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Success Stories

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To The Future & Beyond...

Thanks for visiting some of our pre-pandemic success stories. If you are curious about our new post-pandemic direction and values at GoEmerald, here is Gunjan's blog post.

 

We look forward to collaborating with you to enable repeatable, measurable and sustainable innovation, IRL. Our work supports both individuals + collectives, when evolving with emerging technologies. We are focusing our efforts on space, renewable energy and agtech/ food innovation, among other things that are the foundational elements of life. This is what is needed to create a better future for everyone in the sustainable & space economy. If you would like to join us on this journey, reach out or sign up here.

Retail
RetaiL
Challenge

A major Canadian retail supermarket chain needed to upgrade its retail systems to support new business objectives. Over time, local customizations led to varied processes and system functionality across stores making systems support and upgrades difficult.

Retail Systems Upgrade & Governance: Longo's
Solution

  •  Our program manager collaborated with the CIO, business and vendor teams for a clearly defined plan to standardize the business processes, reduce technical debt and ensure secure systems across all stores.

  • With special attention to governance, change and risk management, we guided the teams through process re-engineering, development, testing and deployment of the upgraded systems, in an agile manner.

  • We worked with the teams to develop a roadmap aligning business and technical objectives for retail systems. To enable successful roadmap implementation, we created service-centric governance processes between CIO team and vendors, including SLAs and IT metrics to measure progress.

Results

  • Standardized retail systems across all stores with service-centric support model, delivered on-time and on-budget without impact to end-clients.

  • Reduced technical debt and annual support cost.

  • Roadmap and governance to measure future progress.

Financial Services
FINANCIAL SERVICES
reorganization & maximizing effectiveness: Foresters Financials
Solution

  • Our rogram manager collaborated with the international CFO team to identify an effective org structure spanning Canada, US and UK operations. We created detailed roles and responsibility matrices for each team, aligned with firm’s strategic direction and the business case.  

  • Our team collaborated with the management team to re-engineer processes, identified automation opportunities and created a cross-geography governance model with KPIs, SLOs, SLAs and cost allocations.

  • Our team created detailed roadmaps to implement the new structure as well as product features, with special focus on communication, change and risk management for employees and ensuring no client impact.

Results

  • Improved relationships and decision-making across Canadian, US and UK teams.

  • Closed skill gaps via training plans and clarified roles & responsibilities to increase employee motivation and satisfaction ratings.

  • Reduced overall operating costs.

Challenge

A global financial services firm aimed to create a more efficient org structure for its finance teams across various geographies.

Challenge

​An International Marketing company required strategic support in aligning it's data strategy to it's new financial services client.

Migration & management strategy for cutomer data across a new platform - Cossette/ TD Bank
Solution

  • Our program manager worked with the VP level business, technology and data teams from Cossette and TD Bank to create a customized and integrated data platform experience.

  • The goal was for TD team to provide access to end customer data for Cossette's operations over Salesforce, and also maintain the visibility across various stages of the campaign creation using this data.

  • We worked with a team of 15 to help Cossette create a custom data platform by integrating multiple technologies and data pipelines, with roles based access.

Results

  • This initiative had been stalled for months prior to our engagement. After our involvement, the initiative was delivered within 7 months.

  • The successful completion resulted in multi-million dollar additional revenue for Cossette from TD.

  • Data platform was highly scalable and used with other clients as well.

Enterprise-wide IT decision support through data & analytics - OMERS
Solution

  • Our strategy and change lead worked with the multiple executive stakeholders at EVP, SVP and VP levels within IT & Data teams to organize initiatives across the enterprise business units for better decision support at the board, C-level and for the staff. 

  • Our data strategy involved collaborating with the Enterprise Data Director to collect data across various toolsets and data sets to create Power BI dashboards showcasing real-time impact of the projects and initiative investments.

  • We also worked with the change management team to create re-organization strategy for the enterprise-wide IT organization, aimed at better human capital management.

  • We also supported Enterprise Data Management strategy by providing input towards community of practices required inside the organization to faciliate a data-driven and Cloud-first culture.

Results

  • Reduction in annual IT project spend by risky, low impact and low value initiatives being captured upfront.

  • Faster decision making by the board and C-level led to faster decision turnaround time on key matters.

