Stonebridge News

Stonebridge Reports Solid Financial Performance for Q1

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:15:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., May 21, 2013 — Stonebridge, the award-winning business and technology services firm, today announced the company had another solid financial performance during the first quarter of 2013, resulting in quarter-over-quarter revenue growth of 5 percent.

“Stonebridge’s positive Q1 performance was primarily driven by an increase in our Texas operations,” said Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President. “While Q1 is traditionally a slower quarter as customers ramp up spending, Stonebridge was able to execute at a higher than expected level, with positive trends expected to continue into Q2.”

Notable Stonebridge accomplishments for Q1 included:

Launched Remedyforce Professional Services, a new service line to help small and medium-sized businesses install BMC Remedyforce Service Desk, the cloud-based IT help desk application designed for the mid-market. Stonebridge is one of a handful of systems integrators certified by BMC Software to install the Remedyforce application.

Successfully renewed its 2013 Microsoft Partner Network Competencies. With the renewal of its multiple Gold and Silver Competencies, Stonebridge retains the distinction of being in the top 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have reached this proficiency level in Microsoft solution development. The company also holds the distinction as the only Oklahoma-based Microsoft Managed Gold Partner.

Joined the Windows Azure Circle Partner program, an elite group of specialized Microsoft partners that provide deployment planning services for organizations interested in moving to the cloud utilizing Windows Azure.

Stonebridge also made major personnel announcements during the quarter, including:

Samir Kumar was promoted to Stonebridge Vice President. In his new role, Kumar has direct management of the company’s Property & Casualty (P&C) Industry business unit and sales responsibility for Stonebridge’s Business Service Management (BSM) business unit. Kumar, who joined Stonebridge in 2009, had served as Director of the BSM Practice.

Adam Hutchinson joined Stonebridge as Vice President of the Oil & Gas Solutions industry practice. Hutchinson is charged with growing revenue within the company’s existing Oil & Gas accounts; developing business relationships with net-new Oil & Gas customers; and evaluating investments to Stonebridge’s overall Oil & Gas industry strategy, including partnerships, defined point solutions and service offerings.

Stephen Taylor was promoted to Practice Director of Stonebridge’s BSM business unit. In his new position, Taylor will have direct oversight over daily operations and client delivery for BSM, which has been Stonebridge’s fastest-growing line of business for the past two years. Taylor joined Stonebridge in September 2011 as the BSM unit’s Chief Solution Architect.

Specifically in Q1, Stonebridge won competitive consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key contract wins and projects for the quarter included:

An independent exploration and production oil and gas company based in Houston engaged Stonebridge to help it design and deliver a SharePoint-based records management solution. The client’s objective is to improve management of key business documents by providing systematic control over how records are created and received within the context of organizational processes and business lines. The project will focus initially on the area of IT contracts and will broaden to include major lines of business. Stonebridge will provide business analysis and evaluations to document workflow and develop a records management solution integrating SharePoint features—including Term Store, Managed Metadata Service, Content Organizer and Records Center—with the Knowledge Lake scanning system.

A global energy company engaged Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, to implement a self-service platform for requesting IT services. This project allowed business users to automate the request and approval of IT services for hardware, software, password management and network account provisioning. Stonebridge developed the self-service interface and integrated the application with the existing identity management system. Stonebridge was selected for this project because of its extensive experience in systems integration and self-service technologies.

A Dallas-based national non-profit organization selected Stonebridge to solve performance and capacity issues within the Oracle database environment supporting the client’s website, which is its primary channel for donations and communications outreach. Stonebridge reviewed the existing Oracle environment, provided recommendations on future state hardware environment to support current and anticipated capacity needs, and resolved the root causes of the performance issues. With Stonebridge’s assistance in optimizing its Oracle environment, the organization realized improved website performance and stability and sufficient Oracle capacity without purchasing and implementing additional new hardware.

One of the world’s largest independent exploration and production companies signed a one-year contract with Stonebridge for BSM SmartSource managed services in support of the client’s BMC Remedy ITSM production environment. In the agreement, Stonebridge will provide support and development services to augment the client’s internal IT team on new Remedy-centered initiatives. BSM SmartSource, which covers all BMC ITSM and ITBM products, including Remedy, Remedyforce, Footprints and ITBM, is a managed services program that provides experienced technical support at a fixed monthly fee.

A Houston-based natural gas company selected Stonebridge to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its Oracle database environment. The client’s business objective was to ensure that its Oracle environment could provide the ongoing stability and support for the company’s expected future growth. To support this objective, Stonebridge will assess the Oracle environment to develop a documented baseline assessment report of the client’s current Oracle database environment; create a prioritized list of recommendations for improving the “as is” environment; and identify “high business risk” items with the potential of disastrously disrupting the environment. The client selected Stonebridge based on its deep Oracle database expertise.

A Houston-based drilling services provider engaged Stonebridge to provide a variety of IT and business support services. In particular, Stonebridge provided advanced administration and support services for the client’s SharePoint environment. The SharePoint support services include architecture improvements, general site administration and custom .NET application development such as workflow integration and web part development. Stonebridge also performed additional non-SharePoint-related .NET development for the client’s core business systems. Lastly, Stonebridge provided user and application support for the client’s OpenHR and CONTPAQ systems. The company, a longtime Stonebridge client, selected Stonebridge based on the companies’ close business relationship and Stonebridge’s track record of project delivery success.

Stonebridge completed a Phase Zero™ assessment for a large Houston-based property management company to gather and evaluate requirements for enhancements to its custom utility billing application. As part of the project, Stonebridge documented the client’s existing business processes and system architecture and defined actionable steps and dependencies for redeployment of its custom billing application. The proposed solution provides a holistic solution to improve user productivity, increase data integrity and optimize utility billing cost recovery.

A leading manufacturer of IT security software selected Stonebridge to provide technology optimization support, advisory services and continuous process improvement support for its BMC Remedy ITSM and ITBM environments. Under the BSM SmartSource managed services agreement, Stonebridge will provide ITSM and ITBM support and development services to augment the client’s internal IT team on new service management initiatives. The client, a longtime Stonebridge client, cited Stonebridge consultants’ extensive knowledge of ITSM and ITBM subject matter domains and the high value of their contributions to the client’s service management efforts.

A midstream natural gas services provider based in Oklahoma City selected Stonebridge to design a custom enterprise content management (ECM) solution built on the SharePoint platform. The client’s objective is to use SharePoint for its intranet, extranet and customer portal. Stonebridge developed a “future state” design to store all content. The design also accommodates the client’s stated goals for custom functionality based on business needs, ease of access and consistent user experience. The client cited Stonebridge’s vast experience working with midstream oil and gas companies and its deep project experience in SharePoint customization as the basis for its selection.

A Calgary-based oil and gas company selected Stonebridge to design and implement an electronic well file management solution built on the SharePoint 2013 platform. The solution, designed to provide a searchable repository for millions of well documents, will include a secure well portal with individual sites for each well. Each well site will contain a well file folder taxonomy, well header information, production report and Microsoft Lync integrated communications functionality. Stonebridge, which won this contract in a competitive bid, was selected for its extensive project experience in the oil and gas industry, its proven Well360° Solution Framework and a list of high-profile oil and gas reference accounts.

A life insurance and annuities company engaged Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, to automate the maintenance of configuration management data. This project integrated an automated discovery solution with the service management platform. Stonebridge led the project team in leveraging the common foundational data between both applications and helped simplify the data normalization and reconciliation processes. Stonebridge was selected for this project because of its deep technical experience in implementing large scale service management solutions in complex data integration scenarios.

A Tulsa-based regional financial institution awarded Stonebridge a contract to deliver a new corporate intranet site on the SharePoint 2010 platform. Under the contract, Stonebridge will upgrade designated existing custom features and applications present in the current 2007 SharePoint intranet and deploy them into the 2010 SharePoint environment. Additionally, Stonebridge will design, develop and implement custom look and feel branding across the new SharePoint 2010 intranet platform, including custom site templates and global navigation menus. The client selected Stonebridge in a competitive bidding process because of its demonstrated specialization in SharePoint customization, branding and user experience.

A Houston-based Fortune 500 power company renewed its agreement for Stonebridge SmartSource for Database Support and Administration, a managed services offering that includes onsite database management and monitoring, periodic database optimization and review, and database upgrades and patches. Stonebridge has provided onsite DBA support of the company’s Oracle and SQL Server database environments since 2006. The client opted to renew the relationship because of Stonebridge’s DBA expertise, proven business value and exemplary customer-centric support.

A leading non-profit business management, benchmarking, and research organization selected Stonebridge to perform a Phase Zero™ Assessment of its business intelligence and enterprise reporting environment. As part of the project, Stonebridge first captured and document the client’s business requirements and its “as is” processes and workflows related to data-driven decision support. Stonebridge then architected and documented the “to be” state for the client’s decision-support model and designed an architecture to support the enhanced model and associated processes. Stonebridge’s final assessment report provided the client with a business-justified go-forward roadmap and multi-phase implementation plan that specifically addressed business requirements and minimized development and deployment risks.

A leading paint manufacturer engaged Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, to improve its incident management process. This project focused on alignment of all the procedures of incident management—from detection, classification and diagnosis, to resolution and closure. Stonebridge led the team in optimizing and integrating the incident process with the rest of the process framework. Stonebridge was selected for this project because of its position as a thought leader in IT process transformation.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is a business and technology services company focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information is available at www.sbti.com.

Denise Mayfield Joins Stonebridge as Texas Director of Delivery

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:09:00 -0500

HOUSTON, May 8, 2013 – Stonebridge, an award-winning business and technology services company, today announced that Denise Mayfield has joined the firm as Texas Director of Delivery.

In this role, Mayfield will be responsible for overall project management, relationship management and client satisfaction for Stonebridge’s extensive consulting business throughout the state. She will report to Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress, who oversees the company’s Texas operations.

“We are extremely pleased to have Denise on the Stonebridge leadership team as our Director of Delivery,” Childress said. “Denise is a consummate professional who is well-known and highly regarded by the business community here in Houston and throughout the oil and gas industry. Her proven relationship management skills, focus on collaborative team-building and commitment to exceeding client expectations will make Denise a tremendous addition to our team and a hands-on contributor to our continued success as a company.”

Before joining Stonebridge, Mayfield was senior managing consultant serving upstream oil and gas clients at Rolta International, Inc., a global IT services provider. Prior, She was at P2 Energy Solutions, the largest software and data solutions company exclusively serving the oil and gas industry, and Paradigm Technologies, Inc., a provider of application implementation services to the upstream market. Mayfield began her career working at upstream oil and gas companies, including Maralo, Inc., Texoil, Britoil and Neste Oil, Inc.

According to Childress, Mayfield’s deep experience in the upstream oil and gas industry will be a key asset for Stonebridge’s Texas operations, which focuses exclusively on the upstream market. “Denise’s 30-year career in the industry, both an oil and gas employee and as a consultant to oil and gas companies, gives her a unique perspective that will benefit our clients and raise our game as a services provider to the industry," he said.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is a business and technology services firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. For additional information about Stonebridge, visit our website at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge’s Lovelace to Lead Session at ASCEND

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:42:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., May 6, 2013 – Robert Lovelace, Practice Manager of Well & Pipeline Lifecycle at Stonebridge, will lead a training session on “Trends and Best Practices in Well Lifecycle Management” at ASCEND 2013, a premier conference for upstream oil and gas professionals.

Sponsored by P2 Energy Solutions, ASCEND 2013 will be held May 6-10 at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio. Stonebridge, a P2 Solutions partner, is a Silver Sponsor of this year’s event and will be exhibiting in booth 202 at the ASCEND Expo.

Lovelace’s presentation, scheduled at 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 9th, will focus on the role that data management—specifically the data entry, tracking, and reporting—plays within a well’s lifecycle. Lovelace will also share his perspective, gained from 15-years’ experience in the upstream industry, on data management approaches, challenges, and best practices he has discovered along the way.

About Stonebridge

SharePoint SmartSource Offers True “On Demand” Approach for SharePoint Managed Services

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:14:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., April 25, 2013 – Stonebridge, a leading technology services company, today announced a new Microsoft SharePoint managed services program that provides what the company calls the first true “on demand/fractionalized resource” offering in the SharePoint support market.

The program, called SharePoint SmartSource, is designed first and foremost to help organizations maximize the functionality, performance and security of Microsoft SharePoint, arguably one of the most widely deployed enterprise platform in business today. What distinguishes SharePoint SmartSource for other SharePoint managed services offerings is that it has no minimum support restrictions. In other words, SharePoint SmartSource clients only pay for the SharePoint support they need for the time they need it.

“We designed SharePoint SmartSource to address the main customer criticism of typical SharePoint managed services programs: having to pay for a full day’s coverage when all they need is a fraction of that time,” said Greg Peters, Stonebridge Oklahoma’s Director of Delivery.

“We created SharePoint SmartSource to not only enable organizations to maximize their SharePoint investments by more fully taking advantage of all the productivity-enhancing functions the platform can enable. We also wanted to shake up the SharePoint managed services market by changing customer expectations of the cost model—to enable our clients get the level of SharePoint support they need and not require them to pay for services they do not need and will not use,” Peters said.

SharePoint SmartSource offers the full spectrum of SharePoint support services, in fractionalized time units determined by client need and backed by a defined service level agreement (SLA). Standard areas of support include:

Enterprise Content Management, including Document/Records Management, Workflow and Collaboration, Intranet/Extranet Portals
SharePoint Architecture, Governance, Security, Usage
Business Intelligence, including KPI, Dashboard, Scorecard Development
SharePoint Administration, Maintenance, Monitoring
SharePoint Customization/Solution Development
User Interface Standards
Break/Fix Support
Periodic SharePoint Health Checks

According to Peters, the key to SharePoint SmartSource is that it is truly an “on demand” managed service offering, with no hidden costs or mandatory hourly minimums. “With SharePoint SmartSource, you do not have to pay a contractor for a full day of support when all you really need is a fraction of that time. The SmartSource approach gives clients the power to set their usage levels based on actual support need versus the standard ‘all or nothing’ retainer approach.”

For more information about SharePoint SmartSource, contact Stonebridge at SPSmartSource@sbti.com.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is a technology services firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. For additional information about Stonebridge, visit our website at www.sbti.com.

Robert Lovelace Joins Stonebridge Oil & Gas Solutions as Practice Manager

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:15:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., April 23, 2013 – Stonebridge, a leading technology services company, announced today that Robert Lovelace has joined the company as a practice manager within its Oil & Gas Solutions consulting practice. Lovelace reports to Stonebridge Oil & Gas Solutions Vice President Adam Hutchinson and is based out of Stonebridge’s corporate headquarters in Tulsa.

Lovelace will lead Stonebridge’s Well & Pipeline Lifecycle service line, which provides strategy, planning, process and technology services to upstream and midstream companies. The Well & Pipeline Lifecycle mission is to drive operational efficiencies and optimize monetization of assets through defined business processes supported by quality data and integrated technology.

Under Lovelace’s direction, the Well & Pipeline Lifecycle service line will provide offerings specifically designed for the upstream and midstream market. These service offerings include O&G startup, M&A integration, O&G growth strategy, business process mapping, well and pipeline data standards and integration, and technology evaluations.

Stonebridge’s Adam Hutchinson, who leads the company’s Oil & Gas Solutions practice, said, “We are pleased to have Robert on our Oil & Gas Solutions leadership team. Robert is a senior oil and gas professional who is well-known and well-respected in the industry. He possesses an extensive knowledge of E&P and midstream operational processes and O&G-related ERP business services. Additionally Robert has served as an operations advisor reporting directly to engineering management and has spent significant time on the ground in US shale plays. We are confident this blend of experience within the oil and gas industry will propel operational efficiencies and drive competitive advantage for our clients. I look forward to working closely with Robert as we grow the Oil & Gas Solutions practice.”

