About Dan Ricks:
Dan has over 30 years of experience and progressive advancement in the education, financial services, retail, professional services, consulting, utility and beverage manufacturing industries including large, medium and “start up” companies. He is recognized for successfully completing technology initiatives that drive business results. Additionally, he is known for facilitating collaboration among business and technology leaders. Dan has applied his enterprise solutions delivery skills and experience in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. He has a strong background in strategic planning and successful execution of plan with ROI analysis and corporate governance on all technology initiatives.
In addition to his experience at Bright Water Consulting, Dan was the Senior Director of IT for UtiliQuest, LLC, where he was responsible for all aspects of technology. Previous to this position, he was Chief Information Officer at Delta Career Education Corporation, Vice President, Business Technology Officer and Director of the Project Management Office for SunTrust Bank, Global IT Manager for The Coca-Cola Company, IT Manager for Norrell Corporation and a Business Systems Analyst at the Georgia Power Company.
Dan holds a Master of Business Administration Degree from Georgia State University, a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree from Georgia Southern University and presently resides in Snellville, Georgia, with his wife Luanne.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- The difference between a managed service provider (MSP) and a technology consulting firm, and why most businesses should have both.
- How Brightwater Consulting approaches engagements, including a deep-dive into business operations, strategy, and goals.
- What a real-world digital transformation looks like in practice, including an 11-month case study with a $300M family-run business.
- Why a "crawl, walk, run" approach to AI adoption saves companies from wasting money on implementing new tools without a strategy.
- The distinction between proactive and reactive technology clients, and how Dan's team adds value to both.
- How fractional CTO-style consulting gives small and mid-market businesses enterprise-level guidance without the full-time cost.
- Why data integrity and cybersecurity fundamentals matter more than ever, especially as AI tools open unexpected security vulnerabilities.
- How change management and communication determine whether an implementation actually succeeds.
Transcript:
Megan Quick:
Hello and the listener, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the Creative Stack, a show about the intersection of creativity and information technology. I am your host, you know me, Megan Quick, and I am joined as always by my co-host and the president of Valiant Technology, George Douderman. Hi George, how are you?
Georg Dauterman:
Hey, Meg, how you doing today?
Megan Quick:
I'm really good. It's 43 in New York today, but 64 on Thursday. So we're looking ahead, you know? And we have a really special guest today, George. Dan Ricks, the founder and president of Brightwater Consulting. Hi, Dan, how are you doing today?
Georg Dauterman:
Exactly.
Dan Ricks:
Hey, I'm doing great. It's 69 in Atlanta, by the
Georg Dauterman:
I know soon, soon we'll be there. Spring is here. Excellent. Excellent.
Megan Quick:
Bragg. I'm from Florida originally, Dan, so I'm like, ugh, I miss the 60 days in the winter. Come on, yeah. As always, yeah. Now George, you wanna take it away with our guests, yeah.
Dan Ricks:
I'll be on the golf course this afternoon.
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. It's a long winter here in New York as always. So, yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, um, I met Dan and Dan did something that on the surface looks very similar to what we do here at Valium, but in, in both talking to Dan and just being doing this for a long time, I thought it was such a great person to have as a guest here to talk about how different it is. It like, most of you all know what a master service provider does. You know, we're doing the infrastructure security. It's very programmatic and process driven, but what Dan does is something completely. different but equally as important. So, so Dick, if you guys give us like an overview, like this sort of like what Brightwater does and how you, you know, a little bit, and then I'm going to, I'm going to dive deep and we're going to, we're going to meander a little bit today because I love the story and the background, but just sort of the sort of the background, like what, does Brightwater do?
Dan Ricks:
Absolutely. Sure. Sure. So Brightwater, you everybody loves an MSP, right? Manage services providers. I love those guys. Yeah, I can highly recommend one called Valiant if anybody needs one, but they provide a valuable service. And part of what we do quite often at Brightwater is we are recommending and referring our clients to MSPs because we don't provide that service. So what we've doing, by the way, Brightwater in June of this year.
Megan Quick:
They sure do.
Georg Dauterman:
Hahaha!
