Speaker 0:01

You are listening to FPS Podcast, number 70. This particular podcast, I'm gonna be talking to Marty Herbert from Herbert Insights and Innovations. Marty's been around the industry for many years and I met him a few years back while with another organization, and he started Herbert Insights because he saw a need. For business process analysis and improvement within the government contracting practice. So let's see what Marty has to say. And hope you get something out of this podcast. Welcome everybody. I am Tanya Berley and I'm with Federal Publication Seminars. Today my guest is Marty with Marty Herbert of Herbert Insights and what's the other eye for? Innovations? Innovations. Thank you. Okay, that one I'll leave in for now. We are gonna talk a little bit about what Herbert what Hi I and I is what I'll refer to. And what they do and what they bring to the industry. They're a fairly new company, fairly new organization. Marty I've known for many years and part of the industry and ran into him with federal publication seminars years ago, and now he's back with a new organization, a new company and he has a pretty cool product that can help out a lot of different companies and organizations figuring out. The the whole, I, I don't know. How would you describe it, Marty? What do you guys actually do? I'll let you explain. I.

Speaker 2 1:41

Sure. So at HI and I, really we focus in on business process improvement. And one of the big ways that we do that is through a tool workflow automation really is what it's all about. And it's taking all of those processes that everybody knows and loves, or. Potentially hates and, makes them a little bit easier or makes them standardized. We'll I know we'll talk about it throughout this, but Yes. But it's really about business process improvement and workflow automation is a lot of what we're doing now, business process

Speaker 2:13

improvements. Not a new concept at all. It's been around for a long time as a, as well as workflow automation. But so how does I and I differ.

Speaker 2 2:24

One of the big ways that, that we set ourselves apart is, a lot of people are doing business process improvement, right? They'll come in and they'll tell you how to do it and they'll tell you, this would be better if you did that, or that would be better. So they help you figure out how your process might be better and give you I, I like to call it the art of the possible. But a lot of the time they'll stop at process documentation'cause nobody wants to do the documentation or maybe they'll do the documentation, they won't do the automation, they won't take it to that next level. Or they'll stop at workflow automation and forget about the continuous improvement side of things. So we really are a full cycle. We actually call it our business process compass from procedure optimization. So helping you figure out how to do it better. Then also documenting, defining what that process actually is, then helping to automate it through the use of different tools, including workflow automation by nutrient and then also continuous improvement, right? The follow up for how do we continue to do it better, because yeah, we can change the process and we can automate it today. But does that process change a year from now? Most likely. Does it change based on a regulation that comes out a day or two from now? It might. And that's really, that's really the full service aspect of business process improvement, including the management, the documentation, and the automation is really where we shine. What comes to

Speaker 3:57

mind for me, and I am sorry about this, but the two bobs from Office Space. You remember those guys? Yeah. All right. Here they are. They're coming in, they're doing this consulting work to figure out how to. How to streamline the operation. And they're basically meeting with everybody and not really getting very far. But at the end of the day, you know they're gonna provide some document and then get their paid and leave. So you're, what you're saying is you not only do that, some of that work, but you actually go through and not the just documentation, but. Continuous improvement throughout and keep with the client for the time that they need to get the thing. Sided or whatever you want to call it, right?

Speaker 2 4:37

Yeah. As much as everybody loves to read through the 20, 30, 50 page report about how much better things can be a lot of a lot of our clients really turn to us because, yeah, we can tell you how to do it, but then we can show you how to do it. And sometimes, to your point. We'll stick around for as long as you need us, but we also try to, I hate, I don't really like using the term, but teach you how to fish. We'll teach you to do it on your own too, so that you can do it without us. We still think that we're the best and we're the best at it, and we can continue to help. But really it's about making sure that. Whatever's buried in the report that may or may not get read at the end of some of these things, right? It's really about making sure that you can put the rubber to the road and, make some improvement along the way.