Lovelace is a seasoned business professional with 15 years of oil and gas industry, management consulting and applied technology experience. Before joining Stonebridge, he was an operations advisor at BHP Billiton, a Fortune Global 500 diversified natural resources company. Prior, Lovelace was at EAG Services, an energy-focused consulting firm, as E&P senior manager and Chesapeake Energy as a senior O&G advisor. He started his career in consulting services with Deloitte and Accenture. Lovelace holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s degree from Oklahoma City University.

About Stonebridge

Solutions and Innovations Drive Revenue Growth at Stonebridge

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:30:00 -0500

NOTE: The following article appeared in the Tulsa Business Journal on March 12, 2013. It was written by associate editor Thad Ayers.

Tulsa-based technology consulting firm, Stonebridge, recently reported double-digit growth for 2012, due in part to sector and statewide boosts in business.

For the year, the company reported a revenue total of about $16 million, said company President and CEO James Ivy. That total is a 15-percent boost from 2011 and is highlighted with a 30-percent revenue boost from the company’s business service management division, which helps streamline IT data for the company’s clients for stronger efficiency.

“We had the best first half in the company’s history,” Ivy said. “If you look at the total year, we had one of the best years in the company’s history.”

A highlight for the year was the launch of the company’s Pipeline 360, which helps oil and gas clients — the bulk of Stonebridge’s business — gain an exhaustive digital picture of a certain area. Oil and gas clients can pull up a map and see past and current permits and projects in a given geographic location.

“We can go in and do point solutions off of that into a particular part of oil and gas,” Ivy said, speaking by telephone from his Tulsa office. “With all of that there’s a lot of visual and map-based data we’ve integrated into solutions for oil and gas companies so they can get information in a much more usable, readable and productive way. So that was a milestone.”

The company also added a social media-like component to the oilfield with its Enterprise Social Platform, called ESP. As Ivy put it, ESP helps integrate the former generation of those working in the oil and gas industries with current and budding professionals.

“‘There’s an app for that’ is what the consumer expects. If you go to oil and gas, which is where this was deployed, you have a lot of baby boomers that are retiring, and you have a lot of Gen-Yers — Gen-Xers included — that will be filling those spots as they retire,” Ivy said. “There’s a big brain drain that’s going on. Oil and gas companies are trying their best to reduce that gap, if nothing else. The question is how we can work smarter, better, faster and do so in fashion that’s very conducive to our employees and in a collaborative, sharing fashion.”

ESP is described as a Facebook-like network that extends the Microsoft SharePoint collaboration system to where it connects to an internal company community where employees and managers can connect, share profiles and stay corporately current while in the field.

“We want a senior petroleum engineer to impart his or her experiences with a particular well site in a particular part of the U.S. — we want that knowledge to be spread into other asset groups or groups that do similar work across the globe,” Ivy said. “It’s a way to get knowledge out there with less effort and geared towards a lot of the consumer type of tools everyone has become accustomed to.”

Looking into the future, Ivy said he sees Stonebridge utilizing more cloud-based software that help remotely connect consultants without being present.

With companies pushing for more mobile technologies, employees will still have to be onsite, but not in the numbers as before, he said.

“Instead of having a project where you have five consults on site, this technology would allow us to have one or two on site — and two or three remote,” he added.

Ivy also said the company may look to apply its Pipeline 360 solution to the property and casualty insurance industry. He reasoned that an adjuster could better understand a region before and after a catastrophe by streamlining data in a similar manner to pipeline maps.

“You can pull up some of these solutions we’re contemplating,” he said. “You can pull up your customer’s house and you can look at it before and after the hailstorm.”

That ability would likely also be available in the ever-growing tablet market, so adjusters could also work onsite.

Ivy didn’t name a timeline for when this concept would come to fruition.

Stonebridge Announces Key Executive Promotions

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:03:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., March 12, 2013 – Stonebridge, a leading Tulsa-based technology services company, announced today the promotions of two key executives. Samir Kumar has been promoted to Stonebridge Vice President, and Stephen Taylor has been promoted to Director of Stonebridge’s Business Service Management (BSM) business unit.

“I am very pleased to announce the promotion of two of Stonebridge’s top performers,” said James Ivy, Chief Executive Officer. “Samir and Stephen have been catalysts for the tremendous growth in our BSM unit, and individually their contributions are making a lasting positive impact on our business. I am confident that each of them will excel in their new positions.”

As a Stonebridge Vice President, Kumar is charged with direct management of the company’s new Property & Casualty (P&C) Industry business unit and also retains sales responsibility for Stonebridge’s BSM unit. Kumar, who joined Stonebridge in 2009, previously served as Director of the BSM Practice. Prior to joining Stonebridge, Kumar was with IBM Global Services where he was a member of the IBM account team supporting Williams Energy in Tulsa. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

As the newly appointed Director of Stonebridge’s BSM unit, Taylor assumes direct responsibility of the BSM unit, which has been the company’s fastest-growing line of business over the past two years. Taylor joined Stonebridge in September 2011 as the BSM unit’s Chief Solution Architect. Before joining Stonebridge, Taylor was IT director over systems infrastructure at Chesapeake Energy Corporation in Oklahoma City. He holds a degree in management of information systems from Oklahoma State University.

About Stonebridge

Adam Hutchinson Joins Stonebridge’s Management Team as Vice President, Oil & Gas Solutions

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:31:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., March 4, 2013 – Stonebridge, a leading technology services company, announced today that Adam Hutchinson has joined the company’s management team as Vice President, Oil & Gas Solutions. Hutchinson reports to Stonebridge CEO James Ivy and is based out of Stonebridge’s corporate headquarters in Tulsa.

In his new position, Hutchinson assumes leadership of Stonebridge’s Oil & Gas Solutions consulting practice. Specifically he will focus on growing revenue within the company’s existing Oil & Gas accounts; developing business relationships with net-new Oil & Gas customers; and evaluating investments to Stonebridge’s overall Oil & Gas industry strategy, including partnerships, defined point solutions and service offerings.

“I am very pleased to welcome Adam to the Stonebridge team,” said James Ivy, CEO. “Adam brings a wealth of oil and gas experience to the table on day one. He possesses a deep and wide knowledge of the challenges facing O&G executives and has extensive experience in both the operational and technological sides of the business. I have every confidence that Adam’s perspective will help us ensure that our Oil & Gas Solutions practice is optimally positioned to offer real-world solutions to real-world industry problems.”

Before joining Stonebridge, Hutchinson was an asset manager at BHP Billiton, a Fortune Global 500 diversified natural resource company, where he led unconventional shale play investment evaluations and large CAPEX well development projects. Prior, he was at Chesapeake Energy for six years where he served as a director of technology management enabling the company’s E&P and midstream operations. Hutchinson also spent eight years at global consulting giant Accenture where he served as a manager in the company’s resources market unit supporting energy clientele in the upstream, downstream and utilities markets. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

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Stonebridge Achieves 2013 Renewal of Microsoft Partner Competencies, Ranks in Top 1 Percent of Microsoft Partners Worldwide

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:37:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Feb. 28, 2013 – Stonebridge, the award-winning Tulsa-based information technology consulting firm, today announced that it has successfully renewed its Microsoft Partner Network Competencies for 2013.

With the renewal of its multiple Gold and Silver Competencies, Stonebridge retains the distinction of being in the top 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have reached this proficiency level in Microsoft solution development. The company also is the only Oklahoma-based Microsoft Managed Gold Partner.

Stonebridge holds the Microsoft Gold Competency in four defined technical areas: Application Development, Business Intelligence, Data Platform, and Collaboration and Content. The company holds the Microsoft Silver Competency in Application Integration.

Mike Keys, Stonebridge Vice President of Business Development, oversees the company’s Microsoft partnership. “The renewal process is rigorous and quite demanding, and achieving it each year gives us a distinct competitive advantage in the Microsoft consulting market,” Keys said. “Our clients can take comfort in the knowledge that their Microsoft projects delivered by a member of an elite group specializing in the delivery of Microsoft enterprise solutions.”

To earn a Microsoft competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise and, for Gold Competencies, designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. Partners must also submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects and pass technology and/or sales assessments. For Gold Competencies, partners must also implement a yearly customer satisfaction survey and, for many competencies, meet a revenue commitment.

According to Keys, positive customer references are the most important requirement for Stonebridge.

“Getting positive references for our project submissions is truly where the rubber meets the road,” he said. “If our clients do not give us a thumbs-up, we cannot maintain our Microsoft Gold Competencies. Plus, securing customer approval of our work is extremely satisfying to us as a Microsoft solution provider.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. For additional information about Stonebridge, visit our website at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Reports Double-Digit Revenue Growth in 2012

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:48:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Feb. 26, 2013 – Stonebridge, the award-winning technology consulting firm, today announced that it posted another strong performance in Q4, resulting in 15 percent revenue and earnings growth in 2012.

Stonebridge’s double-digit year-over-year growth was attributed to the company’s Business Service Management (BSM) unit posting a 30 percent increase in revenue, while revenue related to its Oklahoma business unit rose 15 percent.

Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President, said, “Our 2012 performance was highlighted by the strongest first-half results in the company’s history in terms of revenue and profitability. This historic accomplishment was complemented by a succession of noteworthy achievements, including innovative new solution launches, existing service line expansions and high-profile recognition by our key ISV (independent software vendor) partners. Our challenge for 2013 is to build on last year’s successes and create more value for our customers, associates and business partners.”

Notable Stonebridge accomplishments in 2012 included:

Attained recertification for Microsoft Gold and Silver Competencies. Only the top 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide have reached this proficiency level of Microsoft solution development. Stonebridge is the only Microsoft Managed Gold Partner based in Oklahoma. Launched SharePoint Branding & User Experience, a new service offering that enables clients to design, create and deploy engaging and highly usable SharePoint sites that reflect the organization’s brand identity and accelerate user adoption of the platform.
Expanded its Database Services offerings to offer organizations a wider range of skilled DBA resource options for Oracle and SQL Server environments—from “on demand” resources on a short-term project basis to a retainer-based managed services program that delivers skilled DBA resources on a monthly basis.
Launched Enterprise Social Platform (ESP), a new service offering that enables organizations to extend Microsoft SharePoint collaboration software into a robust Facebook-style business social networking solution.
Served as a Silver Sponsor of the WWRUG12, the largest BMC Remedy ITSM and Action Request System educational event in the world.
Established an innovative “boot camp” consultant training program designed to develop the next generation of IT consulting leaders. The program provided a hyper-focused crash course in high-end technical training as well as “soft skills” such as client communication and professional ethics.
Recognized as a BMC ESM Premier Partner by BMC Software. The Premier Partner designation reflects Stonebridge’s leadership position in the business service management (BSM) consulting discipline and the company’s stellar record in client projects involving BMC products.
Launched Pipeline360°, a geospatial dashboard solution designed specifically for pipeline companies. Based on Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework, Pipeline360° gives users a holistic picture of the pipeline business by combining data from internal and external sources and presenting it in a Web-based interactive map view.
Named a Remedyforce Certified Partner by BMC Software. Stonebridge also delivered its first Remedyforce engagement in Q3 of 2012.
Entered a partnership agreement with Concept Searching, a global leader in semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy management software.
Named one of Houston’s top 10 IT consulting firms by the Houston Business Journal. It marked the second consecutive year that Stonebridge has made it on HBJ’s top 10 ranking of Houston-area computer networks and systems integrators.

Specifically in Q4 of 2012, Stonebridge won competitive technology consulting and services contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key Q4 contract wins and projects included:

Stonebridge developed an IT service management (ITSM) program for a large electric utility company. The program, built around the implementation and adoption of BMC Software’s best-in-class Remedy ITSM application, established consistent, standardized processes and procedures; improved IT service quality; and reduced IT support costs. The company selected Stonebridge because of its extensive experience in ITSM implementations and status as a BMC Premier Partner.
A diversified energy services company selected Stonebridge to implement the BMC FootPrints ITSM solution. The company’s goal is to provide its IT support staff with new help desk and asset management tools for improving IT service quality and management of service requests, incident tracking, problem resolution and service delivery. Stonebridge will guide the company in developing standardized processes and procedures based on industry best practices. The company chose Stonebridge because of its knowledge of ITSM best practices and close association with BMC.
A large midstream oil & gas company engaged Stonebridge to provide strategic and tactical assistance with improving and extending the functionality of its SharePoint-powered enterprise content management (ECM) system. In particular, Stonebridge will provide support for SharePoint solution development, testing and debugging, and reporting for a wide range of workflow automation, document management and data integration enhancements.
Stonebridge extended the functionality of its BMC Remedy ITSM Change Management solution for a top health care provider. The new functionality extended the range of Change Management processes and controls to meet the needs of a wider range of IT users within the health care system, including clinical, business and technical personnel. Stonebridge was chosen to lead the project based on its track record of success with the client.
A Fortune 500 energy company selected Stonebridge to conduct a Phase Zero assessment to define the technical framework for a key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard. The assessment will review and advance more than 130 KPIs. Stonebridge will identify high-level requirements and scope; define analysis themes; establish the solution architecture for automating delivery of KPI metrics to business users; and assess data quality and determine the complexity of KPI generation. Additionally Stonebridge will create a phased implementation plan and cost estimate that will serve as the roadmap for the development of the KPI dashboard application as well as additional reporting, analysis and data visualization capabilities.
A global provider of business and technology services to the telecommunications industry engaged Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, to implement BMC’s IT Demand & Resource Management solution. Stonebridge’s engagement was focused on process and technology optimization of project portfolio and resource management solution that also included advisory services on Business Objects analytics reporting. The company selected Stonebridge based on BMC’s recommendation and Stonebridge’s IT Business Management (ITBM) project experience.
Stonebridge performed a Phase Zero assessment to gather and evaluate requirements for a custom utility billing application for a large property management company. Stonebridge documented the company’s existing business processes and system architecture and used that data to define the requirements for new and enhanced functionality and system design. The proposed solution provides a holistic solution to improve user productivity, increase data integrity and optimize utility billing cost recovery.
A multi-brand apparel and footwear company, in collaboration with BMC Software, engaged Stonebridge to lead the first-ever integration of BMC ITBM on Demand with BMC Remedy on Demand. This project marked the first ITBM on Demand integration project. Stonebridge led the project team in leveraging the common foundational data between both applications. Stonebridge was selected for this project because of its multi-project experience in implementing ITBM systems on various platforms.
Stonebridge completed a complex assessment of data migration and integration opportunities involving multiple business applications for a global oil & gas company. The business driver behind the project was the company’s recent acquisition of several production unit assets that employed different IT applications with varying degrees of functionality. To support the data migration and integration effort, Stonebridge conducted a qualitative review of data sources and made specific recommendations for the project and formulated a strategic plan for the pending data migration effort.
Stonebridge completed a unique implementation of leading-edge service management software for a major U.S.-based financial services company. Working in collaboration with BMC Software, Stonebridge implemented a hybrid solution consisting of BMC’s ITBM Demand & Resource Management and Service Request Management applications. The BMC-powered solution will provide a range of new capabilities and functionality to extend the IT department’s project and portfolio management capabilities, including establishment of enterprise PMO processes, better demand forecasting, increased cost transparency to the business, electronic approval capture and improved capacity planning.
A global manufacturer of oil & gas flow equipment products engaged Stonebridge to develop and implement a common enterprise reporting architecture as well as develop a significant number of custom reports. Stonebridge conducted a series of comprehensive interviews with stakeholders in order to capture the client’s reporting business and technical requirements and assess its existing IT and reporting environments. Based on Stonebridge’s recommendations, Stonebridge developed a reporting architecture roadmap that addressed the client’s immediate reporting requirements, defined a long-term strategic plan and also developed the client’s custom reports.
A large auto insurance company engaged Stonebridge to conduct an assessment of its BMC ITBM implementation in order to find opportunities for improvement and enhanced ROI. The assessment’s scope included the company’s BMC Supplier Management, Demand & Resource Management and IT Costing capabilities. Stonebridge’s assessment report included a gap analysis of processes and technology; a recommended go-forward plan with a robust dashboard and analytics reporting solution; and a multi-phase implementation roadmap.
Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, completed the implementation of the BMC ITBM solution for a global financial services corporation. Stonebridge performed a current-state analysis of the bank’s IT Services reporting capabilities and service-costing methodology by interviewing key IT personnel and business stakeholders. The analysis provided the bank with a detailed decomposition of IT services as well as recommendations for streamlining and optimizing analytical reporting metrics and IT service costing processes.
Stonebridge played a major role in implementing an innovative zero-target program designed to reduce avoidable IT-related mistakes at a leading health services company. Stonebridge identified an innovative use of BMC Remedy ITSM and in collaboration with the client, isolated and cataloged routine, “avoidable” help desk and IT support errors that collectively cause significant impact to IT service quality and adversely affect user attitudes towards the company’s IT capability. With Stonebridge’s input, the hospital has kicked off the new program via implementation of new processes; greater leverage of its BMC Remedy ITSM application suite; and the creation of a marketing campaign with the goal of fostering a proactive culture within the company’s IT community.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is a technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. For additional information about Stonebridge, visit our website at www.sbti.com.