Dan Ricks:
We'll be celebrating our 23rd anniversary. So we started in June of 2003. Thank you. We are a nationwide. I call it a technology automation process improvement type company. What we do is mostly technology. That's what people think of IT applications, data, cybersecurity, automation, AI. But it's also it's really focused on driving business results. I'm a guy with two college degrees in business, business finance.
Georg Dauterman:
Congratulations. Hmm.
Dan Ricks:
of all things, but also I'm all about saving companies money, driving business results, helping them to operate better, to be more efficient through the proper implementation of technology, automation, AI, cybersecurity, etc. So we've been doing that for 23 years. Again, we're nationwide industry agnostic. We target small to mid-market businesses. We can truly help any size company. I've had Fortune 500 customers for the last 10 years also. But we're truly target the small to mid market businesses, 10 to 20 million in revenue up to 200, 300 million. And we truly what makes us different is we truly dive deep into what's going on within that client. What are their issues? What's causing some of their issues? Talk to the leadership team about where they're going as as a company. What's the strategy the next one to three to five years? And we help investigate and find ways of.
Georg Dauterman:
Mm-hmm.
Dan Ricks:
improving their internal technology operations, people, processes, etc. in order to meet those goals and we implement that. So we do the strategic type consulting with guidance and advice on that sort of thing. But we also have a team of consultants nationwide that actually implement data solutions, application solutions, etc.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. That's, and you know, even someone listening would be like, well, isn't that what Valiant does? And I'm like, absolutely not what we do at all. We don't remotely do that at all. You know, and I think that the part that really got me is sort of as we just met and talked and it was that, I think that it's that application strategy component where you really dive deep into the business operations and try to wrap your head around how they work and improving it for them.
Dan Ricks:
Ha ha ha ha. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
So how did you get started on this? What was the genesis of Brightwater? What made you decide to be like, all right, I'm going to do this very specific thing?
Dan Ricks:
Now, that's a great question. Earlier in my career, before Brightwater, I worked for major Fortune 100 companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Georgia Pacific, Fiserv, big financial services firm. Great companies. I've got a lot of good experience there, specifically at the Coca-Cola Company. I traveled globally implementing technology and processes for Coca-Cola to make them more efficient. And that's where I just kind of cut my teeth. I saw what was going on.
Georg Dauterman:
Mm-hmm.
Dan Ricks:
I guess I've been more of an I had more of an entrepreneurial spirit all of my life. And I like that coaching. I like that advice. Sometimes I use the word parachuting in. Right. I love to parachute in, solve companies, business problems, help them to get things right and then maybe move on. So to that extent, my my what drives me is more of that solving problems, getting things done versus being a long term employee per se at a particular company. I mean, I did spend
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. Right.
Dan Ricks:
a long time at Coca-Cola, so don't get me wrong. But that's what drives me. And that's why I started Brightwater in June of 2003. We've purposely stayed small over the years. We're not a center or Deloitte or one of the big companies, but we provide the same kind of services at a compelling price. So the value proposition is really high. Of what our clients get.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Right. And it helps them really like understand, it helps them really get that next level as a business. And I think that's the real, you know, and if I had to say that a huge difference is that we like, MSPs really get at removing risk and really great at giving a platform or a basis for people to grow and scale.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
where it sounds like a lot of what Brightwater does has been like, okay, you're in this marketplace. We're going to do these things to get moving forward. Like, Hey, we're, know that your competitors are doing this and I know that marketplace is going here and having that specialized knowledge. Even if you don't, if you, if you have before the engagement, you're going to have it when you start the engagement, which is that, which is a real trick, which is very powerful stuff. You know,
Dan Ricks:
Yes.
Georg Dauterman:
So what are some of the invitations you've done over the years that you were like, man, I'm so proud of that. Like we change things. Not naming names, obviously. I don't know if we can, but.
Dan Ricks:
I've done. Yeah, I that's a great question. I don't often use the word digital transformation because again, that sounds too highfalutin but but we have done 100 % digital transformation for a couple of clients. One was actually a 30 year old family run business $300 million in revenue that had just gotten stagnant over the years within their internal technology department. We're way old technology way behind the team times.
