Enterprise Solution Providers
Driving Agility in Consonance with Business Orientation

Enterprises across banking, healthcare, and engineering sectors are adopting Agile methodology to improve a product’s time to market (TTM). The return on adoption, however, largely depends on an enterprise’s readiness for cultural change that includes adherence to short feedback loops and continuous improvement. This disproves the viability of a one-size-fits-all approach that can make the desired transformational impact.

This is where Enterprise Solution Providers (ESP) comes in, with its consultative approach to turn Agile adoption into Agile transformation. The consulting firm begins every engagement by assessing the current circumstances of a company and designs an approach that is appropriate for their appetite, ability and need for change.

“Our team does not comprise just coaches or scrum masters. All our practitioners are well-versed in the various aspects of and approaches to Agile. Instead of advocating a textbook approach, we work with clients to dig into their reasons for pursuing Agile and design a plan that speaks directly to them,” says Sarah Elliott, CEO at ESP. “We pull from best practices learned over decades of working with clients to recommend a comprehensive approach, broken into smaller achievable milestones that demonstrate progress.” ESP helps clients get the most out of their previous investments in the framework of people, process, and technology (PPT).

"All of our practitioners are well versed in the various aspects of and approaches to Agile. Instead of advocating a textbook approach, we work with clients to dig into their reason for pursuing Agile and design a plan that speaks directly to them"

“We make it a priority to hire experienced resources with financial services DNA who understand how our clients’ firms operate and can deliver on a fixed price guarantee basis. The idea is to be the execution arm and do the heavy lifting, to compete with big tech firms,” says Joseph Alfieri, founder of Enterprise Solution Providers. The company also helps clients fill permanent positions and provides contract-based daily labor to help with day-to-day workloads.

Hands-on Experience

ESP, a boutique consulting company, employs professionals with hands-on client experience from an array of Fortune 500 companies, which are demanding and highly regulated.

These industry veterans understand the challenges business and technology leaders face every day and can help them navigate the way forward. Leveraging their expertise, they understand a clients’ key business drivers and meticulously map out strategies via OKR frameworks for major outcomes, where the deliverables are managed through customized KPI frameworks. Whether it requires interaction with business leaders from a product perspective or with the technology and operations teams, ESP looks at Agile from a client-centric perspective to break down business silos and generate tangible value from every implementation.

ESP begins most engagements with a tailored, rapid assessment to gauge where clients are in their Agile journey and help them articulate where they want to go. This includes looking at the business drivers behind Agile adoption and charting a path to reach their goals, executing through a phased implementation plan to help clients meet their business objectives at an acceptable pace. They also look at the tools that are in use, ensuring they are properly configured to support the planned environment. ESP considers staff competencies, characteristics, and physical locations to be sure teams are well-designed to execute the strategy.

Our team does not comprise just coaches or scrum masters. All our practitioners are well-versed in the various aspects of and approaches to Agile

“We devised our in-house hybrid approach to Agile transformation by conducting studies from enterprise and executive level to the team level. We follow a top-down and bottom-up approach, which helps clients choose where they want to position themselves on the Agile transformation curve,” says Vladimir Breygin, director of delivery at ESP. Valuing the customer-centricity of its clients, ESP catalyzes the Agile transformation without interfering with the daily workflows of a client’s business operations.

The company acts as a true change agent that helps firms become more agile without disrupting their day-to-day business.

A Completely Hybrid Approach

Agnostic to methodologies, ESP advocates a hybrid approach which incorporates multiple methodologies, including their in-house development strategy. In this way they bring the benefits of agility to all organizations, and not just those that are set up to operate like a technology company. It designs an architecture to achieve organizational agility, with visibility into all levels of the organization. With a target operating model formed, ESP then works to align business and technology sides of the organization.

ESP creates comprehensive operating models which address roles and responsibilities, to ensure all team members are ready for lasting change. Processes are contextualized and often redesigned to make them agile-driven. As needed, coaching and training are provided so individuals understand how to serve as productive members of an Agile program. This includes not only team members, but also the organization’s leadership, who are responsible for delivering transformation. Key to their ability to achieve change is ESP’s mentoring program, where ESP professionals take the lead on execution while full-time employees shadow them to observe best practices and comprehend the nuances.

Proven Expertise

One of ESP’s most successful engagements was with a large financial institution that had employed one of the big four consulting firms to design an Agile approach for a challenging transformation. What was developed was pragmatically unachievable. ESP was engaged to provide clarity around what could realistically be accomplished, designing a strategic roadmap and charting the fundamental changes needed to move forward. ESP was at the helm of the centralized transformation and also embedded within the business areas, helping them to revisit Agile from the ground up. Initially four major verticals were successfully transformed; the approach was later expanded into other verticals.

ESP has carved a niche in the Agile consulting domain with its appealing price point and highly experienced team. Having executed numerous large-scale enterprise transformations, the company has earned a reputation for empowering executives and their teams with the skills needed to work in a truly agile way.. While not limited to Agile services, agility is an integral part of ESP’s internal work culture. In response to market needs, ESP’s future plans include leveraging their Agile change management, custom development, implementation and training experience to help businesses that are just beginning their Agile journey.