NOTE: All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Stonebridge Becomes Windows Azure Circle Partner

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 09:59:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Feb. 13, 2013 – Stonebridge, an award-winning technology services company and Microsoft Managed Gold Partner, today announced it has been selected to join the Windows Azure Circle Partner program, a group of specialized Microsoft partner organizations that provide deployment planning services for organizations interested in moving to the cloud utilizing Windows Azure.

Established in 1995, Stonebridge is an expert developer of enterprise solutions built on the Microsoft platform. The company, which holds multiple Microsoft technology competencies, currently is the only Microsoft Managed Gold Partner headquartered in Oklahoma.

“Our selection by Microsoft as a Windows Azure Circle member showcases our commitment to developing solutions on the Windows Azure platform and our belief in the value of public cloud technologies,” said Stonebridge Vice President Mike Keys, who oversees the company’s business relationship with Microsoft.

“Recognition as a Windows Azure Circle program partner demonstrates Stonebridge’s ability to deliver public cloud solutions that solve today’s business challenges,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “By joining the Windows Azure Circle, Stonebridge has proven its mastering of Microsoft cloud technologies and continued drive for success in the future of the public cloud.”

The Microsoft Partner Network helps partners strengthen their capabilities to showcase leadership in the marketplace on the latest technology, to better serve customers and, with 640,000 Microsoft partners in its ecosystem, to easily connect with one of the most active, diverse networks in the world.

About Stonebridge

NOTE: All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Stonebridge Launches Remedyforce Professional Services

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:56:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Jan. 22, 2013 – Stonebridge, the Tulsa, Okla.-based technology services company, today announced that its Business Service Management (BSM) unit has launched a service line to help small and medium-sized businesses install BMC Remedyforce Service Desk, the cloud-based IT help desk application designed for the mid-market.

The new service line, Remedyforce Professional Services, provides expert technical support to accelerate the implementation of Remedyforce as well as its adoption by IT support staff and end users. Stonebridge currently is one of a handful of systems integrators certified by BMC Software to install the Remedyforce application.

Remedyforce Service Desk, which was developed by BMC for IT support departments at small and mid-sized enterprises, is a specialized application that packages a defined set of pre-configured IT help desk processes—such as incident management, service request management, change management, and more—all built to ITIL-based best practices in IT service delivery.

The Remedyforce application includes a self-service portal that automates repetitive help-desk processes and allows end users to request and track routine IT support needs such as password resets and requests for network access.

In addition to productivity-enhancing functionality, Remedyforce is a cloud-based “Software as a Service” (SaaS) application running on Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, which means it is up and running more quickly than an on-premise system and without the ongoing capital expense of purchasing and managing hardware and software.

“Remedyforce offers the mid-sized organization a best-in-class service desk that is more affordable, easier to use and set up, and with quicker ROI than an on-premise solution,” said Stonebridge Vice President Samir Kumar, who manages the company’s BSM unit. “Our new Remedyforce Professional Services are designed to provide variable levels of support—from pre-implementation services to hands-on integration and onboarding services to post-implementation support—that our clients can calibrate to fit their unique needs.”

Stonebridge is targeting its Remedyforce services to mid-market companies that are:

Looking for expert technical resources for their Remedyforce implementation
Migrating to Remedyforce from BMC Service Desk Express
Considering Remedyforce as an IT service desk solution

“We are one of the only Certified Remedyforce Partners in the United States, and our expertise and experience in delivering BSM solutions can be a critical advantage in assisting any company in maximizing the effectiveness of its Remedyforce Service Desk implementation,” Kumar said.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Is Proud Sponsor of GEF 2013

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:24:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Jan. 3, 2013 – Stonebridge, an award-winning Microsoft Gold Partner and leading technology services firm to the Oil & Gas industry, is pleased to announce that it is a proud sponsor of the upcoming Microsoft Global Energy Forum 2013.

The Global Energy Forum (GEF), in its 10th year, showcases how Oil & Gas industry leaders are using Microsoft-based solutions to innovate, collaborate and improve business performance in all aspects of their operations, from the rig to the boardroom. This year’s event, which is free to Microsoft’s Oil & Gas customers, will be held Jan. 24, at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

“We are pleased to be a sponsor of the Global Energy Forum again this year,” said Stonebridge Vice President Mike Keys, who oversees the company’s partnership with Microsoft. “During its 10-year history, the Global Energy Forum has earned a reputation as a premier Oil & Gas industry event that provides a showcase for solution providers like Stonebridge to show how we are leveraging Microsoft technologies to create world-class enterprise solutions for our customers.”

As a GEF sponsor, Stonebridge will offer demonstrations of its many Microsoft-powered Oil & Gas solutions, including the 360° Solution Framework, in Booth 24 of the event’s exhibit area.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Webinar: "Solving the Challenge of Managing Unstructured Content"

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:41:00 -0600

COMPLIMENTARY LIVE WEBINAR

"Solving the Challenge of Managing Unstructured Content"

Jan. 17, 2013

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Central

Join us for this webinar to learn how technology from Concept Searching will complement the Stonebridge Portal & ECM Practice’s leadership in developing search-driven ECM applications on the SharePoint platform.

What you will take away from this webinar:

What makes up the Concept Searching Smart Content Framework™, which is an infrastructure framework to mitigate risk, automate processes, manage information, protect privacy, and address compliance issues.
How to eliminate manual metadata tagging and why automatic conceptual metadata generation builds a consistent enterprise framework and end user experience.
Lessons learned from companies in the energy sector who have successfully deployed the technologies in SharePoint 2010.
How some of the largest enterprises are using SharePoint content types and automating the tagging and workflow of content aligned to business processes and corporate governance.
How the unique features in conceptClassifier for SharePoint integrate with the SharePoint Term Store and drive the governance model in areas such as records management PII, PHI and PCI.
Migration solutions from SharePoint 2007-2013, and how Concept Searching technologies are SharePoint 2013 and cloud ready.

Stonebridge Webinar: "Creating a Geospatial Dashboard for the Entire Pipeline Organization”

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

COMPLIMENTARY LIVE WEBINAR

"Spatial Intelligence for All: Creating a Geospatial Dashboard for the Entire Pipeline Organization”

Dec. 6, 2012

11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Central

Audience: CIOs, IT Directors, IT Managers, Business Development Managers, Field Operations Staff, Integrity Managers of Pipeline Operators utilizing the SharePoint platform

Spoiler Alert: Pipeline operators can extend the benefits of geospatial analysis beyond GIS power users by uniting operational and financial data with GIS data to provide spatial intelligence across the entire set of pipeline assets. The upshot: Now you can give all pipeline staff—from executive management to operations, from accounting to marketing—a productivity-enhancing visual context to your pipeline business.

Why You Should Attend:

Learn how you can drive more value from your SharePoint and GIS investments and extend the benefits of geospatial analysis to the entire pipeline organization.
Understand how spatial intelligence can bring “eye opening” insights about the pipeline business.
See a demonstration of a spatial intelligence project Stonebridge delivered to a pipeline operator in just 60 days.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Reports Double-Digit Revenue Growth

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:17:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 19, 2012 — Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced solid business growth for the nine months ended September 30th, resulting in year-over-year revenue growth of 20 percent. In addition to the revenue increase, earnings were 60 percent higher compared to the same period last year.

The increase was attributed to revenue growth in all three Stonebridge business units, with Business Service Management (BSM) achieving 35 percent growth, the Oklahoma unit with 25 percent growth and the Texas operations with 10 percent growth.

Stonebridge’s strong Q3 results follow the strongest first-half performance in the company’s history.

Matthew Childress, Senior Vice President, said, “Our Q3 business results were solid and broad-based, which is consistent with our performance for the year. As a company and as a team, we continue to operate at a high level in all phases of our business—from marketing and client acquisition to client delivery and knowledge transfer. Our performance confirms our commitment to relentlessly pursue new solutions that bring measurable value to our clients, our partners and our associates.”

Significant Stonebridge accomplishments for Q3 2012 included:

Recognized as a BMC ESM Premier Partner by BMC Software, a leading enterprise IT management company. The Premier Partner designation reflects Stonebridge’s leadership position in the business service management (BSM) consulting discipline and the company’s stellar record in client projects involving BMC Software products.
Launched Pipeline360°, a geospatial dashboard solution that extends the power of geo-based data visualization to the entire pipeline organization. Based on Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework for the oil & gas industry, Pipeline360° provides a holistic picture of the pipeline business by combining data from internal and external sources and presenting it in a Web-based interactive map view.
Named a Remedyforce Certified Partner by BMC Software. Stonebridge was the third BMC partner to be recognized as a Remedyforce Certified Partner. Developed by BMC and Salesforce.com, Remedyforce delivers a comprehensive cloud-based IT service desk without an initial capital investment. Stonebridge also delivered its first Remedyforce engagement in Q3.

Specifically in Q3, Stonebridge won competitive consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key contract wins and projects for the quarter included:

Stonebridge collaborated with the IT department of a prestigious healthcare services company based in the Southwestern United States to elevate its service management capabilities. The project’s objective was to improve IT management’s reporting and analysis capabilities by collecting more effective and meaningful information. The engagement required Stonebridge to rationalize and normalize the service management foundation data used across a number of IT processes and systems, including the client’s Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) installation as well as numerous internally developed systems. The project is the latest in a series of Stonebridge-led initiatives to support this client’s goal to mature its service management capabilities.
Stonebridge completed an application development project for an independent diversified energy company to create a custom application that provides mobile access to the company’s business social environment. The mobile application enables “anytime/any place” access to the client’s “communities of practice” intranet portal, a Facebook-style social business platform also developed in collaboration with Stonebridge. With the addition of mobile access, the solution more fully facilitates communication and collaboration across a decentralized network of internal departments and increases sharing of intellectual capital throughout the enterprise. Technologies used to develop the solution, which is based on Stonebridge’s Enterprise Solution Platform (ESP) framework, include SharePoint, FAST Search, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, Visual Studio and Apple iOS.
Stonebridge completed an upgrade of the BMC IT Business Management (ITBM) Demand and Resource Management module to v8 from v7.6.04 SP1 for a leading manufacturer of IT security software. Also included in the ITBM upgrade was integration of Business Objects XI for enhanced reporting. This project was the latest BMC ITBM project Stonebridge has led for this client. Previously Stonebridge implemented BMC ITBM v7.6.x for the client, which was the world’s first successful implementation of v7.6.x. The client selected Stonebridge in large part based on the high quality execution in those earlier ITBM upgrade projects.
Stonebridge provided advisory and integration services to support the implementation of Remedyforce for a top manufacturer of bakery products for the foodservice industry. Stonebridge is one of a small number of consulting firms certified by BMC Software to deliver Remedyforce, which is the cloud-based version of BMC’s ITSM Remedy Service Desk. Via a series of workshops at the client site, Stonebridge worked with the client’s service desk team to develop key components and workflows in the Remedyforce platform in order to meet the IT services needs of the client’s more than 700 employees.
A Fortune 500 energy company selected Stonebridge to conduct a Phase Zero assessment to define the technical framework for a key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard. The assessment will review and advance the client’s specified list of approximately 130 KPIs. Stonebridge will identify high-level requirements and scope; define analysis themes; establish the solution architecture for automating delivery of KPI metrics to business users; and assess data quality and determine the complexity of KPI generation. Additionally Stonebridge will create a phased implementation plan and cost estimate that will serve as the roadmap for the development of the KPI dashboard application as well as additional reporting, analysis and data visualization capabilities.
A Fortune 500 power company selected Stonebridge to manage the implementation of Oracle Enterprise Manager (Grid Control) and Oracle Internet Directory. The company’s data center operations provider engaged Stonebridge to replace the initial subcontractor assigned to the project who had fallen behind schedule. Stonebridge was able to get the database project back on schedule, including implementation of a disaster recovery solution and thorough testing of the environment. Because of Stonebridge’s efforts and deep expertise in Oracle environments, the project went live without further delays.
Stonebridge kicked off a Phase Zero assessment of the business intelligence (BI) environment supporting marketing and merchandizing initiatives for a major U.S. convenience store operator. The client’s primary goal is to simplify the available BI mechanisms to access and analyze marketing and merchandising data and consolidate available data sources and toolsets onto a common enterprise data architecture. In the assessment, Stonebridge is conducting a thorough evaluation of the existing reporting environment, defining a master data management (MDM) and data governance strategy, and delivering a technology roadmap and high-level project plan for the BI architecture, including a marketing and merchandising data warehouse.
A large wholesale landscape nursery selected Stonebridge to develop an application for generating custom product tags for commercial customers who sell the plants under their own brand. The client’s customers include some of the largest retail and home improvement chains in the country. Stonebridge will create a custom application that will enable the client to produce brand-specific tags for each plant. The new .NET application will replace the existing Access-based tool and significantly streamline data assembly and sorting for custom tags. The client company chose Stonebridge because of the maturity of its business intelligence consulting practice and status as a Microsoft Managed Gold Partner.
A leading U.S. independent oil & gas exploration and production company selected Stonebridge to provide consulting and application development services to transform its SharePoint intranet environment into a portal-based “knowledge network.” Stonebridge will develop company-wide standards for the client’s electronic records management processes. Additionally Stonebridge will develop a universal search capability to enable more efficient and effective information retrieval within the portal. The client selected Stonebridge based on its oil and gas industry focus and extensive track record of success in delivering SharePoint solutions, including the client’s recent upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge’s Greg Foley Discusses EC2013 on “The EnergyMakers Show”

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 16, 2012 – Stonebridge’s Greg Foley recently appeared on “The EnergyMakers Show” to discuss the upcoming Australia American Energy Conference 2013 (EC2013).

Foley, a Stonebridge Senior Business Development Manager focused on the oil & gas industry, sat down with EnergyMakers host Russ Capper to discuss the upcoming EC2013, which will be held January 18, 2013 in Houston. Foley was joined in the discussion by Colin McHattie, an energy consultant.

Video of the episode can be seen here.

This is the third consecutive year Stonebridge has been a sponsor of EC2013. The theme of EC2013 is “Australia & the United States – Two Surging Energy Powerhouses: Shared Experiences & Opportunities.” According to the conference agenda, the emphasis of the event will be discussing the leading unconventional plays in both the U.S. and Australia, specifically the impact of the LNG developments in both Australia and the U.S.

