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The Willow Group provides services that support our clients through problem/opportunity identification, solution definition, implementation planning and execution.  We are able to deliver through full project teams or strategic resources complementing your internal team. 

Consulting Services

Business Process Management Services

Marketing Services

E-mail or call us for more information on how our depth of experience and service offerings can help deliver results for your business.

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Entiera, the recognized leader in SaaS interactive enterprise marketing solutions and The Willow Group, a systems integrator with expertise in both financial services and database marketing, today announced that AGIA, a leading US affinity marketer, has chosen Entiera as both the marketing platform and enterprise marketing application to power their future marketing. The Willow Group, a strategic partner of Entiera, was selected as the systems integrator for this key initiative.

Entiera and The Willow Group were selected over seven other vendors because of Entiera's short implementation timeframe, comprehensive functions and features and dedicated support and commitment to success, and due to The Willow Group's track record of providing broad and deep professional services to the financial services industry.

AGIA wishes to extend its leading marketing capabilities by offering a single marketing platform that enables customer data integration, analytics, reporting, campaign management, and social media.

"We were impressed by the combined team of Entiera and The Willow Group," said Dag Von Ruden, chief marketing officer, AGIA. "They took the time to understand our needs and I believe they are committed to our success. The Entiera product was by far the strongest solution we looked at out of a very crowded field."

About Entiera

Entiera is the premier provider of the industry's first On Demand Marketing Platform. As a leading software-as-a-service marketing automation provider, Entiera dramatically improves the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing campaigns, all with lower total cost of ownership versus traditional marketing solutions. The comprehensive Entiera suite offers campaign management and automation; event-triggered marketing, and marketing resource management. Entiera was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Denver, CO with offices in Minneapolis, MN and Bangkok, Thailand.

About The Willow Group

The Willow Group is a professional services firm specializing in business consulting, project management, and business and information systems development and delivery. It focuses on delivering innovative solutions to leading organizations that want to increase revenues, improve processes, reduce risk, enter new markets, expand distribution channels and enhance customer value.

About AGIA

AGIA is an affinity marketing organization with over 50 years of unparalleled success building loyalty for its clients by creating, marketing and administering custom tailored insurance programs and services for associations, labor organizations and financial institutions. AGIA is headquartered in Carpinteria, CA with offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Washington D.C.

The Willow Group is a management and information technology consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients fully uncover and quantify opportunities and challenges and envision the best ways to meet their objectives.

We then partner with them to effectively plan and successfully drive strategic projects to increase revenues, improve processes, manage costs, reduce risk, quickly introduce new products and services, enhance shareholder value and/or better serve customers.

We are currently seeking experienced business analysts with knowledge of the brokerage, investment management, insurance, mortgage and/or asset securitization industries to join our team. Compliance, finance or product development experience is a plus.

Qualifications:

• 3+ years experience defining requirements for critical application systems
• Experience performing gap analysis and developing new processes and procedures
• Structured analysis, use case development and systems development methodology experience is required
• Testing and training experience is a plus

Please attach an electronic copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format and any accompanying documentation to the e-mail form that is generated by clicking Apply.

The Willow Group is seeking a business process analyst who has solid project experience and can provide leadership on business process management (BPM) projects. A primary responsibility will be working with our clients to document their as-is and to-be process models, and supporting their process improvement initiatives through the implementation of new process automation systems. Training will be provided on the process modeling tool.  This position will involve some travel.

• Experience as an analyst on cross functional, problem solving, process improvement teams, especially on a full-lifecycle project, requirements through implementation.
• Experience with process analysis and mapping through tools such as Blueworks (formerly Lombardi Blueprint), or Visio strongly desired. 
• 3+ years process mapping experience.
• Effective workshop facilitation skills is a strong requirement.
• Ability to develop a business case, or to help clients create the financial impact of process improvement initiatives, is a plus.
• High degree of self-motivation and professionalism.
• Ability to interface effectively with all levels of employees/management.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical/research skills required.
• Experience relating technology to business processes.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Strong interviewing and validation skills.
• Experience with formal test/QA methods and requirements traceability is a plus
• Experience with a BPM tool such as IBM Lombardi, PEGA, Savvion, etc. a plus

Please attach an electronic copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format and any accompanying documentation to the e-mail form that is generated by clicking Apply.

