Advantiv :: Testimonials

DecisionDirector®

Project collaboration and decision support for the enterprise.

Reduce time, cost, and risk. Increase stakeholder satisfaction.

866.966.2911

Testimonials

Our clients say the nicest things....

“Having a unanimous decision on which ERP to select, which was facilitated by DecisionDirector, has really paid dividends now that we have reached the tough part of our implementation process. (We are preparing to bring payroll up in January.) Our users all know that they chose this system and so their level of commitment to the project is much higher than it would have been if the decision was done differently.”

Fred Sherman, Vice Chancellor, Information Technology, Foothill-DeAnza Community College District

“We conducted a business process improvement study involving over 260 staff, faculty, and administration. The project, called SPARTA (Systems at Pace-Accurate, Reliable, Timely, and Available), used an online decision support tool called Decision Director to identify over 7,000 to-be business requirements that were collected, validated, and incorporated into an RFP for a new ERP system and implementation partner.”

David Caputo, President, Pace University – as quoted in University Business, April 2003

“The partnership of BearingPoint and Advantiv's DecisionDirector 3.0 platform enabled over 250 people from our diverse campuses to collaboratively define our core vision, mission, and nearly 7000 functional requirements in less than 90 days. This planning will lead to our success!”

Frank Monaco, CIO, Carlton Murray, Project Director, Pace University

“We used Advantiv to help us with our Student Information System selection. Once you have used DecisionDirector I don’t know how you could even imagine tackling this type of task without it. DecisionDirector takes thousands of requirements with the details surrounding them and puts them into a format you can wrap your brain around. Worth every penny!”

Matt Gibbs, C.P.M., Ohio University

“Dan and his team in Advantiv Solution have been excellent to work with at a professional level. It would be hard to find a more professional solution to help you meet your ERP challenges. I highly recommend DecisionDirector that has helped our institution with the necessary vision and methods to produce results quickly and efficiently in relatively low cost.”

Ali Rahimi, IT Director, The American University of Paris

“The folks at Advantiv, and Dan in particular, are highly valued service providers and should be seriously considered by anyone looking for a thorough and easy to use ERP requirements gathering tool.”

Richard Harrison, Solution Engineer IV, SAP

“[75 Days to Vendor Selection] No other company could have helped us navigate 400 ERP stakeholders from skepticism to unanimous agreement in the same time frame. Advantiv is simply the most responsive company I have ever worked with. Period.

DecisionDirector allowed us to gather and validate requirements in a way we could never afford to do by hand. We collected 155,000 votes representing over 4,000 hours of stakeholder involvement and turned that into meaningful reporting that drove our final decision.

We spent more time arguing over the other firm’s contract than we spent assessing AND validating our requirements with Advantiv. Advantiv got us working. More importantly, they got us working together.”

Brett Coryell, ERP Project Director, Purdue University

“Dan has an outstanding software selection tool in DecisionDirector. He is great to work with, helps his clients get their people on the same page, and saves them a lot of time and money in acquiring and implementing software systems.”

Lavon Frazier, Founder, LLC Consulting

“The South Dakota Regental System used Advantiv Solutions DecisionDirector to assess Request for Information responses and through the subsequent vendor selection process. DecisionDirector was invaluable in collecting and analyzing data from all participants in the project. The analysis reporting provided was then used to insure the objectives established by the South Dakota Regental System for the project were met and the best vendor was selected. DecisionDirector allowed scores of participants from eight institutions throughout the state to provide input and provided a great method of analyzing their input to make the best decision for the System. I would highly recommend Advantiv Solutions!”

Elaine F. Hayes, Special Projects Manager, South Dakota Board of Regents

“The development of an RFP for ERP systems, portal technologies and data warehousing solutions could be a very daunting and complex task. However, Advantiv allowed us to use their unique technology and experience in best practices to meet our project’s challenges. They made the entire process very manageable, and we’re certain that Advantiv contributed greatly to our success. Our end users had real input into the requirements gathering, RFP development, system demonstration scripts and final decision-making process – end-to-end through Advantiv’s unique collaborative technologies.”

Joe Sawasky, Associate Vice President, IT, The University of Toledo

"We wanted to prepare a joint Request for Proposal that was easy and understandable for the four participating community college districts to use and a valuable tool for the ERP vendors. We scored on both counts. Even though some of the district staff were at first hesitant to use DecisionDirector, they quickly found it to be an effective way to express their needs. The vendors were especially pleased. The web based environment made it easy to express the capabilities of their products and services. And they will be able to reuse their responses in future RFPs, saving them significant time and money. The result was an exceptional process and a meaningful outcome."

Patrick Tyrell-Smith, ERP Projects Director, Foundation for California Community Colleges

“Advantiv saved UCSC up to 15 months of time and $40,000 in staff compensation. Their Student Information System KnowledgePack allowed us to rapidly develop our functional and operational requirements, as well as define the criteria that would enable us to evaluate each vendor’s ability to build and maintain a long term working relationship with UCSC.”

Mark Cianca, Director of Communications and System Development, UC Santa Cruz

“We have a highly decentralized campus with 9 schools, each acting as silos with independent systems, best practices, et cetera. In order to succeed with such a large initiative, we knew that a large committee would be necessary, but it would need to function efficiently. DecisionDirector made things feasible that were not feasible before such as obtaining the input of so many people and still being able to function and move forward. It would have taken many more months to be where we are today. It will save us many months going forward by getting the input up front. And it has helped us to avoid future problems. For example, if 8 schools voted high on a feature needed but one school voted low, we investigated and usually found someone had a pet project with emotion tied to it. We knew to keep that potential problem in the back of our minds going forward.”