Georg Dauterman:
Ha ha. Right.
Dan Ricks:
And we got in there and basically it took 11 months. It was a long engagement because they had a big team that 13 people in IT. And it was basically a restacking of technology modernizing, transforming, implementing the more modern DevOps, CI, CD kind of technologies. I'm sorry to throw the technical terms at you and and and and getting those people trained and basically internal processes.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Yeah, I know, it makes sense.
Dan Ricks:
within how that technology group then supports the rest of the company. Again, it was a big nationwide company that had just gotten to be stagnant. so our transformation allowed them to serve their clients better and serve their external clients better with the technology that they provided. So, yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
It's so interesting. Yeah, no, it's interesting that about the, you he said that kind of digital transformation is a high flu. But it's, really true because there's so many businesses we run into where you look at how they're doing stuff and you're like, you know, there's like a hundred other ways you could do that. That's way better. Or, or you, you know, you're missing out on this pretty deep. I had a meeting earlier this week or I was, I said one, but they're like even like,
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
their AI strategy and he kind of looked at me like they're blank and they were kind of like, their retort was, do you think it's a fad? And I was like, no. I was like, if you think it's a fad, you're not paying attention.
Dan Ricks:
No. Yeah. Yeah, AI is obviously very pervasive these days. You can't go anywhere without hearing those terms. We're very bullish on AI personally because we understand again, from a business standpoint, any particular business function can can be improved by using AI. The question and how we coach and advise our clients on that is more of a crawl before you walk, before you run. Kind of that mentality. I've seen a lot of.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Right.
Dan Ricks:
That's because I've seen a lot of clients throw a lot of money at AI and not really have a strategy or plan on what they're doing. And they waste a lot of money. So we advise clients on especially smaller clients. may not have a lot of money to spend on any technology, much less AI. But if they've only got a little bit of money, we kind of evaluate all their business functions and help them determine, hey, if you only got a little bit of money to spend on AI right now, here's the best place to spend it on. Here's the business function, the best area to get the
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Right.
Dan Ricks:
biggest bang for your buck and recoats them through implementing that. Again, a little bit of time, a little bit of time, and as they get more improvements from AI and more money and capital to spend, we'll love to help them grow and grow and grow. So I'm bullish on it. I think it's great. I just want clients to take a planful, strategic approach at how they're going to use it and what they're going to do with it. Same way you would do with any capital investment. I would hope.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, me too. 100%. No, it's actually interesting. you know, I think the problem is so many people are going from, you know, they're looking at the technology, not the strategy of why they want to use the technology, you know, and they think that, you know, and now they're operating from fear versus like a logic. they're like, we got to, well, our competitors or these other people where you're like, well, you haven't even solved these fundamental business problems in your business.
Dan Ricks:
Hmm?
Georg Dauterman:
let's start with there and AI is overlaying on top of it. it's about AI for hours. But but but yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. But
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I'm sure. And George, when you and I first spoke a month or so ago, we talked about the words proactive versus reactive, which I think is fantastic. Some of my clients are indeed very proactive and that's great, right? They know that they want to embrace AI. They know they want to embrace some new technology. They know their company is growing and they need to do something about that. The current technology or processes so they proactively bring us in.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yup. Right.
Dan Ricks:
evaluate, make recommendations, produce a roadmap for them as what they should do now versus six months from now versus next year, et cetera. So we get those kind of clients that which is great. Unfortunately, we also get a lot of reactive type. They don't call us until there's an issue. Their ERP system is no longer good. Their data is compromised and no longer good. so and those are great clients also.
Georg Dauterman:
Correct. correct.
Dan Ricks:
We get in a route. We almost follow the same process. We figure out what the problem is, get that resolved. But while we're doing that, we try to work out where should you be going and also try to produce a strategy and roadmap for them to help them be a little bit more proactive in the future. It really depends on the management structure and the type of client and how they're running their business.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. So, mean, to just go back, I mean, this is sort of a correlated question. Do you feel like sometimes the folks that are very reactive just need so much more education? And is there a point where you're like, there's not gonna get it?
