Dennison & Associates cut project time by up to 25%, improve client experience and standardize processes with Olive.

Dennison & Associates Scales Expertise & Cuts Project Time 25% with Olive

We get wider client feedback on requirements using Olive because we can filter by department and use surveys. Managing client feedback is much easier, reducing our whole RFP time by at least 50%.

Introduction:

For technology consulting firms specializing in niche markets, deep domain expertise is the key differentiator. Dennison & Associates, a respected consulting firm serving the association sector, faced the common challenge of scaling their high-touch services without compromising quality or overburdening their specialized team. 

Managing complex technology selections often involved wrestling with cumbersome manual processes, spreadsheets, and disparate tools. Since implementing Olive, Dennison & Associates has transformed its Request for Proposal (RFP) and technology selection workflow. The firm has achieved approximately a 25% reduction in overall project time, significantly reduced requirement gathering time, and streamlined vendor scoring from days to hours. 

More strategically, Olive has provided the infrastructure layer needed to standardize processes, allowing Dennison & Associates to scale efficiently by focusing hiring on crucial association knowledge rather than intricate process management know-how from day one.

Scaling Expertise Bottlenecked by Manual Processes

Dennison & Associates built its reputation on deep expertise within the association technology landscape. However, their traditional project management approach, heavily reliant on spreadsheets and manual data handling, presented significant hurdles to growth and efficiency. Managing the intricate details of technology selections, often involving vast numbers of requirements, became increasingly cumbersome. “Before Olive, managing ~1000 requirements per project in Excel was very difficult for staff and clients,” explains Vanessa Dennison, Owner.

A cornerstone of Dennison & Associates’ methodology is ensuring comprehensive stakeholder engagement from the outset. They firmly believe that including input from a wide range of users, especially those directly interacting with the system, is essential for successful implementations, long-term adoption, and effective change management. However, achieving this best practice with their manual system proved exceptionally difficult. Stakeholders found the sheer volume of data in spreadsheets overwhelming, making it challenging to provide thorough, prioritized feedback.

“Clients were overwhelmed by spreadsheets, making feedback difficult or impossible to get.” – Vanessa Dennison, Owner, Dennison & Associates

Consequently, gathering the breadth and depth of input needed to ensure all voices were heard was often impractical, potentially impacting project outcomes and user buy-in down the line.

Furthermore, the internal workload was substantial. Staff spent excessive hours manually compiling vendor responses and demo scores into comparable formats. “Manual scoring compilation previously took 20-30 staff hours per project,” notes Dennison. This not only consumed valuable consultant time but also made it difficult to ensure consistent quality and reporting across projects. 

The lack of a centralized, searchable system meant valuable data and insights from past projects were hard to leverage, essentially requiring staff who “had to be able to figure out how to run the process each time from scratch.” This dependency on highly experienced staff who could navigate complex processes and possessed deep association knowledge created a significant bottleneck, making it difficult to scale the firm effectively while adhering to their stakeholder engagement principles.

Streamlining Requirements and Engaging Stakeholders Effectively

Recognizing the need for a more efficient and scalable solution, Dennison & Associates turned to Olive. The platform was implemented across their entire selection process, fundamentally changing how they managed requirements and engaged stakeholders. Olive provided a centralized, structured environment that replaced cumbersome spreadsheets. “With Olive, it’s easier to pull requirements between similar projects, saving staff time and ensuring consistent quality,” says Dennison. This ability to reuse and manage requirements centrally was a significant first step.

Crucially, Olive directly addressed the challenge of gathering wide feedback, a core principle for the firm. Instead of overwhelming clients with massive spreadsheets, Dennison & Associates could now use Olive’s filtering and survey capabilities. “With Olive, we filter requirements and use targeted surveys with a clear interface… allowing us to include more employees,” Dennison explains. This targeted approach meant stakeholders only reviewed relevant sections, and the clear interface, featuring elements like star ratings for prioritization, made providing feedback intuitive. 

As a result, Dennison reports, “it’s much easier for clients to give feedback without overwhelming them,” leading to more comprehensive input and stronger buy-in. This streamlined approach dramatically accelerated the front end of their projects, reducing the time spent purely on the critical requirements gathering phase itself.

“With Olive, our RFP time is at least 50% less due to easier client feedback collection,” – Vanessa Dennison, Owner, Dennison & Associates

Automating Evaluation for Faster, Smarter Decisions

Olive also transformed the evaluation phase, starting with how feedback was captured during crucial vendor demonstrations. The platform facilitated better client interaction, allowing participants to use Olive’s survey tools in real-time. “Using Olive surveys, clients can score demos in real-time as they watch… Because it’s so clear and easy, they provide accurate feedback specific to that vendor without confusion, which is huge,” Dennison highlights.

Following this improved feedback capture, Olive automated the previously labor-intensive task of compiling these demo scores along with vendor responses. “Compiling scoring from vendor responses and demos used to take us up to 20 to 30 hours. Olive does it automatically, producing graphs and visuals we show directly to clients,” Dennison states. 

This automation eliminated a significant time sink, reducing the 20-30 hours previously spent on manual compilation down to approximately five hours for consolidating survey results. This combination of improved real-time feedback capture and automated compilation allowed the Dennison team and their clients to focus on strategic decision-making rather than data wrangling.

Standardizing for Scalability and Consistent Quality

Perhaps the most strategic impact of Olive for Dennison & Associates has been the ability to standardize their consulting delivery. By providing a consistent framework and workflow for the entire selection process, Olive reduced the reliance on individual consultants having to build processes from scratch for each project. “Olive helped us standardize our process, ensuring consistency for staff and clients,” notes Dennison. This standardization not only improved the consistency of client deliverables but also simplified internal training.

This newfound process consistency unlocked significant potential for scaling the business based on its core strength: association expertise.

“Previously, I needed staff who knew associations, technology,  – Vanessa Dennison, Owner, Dennison & Associates

This shift allows Dennison & Associates to grow its team more effectively, focusing recruitment on vital domain knowledge while leveraging Olive to ensure high-quality, repeatable project execution. The cumulative impact of these efficiencies has been substantial. “Since starting with Olive about a year ago, we’ve seen approximately a 25% reduction in the overall time spent on our projects,” Dennison confirms.

Conclusion

By replacing manual, spreadsheet-heavy workflows with Olive’s dedicated platform, Dennison & Associates successfully overcame the bottlenecks hindering their growth. Olive enabled them to streamline their complex RFP and technology selection process, significantly improving efficiency, enhancing client and stakeholder engagement, and crucially, standardizing their methodology. 

This standardization empowers Dennison & Associates to scale their business effectively, leveraging their core association expertise while ensuring consistent, high-quality service delivery, backed by a responsive partnership.

“The Olive team has been amazing and responsive, often providing solutions within a week,” Dennison adds, “they readily provide calls and training on new features throughout the year. It’s fantastic.”