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"I want to thank you for all of the hard work and effort you have applied to assist us in getting the HUB infrastructure rolled out across our operating divisions.  This has been a huge endeavor and quite frankly, we could not have gotten where we are without you."  [Accountability provided by regular meetings and action item tracking was the most important single component.]

"This effort will allow us to better serve our clients and allow us to run a more efficient operation in the process”.

[See case study for how nation-wide project helped streamline sales processes, reduce errors and save an estimated $2.5 Million per year]

Ben Fischer, President, Crossmark® Sales Agency

(Crossmark is the 3rd Largest Broker of Consumer Packaged Goods in the USA)

Case Study:  No31cSalesProcessImprovementSuccessStoryShortV2

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"... Tom brought focus, prioritization, accountability and encouragement to a discouraged project team.  This $5 million project was brought from near cancellation to on-time delivery and a satisfied client.  Tom's personal efforts helped us capture $230,000 in change orders, which paid for his fee more than three times over."

Bill Valance, Senior Consulting Engineer, regarding the Celanese  Globalink project turnaround

“The client was so pleased with our work in completing this project that we were awarded a $10,000,000 contract to outsource all of their Information Technology support functions.”

Keith Long, Sales Executive, regarding the Celanese Globalink project turnaround

(Celanese is a Dallas, Texas, USA Manufacturer of Chemicals and Fabrics for Consumer Goods)

Case Study:  No35MillionDollarProjectTurnedAround

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"...the imaging system you helped us implement resulted in a 25% reduction in cost per invoice for the accounts payable department of Frito Lay..."

John Wilbanks, formerly of Frito Lay MIS Dept.

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"The Paint manufacturing system worked like a charm!  ...$262,000 inventory reduction  ...$22,500 overhead reduction "  [cost was only $50,000]

Russ Baker, Director of Purchasing for Farmland Industries, Kansas City Plant

(Farmland Industries Was a USA Manufacturer of Consumer Products which has been Acquired)

Case study:  InventoryReduced262000nwsltr

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“...I've finally met an honest consultant."  [Regarding project to help reduce IT department's workload from 200% of capacity to a more practical level] 

Jorge Arango, Director of MIS, formerly of Johnson & Johnson, Cordis Subsidiary, Miami Florida

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"We took a phased approach, rather than a big bang effort.  Had we gone ahead with a big bang approach, the project would have collapsed.  [Ingram's area of responsibility - the basic system, the infrastructure and] the custom interface to our mainframe accounts payable system worked out fine.  It was even ready on time!"  [Finley later mentioned that having these pieces of the project done right was important.  If one more major thing had gone wrong, the project would have collapsed.]

"We were able to handle a 30 percent increase in our volume of accounts payable transactions without incremental headcount."  [equates to $450,000 savings per year.]

"We saved 400,000 customer minutes per year."  [equates to 400% improvement in customer service]

Hal Finley, Accounts Payable Manager, Texas Instrument's Accounts Payable Project (from How to Turn Computer Problems into Competitive Advantage, Tom Ingram, Project Management Institute, published 1998)

Case Study:  tiap450000savingsnwsltr

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"The [team led by Ingram] required us, as the internal project team, to complete our milestones on schedule.  In the past, other distractions and priorities have come up during projects which delayed  the completion of milestones.  Having a tightly defined consulting contract prevented our normal 'death march' at the end of the project"

Chris Fowler, Technical Team Member, Texas Instrument's Accounts Receivable Project (PM Network Magazine, December 1995)

"We had a number of close calls... in the final analysis, [the team led by Ingram] came through and the project was not impacted."  [Sigle and I calculated that the first year of operation resulted in a reduction of $1.5 million in outstanding accounts receivable.]

Stan Sigle, Project Manager, Texas Instrument's Accounts Receivable Project (PM Network Magazine, December 1995)

Case Study:  tiarearnedvaluearticle

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"I am amazed at how much the order process has improved.  The new process is beautiful!  [Regarding reduction of order processing from a 5 day cycle time to 1 1/2 days.]

[Client name withheld to maintain confidentiality]

Case Study:  HowToReduceOrderProcessingTimeNewsletter 

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"In two large projects, Tom has played a material role in ... performing vendor compliance.  Through Tom's personal efforts, in conjunction with others, both of these two large procurement projects have been successful and moved forward in a positive fashion."