  • Increase in satisfaction levels among business units who interfaced with the IT teams due to faster service and low number of failed/ delayed projects.

Challenge

A  Canadian pension firm required enterprise-level alignment across it's IT organization for better decision making at board, C-level and staff level.

Challenge

​A Canadian financial services company sold its mutual funds business requiring a transfer of the staff, vendor relationships, systems, infrastructure and data with a tight timeline.

mutual funds business & systems sale - ivari Insurance
Solution

  • Our Program Manager worked with the CIOs and CFOs for both firms to manage the sale contract, transition of products, systems, customer/ product data and vendor relationships, including development of a transition fees framework, and regulatory processes for the transfer. All the while, focusing on people, process and technology.

  • We collaborated with the marketing and support teams from both firms to ensure end-client facing channels such as websites and call center were re-branded, ensuring consistent and clear messages for clients throughout the transition.

Results

  • On-time and on-budget transfer of staff, vendor relationships, systems, infrastructure and data, without impact to end-clients.

  • Clear agreement among the firms on KPIs, SLOs, transition fees and service-quality during the transition period.

  • Increased system integration, automation, reliability and data volume handling.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual support cost.

  • Reduced system recovery time.

Enterprise-level Environments Strategy for hybrid cloud and legacy solution - SunLife
Contribution

  • In this technology architecture and environments focused Director level engagement, we provided insight into a strategic manner in which enterprise-solutions should be reviewed at the intersection of multiple perspectives and domains. 

  • We encouraged the environments and QA teams to consider creating a single aligned strategy and a roadmap that shows technology architecture with technology deployment plans, requirements from business teams and environments teams.

  • We provided methodology for aligning various technology domains across Sunlife teams to consolidate a strategy, with guidelines on where strategy differs from a plan.

Challenge

A  Canadian insurance firm struggled to align environments strategy towards it's rapidly approaching go-live date with multi-cloud + legacy environment for an enterprise-level implementation.

Challenge

​A Canadian insurance provider struggled to complete a multi-million dollar migration between systems that included end-client PII data, during the pandemic.

Insurance Data Transformation, Migration & product customization - Canada Life
Contribution

  • Our program manager proposed a strategic approach to confirm the program's mission, vision and goals, including financial metrics, to review the project scope since inception in detail and confirm relevancy for the future system's requested features.

  • We collaborated with external vendors including the Unitrax system vendor and consulting partners providing technology/ QA support for ensuring plans aligned with the strategic direction of the program.

  • We found a number of issues on the plans and suggested creation of dashboards and standard metrics on this initiative with heavy risk of scope creep.

  • We proposed these dashboards to be reviewed by sponsors with clear roles to manage timelines and budget for an accelerated delivery on this initiative at the intersection of multiple transformational programs, with organizational changes and the pandemic impacting delivery .

Enterprise & Start-up Collaboration - ivari & Specialty Life Insurance
Contribution

  • ivari collaborated with Specialty Life Insurance (SLi) to develop a novel B2C insurance sales platform to enable direct consumer sales. This involved review/ adjustment of existing insurance products at ivari + adjustment of technology & product roadmaps at SLi. The team faced multiple challenges in collaborating and aligning on delivery goals.

  • ivari engaged us for this unique innovation initiative due to prior experience with our team, at the intersection of two organizations (ivari & Foresters Financial)

  • We worked with the leadership (SLi CEO, SVP and CTOs at both organizations) and teams to align organization specific goals, roles, expectations and definitions of success.

  • We worked with the teams to establish key deliverables, reporting and governance for collaboration. We worked with SLi to hire a key role needed to bridge the gap in conversations.

  • We also created a plan and roadmap towards the end goal, along with periodic reporting to keep the teams aligned.

Challenge

A  Canadian insurance firm collaborated with a start-up in insurance space, however the teams struggled to align the new product development goals, timelines and delivery targets.

Public Sector
Public Sector
Data teams' governance with business teams - Farm credit Canada
Solution

  • Our strategy consultant worked with the FCC data team to create a governance model for the data teams to interface with business teams, including an intake process and data lifecycle. 

  • We worked with the scrum and product leads to understand the trends across their daily work, and created processes which would make the collaboration across cross functional teams dynamic.

  • We provided insights on industry best practices and specifically where they can be implemented within FCC data teams to improve tactical, as well as operational issues.

