HBSC Strategic Services

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HBSC is a leading Business and Technology Strategy Professional Services firm. We assist Fortune 500 and Pre-IPO companies to create innovative products, improve IT effectiveness and build highly scalable operations.
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Industry Expertise
We specialize in the planning and execution of mission critical initiatives that deliver sustainable competitive advantage. Our service offerings include Business Strategy, IT Strategy, CXO Services, Business Process Outsourcing, Process Reengineering and Social Business Strategy.
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At HBSC, we believe that companies are consistently overwhelmed with data and information and that tangible strategic insight is both rare and critical to sustain competitive advantage. In the long run, the ability to efficiently execute business strategy is tantamount to an organization’s ability to survive.

Utilities

Public Utilities play a critical role in the advancement of industry while also playing an important part in the welfare and safety of our communities. More than ever, Public Utility companies have the opportunity to capitalize on providing new innovative services that both delight customers and further ensure safe operations.

Renewable energy, Smart Grid technology and the Internet of Things are quickly revolutionizing increasingly distributed utility companies. In order to keep up with disruptive changes, it is more important than ever that Utilities digitally transform their customer engagement model, provide innovative tools and improve operational agility.

HBSC Utility Services

We have helped clients develop new innovative services and technologies, improve operational efficiency, develop state-of-the-art network operations, deploy large scale Smart-Meter programs as well as other mission critical initiatives. Our goal is to help Clients ensure public safety while balancing the need to control costs and gain operational efficiency. HBSC has assisted Utility Clients to:

Optimize Portfolio Investment Strategies
Develop and Implement Network Operations Centers
Establish Business Process Improvement Capabilities
Create Innovative IT Strategies
Improve Customer Relationships through Social Media

Electric and Gas companies have an enormous task of providing safe, reliable and affordable power while building a strong foundation for the future. We help Utility companies achieve their goals of customer service, innovation, clean energy and safety.

HBSC has successfully driven some of our most complex projects over the years. Their seasoned program leadership greatly reduces our overall implementation risk.

CFO – Financial Services Company

What We Do

We help companies in the Utility Industry achieve world-class operations.

Operation Innovation

Operational effectiveness and process improvement is central to ensuring low cost and reliable electricity, water and gas. Utility companies consistently need to invest in innovative programs in the areas of energy, climate change, telecommunications, transportation and water. While these initiatives and investments are only a small part of the portfolio, they can have significant payoff for communities and municipalities in the long run.

Organizational Change

True organizational change requires a structured approach that ensures a smooth and successful transition to new processes, technologies and culture attributes. At HBSC, we believe that lasting benefits of change are achieved in the context of consistent rapid change of technologies, globalization and an ever evolving business environment. Social media, workforce mobility and Cloud Computing have revolutionized business management practices and have increased the availability knowledge and the rate of disruptive change. We believe that the most important and long-term competitive advantage is having a highly functional management team that can effectively manage and adapt to the new environment.

Billing Audit & Reconcilation – Silicon Valley High-Tech Company

Challenge

A leading fast-growth high-tech company needed additional HR and Benefits administration support. The challenge was managing benefit changes with a highly distributed and dynamic workforce. The HR and Benefits teams had to retrieve, audit, reconcile, and approve numerous individual Carrier invoices across the company and then send each one to Finance for monthly processing. Also, some of the processing required self-billing based on a complex tiered pricing structure that was frequently wrong.

The Solution

Working closely with the client’s Chief People Officer, HBSC helped establish and execute a new outsourcing arrangement, which greatly simplified and streamlined the process.

Audit Process
- Customize the service based on the organizational needs
- Request HRIS, Carrier, and Benefit Plan information
- Review contracts and Summary Plan documentation to understand the plan offerings
- Gain Read-only access to the Client’s HRIS and Benefits Systems – so that we can audit the roster and new enrollments
- Directly access and reconcile the carrier bills to confirm the accuracy and ensure timely payment
- Validate the initial billing reconciliation report(s)
On-going Reconciliation
- Resolve baseline discrepancies to ensure accurate opening balances
- Reconcile bills monthly to ensure accuracy and simplify the process of fixing errors
- Audit all carrier bills against the HRIS system
- Review monthly discrepancy report with brokers and carriers
- Preparation of all self-bill
Benefits

The HBSC Billing Reconciliation Solution significantly improved the organization’s financial accuracy, payment discrepancies, and scalability requirements.
- Alleviated long hours and headaches for HR / Benefit teams
- Reduced Benefit Administration rework and on-going financial adjustments
- Provided unlimited flexibility and a service scalability
- Increased benefit enrollment accuracy
- Improved relationships between the HR, Benefits, and Finance Team
PEO Transition – High Tech Company

Client

High Tech Software Company

Challenge

A fast growth 450-person company was receiving increasingly poor service and over-spending on their current workforce due to a 4-year PEO relationship. The Organization decided to take control of their HR, Payroll and Benefits functions and build a better culture at the company.

