In our previous posts in our Ultimate Solution Experience™ series, we discussed understanding your team, your REAL audience, and the Human-Centered Approach. Now that we know who we're working with, we can begin gathering requirements, ideas, and concepts for our project using what we call Envisioning to Innovation. Gathering requirements, understanding business needs and objective, managing personal agendas, and [...]
In our first 3 posts, we introduced the Ultimate Solution Experience™; described how to define your purpose, business needs vs requirements, and measures for success; and we defined the roles of your team. The next step is to understand who your team really is and who they will working with during the engagement. Success following [...]
This post is the second in a series describing our experience using Microsoft Power BI for an internal dashboard project. In our first post, Creating A Power BI Dashboard, we discussed our dashboard needs, goals, and our approach. Now, we'll dive into how to actually get the data with Power Query. Our dashboard initially will report on billable and non-billable hours [...]
In our last entry we showed you How to Find Touch Points in the Ultimate Solution Experience™. Next, you need to pick your team. You need a diverse team who understands the whole picture. Let’s get started… Building the right team with the right players and the right capabilities is critical. Outline your goals, expectations, and metrics [...]
This post is the first in a series describing our experience using Microsoft Power BI for an internal dashboard project. When not delivering Business Intelligence/Analytics, Data Warehousing, and Collaboration/Portal solutions to the world's leading brands, we periodically consider ways to improve our own business processes. We recently decided we could improve the way we track [...]
In our last entry, Solution Selling is So 2012, we introduced you to the Ultimate Solution Experience™. And now it's time to dive in and show you how it works step-by-step. You want to deliver the best possible solution. You want to be on time, on budget, and on target. You will need to design and align [...]
What You Already Know: Solution Selling Is So 2012 It is well known that Solution Selling is a thing of the past. In fact, in 2012 Harvard Business Review published an article titled, "The End of Solution Sales", which describes how "companies can readily define solutions for themselves." Often, clients today have researched, compared, [...]
The Silicon Review, the world’s most trusted online and print community for business and technology professionals, reviewed Blackstone+Cullen. They hit on our “Promote the Client” strategy, our Ultimate Solution Experience™ (uSX), and just how well these methods work in today’s Do-It-Yourself atmosphere. Companies aren’t asking, “How can you help to resolve my problem?” They [...]
News broke last week that Microsoft was putting their money where their Business Intelligence is and has acquired Datazen. Within our own team at Blackstone+Cullen there is always some debate about just what the virtues of the tech world around us are and what it means for business. With all these opinions the best way [...]
Blackstone+Cullen has something to say. As a matter of fact, we have a lot to say. So, here we go... Who we are. This blog may be new, but Blackstone+Cullen sure isn’t. Since 1989 we’ve been delivering the best in highly customized technology and consulting solutions to the world’s leading brands. This blog will have [...]