Dan Ricks:
Sometimes there is that point. I don't really think there's anything wrong with that. mean, small against modern mid-market businesses, they're running 100 miles an hour. They have a lot on their plate within the operations of the company and their people and sales and marketing. Quite often, I just think the technology and the back office processes and technology to support those those great business functions just gets, you know, it's the it's the low priority.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yep. Right if
Dan Ricks:
the lesson. So I don't think they're doing anything wrong specifically. It's just the least priority. And I don't try to change that. I do try to focus on, well, you here's 50 things you should do. But realistically, you can't do 50 things. But if you only had time to do one, two or three, here's what you should really be doing now. And then let's come back and do the others later and the others later kind of thing. So I get it. It's a tough world to run a business and grow a business.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Right. It's... Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I I agree 100%. And unfortunately, if it's mostly working, people don't feel the need to change it, the kind of classic, don't fix it when it's broken. But unfortunately, the technology moves at a speed that doesn't allow you to have that attitude. And I think that's where the risk comes into the business. One of the things that I think that
Dan Ricks:
Yes. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Georg Dauterman:
you know, just just understanding your process. Do you do like a SWOT analysis? How do you guys start engagements?
Dan Ricks:
We have SWOT analysis. We do a lot of interviewing people within a company, watching the processes, digging into the documentation, how they've been doing things. And that's how we find out the true good, bad and ugly about what's going on there and make recommendations. I think one of the best things a client can do if they just don't know one of my best clients is somebody just hires somebody like me.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. Okay.
Dan Ricks:
Or my competition on a fractional basis, right? You may not need me full time. You may only need me a few hours a week or a few hours a month. But somebody again, if you don't have a an executive level of technology, I.T. kind of leader at your company, we can provide that role. We can provide the overall guidance over time and over time. You're not having to pay for a full time person, but over time we're watching out for you, making recommendations, getting things done. That's a great risk management plan because.
Georg Dauterman:
Right. I I think I agree. think I think.
Dan Ricks:
risk are going to come up all the time out of the blue.
Georg Dauterman:
And there's so many parts that as a... that there's so many unknowns to people. If you think about your legal, very few companies, small, medium business, mid-market even have a legal team on staff. And you look at the cost, you're like, why would you ever have a lawyer on staff? It's insane. And I think this falls directly in there. There's a certain point where you definitely need someone to give you guidance and have a level of like,
Dan Ricks:
Yes. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
hey, these are the things that you should know about and you should think about risk-wise. I think that what's so interesting to me is that that's not what MSPs always really do. That's not our role. We brush into it from time to time, but it's not really our goal. Our goal is to have a very set and specific services that we provide that are
Dan Ricks:
Correct.
Georg Dauterman:
that are critical to the business's function that are not the business's primary goal. Like most people don't really wanna run their own sock. I'd probably avoid. Right.
Dan Ricks:
Now, especially especially in the small to mid market space, right? I I do occasionally, George, you'll be surprised and George and Megan, I still run across clients at that size. They still have the computer room or server room or whatever in their office. And I can help them with that. We can help them with that. I always encourage those clients to get out of that business. Right. Let's migrate that stuff to the cloud, to an MSP.
Georg Dauterman:
Yep.
Dan Ricks:
specialists that can really do a much better job of doing backups and maintaining the servers and the software and keeping the patches updated and all that kind of stuff. Absolutely. And most often than not, I'm successful at convincing them of that. And then we work with that client to find the proper MSPE cloud provider and actually help migrate the stuff over and do the testing and all of that. Yep. Yep.
Georg Dauterman:
Right, nuts and bolts. Like this has to get done. Right. So critical, it's so critical. I always run into trouble, this is where I will, I, is that people are like, hey, I know my business has this really antiquated insert thing, and I don't even know what to do with it. And you'll find...
