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Former Member
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During my interview of John Schwarz on how SAP's go-to-market strategy has evolved to address new markets, new delivery needs, and higher volume, John invited Ashok Santhanam, President & CEO of Bristlecone, to join us on stage.  Bristlecone is highly focused consulting and systems integration firm with some innovative approaches.  For one, they focus on supply chain management and nothing else which gives them more practical experience. In addition, they do almost all of their engagements on a fixed fee basis, rather than relying on time and material billing.  In some cases, they even tie fees to business benefits.

What's more, they don't operate like a traditional systems integrator as they've built a number of packaged solution offerings that streamline deployments.  For example, in consumer packaged goods they've been able to shrink the time to value for demand planning solutions from typically 26-30 weeks down to 6-8 weeks.  They also have an SAP All-in-One certified end-to-end semiconductor supply chain solution that reduces custom implementation from 12-18 months to go live in 3 months.  They can even offer this in a hosted model so that it doesn't disrupt any the customer's infrastructure.

The clincher was when Ashok described the Newell Rubbermaid sale and deployment. Bristlecone worked very closely with SAP and jointly delivered a proof of concept of "accelerated savings and procurement" in one week.  The POC validated the business case, demo'd the product, verified that it could work with their data.  It also helped the deal close in 37 days.  Not to rest on their laurels, Bristlecone then took the POC live in 90 days after the purchase of the solution.

About 4 months from first touch to realized value.  That's not your grandfather's delivery.

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