"... In both cases, Tom worked with us on a 'win-win' basis to find solutions.  He met his commitments and communicated with us regularly, whether the news was good or bad."

Wayne D. Kellberg, Chief, Purchasing Services, Texas Department of Human Services, State of Texas

"...Total estimated benefits from the Welnet project were $240,793,464... Major Benefit areas were staff cost avoidance, improved productivity, fraud reduction...Total estimated costs were $93,517,186."  [Ingram was responsible for about $8 million of the costs and approximately $21 million in prorated benefits].

Paul Normandin, Dir, Fed Relations and Project Mgmt, MIS, Texas Department of Human Services, State of Texas

Case Study:  No18Sell8Million21MillionPayback

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"Your work in helping us quantify the value that we provide customers was outstanding.  You have helped us explain the complex services and systems we offer in a way that new prospects can better understand."

"The cost-justification you developed has helped us communicate internally and with new  prospects.  The case study shows that we saved a client approximately $400,000 over five years and helped them improve customer service AND sales at the same time.  We knew we had done well for this client, but you helped us consolidate the results into a compelling case study."

"Thanks for your work helping us define our new customer on-boarding process.  You helped us define a complex work process and gave us a boost in solving these problems ourselves."

"We now have a standard Statement of Work process which matches up with our contracting process.  Our legal department and sales departments are now working together much more effectively.  We are preventing many problems now that used to cause us downstream difficulty."

"I've never seen an internal IT guy that didn't say, 'I got it!'..."

   Clay Curtis, Former CIO, Crossmark®

Case Study: CreamYogurtsuccessstoryRedacted

(Crossmark is the 3rd Largest Broker of Consumer Packaged Goods in the USA)

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"On behalf of the entire Western team, thanks for your guidance and leadership during [our project]!  You have greatly impacted our future and we truly appreciate your help."

David St. Charles, Former West Region Vice President, Crossmark® Sales Agency

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"Of all the things Tom did for us, the accountability and focus provided by the weekly pipeline call was the most valuable, by far.  Even though our parent company failed (Handleman) and created enormous difficulty for all of us, Tom and our team continued with our new business focus.  Tom and I have kept in touch with our sales people over the last two and a half years as they have moved to other companies.  Like any good sales person would, they followed up on the leads generated under this effort.  To the best that Tom and I can determine, in October of 2008, our pipeline had 590 leads with a total dollar forecast of about $11.5 million.  As of June, 2010, $6.5 million of that forecast had closed in 30 separate sales.

Our most compelling, urgent need was to build a consistent, disciplined, focused pipeline of new business.  Tom's group contributed immensely to our progress in this area."  [This is an approximation of enormous complexity and difficulty - details available.] 

Dave Yenzer, General Manager, REPS Merchandising Services Company, a subsidiary of the Handleman Company

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"Ingram Associates worked with us to retain multiple senior people to help with a Fortune 100 Health, Beauty and Cosmetics manufacturer.  Tom helped us identify the right people, negotiate their offers and protect confidential information.  Ingram helped us navigate complex non-compete agreements.  Working as a team with Ingram, we could not have been more strategic!"

[at last report, $5.5 million of new business was closed in the first 60 days with this manufacturer.]

Company and president name withheld to protect confidentiality.  Details available upon request.

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"Ingram brought us a senior sales executive that closed $1.2 million in new outsourced services with General Mills, Dole, Conagra, Reckitt Benkiser, etc. in one year.  The business was closed at 50% gross margin." 

Company and president name withheld to protect confidentiality.  Paraphrased from multiple sources.  Details available upon request.

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“Tom brought us an excellent CEO candidate right when we needed him.  It was a challenging situation, but Chuck dug in immediately and has made the kind of progress we were looking for.”

 Jay Lenstrom, CEO, Radiate Group, an Omincom Company (parent of National In-Store), a Merchandising Services Company

"NIS turned out to be a successful turnaround for me and I’m still there in the middle of my 7th year and we’ve been making money since 2009.   Thank you again for connecting the dots and giving me the chance to get in front of the old Radiate group... 

I still live in McKinney and have no plans to move to FL where the operational group is still housed.  Everything has worked out by managing the business from Texas.

Email from new CEO Feb 5, 2014, Omincom Company (parent of National In-Store), a Merchandising Services Company

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“Tom brought us Mike Skelton as a new CEO.   During Mike’s tenure, the Company went from $500,000 in sales and substantial losses to $2 million in sales and near breakeven.  This included a $1 million deal with Computer Associates.  Mike helped position the Company for a merger with a larger corporation.”