EC2013 will be 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 on Jan. 18, 2012 at the Hilton Post Oak in Houston. More information, including online registration, is available at the EC2013 website.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Microsoft and Stonebridge Bring “New Era” Event to OKC

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 8, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, is pleased to announce that it is a sponsor of the Microsoft Technology New Era of Work for IT Leaders Event on Dec. 5, 2012.

The complimentary “technology launch” event, which will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at the Sheraton Oklahoma City, will focus on what Microsoft is saying is the biggest wave of innovation in enterprise IT, including how organizations can Improve business performance and build a real-time enterprise by harnessing innovations in social, mobile, big data, and the cloud.

The event will also showcase a Experience Lounge allowing attendees to explore Windows 8, the new Microsoft Office, Windows Server 2012, and the latest PC devices with touch and keyboard.

NOTE: Check-in for this event is at 8:00 a.m. Breakfast and snack will be provided. Parking will be validated.

Registration is available here.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge to Sponsor Australian American Energy Conference 2013 in Houston

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 6, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, is pleased to announce that it is a sponsor of the upcoming Australian American Energy Conference (EC2013). This is the third consecutive year Stonebridge has been a sponsor of EC2013.

The theme of EC2013 is “Australia & the United States – Two Surging Energy Powerhouses: Shared Experiences & Opportunities.” According to the conference agenda, the emphasis of the event will be discussing the leading unconventional plays in both the U.S. and Australia, specifically the impact of the LNG developments in both Australia and the U.S.

EC2013 will be 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 on Jan. 18, 2012 at the Hilton Post Oak in Houston. More information, including online registration, is available at the EC2013 website.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Partners with Concept Searching

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:56:00 -0600

HOUSTON, Nov. 5, 2012 – Stonebridge, an award-winning provider of IT consulting services, has entered into a partnership agreement with Concept Searching, a global leader in semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy management software, and developer of the Smart Content Framework™.

This arrangement brings together Stonebridge’s extensive experience in developing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions and Concept Searching’s expertise in metadata generation, search, auto-classification and taxonomy management.

Stonebridge has Concept Searching Technically Certified Partner status, awarded only to partners who have demonstrated consistently high technical competency and have continued to invest in both their technical environment and staff in support of the partnership.

Technology from Concept Searching will complement the Stonebridge Portal & ECM Practice’s leadership in developing search-driven ECM applications on the SharePoint platform, designed for the upstream, midstream and downstream segments of the oil and gas industry. A Microsoft Gold Managed Partner, Stonebridge is committed to continual innovation in order to deliver IT solutions that provide a measurably positive impact on its clients’ business performance.

Matthew Childress, Senior Vice President and COO at Stonebridge, said, “We have earned a reputation within the oil and gas community as an IT thought leader and innovation driver, and our reputation has been bolstered by teaming with technology partners who are themselves thought leaders and innovation drivers. Concept Searching fits that description. Its technology represents a quantum advance in the area of metadata management and auto-classification. We are confident this partnership will enable us to deliver more effective and robust ECM solutions to our clients.”

Concept Searching delivers its Smart Content Framework™ to the partnership, which is a toolset based on its flagship product conceptClassifier for SharePoint, that provides the enterprise infrastructure framework to mitigate risk, automate processes, manage information, protect privacy, and address compliance issues. The result is one set of technologies, running natively in SharePoint, which improves search, provides an enterprise metadata repository, automates records management, ensures compliance, protects and secures data, and facilitates migration.

Martin Garland, President of Concept Searching, commented, “We are excited about the opportunity to work with Stonebridge. Its background and experience in ECM solutions make Stonebridge a natural fit to partner with Concept Searching. Our combined expertise in the oil and gas market makes this a compelling partnership and one that will deliver real value for our customers. Concept Searching is Microsoft's only managed partner in the SharePoint ecosystem delivering enterprise class taxonomy management and auto-classification, and our Microsoft suite of products is unique in its native integration with the SharePoint 2010 Term Store and managed metadata properties. This makes Concept Searching the ideal partner for Stonebridge customers looking to benefit from enterprise wide intelligent search, classification, migration and governance solutions.”

About Concept Searching

Founded in 2002, Concept Searching provides software products that deliver conceptual metadata generation, auto-classification, and powerful taxonomy management from the desktop to the enterprise. Concept Searching, developer of the Smart Content Framework™, provides organizations with a method to mitigate risk, automate processes, manage information, protect privacy, and address compliance issues. This infrastructure framework utilizes a set of technologies that encompasses the entire portfolio of unstructured information assets, resulting in increased organizational performance and agility.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Ranks in Houston’s Top 10 IT Consulting Firms for Second Straight Year

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:51:00 -0500

HOUSTON, Oct. 17, 2012 – Stonebridge remains one of Houston’s top 10 IT consulting firms according to a listing in the Sept. 21 edition of the Houston Business Journal (HBJ). The listing is derived from the weekly business publication’s soon-to-be-released 2013 Book of Lists, which ranks Stonebridge eighth based on local gross revenue.

The 2013 listing marks the second consecutive year that Stonebridge has made it on HBJ’s top 10 ranking of Houston-area computer networks and systems integrators.

The criterion for the 2013 ranking is based on Stonebridge’s financial performance in 2011, a year in which Stonebridge achieved 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth and earnings growth of more than 300 percent. In particular, the company’s Texas business unit, based in Houston, posted a 65 percent year-over-year increase in revenue.

“We are very pleased to have further solidified our position as one of the top IT consulting firms in Houston,” said Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress, who leads the company’s Texas operations. “While our 2011 performance was exceptional, our goal for our Texas operations is to stay hungry and aggressive in fully executing our business plan as we head into the new year.”

According to Childress, Houston’s oil and gas sector will continue to be the unit’s primary focus for new business revenue. Stonebridge already counts many of Houston’s leading oil and gas companies as clients.

“Stonebridge’s oil and gas industry experience is perhaps our major source of competitive advantage, both here in Houston and throughout Texas,” Childress said. “We plan to leverage that expertise by continuing to win new business opportunities with new oil and gas clients and by introducing innovative new oil and gas industry solutions, such as the Pipeline360° geospatial dashboard.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Dan Wier Joins Stonebridge as Business Development Manager

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:59:00 -0500

HOUSTON, Oct. 9, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today announced that Dan Wier has joined the company as a Business Development Manager in its Houston office.

Wier, who has more than 17 years of software sales and sales management experience, comes to Stonebridge from P2 Energy Solutions, the leading software company for the oil and gas industry. Prior, he was 10 years at IBM Corp. where he served in various sales and account management positions targeting multiple industries. He is a graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Wier’s overall sales experience makes him an ideal addition for Stonebridge’s Texas sales team, said Matthew Childress, Senior Vice President in charge of the company’s Texas operations.

“Our goal is to continue to aggressively grow our business through the acquisition of net-new clients and by expanding our footprint with current customers,” Childress said. “Dan has a proven track record in both of those business development areas, and we expect his success to continue here at Stonebridge.”

Childress noted that Stonebridge’s revenue in the first half of 2012 was 40 percent higher as compared to the same period last year, with the Texas unit experiencing 25 percent growth. The majority of that growth was in the company’s continued expansion of its oil and gas customer base.

“We see Dan’s past success in oil and gas software sales as a tremendous asset,” Childress added. “He is well known within the industry, and his knowledge of the business needs of oil and gas companies will enable him to hit the ground running with selling Stonebridge’s consulting services and defined oil and gas solutions.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Delivers Spatial BI Solution to Atlas Pipeline

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:40:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., Sept. 27, 2012 – A just-published case study about a spatial business intelligence (BI) solution implemented at Tulsa-based Atlas Pipeline cites Stonebridge’s key contributions to the project’s success. The case study was published by Stonebridge partner IDV Solutions, a leading provider of visual BI solutions.

The geospatial application developed for Atlas Pipeline unites all of its internal and external data sources in an interactive map view. The application, which utilizes IDV Solutions’ Visual Fusion software, provides all of Atlas Pipeline’s business units with analysis tools and instant access to the operational and financial information they need to make informed decisions. With Stonebridge’s assistance, Atlas implemented the solution in less than four months.

Atlas Pipeline CIO Tony Dionisio, who selected Stonebridge to lead application development for the project, is quoted in the case study on the business drivers behind the application. “We wanted some insight into what’s going on with the business, that we’re not easily able to discern a spreadsheet, or a bar chart, or a graph,” said Dionisio. “We really want to figure out how the wells connected to our system are going to pay off over time.”

The application developed for Atlas is based on Stonebridge’s Pipeline360° solution. Pipeline360°, which is derived from Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework development methodology, provides a holistic picture of the pipeline business by combining data from internal and external sources and presenting it in a Web-based interactive map view. The map-based interface creates a geographic context to the data, enabling users to analyze data in a pictorial way and to get a more complete view of the business, a benefit pointed out by Atlas’ Dionisio in the case study.

“Everyone in the company knows and understands their own segment of the business,” Dionisio said. “But when it comes to communicating with groups beside or above them, that’s where the spatial BI technology really comes into its own. It quickly paints a picture for everyone of what could be a potential business issue.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Launches Pipeline360°

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:27:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., Sep. 5, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm to the oil & gas industry, today launched Pipeline360°, a geospatial dashboard solution that extends the power of geo-based data visualization to the entire pipeline organization.

Pipeline360°, which is based on Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework development methodology, is designed to provide a holistic picture of the pipeline business by combining data from internal and external sources and presenting it in a Web-based interactive map view. Users are able to add and filter layers of asset-relevant data—for example, a pipeline segment, known wells, gathering facilities, production volumes, drilling permits, drilling activity and competitor positions. A map-based interface provides a geographic context to the data, enabling users to analyze data in a pictorial way and to get a more complete view of the business.

Pipeline companies have long relied on geospatial analysis and GIS applications to manage their business. However, typically GIS is used by a limited number of specialized pipeline personnel, such as geologists and engineers. According to Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President, what makes Pipeline360° different is that it is designed to extend the benefits of geospatial business intelligence to the entire pipeline organization.

“Pipeline360° brings the power of geo-based analysis and reporting to more pipeline departments than ever before,” Childress said. “This solution gives the entire organization—from executive management to operations, from accounting and capital budgeting to marketing—an enhanced, multifaceted view of the business. The analytical and collaborative possibilities are virtually limitless.”

In conjunction with the Pipeline360° launch, Stonebridge announced the Pipeline360° Catalyst program, a defined consulting engagement that delivers a Pipeline360° proof of concept (POC) prototype using the client’s production data. Pipeline360° Catalyst provides a low-risk/high-visibility way to determine the value of the solution by allowing the client to test-drive the solution and see its potential value to the organization.

“Pipeline360° is unique in that it organizes information from across the enterprise and presents it geographically, not only providing context and making information easier to understand but also enabling new ‘eye opening’ insights for a wider range of business users,” Childress said. “It literally proves the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

OK Journal Record: Stonebridge's Record First Half

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

NOTE: The following article appeared in the Aug. 29, 2012 edition of The Oklahoma Journal Record.

Business Service Management unit boosts Stonebridge

TULSA – A Tulsa information technology consulting firm has withstood the stormy recession years to bounce back strongly in the first half of 2012.

“We have seen a trend upward since 2010,” said James Ivy, Stonebridge Inc. CEO. “We suffered some as the recession finally made its way from the East and the West to us in the middle of the country.”

Tulsa-based and privately held Stonebridge derives the majority of its revenue from oil and natural gas companies in the Oklahoma-Texas oil country, especially the industry’s upstream and midstream segments.

Stonebridge’s performance for the first six months of the year was the strongest first half in the company’s history, Ivy said. Revenue in the first half of 2012 was 40 percent higher, with earnings more than 200 percent above last year’s figures, he said. No specific figures were available.

The increase was attributed to revenue growth in all three Stonebridge business units: Oklahoma, Texas and Business Service Management, or BSM. The Oklahoma unit achieved 34-percent growth, the Texas operations had 25 percent growth, and the BSM reported 76-percent growth. Each business unit is split into three divisions – geography, performance and accountability, Ivy said.

About two-thirds of the Stonebridge revenues come from its Microsoft consulting, Ivy said.

“We do not want to take credit for the turnaround,” Ivy said. “It was due to old-fashioned economics.”

The rising price of oil helped many energy companies.

“The price of natural gas is still not where it needs to be, but oil prices have a direct correlation on revenues,” Ivy said.

The company used the downtime as an opportunity to retrench and start a new business line, Ivy said.

Stonebridge’s newest unit is BSM.

The unit has a diverse sales strategy, however, and does not target any specific business sector, Ivy said. The BSM unit’s customer base covers many sectors, including banking, insurance, high-technology manufacturing, digital security and state government.

Otherwise, the improvement in the company’s bottom line comes down to getting the right team together and focusing, he said.

“What we do today we do better than we did it three, four years ago,” Ivy said.

Stonebridge allows its clients to improve what they do.

“We walk in the door and, for example, understand the domain of the oil and gas companies,” Ivy said. “We allow the customer to leverage the assets they already own.”

During the second quarter, Stonebridge won consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts, Ivy said.

Key projects during the quarter included the following:

Stonebridge won a consulting assessment for a major convenience store operator. The convenience store operator wanted to improve its ability to do reporting and business analysis of its consumer marketing and merchandizing departments. Stonebridge conducted interviews and work sessions in order to help define the state problem and offer defined recommendations on how to solve it, Ivy said.

A leading international insurance provider engaged Stonebridge to automate business processes utilizing applications and the cloud environment to drive approvals, assignments and automation, Ivy said. Stonebridge trained the client’s workers across three continents to accomplish the goal.

Stonebridge completed an assessment for a major regional electric company to formulate a strategy for real-time monitoring and management of IT assets and procedures.

A wholesale landscape nursery renewed its database administration services agreement with Stonebridge to support business applications.

Stonebridge developed a solution to improve innovation and collaboration at a major midstream oil and gas company.

Stonebridge completed an upgrade for a leading U.S. independent oil and gas exploration and production company. Stonebridge managed the upgrade effort, including planning, installing and configuring the new software environment.

Stonebridge Records Best First-Half Performance in Company History

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:25:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., Aug. 15, 2012—Stonebridge, the award winning information technology consulting firm, today announced its Q2 performance resulted in the strongest first half in the company’s history.

Stonebridge’s revenue in the first half of 2012 was 40% higher, with earnings over 200% higher, as compared to the same period last year. The increase was attributed to revenue growth in all three Stonebridge business units, with the Oklahoma unit achieving 34% growth, the Texas operations with 25% growth, and Business Service Management (BSM) with 76% growth.

Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President, said, “We are extremely pleased with our first-half performance. Revenue growth in the first half was broad-based, with all of our business units registering impressive gains, with particularly robust growth in our BSM unit. Our outstanding performance is a reaffirmation of our commitment to improve profitability, drive delivery excellence and pursue growth.”

Significant Stonebridge accomplishments for Q2 2012 included:

Launched Enterprise Social Platform (ESP), a new service offering that enables organizations to extend Microsoft SharePoint collaboration software into a robust, Facebook-style enterprise business-focused social networking solution.

Expanded its Database Services offerings to offer organizations the widest possible range of skilled DBA resource options for Oracle and SQL Server environments—from “on demand” resources on a short-term project basis to a retainer-based managed services program that delivers skilled DBA resources on a monthly basis.

Announced that it will be a Silver Sponsor of WWRUG12, the premier BMC ITSM and Action Request System educational event, Oct. 15-19 in San Jose, Calif.

Established an innovative “Stonebridge Boot Camp” training program designed to develop the company’s next generation of IT consulting leaders via a hyper-focused crash course in high-end technical skills and required consulting “soft skills” such as client communication and professional ethics.

