Case Studies View by Industry

Project Leadership Associates helps client with business process re-engineering
As part of a financial systems upgrade project, PLA performed a comprehensive financial process review. We identified financial and operational recommendations allowing the company to save millions from its bottom line.

• Project Leadership Associates assists local areaHospital with Microsoft Windows and Exchange Upgrade
  PLA architected and migrated a leading Chicago Children’s Hospital from NT 4.0 and Exchange 5.5 to Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003 for approximately 7,000 user accounts and 5,000 mailboxes. PLA lead the hospital through our Exchange 2003 Rapid Deployment Methodology consisting of an enterprise design, proof-of-concept and full scale deployment.

• Project Leadership Associates migrates client from POP3 messaging platform
  Designed and deployed a new Microsoft Windows 2000 Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange 2000 infrastructure. This project included a migration from six Microsoft Windows NT domains and a mail migration from Seattle Mail, a proprietary POP3 email server. This migration consisted of approximately 1,500 users. To provide scalable network storage a XIOTech Magnitude was deployed to provide Storage Area Networking (SAN) for the Microsoft Exchange 2000 server and file/print services.

Project Leadership Associates helps Pharmaceutical Company with Lotus Notes to Exchange 2003 Migration
PLA lead the design, development and migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Outlook for over 900 associates. This included leading a migration team of nine around the clock to migrate all data and clients within four weeks. The PLA and client team executed a well planned three day migration of 250 field sales representatives’ laptops during their quarterly sales meeting.

Project Leadership Associates helps organization with infrastructure upgrade for over 1,700 users
PLA lead a migration of one of the nations’ industry-leading food and dining organizations, providing leadership and deployment experience for a full scale deployment of Microsoft Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 and ISA 2000 for 65 branch locations and over 1,700 users. Users were migrated from a distributed Netscape mail platform that required over seven nationally placed servers. The solution recommended and deployed by PLA consolidated these servers to the Chicago based data center and eliminated the need for five messaging servers.

• Project Leadership Associates manages infrastructure replacement project for area law firm
  PLA successfully managed a year long, complex infrastructure replacement project for a large US law firm. The project met the agreed cost and timeline. PLA coordinated client and 3rd party vendor project team resources.

• Project Leadership Associates assists large law firm in new business/client intake project
  PLA has assisted several of the world's largest law firms in efforts to revamp new business/client intake strategy, process, technology and organization. PLA completed opportunity assessments followed by conceptual design recommendation projects that outlined and delivered a robust analysis to make the case for change across the multitude of business intake components unique to the law firm environment. PLA was further engaged by several firms to program, manage and also leverage its subject matter expertise in implementing the solution set - typically a 9 to 15 month effort, including 12-16 sub-projects that resulted in significant policy change, process re-engineering, workflow technology deployment as well as significant organization change.  PLA was engaged and either led or provided stewardship in each component of the implementation effort.  The firms recognized the benefits of reduced risk, improved decision making, higher efficiency, improved client service and reduced or stabilized insurance premiums and improved client profitability.

• Project Leadership Associates develops business continuity and disaster recovery program 
  PLA has assisted several large and medium law firms and corporations in developing comprehensive business focused business continuity/disaster recovery programs. During these projects, PLA managed across both its management consulting and network integration practice groups to deliver business level strategies, priorities, processes and plans as well as technology solutions to support the plans.  PLA developed the plans, organization, developed the test approach and test cases and completed desktop testing of the plan. PLA led both the development of the business continuity programs as well as the execution and refinement of the testing processes.

• Project Leadership Associates helps client develop and execute IT Strategy
  PLA assisted client executive and IT management to derive technology goals from the business strategy. The joint team developed the client’s IT strategy and goals and then developed the implementation plan and budget to execute the plan.

• Project Leadership Associates leads Novell GroupWise to Exchange 2003 Migration
  PLA lead this project consisting of a migration from Novell GroupWise to Exchange 2003. Over 700 mailboxes, resources and foreign objects were migrated seamlessly from three geographically distributed GroupWise servers to a centralized Exchange server deployment. The requirements for this project were to provide interoperability between the two systems and to migrate all data including address books and GroupWise archives.

• Project Leadership Associates leads client through Rapid Deploy for Exchange 2003
  PLA lead both the Windows 2003 Active Directory upgrade and the Exchange 2003 upgrade. PLA lead the client through our Exchange 2003 Rapid Deployment methodology providing them with an enterprise design, assisted them through the proof-of-concept and provided subject matter expertise through the deployment. The deployment was completed for both national and international locations.

Project Leadership Associates provides architecture and deployment plan for Microsoft AD and Exchange project
PLA provided architecture and deployed a new Active Directory and Exchange infrastructure to better meet the business needs of the company. This includes 600 users across five locations. The project included an inter-forest migration of Active Directory objects, a domain migration for all servers and clients, and an inter-organizational migration for Exchange. PLA recommended and used Quest’s Migration Manager to complete this complex project.

• Project Leadership Associates assists international manufacturer with complete information systems implementation
  Project Leadership Associates prepared an information systems plan, documented the company’s business requirements, evaluated and assisted with the selection of an integrated manufacturing and financial system, negotiated the contracts and managed the implementation of the system for an international manufacturer and distributor of food service equipment.

• Project Leadership Associates manages strategic information systems project from beginning to end
  Project Leadership Associates managed and performed a series of projects for a distributor of corrugated boxes and packaging good. The projects included the development of a strategic information systems plan, preparation for request for proposal, evaluated the responses to the request for proposals, selected the vendors, negotiated the contracts and managed the implementation of the complete distribution and financial system.

• Project Leadership Associates designs new manufacturing and distribution system
  Project Leadership Associates helped a plastics manufacturer prepare a corporate reorganization and assisted in the implementation of the new corporate structure. Additionally, we designed a new manufacturing and distribution system for this multi-plant organization.

Project Leadership Associates leads turnaround project for cost recovery systems manufacturer
Project Leadership Associates re-engineered and led the turnaround of a manufacturer and software developer of cost recovery systems. We managed the information systems planning process, the implementation of a corporate-wide information system and directed the outsourcing of the manufacturing segment of the business.

• Project Leadership Associates implements Project Management Office (PMO)
  PLA designed, developed and implemented a Program Management Office organization, processes and technologies for a large, international, professional services firm to contracted specifications, meeting both budgetary and deliverable goals.

• Project Leadership Associates conducts Project and Budget Review
  PLA defined a comprehensive budget approval process and templates for a large, 100 location, international corporation. PLA managed the budgeting process and worked with the client to present a technology budget that was approved without alteration.

• Project Leadership Associates helps client with organization design and change management process
  PLA analyzed needs and defined target technology organization goals, structure and processes for a global client. PLA directed deployment of the new organization. Results included improved delivery and communication, enhanced efficiency, improved morale and focus.

• Project Leadership Associates leads Novell GroupWise to Exchange 2003 Migration
  PLA provided a project manager and lead consultant for the Windows 2003 Active Directory and Exchange 2003 design and migration project. PLA architected and provided a direct lead support role for the migration of 5,500 associates from Novell GroupWise to Exchange 2003.

• Project Leadership Associates leads client through Rapid Deploy for Exchange 2003
  PLA lead a migration of 1,500 users from NetSys MEMO (host e-mail system) to Exchange 2003 for a leading retail hardware distributor. The migration required interoperability between the two systems and custom script solutions were developed to migrate all e-mail, address books and archived data. PLA lead the customer through our Rapid Deploy solution and deployed an Exchange 2003 cluster to provide the firm with high-availability.