Learn how Exceed Enterprises leveraged Power BI and Power Platform to improve reporting, stay competitive, and raise wages for all of their employees.
Exceed Enterprises is a 53-year-old Oregon-based non-profit organization that serves people with diverse abilities—a diagnosis of an intellectual or developmental disability—by providing opportunities for community engagement and employment in the community.
Exceed is a complex nonprofit with four different businesses that provide individual workers, small teams for local employers, as well as an award-winning production and assembly business serving Fortune 500 companies and local leaders such as Daimler Trucks, Georgia Pacific, Nike, Hood River Distillers, and more.
Exceed has to manage its increasingly complex business operations to deliver services to major corporations. This organization must be technologically sophisticated while staying focused on its mission, and within the budget and resources available to a typical mid-size non-profit.
As such, Exceed went through a digital transformation initiative that upgraded almost every piece of hardware and software. Exceed installed powerful solutions but lacked the resources and expertise to take full advantage of the tools.
Stephen Achilles, CEO of Exceed Enterprises, realized Exceed needed to implement more automated processes and insightful reporting to meet the challenges of a complex business.
“When we implemented the tools for our business, we knew that we had more work to do to achieve our goals,” said Stephen. “CSG (now Skypoint) came in and helped us get everything right. It was a huge time saver.”
“Now we are one of the most technologically sophisticated non-profits in Oregon. This is a foundational reason why we are able to offer a living wage in an industry that traditionally pays employees little above the minimum wage.”
“Becoming one of the most technologically sophisticated non-profits in Oregon is the foundational reason why we were able to offer wage increases to our employees.”
“Skypoint didn’t just give us the fish...they taught us how to fish. Now we can handle some of these projects ourselves.”
As a result of the collaboration with Skypoint, Exceed is getting much more value from their Microsoft D365 data with actionable Power BI reports. Since Skypoint custom-tailored solutions to align with the highest data priorities, executives can effectively manage production and assembly operations since they understand the decisions they need to make and deliver.
Stephen and his team gained new insights to confidently make the decision to raise the starting wage of their staff to $18.75 per hour. This is a living wage in Portland, compared with the $15.50 average wage in the industry.
“Being able to raise the wage for our staff was really important to us,” said Stephen. “Having great staff means that our clients are getting great services, even during a pandemic. “Now we have the information to understand the financial and organizational opportunities and risks that went along with that decision so we could get the board to approve the proposal.”
Additionally, this initiative helped Stephen cultivate a data culture within Exceed. Team members quickly reaped the benefits of these new business intelligence tools, which is key to sustaining innovation and competitiveness…and improving employee satisfaction.
Instead of a frustrating and time-consuming experience navigating legacy software, the team saves a lot of effort because they no longer have to deal with tedious and manual processes. They see concrete information on how they’re helping clients in real-time.
Stephen and other executives were able to analyze financial information and manipulate it to understand the cost of their decisions. This capability was particularly critical during the pandemic. The leadership team could forecast their cash flow accurately in a fraction of the time that it used to take, so they could respond to market conditions nimbly.
Exceed emerged from the pandemic with minimal loss and the ability to expand across the State of Oregon to meet a growing need for services in the community.
The organization is also able to recruit senior executives because it has a robust solution in place to help them do their jobs. Employees are leveraging data to come up with ideas they never thought of before. Everyone in the organization sees the value of data analytics and they are hungry for more.
“Skypoint is more than a vendor. They’re our strategic partner,” said Stephen. “They managed the project, checked in, and gave us feedback throughout the process. We need partners like them to help us use the tools we have cost-effectively. As a result, we can put every dollar into our staff by paying them a living wage and into serving our clients to the best of our capability.”
Thanks to the ongoing efforts and innovation, Exceed is managing inventory effectively through robust reporting and production solutions to deliver high-quality services to its customers. Along the way, they also outperformed over a thousand worldwide suppliers and received Daimler’s Masters of Quality Supplier award two years in a row.
"Skypoint is way more than a vendor.
They're our strategic partner.”