Specifically in Q2, Stonebridge won competitive consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key contract wins and projects for the quarter included:

A major U.S. convenience store operator selected Stonebridge to conduct a Phase Zero™ assessment of its business intelligence (BI) environment supporting the company’s consumer marketing and merchandising departments. The client’s primary goal is to simplify the available BI mechanisms to access and analyze marketing and merchandising data and consolidate available data sources and toolsets onto a common enterprise data architecture. Stonebridge will conduct a thorough evaluation of the existing reporting environment, define a master data management (MDM) and data governance strategy and deliver a technology roadmap and high-level project plan for the BI architecture, including a marketing and merchandising data warehouse.

One of the world’s leading international insurance providers engaged Stonebridge, in partnership with BMC, to automate business processes utilizing the Service Request Management (SRM) module of the BMC IT Service Management (ITSM) application suite in a BMC Remedy onDemand cloud environment. Stonebridge utilized Advanced Interface Forms to facilitate multi-tiered requirements that allowed the client to consolidate multiple requests and workflow to drive approvals, assignments and automation. Stonebridge also trained the client’s resources across three continents to build similar requests in the SRM module. By enabling the client to build its own requests, Stonebridge enabled the client to maximize its utilization of Remedy ITSM.

Stonebridge completed a Phase Zero assessment for a major regional electric company to formulate a strategy for a multi-user visual BI solution to enable real-time monitoring and management of IT assets and procedures extending from the service- and process-level out to the field device. The client’s objective is to create standardized cross-functional processes that will improve responsiveness to IT incidents, events and outages to enable consistent decision making and IT service availability. Stonebridge’s assessment will focus on gathering and analyzing business requirements of multiple business users and create a visual BI strategy for IT services, including a technical roadmap and implementation plan. The resulting best practices and recommendations will be used to identify the visualization approaches, required data sets, performance measurements and analytics, and actions to ensure availability of services provided by the client’s IT group.

One of the world’s largest financial institutions engaged Stonebridge as an IT Business Management (ITBM) subject matter expert to lead the implementation of the BMC ITBM Demand and Resource Management solution. The objectives of the project are the creation of a standardized global service delivery model to enable automation and self-serve delivery; the reduction in escalations during infrastructure planning and fulfillment; standardization of project and portfolio management for business units across multiple continents; and overall improvement of quality and consistency of service delivery for forecasting, design, management, approval and fulfillment of project and/or service requests.

A large wholesale landscape nursery renewed its managed database administration (DBA) services agreement with Stonebridge to support enterprise business applications. As part of the contract renewal, Stonebridge will continue to support the client’s Oracle database environment via the SmartSourceSM DBA managed services program. Previously Stonebridge led the client’s large database upgrade project from Oracle 8i to Oracle 11g.

Stonebridge developed a SharePoint-powered knowledge management solution designed to improve innovation and collaboration at a major midstream oil & gas company. The client envisioned the solution as an “idea funnel” to capture suggestions from field personnel on potential opportunities to improve processes and reduce costs. The Stonebridge solution utilizes InfoPath electronic forms to capture employee suggestions, which are then stored as lists with SharePoint. The client selected Stonebridge over two competitors, citing Stonebridge’s extensive experience with SharePoint development projects for oil & gas companies.

Stonebridge completed a Microsoft SharePoint migration for a leading U.S. independent oil & gas exploration and production company. The client sought to upgrade from its existing SharePoint 2007 deployment to SharePoint 2010 in order to take advantage of the enhanced features of the 2010 platform, including advanced business intelligence, project management, document and records management, and search capabilities. Stonebridge oversaw the entire upgrade effort including planning, installing and configuring the new SharePoint 2010 environment, as well as managing the migration of all content and applications into the new environment.

Stonebridge designed and implemented a Microsoft-based business intelligence solution for a commercial landscape nursery. The solution was specifically designed to deliver key performance metrics (KPIs) to the client’s executive management. Stonebridge built the backend data components and reporting functionality, and also provided user training to the executive users. The client selected Stonebridge because of its business intelligence expertise and status as a multi-competency Microsoft Managed Gold Partner.

Stonebridge developed a SharePoint-driven prospect maturity tracking solution for an independent energy company. The client’s existing Excel-based method for prospect maturity tracking was prone to process inconsistency and data integrity issues. To create the solution, Stonebridge extracted the client’s business logic and prospect maturation process workflow and then developed a dynamic database design that enabled a four-dimensional visualization of prospect maturity data. The Stonebridge solution, which utilizes SharePoint, SQL Server and InfoPath, provides users with a consistent process and set of business rules across all prospects, thereby increasing accuracy of and visibility into prospect maturity status.

A mid-sized oil & gas operating company engaged Stonebridge to develop a .NET custom application for water resource management. The client envisions the application will enable it to proactively address the water needs of its long-term drilling and workover operations. The company selected Stonebridge to provide development expertise for the water system application suite because of Stonebridge’s oil & gas expertise and its proven expertise in .NET application development.

Stonebridge completed an OpenText ECM Suite upgrade for a global manufacturer of oil & gas flow equipment products. The project centered on the migration of enterprise data from the client’s existing OpenText Livelink 9.7.0 environment to a new OpenText Content Server 10 environment. Stonebridge provided strategic guidance and support to successfully complete the project, including development of the architectural design for a standardized reporting environment and application of implementation best practices within the Content Server 10 environment.

A community college renewed its SmartSource DBA agreement with Stonebridge for on-demand managed database services. The agreement is the client’s fourth consecutive renewal with Stonebridge for database services. Stonebridge will continue providing support of the school’s SQL Server database environment. The client cited Stonebridge’s ability to provide timely, efficient and cost-effective database support as the key factor in the decision to continue its relationship with Stonebridge.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Announces Silver Sponsorship of SQLSaturday Oklahoma 2012

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:40:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., Aug. 6, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading IT consulting firm and the only Microsoft Gold Managed Partner based in Oklahoma, announced that it is a Silver Sponsor of SQLSaturday Oklahoma 2012.

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. SQLSaturday Oklahoma 2012 will be held on Aug. 25, 2012, in Oklahoma City at the Moore Norman Tech Center.

Mike Keys, Stonebridge Vice President of Business Development/Oklahoma, said, “As a longtime Microsoft partner and a leading advocate for the Microsoft technology stack to organizations in Oklahoma, we are very pleased to be associated with the SQLSaturday Oklahoma training event as a Silver Sponsor.”

The SQLSaturday program, which is owned by the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), provides the tools and knowledge needed for groups and event leaders to organize and host a free day of training for SQL Server professionals. The program, which is well recognized throughout the Microsoft technical community, was established in 2007.

The complete agenda for SQLSaturday Oklahoma 2012, as well as online event registration, is available at the event website.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Sponsors 2012 Oklahoma IT Symposium

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:40:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., July 25, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, is again supporting the Oklahoma IT professional community as a returning sponsor of the annual Oklahoma IT Symposium.

The 2012 Oklahoma IT Symposium, which is in its seventh year, will be held Aug. 23rd at the Renaissance Oklahoma City Convention Center Hotel. Stonebridge, which has been a sponsor of the event for the past three years, will have a booth in the exhibition area.

Affiliated with ISLOK (Information Systems Leadership of Oklahoma) and the Tulsa CIO Forum, the Oklahoma IT Symposium is designed to bring together IT leaders and thinkers throughout Oklahoma to inspire, collaborate and maintain the competitive advantage in an industry that demands more for less.

More than 200 IT executives representing approximately 100 of Oklahoma’s top IT organizations attended last year.

Featured session speakers for the 2012 event include visionary IT executives from leading companies in the state, including Tony Dionisio, CIO of Atlas Pipeline, a longtime Stonebridge client. Dionisio’s presentation will focus on a breakthrough geospatial business intelligence solution developed in collaboration with Stonebridge.

The complete agenda for the 2012 Oklahoma IT Symposium, as well as online event registration, is available here.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Recognized as ESM Premier Partner by BMC Software

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:59:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., July 17, 2012 – Stonebridge today announced that it recently has earned the distinction as an ESM Premier Partner of BMC Software, a leading enterprise IT management company.

The Premier Partner designation reflects Stonebridge’s high level of competence in the business service management (BSM) consulting discipline and the company’s record of success in projects involving BMC Software products.

Samir Kumar, Director of Stonebridge BSM Consulting Practice, said, “We are extremely pleased to be recognized by BMC Software as an ESM Premier Partner. Our elevated partner status allows our customers to work with a single solution provider that delivers a consistent level of service, accountability and dependability, and a depth and breadth of knowledge few other companies can provide. The resulting value and synergy differentiates us from a typical solution provider. In addition, as a Premier Partner, we will be optimally positioned to help our partner BMC grow their software footprint with our premium customer accounts.”

According to Kumar, the Premier Partner distinction will enable Stonebridge to attain its goal of providing high-quality BMC solutions to clients via the company’s comprehensive advisory and implementation consulting services. Equally important, Stonebridge’s Premier Partner status will allow it to leverage a higher level of BMC support for sales and marketing efforts and take advantage of closer collaboration with BMC on technical issues.

Stonebridge’s BSM Consulting Practice has been in existence for only five years, and in that time it has become the fastest-growing business unit in company history. In 2011, Stonebridge BSM’s revenue grew by 36 percent, and BMC Remedy engagements were a significant contributor to those record numbers.

Stonebridge also is making its first appearance as a Silver Sponsor at WWRUG12, the World Wide Remedy Users Group (WWRUG) Conference, Oct. 15-19, in San Jose, Calif. The annual WWRUG conference is organized and planned by WWRUG Canada, Inc. with the support of sponsorships by BMC Software, Inc. and other Remedy Partners, such as Stonebridge. Presentations are delivered by a combination of BMC Staff, BMC Partners and Customers. Online registration is available on the WWRUG12 website.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Launches Enterprise Social Platform (ESP) to Deliver Business-Focused Social Networking

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:35:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., June 29, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm and Microsoft Managed Gold Partner, today launched Enterprise Social Platform (ESP), a new service offering that enables organizations to extend Microsoft SharePoint collaboration software into a robust, Facebook-style enterprise business-focused social networking solution.

“Enterprise social networking is not only changing the way people collaborate in the workplace, it is also transforming how organizations build, maintain, and grow competitive advantage through efficient knowledge sharing,” said Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President.

“Not only does ESP for SharePoint provide familiar Facebook-like functionality for a new generation of workforce with SharePoint, but with its mobile toolset it also allows a mobile workforce to continue to stay productive and collaborate instantaneously," Childress said. "This serves our customers very well as they are further investing in their SharePoint platform, while kick-starting or accelerating their mobile strategy implementation.”

Stonebridge ESP for SharePoint gives employees access to commonly used social media features such as Communities, Profiles, Status Updates, News Feeds, People Search, Mobile Access, Messaging and Video File Sharing.

SharePoint is used by more than 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies today, making it arguably the most popular web application platform in the market. Recently Microsoft has added new social networking capabilities to SharePoint that make it an ideal platform for socializing the enterprise.

According to Childress, Stonebridge’s deep SharePoint knowledge, as well as our proven project experience in delivering enterprise social networking solutions built on SharePoint, makes the company an expert advisor in the area of SharePoint-driven social application development.

The potential bottom-line benefits of Stonebridge ESP can be dramatic, Childress added. “It delivers a SharePoint-powered enterprise social environment that not only enables today’s information workers to share, collaborate, communicate, and engage with colleagues more naturally and faster,” he said.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Ranks Sixth Among Top IT Consulting Firms in Houston

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:39:00 -0500

HOUSTON, June 19, 2012 – Stonebridge is one of the Top 10 IT consulting and systems integration companies operating in Houston, according to the Houston Business Journal.

The weekly business publication ranked Stonebridge ranks sixth overall based on local gross revenue in 2010.

“Houston is our largest market in Texas, so it is no surprise that we are in the Top 10 of IT consulting firms in Houston,” said Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress, who oversees the company’s Texas operations, which is headquartered in Houston. “Houston is a prime market for us largely because of its high concentration of oil and gas companies.”

Stonebridge counts many of Houston’s leading oil and gas companies as clients. The company, which also has offices in Dallas and Tulsa, has maintained an office in Houston since 1995, when it was founded.

According to Childress, while oil and gas continues to be a dominant contributor to Stonebridge’s Houston-based revenue stream, he sees the opportunity to make significant inroads into additional market segments in Houston, including health care, financial services, and manufacturing.

“We are forecasting high growth for our Texas operations, which means greater opportunities for our current Houston associates as well as more opportunities for us to continue adding staff,” he said.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Making ‘Big Splash’ at WWRUG12

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:13:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., June 14, 2012 – Stonebridge is honored to be a Silver Sponsor of the WWRUG12, Oct. 15-19, in San Jose, Calif. The annual World Wide Remedy Users Group (WWRUG) conference is recognized as the premier BMC ITSM and Action Request System educational event.

While the WWRUG conference is in its fourth year, this year marks Stonebridge’s debut at the event—and the company is stepping up in a big way, according to Samir Kumar, Director of Stonebridge’s Business Service Management (BSM) strategic business unit.

“Stonebridge BSM has been in existence for just five years, and in that time we have earned the distinction as the fastest-growing business unit in company history,” Kumar said.

“Last year, our unit revenue grew by 36 percent, and a significant part of that business is directly tied to BMC Remedy engagements. Given our success, we think it is time for us to increase our visibility in the market, and what better way to do that than to be a Silver Sponsor and conference exhibitor at WWRUG12.”

The WWRUG annual conference is organized and planned by WWRUG Canada, Inc. with the support of sponsorships by BMC Software, Inc. and other Remedy Partners, such as Stonebridge. Presentations are delivered by a combination of BMC Staff, Partners and Customers. Online registration is available on the WWRUG12 website.

About Stonebridge

Oklahoma Journal Record: "IT Consulting Firm Creating Boot Camp"

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:01:00 -0500

NOTE: The following article appeared in the May 21, 2012 edition of The Oklahoma Journal Record. A downloadable PDF of the story is available here.

TULSA – A Tulsa-based information technology services company is creating a boot camp to find talent to bolster its Oklahoma workforce.

Stonebridge, an IT consulting firm that also has operations in Texas, has a new training program to develop the next generation of IT consultants.

Greg Peters, director of delivery for Oklahoma, has dubbed it the “Stonebridge Boot Camp.”

Director for delivery is a senior position at Stonebridge that manages scheduling for the company consultants with client accounts, said Craig Dees, communications director.

“Delivery is just that – delivering services to a client,” Dees said. “There is also a director of delivery for Texas.”

Stonebridge is recruiting boot camp trainees in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Houston, Peters said. Houston is where the company’s Texas operations are based.

The first class will have four to six people. Future classes could have as many as 10 to 15 participants.

It will be a six-week training program focused on technical skills and consulting soft skills such as communication and ethics, Peters said.

“We are looking for intelligent people who have a consulting aptitude and the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge as we will deliver a lot of diverse and complex training throughout the boot camp,” Peters said.

The consulting services business is growing because technology is becoming more diverse and specialized, Peters said.

“As a client, you can’t hire enough people to cover all the areas,” Peters said. “More and more companies are turning to outsourcing technology services and software creation.”

Stonebridge’s first-quarter revenue was 40 percent higher, with earnings 200 percent higher compared with the same time last year, the company reported. The increase was attributed to revenue growth in all three Stonebridge business units, with the Oklahoma unit achieving 57-percent growth. Stonebridge operations in Texas grew 29 percent. The company’s Business Service Management sector grew 36 percent compared with last year.

Stonebridge is looking to hire people with talent and a mental toughness, Peters said.

“We have several aspects of the training that teach this,” Peters said. “Part of the boot camp will cover methodology that has a large-client communication aspect.”

