OVERVIEW
The client, a global learning organization within a Fortune 100 technology company, was working to scale and streamline its course development efforts through a program focused on onboarding and enabling thousands of employees across global sales, marketing, and operations.
As part of this effort, the organization needed a structured intake process to manage new course requests, ensure proper stakeholder engagement, and track program performance.
Nextant supported the executive team by managing the end-to-end operations of this intake process, from triaging requests and assigning resources to reporting insights and recommending strategic improvements.
The goal was to reduce inefficiencies, enable data-driven decision-making, and support the successful development of high-impact learning experiences for global field teams.
Discover how Nextant can transform complex intake processes into scalable, data-driven systems that drive efficiency and strategic visibility. Contact our team today to start optimizing your operations.
CHALLENGE
One of the primary challenges faced by the client was managing and operationalizing the intake process for new course development or updates within a large, global learning organization. The client had an established intake process and centralized reporting mechanism to manage new course development requests within the onboarding program.
However, as the volume and complexity of requests grew, the process began revealing operational inefficiencies. Intake triage and case assignment were time consuming, updates were managed manually, and key performance indicators (KPIs) were limited, making it difficult to identify trends, track performance over time, or communicate effectively across stakeholders.
While the foundation was in place, the system required optimization to better support prioritization, stakeholder engagement, and program oversight. There was a clear need to improve how data was reviewed and presented, reduce friction in the intake workflow, and provide deeper insights to leadership.
Nextant was initially brought in to support the operational management of the intake process. However, as we became familiar with the workflow, we identified key areas for improvement and began proposing enhancements that significantly increased efficiency and visibility.
Over time, our role evolved into a strategic one, contributing to broader efforts to enhance and eventually automate parts of the intake process, and becoming a critical partner in shaping the future of intake operations for onboarding program.
SOLUTION
To address inefficiencies in intake case management and enhance strategic decision-making, Nextant implemented a comprehensive operational support model, becoming an integral partner to the executive team.
Nextant focused on orchestrating and optimizing existing tools and processes to streamline intake operations, improve visibility, and enable data-informed decisions across multiple stakeholders.
The solution encompassed the following components:
1. Centralized Intake Case Management
Nextant managed end-to-end intake operations, from receiving and reviewing intake requests to triaging and assigning them to the correct stakeholders. Leveraging Microsoft Dynamics as the intake tool and Outlook for communication and assignment, Nextant enhanced a consistent and reliable system to manage cases across the organization. Escalation paths and stakeholder responsibilities were clearly defined, ensuring timely and accurate routing.
2. Intake Process Standardization and Governance
To reduce ambiguity and inefficiencies, Nextant developed process guidelines and rules to standardize intake operations. This included the use of Microsoft Forms to update and version the intake submission experience, improving data quality and completeness from the start.
3. Intake Data Reporting and Consolidation
Using Excel as an initial repository for intake tracking, Nextant structured and centralized intake data, enabling a consolidated view of incoming requests, status, assignment, and outcomes. This dataset became the operational foundation for reporting and performance management.
4. Performance Dashboard and KPI Reporting in Power BI
Nextant created a tailored Power BI dashboard to visualize intake volumes, stakeholder workload, performance metrics, and trends over time. These reports allowed leadership to monitor process health and identify bottlenecks in real time.
5. Strategic Insights and Executive Storytelling
Nextant enhanced the existing weekly report email by expanding the categories covered, adding deeper insights from Power BI dashboards, and improving the overall design and readability. These improvements made the communication more visually engaging, easier to interpret and more valuable for the broader team.
In addition, Nextant developed PowerPoint presentations to support both recurring Triage calls and executive level discussions. These decks went beyond reporting key findings, they were used to present insights, highlight value-added contributions, and align stakeholders on process improvements.
Before our involvement, triage calls relied on verbal updates, by introducing visually appealing and structured presentations, we provided a clear, consistent format that was easier to follow, enhanced alignment, and improved overall communication quality.
6. Stakeholder Communications and Change Support
Recognizing that process improvements require behavioral change, Nextant managed communications to ensure stakeholders received timely updates on new procedures, metric definitions, and performance expectations. By facilitating clarity and alignment, we helped strengthen cross-functional collaboration.
Technologies Used:
- Microsoft Dynamics: Used as the primary intake tool to capture incoming cases
- Microsoft Forms: For structured intake form submissions and version updates
- Excel: For tracking intake, data consolidation, and foundational reporting
- Power BI: To deliver dashboard with KPIs and trends
- Outlook: For case assignment and stakeholder communications
- PowerPoint: For executive presentations and triage call storytelling
- Azure DevOps: Used to manage intake course development, enabling visibility into progress, ownership, and workload distribution across team members.
Nextant began as an operational partner supporting day-to-day intake activities, but quickly evolved into a strategic partner by identifying and addressing inefficiencies across the intake process. Through close collaboration with stakeholders and a deep understanding of the intake workflow, Nextant helped redesign and enhance the process, improving case triage, assignment accuracy, reporting visibility, and stakeholder communication.
This partnership not only improved operational performance, but also elevated the strategic value of intake, enabling more informed, data-driven leadership decisions and positioning the process for continued evolution and scalability.
Learn how Nextant’s expertise in process standardization, reporting, and executive storytelling can elevate your organization’s decision-making and performance.
