Renovating a Defence Company

In the ever-evolving business world, companies must stay ahead of the curve by adopting the latest technology and tools. This is particularly important in the defense industry, where innovation and efficiency are key to success. In this blog post, we'll take a look at how Pathfinder Solutions Group transformed a 48-year-old defense company with a complete top-to-bottom renovation, including the integration of Salesforce, Bamboo HR, SmartRecruiter, DocuSign, and Cisco Webex over a two-year period.

Renovation Process

The engagement Pathfinder Solutions Group led with the President of the organization began first with establishing the vision of the transformation, obtaining approval and subsequently communicating this vision to management and their staff across Canada which included a roadshow to all locations. Work then began to map out a concept of operations which subsequently led to business process mapping of every major process in the company. This baseline then allowed Pathfinder Solutions Group to work with stakeholders to map out the desired future state of each process. With that set work began to define the requirements for each operational area, perform market research, vendor evaluation and selection and of then the major undertaking - the implementation of five new systems simultaneously including the required change management.

Salesforce was integrated into (revamped) the company's sales process to provide sales teams with a centralized platform for managing customer relationships and tracking sales opportunities. Bamboo HR was deployed as the HR management system, giving HR teams a centralized platform to manage employee information, benefits, and performance tracking.

SmartRecruiter was used to streamline the company's recruitment process, making hiring faster and more efficient. DocuSign was integrated into the contract management process, providing a secure and efficient way to sign and manage contracts electronically. Finally, Cisco Webex was introduced as the company's video conferencing solution, allowing employees to collaborate and communicate with ease.

The combination of SmartRecruiter, Bamboo HR and Salesforce significantly streamlined internal workflows and enabled for the first time a candidate managed onboarding process that previously involved no less than eight steps and in the end over 200 pages of administrative and contract documentation The hiring process in particular introduced electronic approvals which dramatically reduced the time to hire and virtually eliminated internal bottlenecks.

The results of the renovation were substantial. By integrating these new tools and streamlining processes, the defense company improved efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability. The numerous spreadsheets and whiteboard-style reporting were made redundant, allowing for a more streamlined and efficient workflow in every operational group. This transformation positioned the company for acquisition, which was subsequently the outcome, opening up new markets, customers, and technologies for the defense company to expand and grow. One of the unanticipated benefits of the full implementation was the ability to work and collaborate remotely without the need for traditional paperwork. This was completed with fortunate timing just before we were all impacted by the pandemic.