Stonebridge will also put people through a class on do’s and don’ts, Peters said.

“They will be working through various project management situations where they will have to deal with conflict resolution and client guidance,” Peters said.

By the end of the month, Stonebridge will have 88 employees total, with 45 people at the Tulsa office, 34 in Houston and eight in Dallas.
Peters said Stonebridge is looking for what he called consulting DNA.

“With a more experienced person it can be shown a lot more tangibly on their resume,” Peters said. “For a less experienced boot camper, it’s information we have to gather from conversations.”

Peters estimated the camp will cost $80,000 to $100,000.

“That’s just content creation, training time, materials and laptops,” Peter said. “If you add in lost revenue, from our top consultants who are teaching the boot camp, as well as the investment we are making in the boot campers throughout the year, it’s about $50,000 to $75,000 per student the first year.”

Peters estimated the payback would take a little more than three years.

The boot camp isn’t a simple endeavor, Peters said.

“However, it is a way to quickly grow a loyal, sustaining workforce for your company over time if you are willing to make the investment,” Peters said.

Written by D. Ray Tuttle, The Journal Record

Stonebridge Brings Session on SQL Server 2012 and the Realization of Self-Service BI to Houston

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:17:00 -0500

HOUSTON, May 18, 2012 – Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, is co-hosting an interactive lunchtime session on SQL Server and the Realization of Self-Service Business Intelligence (BI) in Houston on May 30th.

The session will be held from 11:30 a.m. till 1 p.m. at Microsoft’s Houston offices, located at One Briar Plaza, 2000 W. Sam Houston Parkway S.

The event will feature updates from Microsoft and Stonebridge executives on the new BI features of SQL Server 2012, including enhancements to PowerPivot, the new Business Intelligence Semantic Model and the new Power View data discovery tool. Steve Molsberry, Director of Stonebridge’s Business Intelligence Practice, is scheduled as a featured presenter.

“The advances to SQL Server 2012 make self-service reporting a reality, enabling anyone to create a report in seconds and explore, visualize and share information,” Molsberry said. “Our interactive session is designed to give business users and IT a first glimpse at what is possible with SQL Server 2012.”

Registration for the event is available via Click to Attend or by contacting Megan Dean at 713-220-8012 or via email at megan.dean@sbti.com.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge's Q1 Performance Sets New Record

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:31:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., May 16, 2012 – Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced its strongest quarterly consulting performance in the company’s history.

Stonebridge’s revenue in Q1 was 40% higher, with earnings 200% higher, as compared to the same quarter last year. The increase was attributed to revenue growth in all three Stonebridge business units, with the Oklahoma unit achieving 57% growth, the Texas operations with 29% growth, and Business Service Management with 36% growth.

“As our Q1 numbers clearly demonstrate, we have entered an exciting new phase in our company’s evolution,” said Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress. “Last year, we implemented a new organizational model and delivery structure to support our strategic priorities: improve profitability, drive delivery excellence and pursue growth. Our outstanding results show we are delivering on these priorities and continuing to drive value to our customers, our associates and our partners.”

Other notable Stonebridge accomplishments for Q1 2012 include:

Successfully achieved recertification for its seven (7) Microsoft Gold and Silver Competencies. Stonebridge has the distinction of being in the top 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have reached this proficiency level in Microsoft solution development. The company is the only Microsoft Managed Gold Partner headquartered in Oklahoma.
Launched SharePoint Branding & User Experience, a new service offering that enables clients to design, create and deploy engaging and highly usable SharePoint sites that reflect the organization’s brand identity and accelerate user adoption of the platform.
Expanded its Business Service Management (BSM) consulting practice leadership team with the hiring of Stephen Taylor as BSM Chief Solution Architect and Michael de Sosa as BSM Senior Business Development Manager.
Augmented its Oklahoma operations with the hiring of IT industry veteran Gregory Peters as the company’s first-ever Director of Delivery for Oklahoma.

Specifically in Q1, Stonebridge won competitive consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key Q1 contract wins and projects included:

Stonebridge developed a SharePoint-enabled workflow solution to improve staff productivity and management of loan documents for the mortgage division of a major Midwest regional bank. The solution enables loan officers to route scanned documents from branch locations to centralized offices for processing and metadata entry. Leveraging SharePoint’s document management capabilities, the process automation solution creates new efficiencies for bank personnel by providing a traceable method for routing in-process loan documents. The bank’s SharePoint environment was implemented by Stonebridge in a prior engagement.
A major U.S. healthcare services company engaged Stonebridge for technical and functional consulting on a BMC IT Business Management (ITBM) IT Service Costing solution. This project follows the Stonebridge’s successful implementation of an ITBM IT Service Costing proof of concept (POC) for the client company, which has an annual IT budget in excess of $2 billion. Based on the success of the POC, the client engaged Stonebridge to configure and implement the IT Service Costing solution across the enterprise. Additionally Stonebridge will design and automate the interfaces between ITBM and its various source systems to create more efficient cost models for IT services and enable a true “bill of IT” to the business.
Stonebridge developed a workflow automation system that enables an international oil and gas exploration and production company to more efficiently meet the state regulatory reporting obligations of its Texas operations. The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) requires companies to provide a monthly inactive well aging report (IWAR). To meet this requirement, Stonebridge designed a SharePoint-based process automation system that automatically pulls the IWAR report from the RRC website and delivers it to the client company’s regulatory analysts for review and verification, which saves time and enhances data integrity.
Stonebridge completed an upgrade of the BMC IT Business Management (ITBM) Demand and Resource Management module to v7.6.04 SP1 for a leading manufacturer of IT security software. The client company had previously engaged Stonebridge to implement ITBM 7.6.x, which was world’s first successful 7.6.x implementation. Also included in the project scope was integration of Business Objects XI for enhanced reporting. The client chose Stonebridge as its ITBM advisor based on Stonebridge consultants’ knowledge of BMC and the high level of their performance during the original implementation.
A Fortune 500 power company selected Stonebridge to manage a massive data center migration and optimization project. Working under an aggressive schedule, Stonebridge will provide logical database support of client company’s Oracle and SQL Server environments during the data center move. Also included in the project are upgrades to Oracle and SQL Server databases as well as database cleanup and decommissioning of unused databases and hardware.
Stonebridge completed an IT Business Management (ITBM) engagement with a prominent Mexican petroleum company. Stonebridge implemented a number of BMC ITBM modules, including Supplier Management, Financial Management and IT Service Costing. Benefits of the implementation include improved transparency, visibility and control over IT suppliers and service providers as well as strong analytical and financial planning functionality through the reporting platform. The project was also showcased by the client company’s CEO at an oil and gas industry event.
Stonebridge developed a Facebook-style enterprise social collaboration solution for a global oil and gas company. Leveraging the client company’s existing SharePoint deployment, the social-business solution links various function-specific communities, with each community having the capability of managing its own “best answers” environment. The search-driven solution enables users to quickly locate both content and people and to share information, documents, video, images and best practices in real time across the organization. Due to the successful launch of the social business application, the client company recently engaged Stonebridge to develop an iOS mobile application to provide field access to the collaboration tool via iPhone and iPad.
A diversified oil and natural gas company engaged Stonebridge to develop and deploy a well lifecycle management solution. Stonebridge will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the client company’s current well lifecycle processes, which are dependent upon manual processes and spreadsheets. Based on the assessment findings, Stonebridge will develop an automated forms-based workflow system built on the SharePoint platform and leveraging InfoPath Forms Services. The client company selected Stonebridge because of its extensive oil and gas industry experience and track record of success with large-scale well management and well data integration projects.
A major international brewing company selected Stonebridge, in partnership with BMC, to implement the BMC IT Business Management (ITBM) solution. The solution will enable the client company to improve the performance of its IT organization on the enterprise level by providing a centralized view of IT suppliers, contracts and financials throughout the entire supplier lifecycle; proactive management of supplier contracts based on performance; greater cost transparency of defined services; a true “bill of IT” in the business’ language; and comprehensive financial reporting via more powerful analytical capabilities.
A large wholesale nursery grower selected Stonebridge to implement a Microsoft-based business intelligence solution for delivering key performance metrics to its executive team. The engagement scope includes a review of analysis and reporting requirements; underlying data sources; and available end-user tool options. Based on the findings, Stonebridge will build the backend data components and reporting/analysis functionality and also provide user training to executive stakeholders. The client company chose Stonebridge because of the maturity of our business intelligence consulting practice and our status as a Microsoft Managed Gold Partner.
One of the world’s leading investment banks selected Stonebridge, in partnership with BMC, to upgrade its IT Service Management (ITSM) Remedy suite. Included in the engagement scope is upgrading ITSM Remedy and Service Request Management modules to the most recent version, 7.6.04. Stonebridge also will configure the Incident Management and Change Management modules. Additionally Stonebridge will create a “people feed” to allow the client company to create new-user authentication automatically. The client also has engaged Stonebridge to provide post-implementation support.
A global manufacturer of oil and gas flow equipment products selected Stonebridge to standardize enterprise document management on a single platform. The client company’s multiple divisions currently utilize various customized instances of the OpenText Livelink ECM application. Stonebridge will lead the enterprise migration onto OpenText’s newly released Content Server 10, which will establish a uniform document management approach and application support of the document management systems and processes. Stonebridge was selected because of its extensive background in enterprise document management implementations and hands-on knowledge of the OpenText ECM application suite.
A prestigious healthcare services company engaged Stonebridge to develop strategy and governance procedures as part of the implementation of the BMC IT Service Management (ITSM) Remedy 7.6.04 Change Management module. Prior to this agreement, Stonebridge conducted a thorough review of the client company’s existing implementation of Remedy Incident Management to ensure that the appropriate categorizations were developed. This step, performed by Stonebridge’s BSM Transformation consulting practice, is considered essential to the success of the ongoing Change Management implementation, as well as to all subsequent phases, by saving the client associated costs due to rework and lost historical reporting.
Stonebridge completed a project to upgrade the Oracle database environment for a leading wholesale landscaping company. Stonebridge was responsible for upgrading the client company’s development, quality assurance, production, and disaster recovery Oracle databases from Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition. Installing and configuring Oracle Enterprise Manager/Grid Control was also within the project’s scope. The upgrade enables the client to add new database capabilities and improve the management of its Oracle databases.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge “Boot Camp” Designed to Grow the Next Generation of Company Leaders

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:13:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., May 14, 2012 – A growing IT services company is taking a proactive approach for addressing the problem of finding new talent to replenish its workforce in Oklahoma and Texas—and ultimately add to its leadership team.

The solution: Grow your own.

Stonebridge, a Tulsa-based IT consulting services firm with operations in Oklahoma and Texas, is launching an aggressive training program designed to develop the company’s next generation of IT consulting leaders. And it is looking to hire people with the natural talent and mental toughness to be part of the program.

Dubbed “Stonebridge Boot Camp,” the six-week training program is a hyper-focused crash course in high-end technical skills and required consulting “soft skills” such as client communication and professional ethics.

The inaugural class is scheduled to start this month at the company’s Tulsa headquarters at 4200 E. Skelly Drive. Plans for subsequent Boot Camps are under way.

Stonebridge is actively recruiting Boot Camp trainees in Tulsa and Oklahoma City as well as in Houston, where its Texas operations is headquartered.

The impetus behind the Boot Camp program is simple. Stonebridge has experienced tremendous growth in its consulting services business and anticipates the uptick in its business to not only grow but also accelerate.

“Over the past two years we have been seeing additional opportunities and winning more business,” said James Ivy, Stonebridge’s President and CEO. “In fact, in the first quarter of this year, we enjoyed our best-ever results for quarterly revenues and profitability.”

“Necessity is, as they say, the mother of invention,” Ivy said. “And we believe the Boot Camp program is necessary for our company to take full advantage of the opportunity in front of us, and at the same time grow our next generation of leaders from within.”

Ivy expects the Boot Camp program to produce 75 graduates by 2014.

According to Stonebridge’s Gregory Peters, who is overseeing the training program, the company is looking for candidates with an entrepreneurial mindset, a passion for problem solving and experience working within a team structure. On the technical side, candidates need at least six months’ experience with Microsoft’s .NET development framework.

“The skill sets required of an IT consultant are different than those of a person in an IT department,” said Peters, a 20-year industry veteran who also is the company’s Director of Delivery for Oklahoma.

“Obviously, an IT consultant must have superior technical aptitude. But she or he also must possess additional ‘soft’ skills—call it ‘Consulting DNA’—such as excellent communication abilities, a knack for problem-solving, business professionalism and empathy for the client.”

The Boot Camp’s six-week curriculum, taught by Stonebridge’s top senior consultants, is designed to immerse trainees in three core subject areas: Stonebridge culture, business professionalism and technical skills development. The program also will include interactive sessions with Stonebridge clients, who will discuss best practices in IT consulting from the client’s perspective.

The initial Boot Camp “pilot” class will be limited to six consultant trainees. Subsequent classes are expected to have as many as 10-15 trainees.

Boot Camp trainees will receive all the benefits of a full-time employee. “Trainees are salaried Stonebridge Associates with benefits on Day One,” Peters said.

Following the intense six-week classroom training, trainees will be assigned to internal or simulated projects, after which time they will “shadow” Stonebridge senior consultants on actual client projects. Peters added, “With the practical knowledge derived from the Boot Camp and post-training experience, trainees will possess the necessary skills to pass Microsoft professional certification tests.”

He also stressed that while a college degree is strongly preferred, “We would not rule out someone if we felt that they met the rest of the profile.”

“We intend to keep the Boot Camp program going, honing the curriculum over time, because it is vital to our continued success,” Peters said. “Finding the right talent when we need it is getting harder and harder. We believe it is in our long-term interest to grow our own talent pool by investing in people with the right aptitude and ambition. And we expect our investment to pay big dividends in the near future.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Provides ‘On Demand’ Database Resources for Oracle and SQL Server Environments

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:48:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., May 1, 2012 – In response to increased demand for greater flexibility in database resource solutions, Stonebridge has expanded its Database Services offerings in order to offer organizations the widest possible range of skilled DBA resource options for Oracle and SQL Server environments.

The expanded Stonebridge Database Services offering provides clients with maximum flexibility in leveraging Stonebridge’s database consultants—from “on demand” resources on a short-term project basis to a retainer-based managed services program that delivers skilled DBA resources on a monthly basis.

According to Dale Young, Director of Stonebridge Database Services consulting practice, the new expanded offering enables IT directors to set the level of skilled database administration resources as those resources are needed.

“While database administration is a business requirement, the level of support your business requires changes, sometimes from day to day,” Young said. “One day, you need a temporary replacement; the next day, it may be additional help in a big project. The changing level of urgency for skilled database resources is the challenge our expanded service offering is designed to address.”

Stonebridge’s Database Services provide flexible engagement models customized for each client. All engagement models provide clients with access to Stonebridge’s team of database experts. The company’s consultants average more than 15 years of database administration experience, with real-world skills in managing and tuning Oracle and SQL Server environments running on a variety of platforms, from Windows to Unix/Linux.

According to Young, Stonebridge database consultants have extensive experience in large “always on/24x7” environments as well as smaller “regular business hours” environments—and everything in between. This experience includes high availability/disaster recovery scenarios, database upgrades, database architecture, database development, and performance tuning.

“Whether your needs are tactical or strategic, project or resource driven, we can supplement your team with expert Oracle and SQL Server resources whenever and however you need them,” he said.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge to Co-Host Microsoft Technology Roadmap Event in Tulsa

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:25:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., April 25, 2012 – Stonebridge, the only Oklahoma-based Microsoft Gold Managed Partner, is pleased to announce that it is co-hosting the upcoming Microsoft Technology Roadmap Event in Tulsa, to be held May 22nd from 9 a.m. till 12:15 p.m., at the Hyatt Regency Tulsa.