Russell Cleveland, President, Renaissance Capital, Regarding Caminosoft

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“Tom, I sort of like you, but I really, really like Chuck" [Chuck is one of Tom Ingram's senior Associates.  This quote is included in our attempt to bring a little humor to the dry business of consulting...] 

"Here are the things that I value from the work your organization did for us:

• Chuck and your team brought operations and process improvement that we needed.  More importantly, your team was able to transfer that knowledge to our people in practical ways.

• Tom’s ability to help us sort through all the things we needed to work on, get organized and prioritized was useful.  Tom also facilitated our weekly calls and kept us pushing forward on the priorities.  I also appreciated Tom's method of defining projects and budgets - and getting the work done within those budgets.  This helped us get the best results from the dollars we spent. 

• The WLOUF (Work Load Over / Under Forecast) that Chuck put in place, with the help of the AMS team, has been extremely helpful.  Chuck helped us consolidate the many different types of work we do into a single “pipeline” of work that we could better manage.  Chuck got this done quickly using simple tools that were on hand where some consultants might have insisted on spending thousands of dollars for expensive software to do the job.
• Improving our Hiring Process and “Rolodex” of Available People:  Chuck and the AMS team streamlined our process and, again, got us to a working solution using the tools at hand, rather than waiting for a big software system.
• Getting Job Definitions and Performance Evaluations in Place.  Though the work is not yet fully done, you have helped us move forward in defining clear responsibilities for our people.  You have also started us on the path of measuring the performance of our people and requiring them to meet those performance standards.  You have pushed us to reduce words and good intentions to measurable action.
• Splitting the Responsibilities between Sales and Operations, Putting the Right Person in the Right Job.  Your team has helped us see the needs in this area and use some better tools for making these crucial choices. 

Thanks for the work you did for us, and I expect we will continue to work together.  Consider me a satisfied customer.” 

Steve Nozet, CEO, American Merchandising Specialists

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“Tom Ingram’s group really helped us turn the corner during our new business development effort.

They helped us document what we are good at through success stories, which are an excellent selling tool.

They have helped us focus on situations where the prospect has an urgent need to buy, AND, where we have a distinctive advantage that cannot be easily copied by competitors. 

The targeted prospect list they provided appears to be exactly what we needed, though this needs to be proven out.

We are also pleased with the Software, Costing and Quality initiatives that the Ingram group is helping us with.” 

Dave Yenzer, General Manager, REPS Merchandising Services Company

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“The success stories look very good.  We knew we had done good work for these clients, but I was especially pleased with the quotes people provided when you interviewed them. 

You helped us to quantify the value of the work we did for our clients, and helped get it into a format that tells a good story.  Our emphasis is helping increase sales for our Clients, and it comes through in the success stories.  We knew our sales increases were strong, but I think having a third party interview our Clients and document the results really helps put our best foot forward.  If anything, the documented results for Clients were better than I expected. 

I think it was useful to document the entire program of service that we provided in the success stories.  We promote pieces and components all the time, but there is some value in having the entire offering consolidated to a single page.” 

Chris Nozet, Senior Vice President, American Merchandising Services

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“Tom, we really appreciate the work your team has done for us.  It has done us a lot of good at moving toward consistent, professional selling.

I found the success stories to be particularly “handsome”, as we discussed.  They helped us narrow our focus to customers with an urgent need to buy. 

Your team has also helped us focus on areas where we have a distinct competitive advantage that cannot be easily copied.

The prospect list your team provided has been very helpful.  Our people have been able to close some significant business in the last several months, and I think your team helped “spur” us on down that road.

 We will have to see what sales will result from the sales people you have been able to bring to our attention, but I am generally impressed with the caliber of your people and what we think they can do for us…” 

Merchandising Company Co-Owner (names withheld at Client’s request)

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Market Manager, Mid-Atlantic, Large Sales Company

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 Coordinator / Office Manager, New England Division, Large Sales Company

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[From 1999 to 2004, Ingram served in an expert witness and investigative role to assist a client in suing a software vendor for fraud, resulting in recovery of over $5 million for the client.]

"[Tom, the most important thing you have done for us over these four years has been creating accountability for the attorneys on the case.  The weekly / biweekly meetings and the action items that you tracked and pestered us about were most valuable.]"

