Steven Branch, Founder, President & CEO In the words of legendary industrialist Henry Ford, “Most people spend time and energy going around problems than trying to solve them.” The essence of this quote yields a deeper insight into the mindset of entrepreneurs and their way of approaching their calling. When Steven Branch, Founder, President and CEO of Configurable Management, started his career as a young manufacturing supervisor, he encountered inefficiencies in the processes and equipment, which set him thinking on the lines of leading the change to streamline operations. He pondered on ideas for implementing suitable modifications that could bring about increased efficiencies in the manufacturing space. Steven’s strategies were centered on planning the right positioning of production line personnel, and changing personnel, acquiring higher efficiency equipment, and leveraging technology in more creative ways to streamline the production. “Identifying improvement opportunities has always been in my DNA. Leveraging technology came naturally to me as well,” says Steven.
It was in 1995 Steven began his association with SAP®, coming from an operations background, immediately began to look for products that would limit his dependency on the programming and IT staff that were over-burdened with project backlogs. This endeavor led him to learn about “business enablement” tools. After spending ten years of his career gaining SAP implementation experience and knowledge over business enablement tools while witnessing the growing traction for these tools in the market, Steven decided to finally pursue his passion of driving transformation. He used his ability to identify and leverage business enablement tools to make businesses more efficient, helping technical and non-technical users alike to improve business processes. Fueling his zeal to bring about the change with robust technical SAP expertise he acquired over the course of his career, Steven embarked on an entrepreneurial venture, marking the genesis of Configurable Management.
Configurable Management offers its business process development expertise by providing implementation, training and support capabilities covering the entire spectrum of SAP solutions from back-office ERP to front office business intelligence.
It is our job to ensure our clients and employees are set up for success
The company specializes in the latest SAP products with the ability to create unique solutions that accurately meet the client’s business objectives. Starting out as an independent SAP implementation and consultation organization, Configurable Management grew organically to an application development product business. Today, the company provides its consultation, training and implementation services to support its robust range of product portfolio. “We are helping our clients maximize their business benefits through our solutions while contributing to the evolution and enhancement of SAP solutions.”
Configurable Management’s vast array of products includes Decisions for SAP® Solutions, which is a specialized BPM tool to automate business processes and build applications. It enables techno-savvy business analysts to build form and workflow solutions via a drag and drop user interface while allowing them to utilize out-of-the-box pre-programmed “steps”, eliminating the need for programming experience. Physical Inventory Accelerator™ provided by the company is an SAP-certified product designed to improve the physical inventory process for clients. Configurable Management also offers Data Validation Management™ for comparing two sets of data. The product is offered for new implementations and migrating data from a legacy environment into any environment.
The uniqueness of the data validation management tool is that it is not SAP specific and can be used to compare any two data sets in consideration.
Configurable Management provides techno-savvy users with next-generation process automation technology that can be leveraged by techno-savvy users and enterprises. “We are not disrupting business, in contrast, we are improving business by empowering our clients to work independently while collaborating within a single technology suite.”
Configurable Management designs niche application products, unlike large companies that have a commercial agenda attached to their product delivery. The applications provided by Configurable Management are simple and unconventional in a way that allows them to fill large gaps in the domains of master data governance and business process management rapidly and very cost effectively.
Although the company caters predominantly to the IT industry, a significant part of Configuration Management’s clientele also consists of business analysts and business users who typically have a limited understanding of the potential advantages of automating their processes. The company specifically offers training courses to the client organization and inculcates awareness on what it means to automate the process, the accomplishments that can be achieved, different data layers of the business processes, and how those data layers interact with one another. Steven adds, “It is our job to ensure our clients and employees are set up for success.”
According to Steven, the business acumen required to understand the detailed dynamics of client businesses and deploying suitable solutions to facilitate automation of their processes comes as a result of a dedicated workforce nurtured at Configurable Management. The company’s team of professionals is as committed to one another as they are to the company and the client’s success. “As a CEO it is my job to establish a culture of honesty, grace, accountability, encouragement, and empowerment, which consequently fosters personal growth for all concerned, employees as well as customers,” explains Steven. This culture also powers the innovation of the company.
Configurable Management has established its stronghold in the domains of master data governance and in the coming months, the company has plans to introduce master data governance templates that can be rapidly implemented and utilized by their clients according to their business suitability. As the business enablement space evolves, Configuration Management for the next five years is resolutely focused on enhancing its current offerings and functionalities. With large technology companies coming along to change the technological demography and the resultant technological implementations in businesses, Steven is optimistic about business development processes and managing master data as some of the niche domains that will have promising prospects and immense growth potential in the near future. “Technological disruption is an ongoing process, which is inevitable. Staying abreast of changing technology and recognizing what to leverage or develop for the benefit of your clients and the business is what we strive for, and over the years we have been very adept in achieving that,” concludes Steven.
