Click here to read the full story.

Contact Erin Macdonald, Marketing Associate for additional information (emacdonald@lucruminc.com).

Click here to read the whole story.

Contact Erin Macdonald, Marketing Associate for additional information (emacdonald@lucruminc.com).

Mike Brady brings over 25 years of leadership experience to the LÛCRUM team including competencies in strategic business planning, technology development, delivery of IT initiatives, and business focused results utilizing technology innovation. His previous position as Vice President of Professional Services at consilium1 allowed Mike to build a team from the ground up while growing revenue through projects and by building a strong delivery services organization. He delivered innovative business solutions that provided true ROI and significant cost reduction for clients. Also, as a Director working within the Retail Competency Center at Luxottica Retail, his responsibilities included maintaining three major POS applications supporting Lens Crafters, Sunglass Hut, Sears, Target, Pearle and a few other luxury brands. Mike previously spent time with Cardinal Solutions as Practice Manager growing and maintaining the Enterprise Microsoft Solution practice. His skills in Project Management, SQL, data warehousing, BI and analytics bring an unparalleled proficiency to the LÛCRUM team.

Brady holds a BBA in Information Systems from the University of Cincinnati and donates his time to the Touchdown Club of Cincinnati. We are pleased to have Mike Brady as a valuable part of the team and look forward to a successful future with him.

About LÛCRUM

LÛCRUM creates long-term relationships with Clients to build Business Intelligence and Analytics Solutions that increase profitability, drive operational efficiency, and maximize decision-making capabilities.

Contact Erin Macdonald, Marketing Associate for additional information (emacdonald@lucruminc.com).

The University of Cincinnati announced on July 27, 2012 that the Carl H. Lindner College of Business was launching the Center for Business Analytics. The Center would bring together companies, students and faculty for data analysis to boost business and organizational performance.

LÛCRUM has joined an elite group of eight other companies as the first members of the Center. These companies include American Modern Insurance Group, Inc., Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions, Cintas, dunnhumbyUSA, Great American Insurance Company, The Kroger Company, Procter and Gamble and SAS Institute, Inc.

“LUCRUM is entering its 20^th year in business with a 20 year successful track record in providing cutting edge solutions with data and analytics. We initiated a partnership with the Carl H. Lindner School of Business back in 2008. It’s been a great relationship from co-hosting the Business Intelligence Symposiums to assisting in the creation of the graduate school’s new Certificate for Analytics. Our Partners also teach several of the classes as Adjunct Professors. I believe that Jeff Camm’s Center for Business Analytics will be pivotal in UC becoming noted for its work in data.” – John Bostick, LÛCRUM CEO and Founder

The partnership between the Carl H. Linder College of Business’s Center for Business Analytics and LÛCRUM is one that will benefit both organizations. It is an alliance that will aid in the growth of the analytics culture in the business world as well as at the collegiate level.

About LÛCRUM

LÛCRUM creates long-term relationships with Clients to build Business Intelligence Solutions that increase profitability, drive operational efficiency and maximize decision-making capabilities.

Contact Erin Macdonald, Marketing Associate for additional information (emacdonald@lucruminc.com).

The Client

A large utility company that engages in the natural gas and electric businesses, including generating, transmitting, distributing and selling electricity; transporting, processing, storing and marketing natural gas; and operating power plants.

What the Client Wanted

A better process was needed to monitor the operation and manage the costs of using contracted (outsourced) IT services across all business units. They needed to shorten the time it takes to make decisions on purchasing and allocating IT contractor services and devise a more efficient process in the Accounts Payable Department for reconciling hours worked with contractor invoices.

Challenges

The Client had six major service vendors supporting its IT organization, each segmented to support various business areas. Each business unit had its own unique needs that had to be factored into the decision-making process.

The Solution

LUCRUM created a new application within the existing data warehouse that would automatically gather the necessary data such as “Committed,” “Approved,” “Actual” and “Forecasted” spending from sources throughout the enterprise, cleansed and merged the data; making it available to users throughout the company. The new process included an automated system that tracked:
– IT needs of each business unit
– Budgets versus money spent
– Results achieved and ROI on the cost of services versus the benefits received
– Contractor time involved by department; reconciling that time with bills received so that timely payments could be issued
The new application supports decision-making on the assignment of the appropriate outside IT resources to help each department. User-friendly “canned” reporting tools were created, as well as, tools that can be used to create customized “slice-n-dice” reports.

Development and Implementation

In-depth meetings were conducted with all departments in order to understand each unit’s needs so that the appropriate technology solution could be developed and deployed. The application developed utilized existing processes, hardware and tools. Following application development, LUCRUM helped train users throughout the organization on how to utilize the new planning and management tools. The new application development and implementation was completed in six months.

Benefits

* Improved planning tools have helped the organization move from reactive management to proactive management of its outsourced IT services, saving the company significant time and money
* Improved financial controls over spending on outsourced IT services
* Increased data analysis capabilities now allow users greater flexibility in how they can “drill down” to the supporting detail they need to make better decisions
* Billable time on contractor invoices can now be reconciled more quickly and easily because the Accounts Payable Department has better and more timely access to key data such as number of hours and for which department each contractor worked
* Increased data quality
* Contracted IT partners now use the tool to manage their own interactions with the client

“Our project team leveraged the client’s existing processes, hardware and tools to deliver meaningful and measurable business value. We then assisted business users throughout the organization with the transition from reactive to proactive management.”
Jodie Heflin Director, Energy Delivery Services

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