Results

  • Data teams reported more organized scrum and sprints after our governance processes were implemented.

  • Data architecture and business teams collaborated more seamlessly for faster deliverable turnaround and decisions.

  • A rise in farmers' satisfaction due to data focused dashboards which enabled client facing teams.

Challenge

A  Canadian public sector credit lender required strategic support in aligning it's data teams to better support business teams across the enterprise, especially with the rise in operation requests during the pandemic.

Challenge

A Canadian provincial land registrar required enterprise-wide support in managing it's DevOps program.

Enterprise wide DevOps Roadmap - Teranet
Solution

  • Our Program Manager worked with the CIO team to enable DevOps roadmap intended to align architecture, CI/CD and QA initiatives across the enterprise.

  • We collaborated with the technical teams to ensure the roadmap had no gaps and addressed the targets aligned to remove technology debt.

  • We worked with the QA lead to ensure QA roles and Dev roles were aligned for the DevOps roadmap.

Results

  • Clear roadmap towards end goals.

  • Smoother communication across teams.

  • Alignment of roles.

Healthcare
Healthcare
Custom Integrated Application Development - Shoppers Drug Mart
Solution

  • Our Program Manager managed a technology SWAT team to phase pilots of the architecture changes and closely managed the business expectations throughout the process. We created criteria for code quality and performance SLOs, coupled with processes and governance for a new performance testing phase.  

  • In parallel, we collaborated with the business team to re-establish the goals, scope and mitigation plan for the program risks.

  • We aligned these to the KPIs, IT product roadmap and vendor project plans to introduce an agile product development approach. This included a service-centric support model for the new application and C-level program management dashboards to review and celebrate progress.

Results

  • Governance and alignment across multiple business, IT and vendor teams to meet program goals.

  • Increased store and end-user satisfaction through system reliability.

  • Reduction in technical debt.

Challenge

​A large Canadian retail pharmacy chain was developing an integrated custom application and infrastructure with multiple vendors to enable changes in prescription drug dispensing regulations with accelerated timeline. Initiative suffered from scope creep, code quality and performance issues.

Gunjan's Success Stories
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Public Transportation systems management - York Region
Solution

  • Gunjan created and implemented a transportation technology strategy for multi-vendor owned + outsourced fleet model for York Region's support transportation such as snow plows. She aligned these with strategic/financial plans.

  • This included methodologies aligning culture and policies, data modeling, enterprise architecture, mobile, data warehouse, business intelligence, technology prototypes, change & risk management, vendor management, and long-term systems support with SLAs through service-centric methodologies.

  • Gunjan developed detailed implementation plans for short-term cross-functional technology initiatives on the product roadmap with clear KPIs. We championed delivery of three agile pilots for support vehicles.

  • Gunjan also implemented governance, communication strategies and dashboards to support cross-team collaboration, change & program management and service-centric model.

  • Gunjan reviewed RFP responses, SOWs and trained IT team in vendor assessment and contract negotiations.

Results

  • Improved relationships, analytics and decision-making across business, technology and vendors through roadmaps and service-centric support model.

  • Increased system integration, automation, reliability and data volume handling.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual support cost.

Challenge

​A Canadian public transit operator required better controls, efficiency and vendor support over its integrated IT systems.

Challenge

A large Canadian airport authority needed help managing an enterprise-wide, multi-million dollar program to integrate processes, infrastructure and applications aligning operations for an efficient new terminal, with a lengthy list of stakeholders.

airport systems development & Integration - Greater Toronto Airport Authorities
Solution

  • To ensure the delivery of enterprise-wide custom applications and infrastructure required for the new terminal, Gunjan constructed and managed partnerships between CTO, business, marketing, multiple airlines and vendor teams.

  • Gunjan aligned business/financial goals to develop integrated program plan, governance, KPIs and business processes with high focus on airport visitors’ satisfaction.

  • Gunjan lead creation of architecture deliverables and operational processes to develop/support the integration layer connecting the gate/flight scheduling systems, baggage claim and other systems for new terminal. We oversaw development and deployment of the integration layer from start to finish.

Results

  • Program completed on-time and on-budget.

  • Highly satisfied feedback airport visitors.

  • Efficient service-centric post-production support processes support through ITIL practices.