Speaker 5:29

So where are you seeing, with all the clients you work with right now, and it's mostly government contractors? Correct. And in that space. So where are you seeing where the people get tripped up when they get your report? Where the customers, get a report, they do this. Are they just saying, okay, got the report and then or what's, what have you seen? I should say it this way, let me start over. Sure. So what are you seeing the most pain, where the pain points are that customers. In the government contract space have as far as process improvement workflow.

Speaker 2 6:02

Everybody wants to talk about how unique their organization is, but we tend to see the same issues over and over. And it really comes down to a couple different process areas. And a lot of those are in back office. So in that highly regulated, right? So GovCon healthcare, education no matter who it is and where it is or even what industry it's in. We hear about accounts payable and accounts receivable. So everybody loves accounting. Gotta make sure we get paid and we gotta make sure that we pay the people that we do business with. So those two processes rise to the top. The other ones lately have really been procurement. One that's near and dear to the GovCon space. Procurement. And how do we not only. Get the things that we need, but make sure that we get them consistently and also manage the vendors. So procurement and vendor management has been a really big one lately. And then just general approvals because as like within our. Space of GovCon and really, again, highly regulated areas. If it's not documented, it didn't happen. So I can never really escape my past. So I started my career in DCAA and I can't help but think as an auditor sometimes. Great. Show me how the process works. And a lot of people can show a flow chart, they can show how something is supposed to work, but. Really what it comes down to is can you document that what you have in that flow chart is exactly what it is that happened in your process. A lot of time that deals with emails and fo file folders and different network drives, you name it, to pull all that audit record together. So across all of these processes, the standardization and the generalized approvals. In the tool that we use with nutrient workflow automation, we tend to build the workflow that looks like a workflow, but also have the documentation it's in, in the system. It's called a request detail, but it's really the audit trail. So anywhere where you have to have that documentation that something did happen in the way that you designed it, it does that. And that's where a lot of the, I'll say the non-core, right? AP ar, procurement and vendor are kind of those core processes. But then you start talking about HR and IT and those types of things that need that documentation and that level of approval that shows who did what, when. That's where it ends up. System really becomes, I'll say, viral within the organization to continue to build off of the initial success in those core. Why does somebody come to us? They come to us for ap. You come to us for AP and then Oh yeah, we can use it in all these other places.

Speaker 8:51

Sure. And it's the same system. So what HR might be looking at would be the same thing that the contract administrator would be looking at. That's right. That's right. Interesting. I can see where that would be extremely helpful. You're talking from audits. Even some false claims, right? So someone claims that you're not billing the government correctly or over billing the government. That's a, within the organization, you could probably have at least have the documentation of exactly who's what the billing is and who's in charge of the billing. And everybody would be on the same page,

Speaker 2 9:26

correct? That's right. That's right. Yeah. Getting people on the same page is really what process improvement is all about. And going back to the idea of, you have the report and a lot of the time what comes out of that report and whatever documentation is associated with the process is great. We now know what we do, but. How do we continue to do it the same way over and over? And that's where the system systemization of it comes into play. That's where you start to define your roles. That's where you start to make sure that the right people are getting the right thing at the right time so that they can do what it is they're supposed to do. If it says take action, then you can actually take action in the process. It. Making sure that everybody is aligned to what we said we were going to do really becomes key to the process itself.

Speaker 10:17

Yeah. And then having the ability, hr, an HR department doesn't necessarily understand the intricacies of the government contract to a point where they can understand the billing and what costs and pricing is or anything along that line. And legal doesn't know either, but. They have to be aligned to understand how things went, how things were processed through to make things work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:44