The Solution

The company reached an inflection point and decided to convert from the existing PEO model and bring HR, Benefits and Payroll business processes in-house. This required the implementation of a new HRIS platform. The system implementation included 6 modules (HR, Payroll, Benefits and three Talent Management modules) for 380 US-based staff and approximately 70 international staff. HBSC provided on-going support including project management and HR and Payroll subject matter expertise around data conversion, compliance and business process roll-out. Our approach quickly had the new business processes, systems and staff trained and up and running with a 4-month period.

Goals

The following goals were pursued during the engagement:
- Facilitate conversion from PEO platform to a new HRIS platform
- Provide project management, business analysis and compliance assessment for the system implementation
- Design and roll-out new business processes and policies
Tasks

HBSC worked collaboratively HR, Payroll, Benefits, and IT team members to implement the HRIS solution. Our engagement tasks are listed as follows:
1. Establish PEO checklist, project plan and timeline for conversion
2. Evaluate, select and implement new HRIS technology platform
3. Work with Insurance Broker to design and select new benefits packages
4. Assist in HRIS set-up, configuration and staffing
5. Assist with workflows definition and implementation
6. Review data conversion process with staff and ADP
7. Define and prioritize required interfaces
8. Facilitate configuration testing
9. Ensure compliance with local and national employment laws
10. Facilitate HRIS roll-out and end-user adoption of new system
The Benefits

The organization was able to simultaneously improve employee satisfaction, reduce employment costs and scale their operations internationally. Several benefits included an improved employee experience, reduced paperwork and human touch and additional HR analytic capabilities. The skills necessary to transition from the co-employment model to managing the processes and systems in-house were developed through a collaborative work approach between client staff and HBSC subject matter experts.
Digital Discovery

Client

Global Logistic and Shipping Company

Challenge

Organization lacked a Digital Strategy and Roadmap for competing with online competitors that were rapidly digitizing their service offerings.

The Solution

HBSC worked collaboratively with the Client Team to establish a vision and create customer-centric research and prototype a AI First Customer Experience.
- Established a Digital Strategic Vision
- Conducted customer-centric research with the end-user community
- Developed a framework for evaluating and prioritizing Digital Opportunities
- Assessed current operational / technical capabilities
- Determined Roadmap and high-level phased approach
Phase I – Digital Discovery
1. Recruit Customer participants and conduct in-depth interviews
2. Document Customer process flows in “Journey Maps” and “Story-boards”
3. Conduct competitive UX Assessment
4. Conduct Product Opportunity Assessment
5. Assess foundational technical requirements
6. Develop vision, key objectives and value proposition
7. Develop opportunity prioritization leveraging Build, Extend and Innovate Framework
Phase II – UX Research and Analysis
1. Develop an Initial Research Project Plan
2. Conduct interviews with “Customer” users performing top 6 tasks for which they use the existing portals, followed by interpretation
3. Creation of a “Customer-centric” Sequence Model – Ordered steps both in and out of the application that Customers perform
4. Conduct Heuristic Audit on industry portal functionality
5. Collaborate with Key Stakeholders
6. Create detailed “Customer” Storyboards – Visually capture details of each task
7. Create a Low-fidelity “Customer-centric” Prototype including one round of usability testing
Deliverables
- Digital Discovery Roadmap – Opportunity Assessment Document
- User Experience Research Document and Prototype
The Benefits

Organization leapfrogged the competition by developing a market leading online and mobile presence that leveraged Machine Learning algorithms. Created a 3-year growth strategy and roadmap and fundamentally changed organization’s “Analog” culture to embrace digital innovation.
HCM Cloud Software Implementation

Client:

Retail & Commercial Financial Services Company

The Challenge:

The Client had a legacy on-premise Oracle ERP / Peoplesoft HCM platform and was experiencing inaccuracies in their HR, Benefits and Payroll operations. In addition, the organization had multiple compliance-related issues that were not being addressed by the current vendor solutions.

The Solution:

Working with the Client Executive Team, HBSC conducted a detailed process mapping and pain-point analysis to understand the root causes. Our Team conducted a RFP process, selected a SaaS vendor platform and implemented a solutions while integrating back to legacy systems. The following tasks were executed:
1. Conducted stakeholder interviews to understand business and technology pain-points
2. Documented requirements and created a customized RFP
3. Conducted a Proof of Concept (POC) with multiple SaaS HCM vendors
4. Worked with Management to select an appropriate solution
5. Conducted implementation planning and ROI analysis
6. Implemented new HCM and Payroll SaaS solution
7. Integrated HCM solution into existing architecture along with Benefits service providers
8. Conducted a security audit on the new architecture
9. Successfully launched new solution company-wide
The Benefits:

Client achieved a successful implementation with the following benefits:
- Productivity Improvement: Client achieved best-in-class SaaS solutions that greatly improved efficiency
- Increase Scalability: Organization greatly expanded their growth potential without adding resources
- Cost Savings: Lowered infrastructure cost by over 30% (annual cost savings).
- Increased Compliance: HR, Payroll and Finance processes achieved the proper controls and came into full regulatory compliance.