The event will feature product updates from Microsoft executives on Windows 8, Office Roadmap Vision, Azure, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012. Steve Molsberry, Director of Stonebridge’s Business Intelligence Practice, is also scheduled to present.

Mike Keys, Stonebridge’s Vice President of Business Development for Oklahoma, said, “We are delighted to partner with Microsoft again to bring the Microsoft Technology Roadmap Event to Oklahoma businesses. We had a very strong turnout at our ‘Roadmap’ event in Oklahoma City last month, and we are expecting the same kind of response in Tulsa in May.

"This event will give Tulsa business professionals the opportunity to get the very latest updates on the Microsoft technologies that they currently rely on, to get inside information on soon-to-be-released Microsoft business solutions and to network with peers.”

The Hyatt Regency Tulsa is located at 100 East 2nd Street. Register for the event here.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Execs to Teach Course on Utilities Business Intelligence at CS Week

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:54:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., April 19, 2012 – Steve Molsberry, Director of Stonebridge’s Business Intelligence Practice, and Tony Isler, Stonebridge Business Development Manager, will be co-instructors for a course on utilities dashboard solutions at CS Week College, April 30th at the Gaylord Texan Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas.

Molsberry and Isler will lead a one-day course entitled “Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Improve the Utility Enterprise by Delivering Dashboards and Business Intelligence—Everywhere.”

The course will focus on how utilities can leverage their SharePoint investment and Bing Maps to build dashboard solutions for Incident and Outage Management with integration to the company’s GIS systems and other back office applications. The session will also provide a review of the latest BI components integrated with SharePoint 2010, including the new SQL Server 2012 data visualization features of Power View.

CS Week College is a component of CS Week, the premier utility customer service educational conference for investor-owned utilities, cooperatives, municipalities and government entities.

Stonebridge was specifically selected by Microsoft to present at CS Week. Stonebridge, a Microsoft Gold Managed Partner, has extensive experience in designing and deploying Microsoft-powered BI solutions for utilities, including spatial dashboards that provide visualization of incidents, outages and smart meter information.

About CS Week

CS Week’s mission is to plan and deliver professional, unbiased, educational opportunities in a cost-effective manner for the electric, gas, water/wastewater utilities, cooperatives and municipalities throughout North America and the world. The annual convention features CS Week Executive Summit, CS Week College, the CS Week Synergy Groups, the 60+ workshops of CS Week Conference 36, and the largest Exhibit Hall in meter-to-cash and customer service-related Smart Infrastructure. More information is available at www.csweek.org.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Achieves Renewal of Microsoft Partner Competencies

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:42:00 -0500

TULSA, Okla., March 12, 2012 – Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced that it has successfully achieved recertification for its seven (7) Microsoft Gold and Silver Competencies. With the renewal, Stonebridge retains the distinction of being in the top 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have reached this proficiency level in Microsoft solution development.

“Although Microsoft’s recertification process is rigorous and demanding, achieving it each year gives us a distinct competitive advantage in the Microsoft consulting market,” said Doug Benshoof, Stonebridge Vice President of Application Development Services, and who oversees the company’s annual Microsoft Partner Renewal and Certification process.

“Our clients can take comfort in the knowledge that their Microsoft projects are being delivered by a company that is a member of an elite group of expert solution providers specializing in the delivery of Microsoft-powered business solutions,” Benshoof said.

Stonebridge holds Microsoft Gold Competencies in four defined solution areas: Business Intelligence, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Software Development. The company also has achieved Microsoft Silver Competencies in three areas: Data Platform, Search and Web Development.

According to the Microsoft Partner website, Gold Competencies demonstrate best-in-class expertise within the Microsoft marketplace. “Earning a Gold Competency is evidence of the deepest, most consistent commitment to a specific, in-demand business solution area, along with the distinction of being among only 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have attained this outstanding degree of proficiency.”

Last year Microsoft significantly increased the requirements for achieving and maintaining its advanced Gold and Silvery Competencies. The new criteria include advanced technical certifications of consulting staff, performance assessments of business development and project personnel, revenue commitments, implementation methodology certification and client references.

According to Benshoof, the client reference requirement of the Microsoft recertification process is a critical component.

“Getting positive client evaluations is where the rubber meets the road,” Benshoof said. “If we do not perform at a high level for our clients, our clients will not give us a positive Microsoft evaluation, and then we cannot maintain our Microsoft certifications. It really is as simple as that. At the end of the day, our performance on the job is the most critical factor in our ability to maintain our Microsoft Partner status.”

About Stonebridge

Gregory Peters Joins Stonebridge as Director of Delivery for Oklahoma

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:19:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., March 6, 2012 – Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced that Gregory Peters has joined the company as Director of Delivery for Oklahoma.

Peters, an industry veteran with approximately 20 years of experience in IT consulting project delivery, is Stonebridge’s first-ever Director of Delivery for Oklahoma. In this role, he is responsible for overall project management and client satisfaction for Stonebridge’s extensive consulting business throughout the state. Peters joins Brandon Meek, who joined Stonebridge as Director of Delivery for the company’s Texas operations in 2010.

“We are extremely fortunate to have Greg as our new Oklahoma Director for Delivery,” said Stonebridge Vice President Mike Keys, who leads the company’s Oklahoma operations. “Greg has a true ‘client-first’ mentality, having worked directly with C-level executives at global companies and leading complex projects all over the world. We believe Greg is the perfect person for this key new management position, which will ensure that our Oklahoma team stays laser-focused on process improvement and innovation, both internally and on client projects."

Peters was one of the founding owners of SolArc, a global provider of commodity trading and risk management solutions, where he worked for 13 years. Prior, he was a project manager at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), a global management consulting and technology services company. Peters holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Tulsa.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge to Co-Host Microsoft Technology Roadmap Event in Oklahoma City

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:45:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., February 21, 2012 – Stonebridge, a Microsoft Managed Partner with multiple Microsoft Gold and Silver Competencies, is pleased to announce that it is co-hosting the upcoming Microsoft Technology Roadmap Event in Oklahoma City, to be held March 27 from 9 a.m. till 12:15 p.m.

Mike Keys, Stonebridge’s Vice President of Business Development for Oklahoma, said, “These ‘Roadmap’ events are popular with our clients because they get the very latest updates on the Microsoft technologies that they currently rely on as well as inside information on soon-to-be-released solutions. We are pleased to be able to give our clients and friends in Oklahoma City the opportunity to see what the future holds for Microsoft business solutions.”

Per Microsoft, the event will feature product updates from Microsoft executives on Windows 8, Office Roadmap Vision, Azure, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012. Steve Molsberry, Director of Stonebridge’s Business Intelligence Practice, is also scheduled to present.

The event will be held at the Waterford Marriott, located at 6300 Waterford Blvd. Register for the event here.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Finishes 2011 with Strong Q4, Delivers Outstanding Performance for the Year

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:55:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., February 14, 2012 – Stonebridge, the award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced that it posted another strong performance in Q4, reporting revenue increases of 43 percent compared to the same period last year.

Stonebridge’s Q4 results were the culmination of a year in which the company achieved 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth and earnings growth of more than 300 percent over the previous 12 months. The company’s Texas business unit posted a 65 percent year-over-year increase in revenue, while year-over-year revenue related to its Business Service Management (BSM) unit rose more than 200 percent.

“2011 was a transitional year for Stonebridge,” said Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress. “We implemented a new organizational model and delivery structure. We added 68 people to the team, including new talent in both our consulting and leadership ranks. We continued to grow the Stonebridge brand and increase name recognition through an integrated ‘multi-touch’ marketing program and our outstanding results clearly show that these concerted efforts are paying dividends.”

Other notable Stonebridge accomplishments for 2011:

Recognized as the first Oklahoma-based Microsoft partner to complete Microsoft’s stringent new competency certification process.
Launched "360° Catalyst," a focused application development offering based on the company’s innovative 360° Solution Framework.
Honored as the winner of Microsoft’s “Compete to Win” award, marking the second consecutive year Stonebridge has won a Microsoft Partner Award.
Earned fourth Microsoft Gold Competency. Stonebridge holds Microsoft Gold Competencies in four defined solution areas (Business Intelligence, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Software Development) and three Microsoft Silver Competencies (Data Platform, Search and Web Development).
Launched “Master Data Management for P2,” a defined offering that extends P2 Energy Solutions software in order to create advanced business intelligence (BI) solutions such as executive key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards, mashups and spatial applications.
Won the Business Marketing Association’s 2011 Lantern Award for best integrated online marketing campaign, beating out several top-tier marketing agencies.

Specifically in Q4, Stonebridge won competitive consulting contracts with new clients and extended long-term engagements with existing accounts. Key Q4 contract wins and projects included:

A leading regional electricity provider selected Stonebridge to perform an enterprise implementation of standardized IT Service Management processes. The multi-phase project requires a transition to a fully integrated Service Management system utilizing the BMC Remedy platform. As the company’s Service Management consulting partner, Stonebridge will develop, validate and manage an accelerated implementation approach; refine and update work plans; and continually update the company as to project scope, risks and responsibilities.
A Fortune 500 power company renewed its agreement for Stonebridge’s “SmartSourceSM” Database Support and Administration, a managed services offering that includes onsite database management and monitoring, periodic database optimization and review, and database upgrades and patches. Stonebridge has provided onsite DBA support of the company’s Oracle and SQL Server database environments since 2006. The client opted to renew the relationship because of Stonebridge’s DBA expertise, proven business value and exemplary customer-centric support.
An oil & gas exploration services company engaged Stonebridge to perform a SharePoint Branding & User Experience assessment of its intranet site. The company’s goal is to fully leverage its Microsoft SharePoint investment as an enterprise content management (ECM) platform in order to enable greater internal collaboration, increased productivity via improved navigation and search, and more effective enterprise content governance. The assessment will determine the overall site taxonomy and governance framework as well as graphic design and user-validated usability standards.
One of the nation’s leading natural gas companies engaged Stonebridge to develop a proof of concept (POC) system for a pipeline spatial dashboard. The POC is intended to validate the impact of applying new technologies to address current and anticipated business challenges related to pipeline operations, including information capture from field personnel, review and approval of inbound data, and presentation of heterogeneous data sets via a map-based user interface. Key technology components include SharePoint 2010, IDV Solutions Visual Fusion and Adapx Capturx software.
One of the nation’s largest suppliers of electric and natural gas services engaged Stonebridge to improve its enterprise monthly profit and loss forecasting system. The company’s current month-end forecasting system had become less accurate due to a number of significant acquisitions. Stonebridge will review existing data sources; trace source system views and data extract processes to isolate root causes of forecast discrepancies; identify and implement required adjustments to source data, extract processes and calculations; and perform user acceptance testing of updated monthly reporting. The company selected Stonebridge primarily for its superior business intelligence and EFL skill sets.
Stonebridge completed an IT Business Management engagement with one of the world’s largest retailers. The project, which involved the implementation and integration of BMC Supplier Management module, was delivered by Stonebridge in just five weeks. The Stonebridge BSM team successfully established a pilot with 33 vendors and deployed five key workflows. The deployment improved transparency, visibility and control of IT spend by supplier and provided access to real-time data and improved reporting. Ultimately the system will host more than a thousand IT supplier profiles.
An independent energy company engaged Stonebridge to conduct an assessment of its communication and collaboration processes in order to develop a strategic road map for the adoption, implementation and integration of SharePoint as an intranet collaboration platform. The assessment will provide the company with a consistent approach to deploying SharePoint across various business and functional groups; identify opportunities to achieve license and support savings through better leverage of SharePoint’s native features; and articulate new, better means for accomplishing organizational goals. Stonebridge will also provide guidance on leveraging third-party components and integrating existing technology assets to the company’s benefit.
A global provider of drilling services selected Stonebridge to provide custom .NET application development services supporting satellite communications on its drilling rigs. The goal of the project is to develop a solution for monitoring cellular data-signal strength per individual rig. Upon completion, , the solution will enable the communication route at the rig to be adjusted between the 3G path and the satellite path based on defined signal-strength parameters. Additionally, it will store the data for both audit and analysis purposes.
Stonebridge conducted a data warehousing assessment focused on data integration and security infrastructure for a national online flower delivery service. Stonebridge provided recommendations to emend and improve the company’s existing data warehousing environment, which was the product of an 18-month offshore development initiative, and to enhance its data presentation and visualization as well as permission management and overall system usability. Key solution technologies included SQL Server 2008R2, SQL Server Integration Services and SQL Server Analysis Services.
Stonebridge completed a proof of concept (POC) spatial dashboard application that enables a major utilities company to monitor and restore power during major outages. The POC solution, built on the SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008R2 platforms, is integrated with the company’s outage management system and allows personnel to enter additional data via easy-to-use InfoPath forms. The POC application has met the company’s goal for a crisper, intuitive interface for viewing outage metrics in near real time and for an automated mechanism for streamlined data capture.
A national provider of energy services selected Stonebridge to develop and implement a Microsoft-powered reporting solution for tracking operational expenses. The company’s current method of tracking expenses relies on manual flat-file extractions from its ERP system (SAP) into Excel and manual internal distribution via email. The Stonebridge solution, utilizing SQL Server, SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Integration Services, will automate the current method and provide a roadmap for continuous functional improvement.
Stonebridge completed a proof of concept (POC) executive dashboard application that enables a regional electric power company to view and manipulate IT cost-related data sourced from its ERP system. The POC solution leverages SQL Server Integration Services to automatically load and aggregate SAP financial data into a SQL Server data mart. Using PerformancePoint Services and SQL Server Reporting Services, the executive dashboard enables company executive and managers to monitor cost-related metrics down to the individual cost center.
Stonebridge implemented a search-enabled well portal application for a mid-size oil and natural gas company. Built on Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework, the portal solution enables the company’s business users to intuitively search and quickly access pertinent well data based on key well attributes and consolidated from across the entire organization. The search-driven application, built on SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008R2, enables better management of data and processes throughout the well lifecycle.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Launches SharePoint Branding Consulting Services

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:40:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., January 17, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today launched SharePoint Branding & User Experience, a new service offering that enables clients to design, create and deploy engaging and highly usable SharePoint sites that reflect the organization’s brand identity and accelerate user adoption of the platform.

“The launch of a new SharePoint site – whether intranet, extranet or public presence – is an opportunity to make a lasting impression, good or bad, on your target audience,” Matthew Childress, Stonebridge Senior Vice President, said. “First and foremost, the quality of the user experience has a dramatic impact on site traffic and adoption rates. Our SharePoint Branding & User Experience services are designed to provide the technical, functional and brand-related skills sets organizations need to deliver effective SharePoint solutions.”

Stonebridge’s SharePoint Branding & User Experience services are driven by a formal development methodology integrating strong usability and design principles with demonstrated experience in SharePoint enterprise deployments.

“Our clients are discovering that creating visually appealing SharePoint sites is a challenge that requires more than graphic design expertise alone,” Travis Osborne, Stonebridge Vice President of Solution Development, said. “It also requires an in-depth knowledge of the core technical and administrative aspects of the SharePoint platform. Our methodology ensures that both sides of the coin are addressed, which enables our clients to increase adoption rates and to provide the user community with an intuitive connection to all toolsets provided by the SharePoint platform.”

Stonebridge’s SharePoint Branding & User Experience offering is built on the company’s extensive expertise in Microsoft technologies. Stonebridge holds Microsoft Gold Competencies in four defined solution areas: Business Intelligence, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Software Development. The company also has holds Microsoft Silver Competencies in three solution areas: Data Platform, Search and Web Development.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Expands Business Service Management Leadership With Two Senior-Level Appointments

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:11:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., January 11, 2012 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today announced two new leadership appointments in the company’s growing Business Service Management (BSM) consulting business. Stephen Taylor has joined as BSM Chief Solution Architect, and Michael de Sosa has joined as BSM Senior Business Development Manager.