And as much as you, and I would love for everybody to be a expert and, in, in government contracting or, whatever regulated industry they're in, as much as we try, not everybody needs to be. And that's the key to real, really making sure that the processes do what they're supposed to do. Because there's all the stuff that somebody has to do, fill in the blank here, select this radio button, pull, pull this information.'cause it, it integrates with your systems and things like that to pull in the relevant data. But to your point, if I'm in hr. I don't need to know everything about why I have to, check certain boxes and that kind of thing for a specific contract related to my employee service contract act or whatever may come up. All I need to know as potentially HR clerk, is that I need to fill out certain information, the process itself and the rules. That go into what's being filled out then should guide the user. We have so many tools available to us that being able to guide your user to the right place and to the right information also becomes critical. I it's funny, I always equate it to whenever somebody wants to go and fill out an online sweepstakes form or, I wanna win something free, so I go out. And I find this website that is going to give me, I don't know, they're gonna, they're giving away$10,000, right? I don't have to know what information they need from me, because the form that they're filling out makes sense to me. And if not, it's got the little help icon. I can click on that to figure out, what is it that you're asking here? That's really, getting processes down to those individual human-centric tasks for who needs to do what. That's really what it becomes about.

Speaker 12:35

Yeah. So it's okay, why are you doing that? So then it's going to, you have an answer to why the contract administrator did what they did because it's there, it's written down somewhere. It's in the system.

Speaker 2 12:47

And it becomes about rules enforcement too, right? So we're we want to bid on a contract. Great. You've got an internal process that says you go through blue, red, green, yellow, purple teams, right? So all the way up to your gold team and before you're putting this proposal together. If you say that you're following, we want certain prices, we want certain rates and that kind of thing. Are you doing that analysis and where are you doing that analysis and is it stored in a way that you can then retrieve it? Those types of processes are even things that we've built where you can have different gate reviews and things like that before issuing that, that proposal out the door. So there's a lot of different use cases and it all comes back to how do we. Enforce the rules, make sure that we're standardized and thinking, standardization. One of the big things, we hear it all the time, quality management systems and ISO certifications, you say what you do, but then you also have to do what it is that you say and that's exactly what this tool does too.

Speaker 13:51

Ah, okay. So

Speaker 2 13:52

it's not

Speaker 13:52

just to check the box type of thing. It's also, here's how you execute. Exactly. All right, a little off, a little bit different subject here. What, since you started this business, and you've been in the, you have all the experience, you've helped thousands of clients nodding with Herbert, but prior, for the number of years you've been there, even through DCA, what's the most surprising thing you've seen with clients as far as what they're doing? Wrong.

Speaker 2 14:19

Wow. I love that. I love that question. Because I've actually had that conversation a couple times recently with some other colleagues and what's, I think the most surprising thing to me is it seems, at least in recent experience that the larger the organization, the less. Compliance is a critical factor to them. And I mean it just in terms of revenue. In terms of size, but the, it, it seems that when a company is chasing revenue and they're chasing cash and growth and that kind of thing compliance takes a back seat. I find that. What I have found at least is that, the small and mid-size and maybe even the almost large clients that we've been dealing with tend to focus a little bit more on compliance. And that the. Larger the company, the more it becomes a, oh, by the way, I need to be compliant instead. And I don't know if that's a result of or be or in spite of, but that's really been, that's really been the big surprise recently is the lack of focus on compliance until it really matters. We all, we always talk about. How you want to do things the right way because it's the right way to do things. And it seems like a lot of what we've been hearing recently is, oh, by the way, I need to do the right thing because I was told that I wasn't doing the right thing. So it's reactionary. It, and I think that's a trend that I've seen is a lot more reactionary compliance than proactive compliance and something I'm trying to change. But what I've seen. Do you think part of

Speaker 16:07

it Now I'm just spit balling here a little bit, but Sure. If you're a, if you're a, a manufacturer, it doesn't matter. You're a supplier to the government. Alright. Let's say, and you have a contract with the government and you've had the contract for 10 years and you've always been able to defend and the competition and continue with new contract, the same contract, but new one every two years. Whatever it might be that the contract comes up for bid. You think it could be that they get comfortable with. Who they're dealing with on their side, on the on the, on their customer side to point where, oh, we'll just let it slip by and we don't have to worry about it. I think that's part of it.

Speaker 2 16:47

I, I think, the more institutionalized, I guess the Yeah. Contract becomes. Yeah. Because think about badge swaps and things like that happen out there too. Sure. If you're badge swapping. A, a compliance officer for a company to the new contractor. He's been doing the same thing the same way, and he knows that there's another badge coming, three years at the option year or something like that. I, yeah I think complacency probably is a big piece of it.

