![Jeff Vail | CEO | WGroup [ Insights Success ]](https://www.insightssuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/Jeff_Vail_CEO_WGroup.jpg)
WGroup is a management consulting firm with a peer-to-peer approach to IT optimization and transformation. A disruptor in the management consulting industry, WGroup is known for its outcome-driven, service provider-agnostic approach that optimizes IT operations and minimizes costs.
The firm employs seasoned professionals with a strong track record of getting results. The WGroup team is composed of consultants who average more than two decades of experience as former CIOs and IT leaders, and its client roster includes many large and midsized companies across a wide range of industries.
WGroup believes that every IT leader is on a path of digital transformation, but there is a significant digital chasm preventing the realization of their digital strategy due to legacy technology, inefficient processes, technical debt, and skill debt. WGroup is regularly retained by leading organizations to develop and execute modernization programs that accelerate the achievement of an organization’s digital agenda.
The experienced leader
Jeff Vail, CEO of WGroup, is a business leader with over 20 years of executive experience working with companies such as Unisys, SAP, Siemens/Unify, and Quintiq/Dassault Systèmes.
Prior to WGroup, Jeff served in several leadership roles where he played a pivotal role in strategy development and execution. These roles include Chief Commercial Officer at Quintiq, which increased in value from $120 million to $340 million during his twoyear tenure; SVP of Global Corporate Marketing at Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications); VP of Enterprise Marketing at SAP Americas, and General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions at Unisys.
Jeff is an avid golfer and fisherman. He is a Philadelphia sports enthusiast, has a passion for California cabernet wines, and resides in Phoenixville, Philadelphia with his wife and two sons.
Entering the segment
WGroup was founded in 2004 by Harry Wallaesa, the former CIO of a multi-billion dollar global packaged foods company. As a CIO, Harry became fed-up with consulting firms that either had a bench of career consultants or a leveraged model where the partner was seldom present and junior consultants who followed cookie-cutter methodologies did the work.
Harry decided to create a consulting firm composed exclusively of former CIOs and IT leaders—a firm of individuals with decades of operational, practical, and leadership experience that could advise other CIOs and IT leaders on a peer-to-peer basis.
Tackling competitors and challenges
WGroup utilizes a unique staffing model, and it focuses on practical advice that will produce a tangible impact on business performance. The organization believes that the singular mission of IT is to create value for a business, and that value is defined narrowly by initiatives that will increase revenue, decrease cost, or mitigate risk. If an initiative doesn’t meet one of those three objectives, WGroup would question whether it is worth executing.
WGroup believes that every IT leader is on a path of digital transformation, but there is a significant digital chasm preventing them from advancing their digital strategy. That digital transformation chasm is created by the legacy-centric IT functions that lead to the following challenges:
- Immature IT processes
- On-premise-centric delivery models
- High legacy technical debt
- Unconsolidated M&A environments
- Significant skill debt with skills that don’t match the needs of the business
- Not enough separation of core vs. context/commodity work via an insourced/outsourced hybrid delivery model
- Vendors supporting the IT function through transactional relationships vs. strategic outcomes-based partnerships
- IT costs that are out of bounds
- Imbalance of run vs. grow activity where 80% of costs and effort may be spent on run
Strategy for future growth
WGroup began aggressive investment in growth to build a foundation for a premium-tier consultancy in 2012.
Jeff Vail believes that the team with the best players is a team that wins and that the company’s hiring strategy addresses that requirement. WGroup has experienced talent in every key position, from all of its consulting roles through to WGroup’s back office of finance, marketing, sales, recruiting, and operations.
The WGroup team consists of some of the most experienced and well-known IT leaders in the industry. By continuing to maintain this talent profile, the organization has been able to tackle the challenges it has faced both inside its business, and for its clients’ IT functions.