Bob Jefferis, Project Director, Case Western Reserve University

“With Advantiv's assistance, HBU was able to accelerate the selection process to meet our aggressive timeframe, and render results with confidence of accuracy and objectivity that, left on our own, we could not have achieved. What would have taken more than a year to do on our own took 6-7 months with assistance from Advantiv.

“DecisionDirector is a non-intrusive mechanism that allowed the participants to continue to maintain focus on their primary jobs while allowing the process to proceed without pulling them for more than short spurts away from those primary duties. As a result, we were able to include the entire university constituency where otherwise only a focused group of resources could have participated in the process.

“Possibly the best part about using Advantiv Solution is the personal attention offered by Dan Miller and David McCurdy. They were available virtually 24 hours per day, helped me strategize the process from beginning to end, and allowed me to tailor DecisionDirector to fit our situation and needs.”

Dennis J. Huff, Ph.D., CISA Director of Information Systems. Houston Baptist University

Mark Cianca, Director of Communications and System Development, UC Santa Cruz

“Advantiv’s technology allowed us to put together a very thorough ERP bid in a month. We saved up to $200,000 in expenses related to staff time, travel and the ultimate cost of the system. Most importantly, the staff at Advantiv is skilled, caring, insightful, knowledgeable and very helpful.”

Dan Clarke, Project Director, University of California at Santa Cruz Extension

“Advantiv’s technology allowed over 800 participants from geographically and culturally diverse organizations to participate simultaneously in Oracle’s nation-wide, complex software product planning project. We achieved greater client involvement, cut planning time significantly and reached a point of consensus with six diverse institutions. DecisionDirector saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff time and travel expenses and enabled us to include the input of hundreds more participants than we originally envisioned. Additionally, our bottom-line was positively and significantly impacted as a result of reduced planning time, increased market opportunity, and moving quickly to consensus.”

Pat McElroy, Director of Marketing, Oracle Corporation – Higher Education Vertical

“Oracle wanted us to put together a set of specifications for four major student information system modules during three rounds of input over just two months’ time. At first, I said, ‘It simply can’t be done in that short a time.’ Our campuses are 200 miles apart. That’s when I was told about Advantiv and its Internet-based application with a database full of prospective information system specifications from which we could pick and choose those that would best meet our needs. Advantiv gave us an organizational structure that moved the process along quickly. We didn’t have to invent information from scratch and we were able to express our opinions easily and conveniently. It’s a simple fact that without Advantiv, we could not have identified the specs within the time frame presented. Advantiv’s DecisionDirector allowed us to do the job without having to gather 250 people in the same room.”

Stan Jakubik, Project Manager, University of Maryland

“We had 200 people involved in the Oracle planning project. Advantiv’s techniques and tools, with their ease of use, were particularly appropriate for this collaborative and geographically far-flung project. Advantiv’s collaboration environment has great value as a scalable planning and communication platform. Through DecisionDirector, we were able to capture ideas and priorities and vision across the campus at all levels, from faculty to admin offices to VPs”

John Kilmarx, Student System Team Leader, State University of New York at Binghamton

“To us, it was very helpful to have Advantiv’s KnowledgePack with many, many options available for us to respond to and use to prioritize. Without Advantiv and DecisionDirector, we would have had to start the Oracle project with a blank page when we began the process of identifying our ERP system requirements.”

Ann Henderson, Registrar and Director of Institutional Research, Skidmore College

“Advantiv's technology helped put our Peoplesoft implementation back on track. Their business content and process helped us define our implementation needs and requirements quickly and accurately resulting in significant reduction in time spent in fit/gap sessions.”

Ilee Rhimes, Vice Chancellor of Technology and CIO for City Colleges of Chicago

“Advantiv helped us determine the sophistication desired for our new ERP system, develop specific requirements in a timely fashion, prepare a thorough RFP, and effectively evaluate vendors. Our new Peoplesoft system is now up and running, coming in on time and within 10% of budget. I am thrilled with Advantiv’s DecisionDirector technology.”

Irene Opendak, Director, College Operations and Business Services, Bryn Mawr College

“The Advantiv knowledgebase provided us with 4000+ items that were descriptive of modern ERP systems. We had a broad cross section of our campus, from VPs to clerical workers, use Advantiv’s DecisionDirector platform to identify what they thought a new system ought to do, describe what they believed our current system would do, and separate the ‘it would be nice’ from ‘this is essential’.”

Larry Humm, Registrar and Student System Project Manager, State University of New York at Brockport

“I also just wanted to tell you that I love your company -- it's a great idea, it works incredibly well for both vendors and clients, and your support has been nothing but outstanding. Not that I like to respond to RFPs, of course, but your system makes it so much easier. I'm responding to one right now that's in a difficult format, and found myself wishing they had gone thru Advantiv!”

Jackie Gibson, Sr. HCM Product Consultant, PeopleSoft Education & Government

“Our goal was to find a tool for organizing and expediting the process of system requirements definition and Vendor Selection for a new student information system. Advantiv’s DecisionDirector and its related KnowledgePacks helped us to develop our functional requirements and business needs quickly and accurately. The responsive and highly knowledgeable staff at Advantiv allowed us to complete our project on time, within budget, and to the complete satisfaction of our System Acquisition Team. The entire process was highly informative and educational. Goal achieved!”

Chauncey Jackson, Program Manager, The University of Texas at Arlington