Engage Key Customers and Move Your Business Forward

Customer Advisory Boards and Customer Councils bring together highly select groups of key stakeholders to test and validate the core strategies, values and products of your organization.  Farland Group’s Advisory Boards have been recognized for enabling new lines of service, validating core assumptions, enabling organizational change and delivering extended relationships that result in new sources of revenue.  Our clients find that our role as a neutral third party gives us the critical ability to listen without bias and creates an environment where Customer Advisory Board members openly share their advice without concern of being sold to or of risking negative association.

Farland Group’s depth of experience and unique methodology identifies and engages those participants who share a commitment to help your business advance.  Customers that join an Advisory Boards must be dedicated to working with you on difficult business and product challenges, helping you identify and validate critical success factors such as business strategy and future product direction.  Farland Advisory Boards have  a 95% retention rate and an 88% participation rate, making the meetings and the ongoing connections more meaningful for our client and their customers.

Successful Advisory Boards are built upon a strong foundation of trust and a shared vision that often lead to:

• Increased Accountability for your business and your commitment to your customers
• Insight into new approaches that will benefit both you and your customers
• Alignment around new perspectives and business processes that ensure mutual success

Creating reciprocal value – a shared agenda for business advancement

In December 2009, IBM brought forward its strategy to define a new line of business called Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO).  Their strategy was to develop a new market category that was broader than the traditional definitions of Business Intelligence and incorporated the important consultative approaches that would deliver change to organizations and establish business analytics as a critical core competency for businesses looking to stay ahead of their competition.

To help IBM advance this strategy and gain traction with the marketplace of potential buyers, they worked with Farland Group to develop the Business Analytics and Optimization Advisory Council.  This Council, comprised of business analytics leaders from across IBM’s client base, continues to meet on a quarterly basis and has been instrumental in helping IBM to establish this critical line of business.  Today IBM’s BAO practice is one of its largest growth engines and its customer Advisory Council is credited with helping IBM to establish the right strategies and approaches to win in the market.