“With Elate, we’ve been able to build a scalable, streamlined strategic planning process that aligns our global team, as well as create a unified view of our strategic goals and outcomes. The platform’s intuitive design and powerful reporting capabilities have made our Leadership meetings more effective and action-oriented. We’re now able to proactively address issues and allocate resources where they are needed most.”

Tony Rhine, COO at Transcend

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Transcend’s mission is to transform how asset owners, technology suppliers, and engineering firms assess and design critical infrastructure. Today, Transcend’s cloud-based, proprietary software is the only SaaS platform that fully automates the preliminary design of critical infrastructure; including water & wastewater treatment, electrical substations, and other assets. Thousands of users have designed over 20,000 critical infrastructure projects in more than 70 countries.

With a world-class founding team and CEO, Ari Raivetz, who has spent decades in the infrastructure industry, Transcend’s Leadership Team had a bold vision for the future: to help heal our planet and empower engineers to evaluate innovative technologies and sustainable design approaches. However, with a fully distributed team across Europe and the United States, they needed a solution to create a unified view of their long-term strategy to help employees across the globe deliver on that vision.

Additionally, Transcend’s COO, Tony Rhine, recognized that to drive the cross-functional alignment needed for continued scaling, Transcend would need an operating framework that created visibility and alignment across the organization. While many companies might have clung to the status quo, Transcend seized the opportunity to refine their processes and prevent complacency. They chose to build on their past successes by using Elate as the platform to empower proactive decision-making.

At Elate, we emphasize the importance of people, processes, and solutions to bring the strategic planning framework to life. Transcend reached a point where manual processes were no longer sufficient.

With a vision to accelerate, Transcend couldn’t afford to have any team members misaligned. Creating a centralized view of strategy with an easy, intuitive way to measure plan execution was essential.

This transformation began by building upon the strength of their Leadership team, with COO, Tony Rhine, driving change and ensuring lasting impact. With experience in building high-growth organizations and scaling international teams, Tony set out to implement an operating framework for continued growth. After evaluating the existing tools, solutions, and processes, it was clear that while the existing framework had yielded results, a revamp was needed to reach the next stage.

Rather than resting on their laurels, Transcend embraced the need for continued evolution, fueled by the enthusiasm of their CEO and Leadership team. It became evident they needed to capitalize on their momentum with a solution capable of uniting vision with execution. Like any great Leadership team, they rallied their teams and communicated the why behind the need for change to develop a scalable and streamlined strategic planning process.

Enter Elate. 

Rather than trying to overhaul everything immediately, Transcend focused on ensuring adoption and buy-in at the Leadership level. They built a foundation based on three main pillars:

1. Creating a unified view of Strategy and Outcomes: Using Elate, Transcend mapped out their long-term strategic plan and integrated it with KPIs for the Leadership teams. They leveraged Elate’s Scorecards to easily set and track KPIs from tools like Salesforce.
2. Setting a Cadence for Leadership Meetings: Once they had a single view of the strategy and outcomes, Transcend used Elate to run Leadership team meetings and build ongoing operating rituals that would support their strategy throughout the year. They utilized Elate’s Advanced Reporting capabilities to streamline updates shared with Leadership before meetings. This allowed them to focus meeting time on discussing Objectives at Risk or Behind, ensuring Leaders were driving action, and creating a forum for requesting support and resources.
3. Creating a Playbook for Success: After setting the cadence at the Leadership level, Transcend introduced Elate to the rest of the team. With their Strategic Plan built in the platform and a playbook created in partnership with Elate’s strategy team, Transcend had a blueprint for success. The playbook defined how employees created Objectives, tracked updates, and requested support from other departments and team members.

From day one of leveraging Elate, Transcend drove behavior change starting at the Leadership level and spreading throughout the organization. Elate’s ease of use and intuitiveness helped Transcend hit the ground running in their first quarter on the platform, capturing 293 status updates and 231 comments on their most important Objectives. This allowed Leadership to avoid spending time tracking down updates. With real-time status updates and commentary from employees on their objectives, they could focus on driving action.

“Implementing Elate has transformed the way our Leadership team operates. The real-time status updates and integrated KPIs have allowed us to focus on strategic actions rather than chasing down information. It’s streamlined our processes and significantly boosted our productivity,” says Tony.

Building on this momentum, Transcend rolled out the platform to the rest of their team the following quarter. With a strong foundation in place, Transcend saw even greater results, increasing the number of updates by 246% in the next quarter, with more than 750 status updates and 350 comments.

Why are status updates important? This activity serves as a signal throughout the organization, surfacing proactive insights to Leaders and helping them shift from chasing down updates to making proactive decisions. This focus on adoption and engagement led Transcend to achieve 84% of all Objectives within their Strategic Plan.

By achieving over 80% of their Objectives and driving adoption and engagement across teams, Transcend created cross-departmental visibility that had previously eluded them. Now, with a clear, consistent framework for setting Objectives with measurable outcomes, Transcend has elevated its Operating Framework and empowered the entire organization through change management that yielded results.

Today, Transcend’s operating framework is powered by Elate. From ensuring teams understand how to set, track, and report on their Objectives to driving the business toward their operating plan, Elate unites long-term vision with tactical execution.