Public Transportation systems management - York Region
Solution

  • Gunjan created and implemented a transportation technology strategy for multi-vendor owned + outsourced fleet model for York Region's support transportation such as snow plows. She aligned these with strategic/financial plans.

  • This included methodologies aligning culture and policies, data modeling, enterprise architecture, mobile, data warehouse, business intelligence, technology prototypes, change & risk management, vendor management, and long-term systems support with SLAs through service-centric methodologies.

  • Gunjan developed detailed implementation plans for short-term cross-functional technology initiatives on the product roadmap with clear KPIs. We championed delivery of three agile pilots for support vehicles.

  • Gunjan also implemented governance, communication strategies and dashboards to support cross-team collaboration, change & program management and service-centric model.

  • Gunjan reviewed RFP responses, SOWs and trained IT team in vendor assessment and contract negotiations.

Results

  • Improved relationships, analytics and decision-making across business, technology and vendors through roadmaps and service-centric support model.

  • Increased system integration, automation, reliability and data volume handling.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual support cost.

Challenge

​A Canadian municipality required better controls, efficiency and vendor support over its support transport fleet management.

Challenge

A major Canadian city struggled to manage and create governance around strategic initiatives to meet annual objectives.

IT strategy Creation, HRIS Implementation - City of Markham
Solution

  • Gunjan worked with the CHRO/CAO team as trusted advisors to align IT strategy and implementation by designing governance models, re-engineered processes, project management methodologies, dashboards with KPIs, business plans, procedures, policies and work flows focused on increasing tax-payer value.

  • Gunjan experts lead multiple cross-functional strategic projects focused on increasing organizational efficiency and superb service delivery through process improvement, automation, analytics and deployment of technology solutions.

  • Gunjan provided plans to begin key business transformation and change management initiatives, such as digital security for enterprise portal solutions, ERP and HRIS/HRMS implementations. This included aligning with vendors to set up SLOs and SLAs.

  • We spearheaded service optimization for the CAO’s team through internal data analysis, feasibility analysis, benchmarking, sharing best practices, market trend analysis and recommendations.

Results

  • Improved overall effectiveness through planning, roadmaps and service-centric methodologies.

  • Increased system integration and automation.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual cost.

  • Improved relationships across teams and with vendors due to clear roles & responsibilities.

Start-up Advisor: VentureLab & Futureprenuer
Work as an advisor:

  • Gunjan worked as a part of VentureLab accelerator's advisor team to support 5 mid-to-late stage startups develop strategic roadmaps and growth plans for technology start-ups in data, AI, healthcare, education, and agtech.

  • Gunjan provided input into creation of programs designed to invite diverse and female start-up founders into the ventureLab ecosystem.

  • Gunjan volunteered as a mentor through Futureprenuer for an early stage eCommerce founder to provide advice on various operational and strategic issues.

Contributions

  • ventureLab's techUndivided program 3rd cohort leveraged Gunjan's input about aligning the program to customer journey, as opposed to static programing for all founders.

  • Gunjan worked with 2 new startups to onboard them into the ventureLab ecosystem.

  • Gunjan provided advice on how programs/ processes inside ventureLab could be aligned to better work with data ventureLab has on startups supported in the past.

Advisor at VentureLab & Futureprenuer

Supporting mid to late stage startups with strategic roadmaps.

Challenge

​One of Canada’s largest retail supermarket chain had grown quickly by acquisition. It needed to merge various acquired supply chain processes and systems under a service-centric model.

Supply Chain Integration: Loblaw's
Solution

  • Gunjan developed technology architecture and governance to successfully lead the client and multiple vendor teams through design, development, integration, testing and deployment of packaged, as well as custom-developed solutions.

  • As a trusted advisor, Gunjan helped negotiate RFP responses, SOWs and support contracts with vendors for the best value. We clearly defined KPIs, SLOs, SLAs and metrics to measure performance of the retail systems.

Results

  • Standardized supply chain and infrastructure across all acquired chains with service-centric support model.

  • Increased system reliability, automation and data volume handling.

  • Reduced system recovery time.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual support cost.

IT systems Architecture & Integration: Best Buy
Solution

  • Gunjan provided strategic expertise on this integration program to create a roadmap for the C-Suite towards enterprise-wide architecture to combine IT systems and processes for the two chains.

  • Gunjan lead the design and identification of an integrated ESB solution in a distributed computing environment.

