Customer Success Story
Optimation Techonology
Systems integration and engineering firm manages four acquisitions in two years, 40 percent increase in revenues using Deltek Vision®
Overview
Optimation Technology is an engineering, automation and information systems firm on the rise. With 130 employees in six offices in the United States, the steadily growing firm has increased its employee size by 50 percent in two years and seen a 40 percent increase in annual revenues year over year. Impressive clients such as Kodak, Corning and Xerox, coupled with an aggressive growth strategy including four acquisitions in two years, reflect the 20-year-old firm's dynamic success.
The Need
For Optimation, a key requirement for its ongoing success has been having real-time Web access to its entire project lifecycle using a single database. Until the early 2000s, years of using five separate external databases to track employees, projects and clients were creating inefficiencies in Optimation's business processes as well as wasting several man hours a month.
According to President William Pollock the company was using Goldmine, Deltek Advantage and Allegro, as well as a homegrown application developed to track project status and client satisfaction up until 1999. Running these systems separately was requiring significant upkeep and maintenance, including a nightly 2 a.m. update to transfer files between systems and capture up-to-date business data.
“In addition to the nightly data export process, the architecture of the system itself was an issue,” Pollock recalled. “Every application had to be separately loaded onto every employee's desktop. On the flip side, if there was a glitch with one of the systems, it had to be fixed on everyone's computer, causing major time inefficiencies.”
There were also other limitations in their ability to track projects, utilize resources and client contacts. As CFO Kelly Burns explained, “We'd been using GoldMine for client contact management, but were never able to tie it back to any of our specific projects. It's easy to lose a lot of valuable information that way. Furthermore, because the systems were not integrated, people could manage and plan at the task level, but only using offline programs like Microsoft Project or Excel. This prevented upper management from knowing what the whole company was doing in terms of utilization.”
Optimation decided to replace their multiple databases with a single, fully integrated product offering project management, resource planning, financial and project accounting, customer relationship management, billing, timekeeping and employee expense. Long-time Optimation vendor Deltek had the solution — Deltek Vision.
The Results
Over the past few years, Deltek Vision has proven its value in a variety of ways, in particular by helping to keep Optimation's staffing costs to a minimum. Just four full-time and one part-time employee handle accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, human resources, billing and new business proposals for the entire firm, saving Optimation at least $75,000 a year in staffing costs.
“Vision has become our process and our standard,” says Burns.
“There are very few companies that manage to stay that lean, and we attribute that capability to Vision,” Pollock said. “We would need to increase our staff at least 50 percent without it.”
In addition, Optimation quickly realized benefits in the Deltek Vision architecture. The Web-based system almost immediately eliminated complexities such as separately installing applications on each desktop, creating a smoother workflow within the company and making it easier for traveling or remote employees to access the most up-to-date project information. In addition, the single database architecture eliminated inefficiencies, such as daily database updates, for the firm's multiple offices spanning two continents.
“The system is just impressive, to clients, prospects and employees alike, because it so concisely manages and stores all our financial, human resources, marketing and project information in one place,” Burns said.
In addition, Deltek Vision has eliminated the need for offline programs such as Microsoft Word or Project to record financial, employee or project data. “As the exclusive place to enter this information, Vision has become our process and our standard,” she continued. “Better still, because it's Web-enabled, all our multiple branches can conform to that same standard, making quality control much less of an issue.”
Pollock added that the single database structure has another key advantage. “The system intuitively maintains the history of every single project we've ever worked on,” he said. “With just a few clicks of a button, you can become completely informed on each project, which is a huge advantage for prospecting.”
According to Pollock and Burns, the Vision architecture also aided greatly in uniting newly merged employees and project data for multiple branch offices. This became a key factor during Optimation's aggressive acquisition activity, particularly from 2002 to 2005.
“One of the biggest risks you run with acquisitions is the failure to properly unite merging companies and have them operate as a single unit,” Pollock said. “Vision greatly reduces this risk. It has truly helped us manage our growth more effectively.”
Under Deltek Vision, Pollock, Burns and the rest of Optimation were able to transition the four new acquisitions in as little as three weeks. As Burns recalled, “We've managed to set up new employees and project data from our acquisitions in that time frame, but I know we would not have been able to do it using any other system but Vision.”
| The Challange | The Solution | The Deltek Advantage |
| Optimation needed real-time Web access to its entire project lifecycle using a single database and a more efficient way to share information. | Optimation decided to replace their multiple databases with a single, fully integrated product offering project management, resource planning, financial and project accounting, customer relationship management, billing, timekeeping and employee expense — Deltek Vision. |
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Other key benefits include improved resource and project planning, synchronization with Microsoft Outlook for contacts, clients and activities, and a more user-friendly workflow and information center design. Burns also points to the new Deltek Vision purchasing module as a critical feature that will provide a solid return on investment (ROI) in coming years.
“We know the purchasing module will save us thousands of dollars,” she said. “Before this feature, we could not enter commitments and purchase orders inside the system, so our project reports did not reflect this data. We actually found ourselves encouraging managers to keep this information in outside spreadsheets. The problem was, if our budgets were off or if there was the slightest bit of human error, we could be adding revenue or expenses that were not real. Now, having that information inside the system will greatly reduce this risk.”
Pollock also noted improved auditing processes and timelier, more accurate data since implementing Vision.
The Future
As Optimation continues its well-paced growth, the company plans to evolve its project planning processes, using Deltek Vision to continue these efforts. As they look forward to future versions of the product, they both acknowledge that Optimation has grown with Deltek Vision.
“We feel as though the product is coming around to the vision both ourselves and Deltek had for it back in 2002 — it's a solid piece of integrated technology,” Pollock said. “But behind that technology, what also matters is how much you enjoy the people you work with. The staff at Deltek has been outstanding, giving us fast, friendly, quality technical support, and we look forward to working with them in the future.”