The Willow Group is seeking a programmer analyst who has solid programming experience and can provide leadership on business process management projects. A primary responsibility will be developing systems using IBM Lombardi (formerly Lombardi Teamworks).  This will include projects that improve an organization’s processes, operational efficiencies, and controls.  Actual project experience with IBM Lombardi is a must. This position will involve some travel.

The ideal candidate will have:

• Project experience with IBM Lombardi, through the full SDLC lifecycle.
• Experience working in an AGILE development methodology.
• 3-5 years of experience as a programmer/analyst using J2EE, Javascript, JSP, XML, XSLT for web-based projects.
• Experience relating technology to business processes.
• Experience with process analysis and mapping through tools such as Blueworks (formerly Lombardi Blueprint), or Visio a plus.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Software demonstration and pre-sales experience.
• Strong interviewing and validation skills.

Please attach an electronic copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format and any accompanying documentation to the e-mail form that is generated by clicking Apply.

We are currently seeking experienced project managers with knowledge of the brokerage, investment management, insurance, mortgage and/or asset securitization industries to join our team. Compliance, finance or product development experience is a plus.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years experience as a project manager
• Proven success leading development and/or integration/conversion projects
• Proven ability to communicate with senior information technology professionals and business management
• Strong leadership and organizational capabilities
• Experience using project management tools

Please attach an electronic copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format and any accompanying documentation to the e-mail form that is generated by clicking Apply.

Careers

When we invite you to join the Willow Group team, it's because we believe you can deliver what we need. And, we're just as confident that you'll get what you need from us. What more is there in a working relationship?

Investment in growth, above average rewards, and balance between work and personal life.

We appreciate both talent and experience. We're always looking for people with a sharp mind, questioning spirit, and depth of experience.

Apply Here

Please fill out the Willow Group electronic application form in its entirety and attach along with an electronic copy of your resume in Microsoft Word format and any accompanying documentation to the e-mail form that is generated by clicking Apply. Thank you for your interest in employment with the Willow Group.

Business Process Management Services

Announcementt

The Willow Group has achieved IBM SVI partnership status, the first legacy Lombardi partner in North America to accomplish this important objective. We continue to develop a strong alignment with the IBM WebSphere/BPM software teams, in order to build on our 12 years of excellence in business process improvement consulting services. These capabilities are now strengthened by our BPM solutions, aligning proven BPM best practices with the world-class IBM BPM software stack as the enabling technology. Read more about our solutions below.

Willow Group has a dedicated Business Process Management (BPM) practice that offers a unique set of services and solutions. We work with our clients to build a multi-faceted BPM strategy that supports comprehensive adoption. A key part of BPM is an effective technology layer with tools for business users and IT to build, execute, and manage business processes. But ultimately, it is a holistic management method to:

• Align business processes with business value

• Enable business ownership of process design, business rule definition and key metrics

• Allow for both simulation and real-time monitoring of process execution

• Support fast adoption of new and improved processes

• Decrease time-to-market for new products and services

We leverage our BPM Center of Excellence (CoE), partnerships with industry-leading BPM technology suites and our rich history of process design and Business Process Improvement (BPI) expertise to offer a comprehensive set of BPM solution offerings including:

• Needs assessment, solution recommendations and deployment planning for BPM within your organization

• BPM strategy development

  • Business management

  • Process management

  • Organizational design for BPM

  • Controls and metrics

  • BPM technology selection

  • Pilot program identification

• Training and enablement workshops on BPM best practices, governance and facilitation

• Workshop facilitation for your process discovery and analysis sessions

• Establishment of your own BPM Center of Excellence (CoE) by leveraging our research and organizational experience to your organization

• Migration of existing process documentation to BPM platforms through rapid transformation of your existing process maps

• BPM implementation from process definition and design through BPM tool automation.