Speaker 17:14

Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I just had to tap your brain on that.'cause I, I always thought I said what's a big idea? What's the big issues that contractors have that, that when they talk workflow, automation and compliance, I. They get, that surprise the, a consultant or whoever that goes in and says, you need to do this workflow and you need to understand this. And they're like this is the way you've been doing it for all these years, and it's not been right, but we've been doing it that way.

Speaker 2 17:41

And you know what's interesting about what you said too, is that a lot of the time. The, whoever it is that's coming to us for business process improvement, they're coming because they have a pro, they have a situation where, they know that they can do it better. They know that they could save money by doing it more efficiently, those types of things. And that's their motivation. And what ends up coming into the conversation a lot of the time is, oh, by the way. Because you're gonna be more efficient, because you're gonna be more effective because it's documented and you can show that it. Did what you said it was going to do. Now your compliance is also increased just as a byproduct almost. And then once they see that with the first process, maybe the second process, then they realize, oh, okay, I can also add some compliance just by adding a workflow over here in, in HR or, or over in contracts or something like that.

Speaker 18:42

All of a sudden they feel that they probably see some savings and and a little more productivity out of the office folks, because now it's not that's what you said, that's what you said. It's not a he said she said anymore. It's actually documented.

Speaker 2 18:57

Yeah. And that's the big payback is after all is said and done. We're, the goal is to give some time back to the people who you hired to do something. So often we get lost in email, in, tracking things down, stuff like that. I. Now we giving some of that time back to people that they're not having to track down their tasks. They're not having to sort through the email, the endless emails. They can see what tasks it is that they're supposed to be doing and they can get those tasks done in pretty, in a pretty quick timeframe. And that way they can turn their attention to the more value added items. You hired. An AP manager to be able to manage AP and figure out why are we not paying things on time, that type of thing. But a lot of the time an AP manager is hurting the cats to make sure that people are getting the right things paid on time and they can't do that analysis because. They're so in the weeds. A lot of time. We're finding that by removing some of the I'll say, I'll call it readiness, while we remove some of that, it gives, especially as you move up the management chain, it gives them a little bit more time so that they're not focused on task-based. They're take, they're focused on that value added thought leadership types of things that they were brought in to do in their role.

Speaker 20:28

You're exactly right.'cause weeds, you know what they do is they choke the lawn. And when you start choking the lawn, which looks so beautiful in front of your house, it it devalues your property. So you're exactly right. It is a weedy problem. Yeah. Yeah, for

Speaker 2 20:43

sure.

Speaker 20:45

Marty, thank you for your time. I think we've pretty much exhaust the the conversation here at this point. If someone wants to get ahold of, you'll learn a little more about Herbert Insights and what, I always get this wrong. I'm just gonna say HII.

Speaker 2 21:00

HI and

Speaker 21:00

I It is, yeah, HI and I and if you want, know more about HI and I, how did they get hold of you, Marty?

Speaker 2 21:06

A couple different ways. Of course, marty@herbertinsights.com is the easiest way. That's my email address. Herbert insights.com is the website. Plenty of lot, a lot of information there. To find out a little bit more about what we do especially since business process is the core. But we do offer some other things, especially to our GovCon friends. And then of course find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find out there. Yeah. Marty Herbert.

Speaker 21:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:30

Thank you.

Speaker 21:31

And I know you've already exhibited a couple of our week long programs like La Jolla. I think you'll be in Hilton Head coming up in July. And we'll probably see you again next year in, in some time as well.

Speaker 2 21:44

Yeah, we'll definitely. We're definitely gonna be there in Hilton Head. We're gonna be in Vegas. Good.

Speaker 21:49

Oh, excellent. So we'll see you at all of our week long events this week, this year, and hopefully we can continue and I hope that our customer base will be able to get in touch with you and help you with their help above them with their their workflows and all. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Great. Thank you Marty. Have a great afternoon and this, and it concludes our program for the day. Thanks, Todd. Thank you.