"Our goal is to develop and deliver superior BSM consulting services to the market, and the addition of these two key individuals further strengthens an already strong team," said James Ivy, President and CEO, Stonebridge. "Stephen and Mike are seasoned professionals with proven track records in the IT Service Management arena, and I am pleased to have them on board as we work toward staking a unique market position for the Stonebridge BSM business."

Taylor has more than 15 years of experience in application development, business impact analysis, strategic positioning and planning with both startup and growth organizations. As BSM Chief Solution Architect, Taylor will provide market and tactical direction for Stonebridge’s client-centric BSM service offerings. Taylor was most recently at Chesapeake Energy Corporation where he served as IT director over systems infrastructure. He holds a degree in management of information systems from Oklahoma State University.

de Sosa is an ITIL-certified sales and marketing professional with more than 30 years of business development experience. As Stonebridge’s BSM Senior Business Development Manager, de Sosa is responsible for client growth, management and satisfaction. He previously held senior account leadership positions at several leading companies in the BSM space, including ServiceNow, BMC Software and Symantec. Additionally, de Sosa was a sales manager at IBM Corp. He is a graduate of the University of California at San Diego and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California.

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge to Sponsor Oasis Petroleum at Microsoft’s Global Energy Forum

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:59:00 -0600

HOUSTON, Dec. 16, 2011 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm to the Oil & Gas industry, announced today that it is pleased to sponsor Oasis Petroleum’s breakout session at the upcoming Microsoft Global Energy Forum 2012.

The session, entitled “Growing Pains: The Oasis Petroleum Transformation From ‘Asset Management by Spreadsheet’ to SharePoint 2010,” will focus on how a SharePoint-enabled well data management solution, developed in collaboration with Stonebridge, is enabling Oasis to improve access to well information for a wide variety of business users.

Oasis Petroleum Inc. is an independent exploration and production company focused on the acquisition and development of unconventional oil and natural gas resources, primarily operating in the Williston Basin. More information about the Company is available at www.oasispetroleum.com.

The Global Energy Forum is in its ninth year and showcases innovative ways that Oil & Gas industry leaders are using Microsoft-based solutions to improve business performance in all aspects of their operations, from the rig to the boardroom. The event is free to Microsoft’s Oil & Gas customers and will be held Jan. 31, 2012, at the Westin Galleria Houston.

“It is a privilege to sponsor this session with Oasis at the 2012 Global Energy Forum,” said Travis Osborne, Stonebridge’s vice president of solution development. “Oasis has successfully navigated its way from startup to publicly traded entity by virtue of being an innovator in both business and technology. The ‘Growing Pains’ session will demonstrate how Oil & Gas companies can generate value by combining business creativity with advanced technology.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge is an information technology consulting firm focused on helping organizations harness the power of their people, processes and technology. Our clients look to us as a strategic partner with a shared commitment to achieving their business objectives and maximizing their business performance. Founded in 1995 on a commitment to establishing high-value strategic alliances with our clients, Stonebridge has provided business solutions to organizations in all major industries, representing private, public, government, and non-profit entities. More information about Stonebridge is available at www.sbti.com.

Stonebridge Wins 2011 BMA Lantern Award for Excellence in Marketing

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:17:00 -0600

HOUSTON, November 29, 2011– Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today announced that its 360° Catalyst integrated online marketing campaign has been awarded the 2011 Lantern Award for business-to-business (B2B) marketing excellence.

The Lantern Awards are sponsored by the Business Marketing Association (BMA) Houston and are intended to celebrate top-quality creative and strategic B2B communications.

“Winning the Lantern Award is a reaffirmation of our ‘repetitive touch’ marketing approach,” said Matthew Childress, Stonebridge’s Senior Vice President who oversees the company’s brand management. “Over the past two years we have put maximum effort into projecting a clean, consistent brand across all marketing channels – web, email marketing, social media, media relations, and print – and to continuously touching our customers with a consistent message. We are extremely pleased that a prestigious professional marketing organization such as BMA has given our efforts two thumbs up.”

The 360° Catalyst Program utilized a combination of online marketing and social media tools to promote a defined application development program designed to deliver a search-driven prototype based on Stonebridge’s 360° Solution Framework.

The 360° Catalyst campaign was spearheaded by an attention-grabbing email campaign with the provocative title “360°: It’s Your Asset on the Line!” The email included links to three role-specific video demonstrations of 360° applications in actions as well as links to unique content on the company’s website. Additionally, the campaign leveraged social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Stonebridge developed the award-winning 360° Catalyst program entirely in-house, driven by a Stonebridge creative team comprising the company’s solution development, marketing and management groups.

In winning the 2011 Lantern Award, Stonebridge beat out several top-tier marketing agencies. “The fact that we won competing against world-class agencies whose sole job is brand marketing is just incredible and speaks volumes about the validity and value of our approach,” Childress added.

About Stonebridge

Steve Willet Joins Stonebridge as Business Development Manager for Texas

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:38:00 -0600

HOUSTON, November 23, 2011– Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today announced that Steve Willet has joined the company as Business Development Manager for Texas.

Willet is a business development veteran with more than 20 years of experience in IT consulting sales and marketing. Most recently, Willet was at Sogeti USA, the professional services arm of Cap Gemini S.A. A native Texan, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Texas Christian University.

“Steve Willet is an outstanding addition to our Texas business development staff,” said Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress, who leads the company’s Texas operations. “Steve is well-known and respected throughout Texas and has an intimate knowledge of this market. Plus, he has more than a decade of experience selling consulting services to the oil and gas industry, which is Stonebridge Houston’s primary market. We are very pleased to have someone with Steve’s pedigree on our team.”

About Stonebridge

Stonebridge Keeps Winning Streak Going in Q3, Shows Consistent Growth in Consulting Business

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:51:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., November 22, 2011 – Stonebridge, an award-winning information technology consulting firm, today announced that it continued to enjoy strong business growth through the third quarter, consistent with its overall performance to date this year.

Stonebridge’s total revenue for the first three quarters of 2011 increased by 38 percent compared to the same period last year, the result of new customer acquisition and contract extensions with existing clients. During the same period, the company also increased its overall average headcount by 32 percent.

Stonebridge Senior Vice President Matthew Childress said, “Our continued success is derived from one core factor: consistency. Whether it is in client relations, solution development, solution delivery, or sales and marketing, as a company we are consistently operating at a high level and pushing ourselves to increase the value we bring to our clients’ business.”

In the third quarter alone, revenues generated by the company’s Business Service Management (BSM) consulting group increased by 121 percent over the previous quarter, continuing the unit’s growth trend. The BSM group provides world-class consulting and technology implementation services incorporating the interdisciplinary fields of IT Business Management, IT Service Management and industry standards and methodologies such as ITIL, ISO/IEC, COBIT and CMMI.

Also in Q3, Stonebridge earned the Microsoft Gold Competency in Software Development. With this achievement, Stonebridge now holds four Microsoft Gold Competencies in the defined solution areas of Business Intelligence, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Software Development. The company also owns three Microsoft Silver Competencies in Data Platform, Search and Web Development.

Stonebridge won significant new business contracts and project extensions in all of its practice areas during the third quarter. Key Q3 contract wins and client projects include:

A natural gas producer engaged Stonebridge to create an information delivery framework for the company’s oilfield services subsidiary. The framework identifies key performance indicators that will be used to drive and monitor the business strategies and objectives of the organization. It also will guide the development of an enterprise data warehouse that will consolidate data from multiple disparate systems. The client selected Stonebridge based on its experience in the energy sector and in its expertise in creating information frameworks that enable business intelligence solutions to deliver the appropriate insight to organizational performance.

A Fortune 500 natural gas company selected Stonebridge to develop a "spatial dashboard" proof of concept (POC) for improving data visualization and access. The POC streamlines field-level business processes involved in the company’s natural gas gathering and processing operations. The project involves four core components: Microsoft's Bing Maps and SharePoint 2010 for data management, IDV Solution’s Visual Fusion for geospatial visualization and Adapx Capturx for digital pen technology. When complete, the POC will validate the integration between these technical components, as well as generate feedback from users as to the long-term viability and business value of these technologies. To date, the POC is getting rave reviews from business and field personnel.

Stonebridge, in partnership with BMC Software, was engaged at one of the nation’s largest diversified health care benefits companies to develop configuration management processes and policies based on ITIL v3 and ISO/IEC 20000 standards. The client’s goal was to establish linkages between the IT department’s change management processes, built on BMC’s IT Service Management (ITSM) Remedy Suite’s Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB), and vital business functions and tools. Facilitating a series of interactive workshops and one-to-one sessions with key client-side stakeholders, Stonebridge developed a configuration management policy and process encompassing planning, identification, control, status accounting and reporting, and verification/validation. Also delivered in the project were definitions of IT roles and responsibilities, a RACI matrix chart, identification and documentation of key performance indicators (KPIs) and a training plan.

A Fortune 500 power company selected Stonebridge to manage the database environments involved in a major data center migration and optimization project. The client is embarking on a large-scale migration of all of its IT systems to new data centers and disaster recovery sites. In addition to providing database migration services, Stonebridge will upgrade the client’s Oracle databases currently on Sun (approximately 15 databases) to IBM servers, getting all Oracle databases standardized on IBM servers. Included in the project are upgrades to more than 90 SQL Server and Oracle databases as well as database cleanup and decommissioning of more than 30 unused databases. Stonebridge had previously provided similar services to the client in an earlier data center migration initiative.

A leading independent exploration and production company engaged Stonebridge to add new functionality to the client’s SharePoint 2010-based well data management system. Stonebridge will develop a number of key enhancements to the well data management system, which is integrated with the client’s risk management system. Central to the new functionality is an expanded search and reporting capability needed to monitor and manage well shut-ins, completions and workovers. The client cited Stonebridge’s extensive knowledge and expertise in the oil and gas industry and project experience with SharePoint customizations as key to the success of the project.

Stonebridge, in collaboration with BMC Software, successfully architected and implemented a proof of concept (POC) involving key modules of BMC’s IT Business Management (ITBM) suite for one of Canada’s largest financial services institutions. The objective of the POC was to prove that BMC’s ITBM Demand Management and IT Service Cost Management modules would provide financial transparency of specific IT capabilities and for IT project alignment. Ultimately, the POC demonstrated that the BMC solution’s drill-down dashboard-based metrics would provide accurate financial insight into costs of projects and capabilities, assist in project and exception management, and produce a true “bill of IT” in the language of the business.

Stonebridge completed a project to create an initial design template for a SharePoint-powered “best answers” knowledge management solution linking various user communities at an independent diversified energy company. The “best answers” initiative is a companywide approach for collecting, managing and sharing vital intellectual capital within and across functional business groups. The initial design template provided a standard layout that will serve as the foundation for collaboration by business groups, with each group managing its own “best answers” environment for its specific business function. Stonebridge created an initial mockup and functional design for the concept; revised and improved the design based on end-user feedback; constructed a rendition of the template in SharePoint; and created an initial layout structure for two client communities.

Stonebridge completed a detailed assessment and strategic roadmap for an international oil and gas exploration and production company designed to enable compliance with new regulations for reporting inactive wells in its Texas operations. The new procedures, mandated by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRS) governing body, require companies to monitor inactive wells and update RRS on a regular basis. The client currently uses a manual process for compliance. Stonebridge developed a framework including people, processes and technology for automating the inactive well reporting requirements.

Stonebridge was selected to implement BMC’s IT Business Management (ITBM) suite for one of the nation’s largest banking institutions. Specifically, the client looked to the BMC Demand and Resource Management and Service Request Management solutions to facilitate IT demand and resource management services in order to improve overall IT project infrastructure-demand processes and cost transparency to the business. Additionally, the ITBM solution will establish a mechanism for forecast project infrastructure demand and minimize plan-to-actual variances by improving linkages and establishing a standard process for capturing the project information and tracking project financial and human resources.

Stonebridge upgraded the SharePoint 2010 environment for a leading prime contractor for the commercial construction sector. Specifically, the upgrade provides enhanced collaboration and new social media features designed to improve productivity. In addition, Stonebridge enhanced the look and feel of the SharePoint graphical user interface to be user friendly and intuitive. The client chose Stonebridge based on its status as a Microsoft Gold Competency Partner and its specific expertise in SharePoint customizations.

Stonebridge was engaged to develop a BMC-based solution for managing software licenses for a leading national bank. The objective of the project is to capture software application instances on the client’s approximately 65,000 servers and to validate the inventory against procured licenses in order to determine the client’s software license obligation. The required IT solution integrates ADDM 8.2 and the BMC IT Service Management (ITSM) Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Long term, the solution will enable normalization of software names in order to automatically match each software instance against a library of contracts. Additionally, the solution positions the client to leverage CMBD in other IT process areas, such as a consistent asset management process as defined in ITIL v3.

Stonebridge facilitated a database upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008R2 for a market-leading online precious metals dealer. Stonebridge designed and implemented a redundant clustered server environment in support of the client’s critical e-commerce application in order to provide automatic failover. The Stonebridge solution is designed to eliminate any single points of failure that might result in a costly outage to the client’s production systems. The client chose Stonebridge because of its expertise in Microsoft database technologies and experience in configuring and administering databases for high-availability solutions.

An independent oil and gas company engaged Stonebridge to provide SharePoint 2010 branding and customization in order to improve workflow and collaboration within the organization. As part of the project, Stonebridge also installed, configured and built out two business-critical workflows using the K2 blackpearl workflow engine. The client leveraged Stonebridge’s extensive SharePoint knowledge and experience with SharePoint-K2 integrations.

Stonebridge provided an expanded deployment of the BMC IT Business Management (ITBM) Demand and Resource Management solution for a leading manufacturer of security software. Stonebridge originally implemented the ITBM Demand and Resource Management solution for client in October 2010. In the year since the implementation, the client’s business requirements required an extension of the ITBM solution across other business units. For the expanded deployment project, Stonebridge migrated the demand and resource management solution to three new environments: development, quality assurance and production. As a follow-on engagement, the client has requested that Stonebridge perform the upgrade to ITBM in the fourth quarter of 2011.

An independent oil and gas company engaged Stonebridge to assess its existing SharePoint environment, make recommendations for long-term improvement and integrate Outlook calendars into My Sites host template. As part of the project, Stonebridge provided SharePoint branding and customization services to develop a custom master page for My Sites host template branded to align with the look and feel of the client’s public-facing website.

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Stonebridge Earns Its Fourth Microsoft Gold Competency

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:00:00 -0600

TULSA, Okla., Nov. 15, 2011 – Stonebridge, a leading information technology consulting firm, today announced that it has earned the Microsoft Gold Competency in Software Development. With this achievement, Stonebridge now owns Microsoft Gold Competencies in four defined solution areas: Business Intelligence, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, and Software Development. The company also has achieved Microsoft Silver Competencies in three solution areas: Data Platform, Search and Web Development.

“This is a major accomplishment for Stonebridge,” said Doug Benshoof, Vice President of Application Development Services. “The lion’s share of our consulting work is tied directly to our custom application development competency, and tied in particular to custom applications built on the Microsoft platform. Being a multi-competency Microsoft partner puts Stonebridge in distinctly advantageous competitive position.”

Per Microsoft, Gold Competencies demonstrate best-in-class expertise within the Microsoft marketplace. “Earning a Gold Competency is evidence of the deepest, most consistent commitment to a specific, in-demand business solution area, along with the distinction of being among only 1 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide that have attained this outstanding degree of proficiency.”

“As a multi-competency Microsoft partner, Stonebridge is truly part of an elite group of experts specializing in the development and delivery of Microsoft business solutions,” Benshoof added.