Each of these discrete solutions provide unique value to your organization, or they can be folded together into a broader program for BPM success.

Partnerships

The Willow Group has partnered with Lombardi Software, a 2009 Leader for BPM Suites in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. In early 2010, IBM acquired Lombardi, and The Willow Group is now a BPM solution provider for IBM's world-class BPM Suite, including Lombardi Blueprint and IBM WebSphere Lombardi Edition (formerly Teamworks). The IBM Suite also includes WebSphere Process Server, ILOG Business Rules Management System (BRMS) and FileNet for documentation centric BPM.

Business Process Management Services

In the News

The Willow Group's business partnership with IBM continues to grow and evolve.  We have just been authorized as an official reseller of the IBM Business Process Manager solution.  The combination of this authorization with our proven process improvement consulting services and our BPM adoption services allows us to bring a complete value-proposition to those organizations considering leveraging these tools and methods to affect real business change.

Check out our latest insights on BPM at our Blog:  http://twgblog.wordpress.com

 

Solutions

The Willow Group, a leading provider of business solutions and consulting services to the financial services and health care payer industries, has a dedicated Business Process Management (BPM) practice that offers a unique set of services and solutions. We work with our clients to build a multi-faceted BPM strategy that supports comprehensive adoption. A key part of BPM is an effective technology layer with tools for business users and IT to build, execute, and manage business processes. But ultimately, it is a holistic management method to:

• Align business processes with business value

• Enable business ownership of process design, business rule definition and key metrics

• Allow for both simulation and real-time monitoring of process execution

• Support fast adoption of new and improved processes

• Decrease time-to-market for new products and services

We leverage our BPM Center of Excellence (CoE), partnerships with industry-leading BPM technology suites and our rich history of process design and Business Process Improvement (BPI) expertise to offer a comprehensive set of BPM solution offerings including:

• BPM Readiness Assessment

• BPM Strategy

  • Business Case

  • Governance Model

  • Process Maturity

  • Organizational Impact

  • BPM Technology Selection

  • Pilot Program Identification

• BPM Enablement Workshops on BPM best practices, governance and facilitation

• Workshop facilitation (location independent) for your process discovery and documentation sessions

• Establishment of your own BPM Center of Excellence (CoE) by leveraging our research and organizational experience to your organization

• Migration of existing process documentation to BPM platforms through rapid transformation of your existing process models

• BPM implementation from process definition and design through BPM tool automation.

Each of these discrete solutions provide unique value to your organization, or they can be folded together into a broader program for BPM success.

Partnerships

The Willow Group is an authorized IBM Business Partner and Reseller in the WebSphere software portfolio, focused on the IBM BPM solution, which is a multi-year leader for BPM Suites in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Consulting Services

We are able to make a difference for your business by going past what and how, to understand why. This locks in the right approach to deliver an effective solution that is unique to your situation.  Our team combines skills unique to their roles as program/project managers, business analysts and data analysts along with specific industry knowledge, consulting know-how and project delivery experience.  The Willow Group has proven to be an effective partner in helping clients in a wide variety of engagements including:

• Strategic planning and strategy elaboration

• Organizational assessment and change leadership

• Business process improvement

• Business process management

• Package selection (RFI/RFP) process and implementation

• Full life cycle systems development and integration

• Product development and roll-out

• System conversions

• Center of Excellence development

• Project review

E-mail or call us for more information on how we can partner with you to deliver the results you need.

Marketing Services

What Would It Mean To Your Business If...

• You could reduce cost while increasing the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns?

• You could significantly increase "foot traffic" real or virtual to your local markets?

• You could drive search results to prominently display your company's primary website?

• You could reduce payment cycle times and improve customer service while driving down costs of doing business?

• You had a crystal ball that told each of your sales representatives which customers or prospects they should call today and what to sell them?

