The result is often faster deployment of information at less cost – and sometimes some surprising side benefits as well, like the ones at GE Capital Fleet Services. There the use of MicroStrategy’s Global Web Reporting System and the LWF Web-based data analysis point-and-click access features, including personalized user controls, eliminates more than 600,000 pages of paper every month. The residual effects, notes Plante, are improved personal productivity and improved fleet productivity since the generated reports quickly show how the company is spending its money and where they can save.

The paper savings alone at this particular business are dramatic: It costs about a penny per sheet, which will translate to more than $2 million dollars in savings during a one-year period. Phone call costs are likewise lessened, and GE Capital Fleet Services customers – as well as its external vendors -- are readily able to work with the data that is strictly applicable to their jobs rather than receiving data that doesn’t concern them. Thanks, in part, to Lancet and Plante’s team – which featured as many as three people working on-site – the company will receive this year’s Data Warehousing Institute’s 2000 Best Practices Award and DM Review Magazine ‘s 2000 World Class Solution Award for GE Fleet’s innovative data warehousing strengths.

Plante began his IS career after earning a Business degree from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire in 1987, followed by his first position at Mutual Insurance Group. After a subsequent brief stint at County Seat, running the company’s financial and forecasting systems, and a seven-year period of independent consulting, he moved to Northwest Airlines for two years, where he helped program flight profitability reports. From there, it was onto to David Mitchell & Associates where his 3M assignment led him to Holtan and Thorpe and finally LifeRate, "which really opened all of our eyes."

As Plante moved forward at Lancet, he’s become an integral part of the Flounders’ mixture of IS experience while sharing in the new company challenges that are shaping the Lancet culture. "We have a good operation," he notes, “that relies less on the textbook way of doing things and more hands-on and back-to-the-basics. We are more open and honest with each other and our staff because we realize that when you keep secrets in a company, the organization becomes fragmented and dysfunctional.”

"Our product and services allow us to move quickly and we know how to leverage what we have and interact right away among our customers," Plante points out. "A lot of software consulting firms just come in and leave their product on the doorstep and run away. We see ourselves as a key internal component in any company’s success. Unlike lots of companies we work with, we don’t fear rapid development. Rapid development is what enables us to get the job done right, probably because we have created such a viable environment within Lancet itself to work smart and fast and to think outside traditional barriers."