Schedule a consultation now to see how we can partner with you.
RESULTS AND IMPACT
The intake management solution supported by Nextant delivered substantial improvements across operations, communication, and strategic visibility:
- Enhanced Intake Efficiency: By standardizing the intake process and formalizing triage and assignment workflows, the team reduced turnaround times and improved stakeholder response and engagement. The clarity in workflows has minimized delays and rework, resulting in more consistent, efficient case handling.
- Improved Data Visibility and Reporting: With all intake data consolidated and visualized through Power BI, leadership now has real-time access to key trends, volumes, and bottlenecks. This visibility enables proactive planning, faster decision making, and prioritization of high impact initiatives.
- Strategic Decision Enablement: Weekly insights communications and executive-level presentations transformed raw data into strategic narratives. These updates helped leadership stay informed and aligned on evolving trends, recurring challenges, and potential areas of improvement, increasing the overall agility and responsiveness of the organization.
- Communication Standardization: Previously informal or ad hoc communications (such as triage calls) were formalized and structured using clear PowerPoint visuals and insight driven formats, improving alignment across teams, reducing miscommunication, and providing a consistent method for sharing priorities and value-added updates.
- Elevated Strategic Value of Intake: By evolving the process from operationally reactive to strategically informed, intake became a reliable foundation for broader business performance review and resource planning.
- Operational Scalability: The improvements implemented by Nextant allow the intake process to scale alongside business growth without proportional increases in manual effort. As volumes increase, the streamlined structure and reporting foundation ensure the organization can absorb demand efficiently.
Before-and-After Snapshot
To clearly illustrate the impact of Nextant’s intake optimization efforts, the following table outlines the key differences in how the intake process functioned before and after implementation. These changes represent not just operational gains, but also an elevated strategic capacity for the organization to respond to learning needs efficiently and on a scale.
| Category | Before Nextant | After Nextant Implementation |
| Intake Form Submission | Incomplete or inconsistent data collection | Standardized and version-controlled forms via Microsoft Forms, ensuring data quality upfront |
| Case Triage & Assignment | Basic case information repository, and simple assignment communication | Improved workflows using Microsoft Dynamics and Outlook templates for timely and accurate case assignment and triage |
| Visibility into Requests | Excel tracking tool | Consolidated Excel tracker and enhanced visuals within spreadsheet to access real time data and case insights |
| Reporting & Metrics | Minimal Excel based KPIs, reactive analysis, difficult to identify trends | Power BI dashboards enabling real-time tracking of trends, volumes, workload, and bottlenecks |
| Communication with Stakeholders | Verbal discussions during triage calls; informal, inconsistent sharing | Formal PowerPoint decks with data-driven narratives and visual storytelling for triage calls, and enhanced weekly insights communications to stakeholders |
| Change Management Support | Ad hoc updates; limited stakeholder engagement | Managed communications with change clarity, metric definitions, and expectations alignment |
| Scalability | Not scalable; growing volume created process strain | Streamlined structure designed to scale with increased intake volume, looking for improvements constantly |
CONCLUSION
The transformation of the intake process highlights how operational excellence can unlock strategic impact. What began as a support role for day-to-day intake activities evolved into a deep, strategic partnership that reshaped how the organization captures, processes, and responds to learning development needs. Through a thoughtful combination of technology integration, process standardization, data consolidation, and stakeholder engagement, Nextant helped the client move from fragmented workflows to a scalable, insight-driven intake ecosystem.
The results speak for themselves: improved efficiency, real-time visibility, informed decision-making, and elevated stakeholder confidence. Most importantly, the intake process has become a foundation for long-term agility and growth enabling the organization to continuously deliver high-impact learning experiences to a global workforce.
As your organization seeks to scale operations or enhance decision-making through better intake and workflow management, Nextant is ready to help. Let’s work together to build systems that are not just operationally sound but strategically transformative.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of intake processes does Nextant support?
Nextant supports a wide range of intake processes across learning and development, program management, IT operations, and more. Whether you’re managing course requests, project proposals, or service tickets, we help design and optimize systems that are scalable, data-driven, and stakeholder-friendly.
Do you build custom technology solutions, or work within existing systems?
We specialize in optimizing and orchestrating the tools you already use—like Microsoft Dynamics, Forms, Power BI, and Outlook—so you can see fast, sustainable results. We also provide recommendations for tool upgrades or automation if needed, but we start with what you have.
How quickly can you improve an intake process?
Timelines depend on the complexity of your existing workflow, but clients typically see meaningful improvements within the first 4–8 weeks of engagement. We begin with operational support and layer in strategic improvements as we analyze the system.
What’s the difference between operational and strategic support?
Operational support includes managing day-to-day intake tasks like triage, assignment, and tracking. Strategic support goes deeper—developing KPIs, generating insights, enhancing stakeholder communication, and aligning intake processes with broader business goals.
Do you offer training or documentation for internal teams?
Yes. We ensure that process changes are documented and provide clear guidelines, training resources, and ongoing support to enable internal adoption and long-term sustainability.
How do you ensure stakeholder buy-in for process changes?
We manage communication and change support from day one. This includes structured update emails, visual dashboards, and collaborative planning to ensure all stakeholders are informed, aligned, and confident in the process improvements.
