An Interview with Marc L Daniels, ResultsBI CEO: ‘Using Business Intelligence Combined with Natural Language Generation, Our Platform Provides More than Just Dashboards’

“Our platform embodies the knowledge of hundreds of consultants.”

ResultsBI is a company that provides the world’s leading business management platform.

The company was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. It has a North American office located in Massachusetts, USA.

Marc L Daniels, ResultsBI CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Explain your services in brief.

ResultsBI R5 Strategy Execution Compass is not just a Strategic Planning platform. You hear a lot about the importance of having a One-Page-Strategic Plan. And I don't care if it is one page or two pages or even more… you need a plan, it is essential. You have to know where you are going. If you do not have a strategy to get there you will never get there. Harvard Business School studies repeatedly show that 85 to 90 percent of companies fail at Strategy Execution. More than just a planning tool, ResultsBI has developed and will continue enhancing the R5 Execution Compass, planning tools but also components that drive Execution. The planning is the easy part whereas the Execution is the hard part.

The R5 component brings our clients through a logical cadence of a quarterly cycle:

• R1 – Plan: We guide you through the 15 components of assembling a Strategic Plan.
• R2 – Share: Add your executives and employees and share your Strategic Plan.
• R3 – Projects: Create quarterly Strategic Projects aligned with your Strategy.
• R4 – Execute: Using Integrated ∫ Meetings™ engage and hold your team accountable.
• R5 – Repeat: Review, what went right and where you fell short? Back to R1.

A simple process but it works!

Q. Expertise is the first and most significant advantage of the right business consultant. How do you source the right talents to maintain the quality of your expertise?

Great question! First, I have had some incredible mentors over the last five decades; they have been my best teachers/consultants. Looking back at these mentors, they have all been in the trenches, they have all made mistakes, they have learned from their mistakes, and most importantly, they have been willing to share their mistake-based learnings with me.

To source the right talents, you should find people who have been in the trenches, made mistakes, and/or even experienced failure.

Further, on this question; the ResultsBI platform embodies the learnings of hundreds of consultants. The R5 Strategic Planning Compass utilizes best-practice planning methodologies detailed in such best-selling books such as Rockefeller Habits, Scaling-Up, Traction, and Measure What Matters.

Whether our clients are working with a business consultant or not, they benefit from a platform that is a blend of the Best Consulting practices in the world. Using BI (Business Intelligence) combined with NLG (Natural Language Generation), our platform provides more than just dashboards. We equip companies with well-articulated guidance as if you were working with an actual in person consultant.

Q. Is it important to break the myopic view to remain unbiased and stay focused on objectives to devise an effective strategic plan?

Yes, at the end of every quarter, you need to step back from your quarterly objectives and recalibrate. Our world is changing at lightning speed; it is essential to perform PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis every quarter. Additionally, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis may seem excessive, but it is not. In this day and age, we need to make course corrections much more frequently. An important case in point: out of 8,000 of our clients, not even one listed the word “pandemic” as a threat.

Q. How do you contribute to multiplying productivity/profits?

I run a weekly live Fast Track Challenge to guide companies to develop a Strategic Plan using the ResultsBI platform; five days, an hour per day of coaching by me. (visit: FastTrack.International)

Q. Consultants do not come with guarantees, so there is always a possibility that you might not achieve the results you had planned when you had hired them irrespective of the cost. How can businesses overcome this uncertainty?

To be clear, ResultsBI is not and should not be perceived as a consulting company. In actuality, we work with hundreds of coaches all around the world providing the platform to house the Strategic Plan. More importantly the coaches we work with enjoy strong client retention as their clients are more likely to be successful in the execution of the plan.

Q. Strategic business consulting and planning is the process of creating a set of offensive and defensive business maneuvers designed to increase and keep a competitive advantage over your competition. How do help businesses stay ahead of the curve?

Execution and planning is the easy part. To help businesses stay ahead of the curve, you need to provide Execution tools such as a) Visibility PowerBI Dashboards to provide clear insight and tracking of your Key Performance Indicators. b) Quarterly Strategic Project Tracking to track your progress and related tasks. 3) Integrated ∫ Meetings™; Integrated Meetings are by far the most important element. Every meeting is integrated with data providing visibility to the plan where you started, where you are currently,  and where you are going. In the meeting, you engage your staff, identify issues/blockages, create accountability, and ultimately drive execution.

We provide a platform that provides the functionality of quarterly strategic reviews. Our platform includes a Five Competitive Forces Analysis (Competitors, New Entrants, Substitutes, Suppliers, and Customers). This is key to our clients ability to maintain a competitive advantage over their competition. In the ResultsBI platform, we have combined both the PEST that I mentioned earlier and the Five Competitive Forces Analysis into one simplistic survey.

Q. How do you deal with the ‘never-ending change’ in digital transformation?

To deal with digital transformation, you have to make authentic human connections with your customers. Unlike Siri or Alexa, the feedback your application provides is clear articulation as if it was an actual human consultant writing or speaking. Our human aspect is accomplished with AI, leveraged with NLG in the ResultsBI platform. We use Arria.com, a leading-edge advanced NLG technology. CEOs do not get meaningless Siri/Alexa like notifications on our mobile app; instead, they get clearly articulated guidance based on their real-time data, communicated with the detail they need, and, most importantly, only as requested.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We plan to continue to innovate Strategic Planning and Execution. As the product is named the “Strategy Execution Compass”, it should serve CEOs and Executives as a “Compass” to help guide them and accelerate Execution. Our software development efforts are focused on features that make Strategy Execution easier. In our next release, we are adding an alignment component that promotes awareness of the company’s core values as well and generates statistics on individual employment alignment as it pertains to the core values. Core values are an essential foundational component of strategic planning.

Additionally, In January, I am releasing my book, "EXECUTE". While the first half of the book steps you through proper Strategic Planning, the second half focuses on the Execution. There are many books and articles about planning, but Execution is the hard part. This book will provide executives with guidance and tips on how to EXECUTE. The Strategic Plan is crucial, but to execute the strategy is worth millions.

Q. What are your trajectories for the next five years?

We presently have clients in 16 countries. We will continue to focus on growth in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. By 2025 our BHAG “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” is to have helped over 200,000 companies assemble and execute a strategic plan. We are well on our way to becoming the leading platform in Strategic Planning and Execution.

“In this day and age, we need to make course corrections much more frequently, a case in point; out of 8,000 of our clients, not even one listed the word “pandemic” as a threat.”

Get In Touch:

resultsbi.com