  • Gunjan worked with the teams to implement the ESB to serve as a foundation for future effort to standardize all IT systems. We worked with both on-shore and off-shore team of over 100 technical, business, and vendor experts to make this initiative a success against the business case.

Results

  • Improved relationships and decision-making across US and Canadian C-level leadership with service-centric support model.

  • Increased system integration, automation, reliability and data volume handling.

  • Eliminated technical debt and minimized annual support cost.

  • Reduced system recovery time.

Challenge

A large North American electronics retailer acquired a Canadian chain and sought to combine its processes and technology systems for better analytics.

Challenge

​A large North American retail pharmacy chain faced multiple process and technology issues, as it piloted prescription drug kiosks to evaluate various vendor technologies and patient experience from each pilot.

New product development & deployments - MedAvail/ Walgreens
Solution

  • Gunjan lead the deployment of four proof-of-concepts, by aligning the business and technology goals for each pilot and creating an agile, start-up like culture supporting collaboration across the CIO, business and vendor teams to handle ambiguous situations.

  • Gunjan provided governance expertise to develop new enterprise-wide processes, architecture, product roadmap, data modeling, deployment and operational support strategies to ensure on-time and on-budget delivery of the initiative. This was coupled with our program manager closely monitoring regulatory changes, risk, patient feedback, cost and KPIs through clear dashboards to manage expectations across all stakeholders.

Results

  • On-time and on-budget deployment of four emerging technology pilots.

  • Clear criteria for measuring client feedback and success.

  • Standardized operational, governance and business case conversations.

Volunteer Board Experience: Nu Terra Labs, Sandgate Womens' Shelter, North York Seniors Center
Contributions

  • Gunjan provided strategic guidance on the Nu Terra Lab's board at the intersection of a services + product focused business model.

  • Gunjan provided both operational and strategic support on the Sandgate Womens' Shelter to enable multi-year strategic plans. She also encouraged the board to use data for enabling accelerated support for women based on past trends from services provided.

  • Gunjan worked with North York Seniors Center board to enable operational and strategic board duties, such as providing input on RFPs and vendor selection processes.

Board Experience

Gunjan served on multiple start-up and non-profit boards.

Challenge

A large North American financial services firm encountered a major resource-based critical situation threatening annual business and technology goals.

Resourcing Critical situation on IT program: Manulife
Solution

  • Gunjan worked with the CIO, business and vendor teams to identify impact for each of the 100+ enterprise-wide custom applications and infrastructure projects affected by the resourcing issue. We created and lead a ‘get-to-green’ plan based on annual goals and immediate priorities, including a communication and strong change management plan for the well-being of the affected IT team members.

  • The implementation was supported by an agile process created by Gunjan to assign IT team across projects based on overall progress and adjusted priorities.

  • Gunjan implemented an automated dashboard tool for capturing the resourcing across 50+ member IT team. This aligned productivity improvements with hiring and resourcing strategies.

  • To adjust the IT strategy and roadmap for the next fiscal year, we re-aligned business KPIs for each initiative and re-baselined project plans including risk management and mitigation plans

Results

  • 80 percent of projects were in green status after five months.

  • Resource allocation process with change management and dashboard tool were adopted by the client PMO and operationalized as the best practice.

cntact
Intersection oF Start-up & Enterprise: Shopify
Contributions

  • Shopify's goal for this engagement was to customize its eCommerce platform for integration with client's supply chain to deliver products for the end consumers seamlessly. The timelines had already been announced to the end customers and there were high pressures on all teams, including multiple consulting and technology vendor teams, to deliver within specified timelines. Gunjan recognized that tech strategy and governance were key to delivering on time. 

  • Gunjan advised that Shopify team create project governance with the enterprise team to enable alignment of business and technology requirements, including input into moving from tactical daily reporting on operational items to standard reporting dashboards.

  • Gunjan provided advice to Shopify team on aligning governance for and around the Executive Steering Committee. The ESC included stakeholders from CIO, business and other 3rd party vendor teams.

  • Gunjan provided advice on how to structure Jira and other processes to help Shopify, client and 3rd party vendor teams collaborate better (such as QA consulting partners, technology solution providers and implementation partners).

Challenge

An eCommerce start-up with an client sought support in aligning governance to deliver a tight project with high visibility to end customers.

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