In continuation of our series of introductions of our new management hires, this week we spoke with Senior Vice President of Global Services, Lisa Betlem, to help you get to know her better.
Lisa has over twenty years of executive experience scaling services organizations for supply chain software companies. Previously, Lisa ran the global services organization for ModelN, Navis, Savi, and Extricity. Lisa has also worked as a Senior Production & Materials Planner and as a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Harris RF Communications where she helped drive their Sale and Operations Planning process. Lisa holds an MBA in Supply Chain Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology (where she completed her Master’s Thesis on “Demand Planning”) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Manufacturing Engineering. She and her husband reside in the hills above Silicon Valley where she serves as a volunteer Firefighter and Emergency Medic.
Q. Why did you choose to join Steelwedge?
Lisa: Supply chain, S&OP and IBP run through my blood and have been in my DNA for 30 years. Both my Bachelors degree (Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering with minor in Operations Research) and Masters thesis were all around Demand Planning and Demand and Supply matching. The first 10 years of my career were in manufacturing playing all types of roles that are significantly impacted by how well a company understands and executes integrated business planning. I have personally experienced poor planning as both a vendor and supplier and wanted to join Steelwedge, the leader in the market, in order to help solve this critical global issue.
Q. What business problems are customers solving everyday with the help of Steelwedge’s process consulting and technology?
Lisa: Our services and products are helping customers on many fronts. We offer business process definition and IBP roadmap planning sessions for newcomers to S&OP to help them plan and execute a people, process and technology roadmap that fits their business needs and challenges. We offer change management and extensive training options to help users of all levels understand the benefits of S&OP and how they fit into the journey and how important the movement is for their company and them personally. Our product suite is the icing on the cake that automates process, ensures data and decision security, provides real life scenarios and detailed analysis. Simply put, we provide timely and accurate information to make excellent decisions for the entire supply chain related to a company.
Q. You’ve focused on building a team comprised of consultants with real-world S&OP and IBP expertise. Why is this an important benefit for our customers?
Lisa: Our customers demand experience and excellence from every single services and support team member. Our goal must be to be one step ahead of our customers and partners and show them the way to mastering IBP. One step ahead means that we all understand S&OP and IBP and that we are keenly aware of all of the best practices already offered within Steelwedge’s products so we can keep the process, technology and change simple, yet extremely effective. If we can look, act, and speak the role of any customer user, we can lead them successfully through the journey of S&OP and IBP leadership.
Q. What steps has the Services team taken under your leadership to help Steelwedge customers realize faster time to value and greater ROI?
Lisa: Over the past year we have been focusing on simple and effective solutions with a crawl, walk, run project rollout methodology. We also now deliver with an iterative approach to get our solution and benefits in front of users as soon as possible. This allows for customers to understand the vision of S&OP, get some momentum and excitement built up with process and solutions definition and see the benefits early on with specific functions and/or business units. We also have solution design and project reviews as part of our standard operations that enable us to stay on track and get expected value to our customers as soon as possible.
Q. Steelwedge recently announced the launch of the Service Delivery Platform (SDP), what benefits can Steelwedge customers expect to realize from this new technology?
Lisa: Our customers and partners are very excited about the concept and first delivery of SDP this past August. SDP will allow and enable certified members to be able to perform changes and own project work that is currently only handled by our services and support team. By enabling customers and partners to be more self sufficient and creative with our product and its valuable reports, scenarios and dashboards, we can focus on providing critical strategic services, being our customer’s trusted advisor on S&OP and IBP and focusing on how we can be the robust but low cost solution for all industries for S&OP.