The Willow Group can work with you to realize these objectives.

Our Approach

We ask...we listen...we analyze...we share...we confirm. Collaboration is the key. Though we come with ideas, The Willow Group's consultative approach never takes anything for granted. We want to fully understand your specific challenges and opportunities while also bringing you fresh insights and best practices.

Software as a Service Business Solutions

In this economic environment, perhaps more than ever before, businesses have to do more with less. Leveraging Software as a Service can help. For this reason, The Willow Group has partnered with innovative providers to offer a suite of solutions that can be rapidly and economically deployed to support a broad variety of customer communication management and marketing needs.

Leroy G. Thydean, President & Chief Executive Officer
Leroy Thydean has overall management responsibility for the Willow Group, Inc. Thydean formed the Willow Group in 1998 with James Brownell and Barbara Gurstelle to provide high-caliber, project-oriented consulting services to selected industries. Prior to starting the Willow Group, Thydean served as a principal consultant at Price Waterhouse LLP and as a senior consultant at Cytrol, Inc., where he focused on leading business and information systems projects for firms in the financial services industry. Previous to this, Thydean worked as an information systems professional for Sperry Univac, Republic Airlines and Northwest Airlines. Thydean is a past vice president of programs, Minnesota Chapter of the Project Management Institute and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Barbara J. Gurstelle, Senior Vice President, Consulting Services
Barbara Gurstelle has primary responsibility for practice development for the Willow Group. She also provides cross-industry research, strategic planning and business analysis consulting services to clients. Before joining the Willow Group, Gurstelle was a member of the Investment Management and Securities Operations practice at Price Waterhouse LLP. Previous to this, she supported communications, research and business development for Cytrol, Inc. She began her career within the promotions department of KSTP-TV, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Gurstelle has a bachelor's degree in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Right People

 The Right People means consultants that have—

• achieved, on average, over 15 years of relevant experience 

• gained deep industry knowledge from multiple projects and/or hands-on operational or management roles

• proven capabilities in the skills necessary to deliver projects

• continued to upgrade their training and worked to earn relevant designations and certifications

• demonstrated their value as consultants, not simply contractors

The Right Approach



The Right Approach means The Willow Group is a firm that—

• partners with clients to not just articulate, but validate, project goals and objectives and to reach common understanding and agreement among stakeholders

• brings innovative solutions to the table

• leverages templates and tools to enhance productivity

• understands how to structure projects and break down work to get it done most effectively even in challenging circumstances

• builds teams with the right skills and experiences to complement our client’s resources right-sizes and uses methodologies to ensure quality in project delivery rather than simply to follow protocol

The Right Results

The Right Results means we have —

• kept lines of communications open and delivered both the good news and the bad so there were no surprises

• managed requirements to agreed on scope and delivered what the stakeholders needed on a timely basis

• been creative in issue and risk management and problem resolution

• transferred knowledge to  the client

• provided true value to our clients for the investments they have made in our services

Provide value in partnership with our clients
The driving force behind The Willow Group is the desire to do exceptionally good work…work that is important to our clients and well executed by our team.

• To form effective project teams, we work to combine our strengths and talents with those of our clients.

• Open communication is always promoted, and so knowledge transfer is designed to naturally be an important part of the process.

• We strive to develop ongoing relationships with our clients, thereby understanding their emerging objectives and anticipating solutions they will need next.

Nurture talent to expand experience and knowledge
The success of any business depends on its people. We appreciate both talent and experience. We recognize that a sharp mind, questioning spirit and inventive intellect can contribute significantly to any endeavor. We also know that hands-on, in-depth experience in technology, business operations and management or project leadership is invaluable. We look for both.

Balance work and personal life
As professionals we view work as more than a job–yet we also know that work is only one aspect of the multi-faceted lives we all lead. As consultants we are often brought in to situations that are pressure driven. This makes it even more important for us to balance our assignments, respect our other obligations, be creative in working environments, and work as a team to provide the support each individual needs to be successful.

