Clarizen Manages Business Processes and Saves Time for BOOST Rewards

BOOST Rewards™ (BOOST) is a web-based, integrated platform for tracking and rewarding employee performance, wellness and retention. The company offers online point-based programs that allow organizations flexibility in how they reward themselves. BOOST, which is a business division of Shumsky Enterprises (Shumsky), is backed by an integrated partnership with the Internet’s largest retailer, Amazon.com.

Shumsky, headquartered in Dayton, OH, is comprised of four businesses located across five states to service national and global clients. Their work is focused on people performance, the value of human capital and the critical nature of great business relationships. The Shumsky mission is to enhance the nature and scope of human relationships through world-class direct marketing, recognition programs and events management practices.

Because Shumsky is so focused on helping companies create, nurture and maintain relationships, it is extremely important that all of its businesses and employees place value on doing so with its own clients. For this reason, BOOST uses Clarizen’s online project management solution to streamline how they work as individuals and as a team. Operating their online incentive program requires perfect execution of each step of the process, involving communication with their customer, Amazon and among themselves. If the process is not smooth, the company risks losing the business relationships they value so much with their customers, therefore affecting the customers’ relationships with their employees.

Currently, 12 people use Clarizen within BOOST, and Shumsky plans to deploy it in all the departments within the other three businesses, as well as with clients. With BOOST’s business, there are a lot of contracts and design work, and some projects can have close to 50 steps that require sequence, organization and consistent monitoring to ensure that they are accomplished smoothly and effectively. BOOST is assured that Clarizen helps all employees to be on schedule with deliverables to clients.

Previously, BOOST used a combination of Excel spreadsheets and a basic project management tool, Smartworks. It was difficult and time consuming to manage all team members’ specific task progress. They needed a consolidated, automatic tool that helped them execute seamlessly among internal and external parties. Before choosing Clarizen they researched other options, including @Task and Microsoft Project, but found the user interfaces to lack usability and effective dashboards.

They chose Clarizen because it was the most innovative and user-friendly. It provided one dashboard with immediate access to all the different tasks, as well as user instructions and wizards to help guide employees along the way, as needed. The attentiveness of Clarizen’s staff is another benefit, as BOOST can always enlist customer service personnel to adapt the tool to specific projects and situations, or further explain specific features and functionality. Other solutions had many unnecessary features, making the solutions cumbersome and difficult to use. Clarizen allowed for easy and fast deployment since the solution requires minimal training, with each person needing an hour at most.

The progress notification feature of Clarizen is the most integral to the daily success of BOOST’s project completion. The ease at which users can enter specific tasks, as well as update and monitor the progress of their completion, saves the organization significant time. The dashboard is especially helpful for managers who travel a lot; they are able to log on to review the status of all activities.

Overall, Clarizen improved BOOST’s productivity by 75 percent. Work styles differ across BOOST’s multiple departments, so a tool was needed that has the same enterprise-wide vision. Clarizen encompasses this vision and saves managers’ time, effort and energy because they do not have to constantly monitor and inquire the status of each employees’ tasks. This enables leaders to focus on important company objectives and gives them the time to devote to other aspects of the business, such as their own employee relations and becoming more involved in the industry.

“The time and effort that is saved by using Clarizen’s collaboration technology makes the tool a valuable component to BOOST’s overall business operations,” said Anita Emoff, director of Boost Rewards. “The user-friendly functionality and innovative features of the solution makes company-wide project execution organized and easy to manage, allowing us to focus and allocate our time and energy on activities that will benefit the company in the long-term.”