  [Name withheld to maintain nondisclosure agreement.  Excerpted from Client's comments over the years]

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[From 1999 to 2004, Ingram served in an expert witness and investigative role to assist a client in suing a software vendor for fraud.  The following excerpt from the software firm's annual report shows that over $5 million was recovered for the client.]

"In April, 1998, [client name withheld] filed a complaint in the District Court for [jurisdiction and case number withheld] against us and two of our employees alleging that we misrepresented our ability to complete a project contracted for by the plaintiffs and concealed from the plaintiffs material facts related  to the status of the project.  During the Third Quarter of 2003, in order to avoid further costs, we settled the claim in full with payment to the plaintiff's in the amount of $3.5 million, of which $1.6 million was previously accrued."

  From 2004 Annual Report of a publicly held software consulting firm [names withheld to maintain nondisclosure agreement]

Case Study:  No215MMFraudSettlement

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"... Tom facilitated an ultimate solution which prevented litigation.  Though no one was delighted at the final outcome, a very difficult situation was brought to a resolution and legal action was avoided."

David Sartain, Viewstar Corporation, regarding a project in trouble.

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"[Ingram was brought in to help us with a project that should have been done in two weeks, but had drug on to 6 weeks with no end in sight.  He helped get the first project finished quickly and was able to see that our next project was substantially completed in only 4 days.]" 

Brad Tuggle, formerly with MCI [Comments reconstructed from Tuggle's observations during the project.  Confirmation with Tuggle pending.]

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"... You will be greatly missed.  Thanks for all your hard work & organizational skills that helped us get the Authenticate-only project going.  You did a great job of stepping in quickly and getting things under control..."

M. Lynette Smith, Client Manager, Verizon

"Tom, you are really pretty good at this.  You ought to think about doing it full time"  [after we had turned around a project in trouble.]

Jim Newberry, IT Dir., State Board of Insurance, State of Texas

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"...The use-cases that you guys re-wrote for us are so much easier to understand than the work done by the original consultant... 

"...you helped us sort through the mess and get back on track.  The order flow structure you put in place helped us get focused on the right things and bring the team together..."

"Your efforts helped us reduce the capital required to bring our product to market by $14 million..."

"Tom's project management analysis helped us reduce our consulting bill by $300,000 in the first three weeks..."

Richard Heyse, CFO, Visual Reach.Com

Case Study:  Newsletter10HowToDigOutOfABlackHole

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"We had contracted with you after a series of disappointments in working with technology firms..."

"The technology firms that received [the bid package you created for us] were greatly impressed with the care with which it had been crafted... virtually every detail had been thoroughly thought through and clearly specified."

"You guided us through an incredibly complex undertaking...that resulted in thousands of dollars of saved costs."

"We saved an enormous amount of money - and grief - by working with you.  Thanks for your help."

   Dick Grote, President, Grote Consulting

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["...the efforts led by Ingram resulted in $2 Million in revenues at 35% gross margins, while we were struggling in other parts of the company to achieve 20% gross margins...]

   Bill Lenahan, Senior Vice President, Amerisource, [Comments summarized from Newsletter #16]

["...the company we founded on $260,000 in capital was sold some three years later for about $1.75 Million.  Tom brought in the Amerisource account, which became an "anchor client" for us and helped us expand into several additional high-value product lines.  As one of the original six people, Tom contributed significantly to positive outcome for our shareholders...]"

  Jeff Pawlik, Vice President, Cache Data Products [Comments summarized from Newsletter #16]

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"... our guys tell me that the report production system you helped us with has reduced the labor required by 30%!"

"...we've been burned by consultants before... we appreciate this project coming in as promised and within our budget..."

Alan Little, Technical Sales Manager, Engineered Air Balance, Dallas Office

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 "Tom helped us achieve a 25-30% reduction in the Test and Quality Assurance cycle time for our year 2000 efforts."

Shirley Sanger, former Assistant Director of IT, City of Fort Worth

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"The project analysis you helped us with was invaluable."

"By looking at our past projects you have helped us understand what we need to work on."

   Marc Guy, Assistant City Manager, City of Carrollton

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"Your website was great.  It showed tangible, measurable results on exactly the problems we are trying to solve."

   John Firth, Senior Director, Trade Services. Hasbro Toys