We are just as passionate about finding the right solutions for your business as you are. This passion, and our ability to make great successes out of great challenges make us the right partner for meeting your needs.

A deep understanding of your industry or functional area provides the insight needed for a more successful outcome. The Willow Group delivers consulting services ranging from strategy development to process improvement and management to systems selection and integration for firms in selected vertical industries. We also support professionals in key functional areas across industry segments.

Vertical Industry Specialization

• Brokerage – Retail and Institutional

• Asset Management – Mutual Funds, Insurance General Accounts, Separate Accounts, Hedge Funds, Pensions, Foundations and Endowments

• Insurance – Life, Health, Property/Casualty, Pharmacy Benefit Management

• Trust – Personal, Corporate, Institutional

• Retirement Services

• Investment Advisory

• Retail and Commercial Banking

• Mortgage

• Payors

• Providers

• Airlines

• Cruise Lines

• Tour Operators

• Marketing

• Finance

• Treasury

About Us

The Willow Group is a management and information technology consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients fully uncover and quantify opportunities and challenges and envision the best ways to meet their objectives.

We then partner with them to effectively plan and successfully drive strategic projects to increase revenues, improve processes, manage costs, reduce risk,  quickly introduce new products and services, enhance shareholder value and/or better serve customers.

• Founded in 1998

• Vertical industry specializations

  • Financial Services  

  • Health Care  

  • Travel & Leisure

• Cross-industry solutions 

  • Business Process Modeling and Management

  • Secure eDocument Delivery & eBilling

  • Marketing Campaign Management

  • Microsite Management

  • Salesforce Optimization

• Team of seasoned consultants

  • Business experts and strategists

  • Program/project managers

  • Business Analysts

Travel and Leisure

The Willow Group has a long history of serving the travel and leisure industry, including the airlines, tour operators and travel marketing agencies. Economic pressures and the changing technological landscape are challenging and providing new opportunities for our clients. More than ever, those competing in the travel and leisure industry must do more with less and be smarter than ever in finding the right client at the right time with the right offer. 

In addition to traditional project/program management, business analysis, system implementations and process engineering work, The Willow Group is able to provide a closed loop marketing system or components that are missing or obsolete in an existing marketing environment. Our travel and leisure clients can capitalize on these solutions to address these challenges and opportunities including implementing the following solutions:

Campaign Management

Our platform will generate and capture communication across all interactive channels and manage campaigns to achieve greater marketing return on investment. For our service we partner with the market leader in interactive Enterprise Marketing Management (iEMM), Entiera.

Microsites

Our microsites allow you to drive and control messaging to market segments that increase effectiveness of branding efforts and improve search performance, leveraging ClickWrite, a Loudclick offering.

Market Data Analysis & Insight

Our Marketing Services team can help you uncover hidden opportunities to understand who to contact, when to contact them and what to sell customers using profiling tools.

E-mail or call us for more information on how we can deliver solutions to support you in these critical areas.

Health Care Industry

Today, Health Care is on everyone's minds. Whether you are a payor, a provider or a consumer of health care services it is clear that changes must be made to our overall system to ensure quality care and positive outcomes while containing costs.

We believe some of the key concepts that will help move the system to greater affordability, accessibility and effectiveness are:

• Operational optimization – Though some observers believe that payors and providers have already taken the fat out of operations, we believe there are still significant opportunities for process improvement in almost all organizations. The Willow Group takes a collaborative approach to working with all stakeholders to quickly understand and document the current state; identify key issues, opportunities and risks; perform analysis; and solve problems in process areas that need to be optimized to provide greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and control.

• Wellness coaching, disease management and case management – Working to prevent disease or mitigate the effects of a chronic condition is an effective approach to cost containment in the health care industry. It is also a compassionate approach to lessening suffering in our communities. Improved methods for disease and case management are critical for better patient outcomes. To do this well, requires ways to effectively connect a complex web of consumers, caregivers (clinics, hospitals, social agencies–governmental and non-governmental, family, etc.) and payors. To support this, The Willow Group is focusing on delivering innovative solutions that capture more data at the source and provide better transparency into processes. These approaches provide researchers and providers with information needed for adjusting therapies and evolving more effective protocols and supports payors and providers in better serving the health care consumer.

