Devon on his podcasts No Hype and You’re On Mute Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.