What is “The Windval Way”?
May 8, 2024
Written by Jeff Siok, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing
Choosing the right technology consulting firm to help you deliver important work and transform your IT organization is a challenging task. It is not always clear how the skills, experience, and approach of a partner integrates with those of your internal teams to bring focused expertise and perspectives that enhance the capabilities of your organization and drive the success of your initiatives. As you evaluate how to navigate the growing number of challenges presented to modern enterprise IT leaders, consider how your technology partners align with the interests of your organization, take on the hard work of today, and invest in the success of you and your team.
At a Glance:
Large enterprises need strong technology consulting partners to get important work done. Rapid advances in technology make it near impossible for companies to arm their staff with the key skills needed to execute while the business-as-usual work continues without pause.
Most enterprise IT organizations have become understaffed after years of cost reduction and efficiency efforts, yet they are expected to deliver quality solutions and new services capabilities aligned to key business objectives in dynamic environments. Delivering successful outcomes requires broad technical knowledge and deep program-based leadership experience.
It is difficult for IT leaders and groups within large organizations to translate business objectives (and sometimes IT strategy) into tactical action within complex IT environments. Choosing the right partner is key to bolstering your organization’s understanding of legacy environments (people, process, and technology), developing informed IT strategies, operationalizing and delivering IT projects that support key business initiatives, and establishing governance models that promote aligned program execution and continuous modernization.
At Windval we spend a considerable amount of time reviewing how we operate and working to enhance the client experience when they engage our team of advisors, technologists, and program leaders. We often describe this as The Windval Way… but what exactly is The Windval Way? While there’s no perfect definition, we frame it in three (3) categories:
How We Organize our Teams
Centered around deeply understanding your business, how you operate as an enterprise organization, and where you want to go in the future
Focused on connecting dots within your organization and building important bridges among your leadership, technology, and operations teams
Aligned to bringing industry experience and fresh perspectives that help your organization “see around corners” to anticipate change
How We Deliver our Work
An obsession with delivering successful client outcomes, “getting stuff done” and creating value with a high level of client satisfaction
Rapid immersion into your environment, combining our methodologies with your standards for a best-of-breed approach that works
A program-level mindset that aligns our project work with your key business objectives, always focused on value and achieving measurable results
How We Build Our People & the Company
We are Thinkers that Do, with deep subject matter expertise and a focus on execution that gets work done on time
Autonomy to make difficult, important decisions in the field with leadership support
Going above and beyond expectations (“the SOW”) to make our clients successful and achieve results that meet your objectives
Four years into the Windval journey, we believe The Windval Way is one of many key elements that differentiates us among a vast array of consulting organizations in the technology industry. Can we improve? Of course – continuous improvement is a pillar of our firm. As we continue to grow, we remain focused on building our team with experience and talent that strengthen our firm, enhance The Windval Way culture, expand our capability reach, and benefit client success.
As a team of advisors that help our clients design, deliver, and operate secure network, infrastructure, and application environments and the programs to support them, we know every client is unique. We know long-term success is not about simply choosing the latest technology or installing the latest software product. We know you face significant challenges optimizing heritage technology investments while embracing new technologies and processes. We know the path to executing large, enterprise-grade programs is full of potholes. We believe you require bespoke, tailored solutions matched to your environment. We believe our job is to build up your service capabilities and equip your teams with new skills to be successful. We know you want honest and transparent expert opinions, even if difficult to digest.
Choosing the right technology advisory partner can feel daunting and full of uncertainties among a sea of options. As you evaluate organizations to engage on your next critical project, the following questions can help you think through what type of partner will help you be successful:
Does the partner ask detailed, thoughtful questions that drive to the root of your challenge and does the partner demonstrate a willingness and ability to learn the complexities of your environment and business deeply?
Does the partner bring subject matter expertise to each conversation that demonstrate the depth of experience and knowledge required for the work, or does it feel like your organization is a training ground for building their team’s skills?
Does the partner bring a prescriptive mindset to each interaction with you (“This is how it should be done”), or are they tailoring the conversation to acknowledge the unique aspects of your project, business, and current situation (“Let’s build the plan and execute together”)?
Is the partner willing to invest the time and energy into performing the work the “right” way and into building a relationship with you and your teams, or does each interaction feel transactional and rushed?
Think about the answers to the above questions as you evaluate organizations to partner in delivering your next critical effort. And if needed, apply them to your current roster of technology partners when you sense something might be missing in the partnership.
At Windval, we are here to guide and help you be successful. We genuinely care about the quality of our work and helping you achieve measurable results. So how do you experience The Windval Way? Bring us a problem, talk to our experts, let us invest time and energy into a potential partnership. We believe you will immediately see the difference our experience and skill bring to the engagement and how our approach will deliver successful results.