• Consumer service and empowerment – In recent years, consumer-driven health plans have been promoted as a means to combat the twin problems of decreasing coverage and increasing costs in the US health care delivery system. The efficacy of this approach is still being hotly debated. However, The Willow Group does believe that consumer empowerment that goes beyond the ability to make choices regarding health plans to adopting practices that support such things as the maintenance of personal health records, transmitting data from homes, and performing some caregiver visits over the phone or via live video will make a difference in positive outcomes and ultimately reduce costs.

E-mail or call us for more information on how we can deliver solutions to support you in these critical areas.

Financial Services

A deep understanding of your industry provides the insight needed for a more successful outcome.

The Willow Group supports financial services clients in a broad range of business areas including securities brokerage, investment management, trust, banking, and insurance.

• For a financial services firm's brokerage unit, we performed an assessment, conducted an RFI/RFP process, recommended a strategic direction and platform, and planned and led a front, middle and back office systems conversion that affected all operations of the brokerage unit. The project moved the client from growth restricting internal systems to a scalable service bureau platform that allowed the client to move to a new business model. To enable the client to continue to effectively run its day to day business operations while undertaking this significant program, we formed a team of seasoned consultants to plan, lead and execute the effort. Our team provided overall program direction, business and technical program management, business and process analysis, operational data store design and development and training planning and support. This effort was budgeted for $12 million and we delivered for $10.5 million.
  
  
• The asset management division of one of the top 10 banking companies in the United States wanted to reduce risk by implementing a more robust pre-trade compliance checking process within its trading operations group. The Willow Group worked with the group to analyze needs and then recommended an approach and potential solutions. In order to reach the division's objectives regarding compliance control comprehensively and effectively, internal processes needed to be redesigned and new automated systems were required to support not only pre-trade compliance, but trade order management and portfolio management functions for the fixed income and equity desks. The Willow Group led the Request for Proposal process to select the new systems and worked with the project owners to develop a business case to successfully secure funding from the bank's capital expenditure review board. We then drove the implementation project which included systems conversions, new automation and process and procedure changes by providing overall project management and business analysis support. With the new systems and procedures in place, the group was able to expedite portfolio compliance checking and effectively control a streamlined order management process.
  
  
• The US securities brokerage, investment banking and asset management subsidiaries of an international financial services organization undertook a challenging program to re-organize two broker/dealers and convert to common broker desktop, trading and back office systems. Early in the planning, the brokerage operations group was identified as the area that would be most affected by this program. The Willow Group partnered with the brokerage operations group throughout this multi-year effort to provide key support that reduced program risk, increased the effectiveness of the group's participation in the program and allowed the group to run their business with the least possible disruption and lead critical organizational change.
  
  To reduce risk, we instituted strong project management disciplines and cultivated appropriate communications vehicles to ensure accurate information was available on a timely basis to key decision makers. We established standards for process development and documentation that allowed team members to get up to speed quickly. To let the operations staff focus on daily operations, we organized our team by business area, assigning consultants with strong technical skills in the business analyst role (requirements gathering and management, process improvement, procedure writing, user test case development, etc.) who also had specialized industry knowledge that allowed them to understand the objectives and issues of their business counterparts. This way, our team could engage the stakeholders and effectively manage their involvement, while taking on responsibility for creating and gaining approval for all deliverables.
  
  The Willow Group had responsibility for a $32 million budget, the largest single allocation of the overall program. Besides driving the back office conversion, which included business process redesign, vendor systems requirements management, legacy systems integration and user acceptance testing, The Willow Group had key roles in initiatives to combine the chart of accounts for the two broker/dealers, and to consolidate and move fixed income trading and trade clearance and settlement operations to New York.