Heading for the Green Flag

May 24, 2009 04:45 PM Comment(s) By Tom Bixby

It's Memorial Day 2009 and like millions around the world I'm watching 33 drivers heading around turn four, accelerating toward the green flag for the Indianapolis 500. Those drivers are filled with anticipation, excitement and confidence earned through hard work of the drivers, teams and owners.

The EvaluSys Team is heading into the final turn and the green flag will soon be in sight for the launch of the EvaluSys Business Owner Portal. Like the teams at Indy, we've been hard at work preparing for that moment when the green flag falls and we're racing! I thought I would share some insights into what it takes to get a business like EvaluSys off to a fast start.

Indy drivers rely on complex technology to average nearly 200 mph as they safely negotiate the 2 1/4 mile track. The complex technology needed to deliver Business Evaluation Services to business owners over the Internet has been under continuous development for 18 months. The team is putting the final touches on the system, tightening all the nuts and bolts, and putting the system through it's paces. As a web-based business, our technology handles service delivery and must also facilitate most of the administrative activities that allow our business to operate. Outfitting the system with the required capabilities for registration, billing, evaluation delivery, and member service/support has been a wonderful challenge.

Although evaluation content development isn't that technical in nature, it has proved to be just as complex as technology development. Incorporating the knowledge and experience of management experts from across the nation into the EvaluSys Business Evaluation has involved an iterative process of content entry, configuration, verification and testing to confirm we have faithfully reflected all that management expertise into the system.

Favoring quality over quantity, we have narrowed the scope of the initial release to six evaluations: Marketing, Sales, Human Resources, Business Planning, Business Process Quality and Financial Planning & Control. Each evaluation defines dozens of business issues, or "recommended actions" for business improvement and growth. For each issue, a collection of diagnostic questions are identified. A variety of potential combinations of question responses are fashioned into "qualification scenarios" signaling a high probability that the business issue exists for the responding business owner's company. After this is done, our Evaluation Services Team works closely with our management subject-matter experts to describe how each business issue may impact the performance and future prospects of a company.

Unlike our technology which benefits from very precise programming language in order to provide the appropriate instructions to our computers, identifying the best way to phrase questions and communicate business issues and ideas to business owners is a very subjective process. Getting it right involves many sets of eyes and the involvement of actual business owners in beta testing the overall process. Each of the evaluations will be quality tested by multiple business owners before the green flag drops.

We've covered the technology and evaluation content development efforts that are unique to our business. EvaluSys leadership must also do what all businesses must do to be successful. We must do the necessary business planning and administrative activities to map out how, when, and where the company will operate. Preparing marketing strategies, sales processes, staffing plans, strategic alliances, capital funding, vendor selection, intellectual property protection and many other administrative matters compete for the attention of company leaders. We've just moved into new corporate offices as part of our 2009 operating plan.

That's a brief glimpse at the happenings at EvaluSys as we round turn four on our final pace lap. The green flag will soon be in sight and we have begun to accelerate our business for launch. Just like each of the Team Owners competing at today's 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, I'm proud of the teamwork and commitment that has positioned us to compete in the race.

Tom Bixby

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