Dan Ricks:
You
Georg Dauterman:
We worked with customers that were like, no, and they were wide variety of customers. And then maybe let's say like a commercial bakery or they're like a ad agency or we work with a whole bunch of different stuff and they all have such unique software that even the people that work there don't fully understand it. And they have documented and processed it. And I'm like, why would you think we would know how to do that when we had to do all these other 47 other functions that we solve? And that's where you need to bring in specialty consulting, I think.
Dan Ricks:
That's true. And also that's where you guys, George, as an MSP, provide such good service and advice. I mean, you're providing advice to your clients,
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. Right. Oh, I try to do, I try to always provide stuff that I don't do well. It's like, someone asked me, went on a sales call the other day and I was like, I was like, what do you do this? I'm like, let me tell you what I don't do. And I think that's more important than telling what I do do. I do do. You know what I'm saying. Well, let that one, let it go, George. Let it go. But anyway, I think it's a really interesting philosophy. So just.
Megan Quick:
Mm-hmm. We'll let it go. Let it let it let it pass.
Georg Dauterman:
You mentioned earlier in the Georgia Coca-Cola. Love to hear more about that. mean, everyone loves Coke. see if you're a Pepsi- Let's see if you're from what? Let's see if you're from Worcester. Worcester, New York people are Pepsi people. I just want to that out loud, outside of that, outside of Camorra Coke people. So, got a Coke right there. So, tell- love to hear more, Dan, about that.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah.
Megan Quick:
I have a Coke once a day. hope that's, I'm not, we're not paid to say that.
Dan Ricks:
Nice start, yeah. about my career at Coke specifically? Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Just sort of more like some of the stuff you did. I more like the sort of large scale company. It seems like the lessons learned there kind of shape, what happens downstream.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. Yeah, well, Coke has all the large scale technology, right? They have SAP as an ERP system, right? big granddaddy of ERP system, Salesforce from a CRM. We have all the great, yeah, just global.
Georg Dauterman:
Right.
Megan Quick:
And can I do y'all mind if I for the layman and just remind the listener what is an ERP system and what is the SAP stand for?
Dan Ricks:
customer customer customer relationship management, marketing, business development, keeping track of your customer and prospective customer data. ERP is the enterprise resource planning. It's more of the manufacturing operations supply chain quality assurance kind of technology to keep keep track of all of that. But yeah, I traveled, I started early in my career at Coca-Cola, traveled the globe, was very fortunate, great opportunity.
Georg Dauterman:
Yes, no acronyms.
Megan Quick:
Thank you. Great, thank you.
Dan Ricks:
Coca-Cola, as you know, has manufacturing plants all over the globe. And so and they like to make sure that the Coca-Cola you drink, wherever you are, tastes the same as the Coca-Cola you would drink anywhere within the world. So quality assurance, research and development, strict manufacturing processes are very important. And so, you know, even back in the nineties, know, God, that sounds like forever ago before there was an Internet, before there was.
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. It's. Ha
Dan Ricks:
You know, technology like we're using today. We were traveling the globe and we were implementing technology that connected all of the global research and development centers, which Coco had about eight of them around the globe at that time. So that scientists, food scientists, biologists, chemists that were coming up with new products and and new flavors and things for Coke could actually work together, even though they were around the globe. One scientist in one part of the globe would clock out at night and go home. But there are lab notes and stuff would still be online for the next scientists in the other part of the world to continue working on. you know, state of the art stuff back in the day, the same kind of stuff we do date today. We're easily called all cloud based, but there wasn't a cloud back in the day. So that was some of the cool stuff. So it's great experience. I really I learned a lot. made a lot of mistakes. I learned a lot as a young whippersnapper. But I took that experience and.
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. I know. It was cool. You
Megan Quick:
Huh.
Dan Ricks:
And that's what I bring to my my clients today, not the old school of technology, obviously, but the things to think about and how to to grow, how to think about what you need to do for your company to grow it and reduce risk and move on.
Georg Dauterman:
I think, and I think also that, um, experience working at such scale gives you a good level of strategic thinking that, that you, that, that you don't need a small SMB or mid market. You don't necessarily need every day, but when you need it, you do need it. You need someone to be like, Oh, step back and step back and reduce and step back and be like, and really be like, solve the solve this problem versus, you know, one of the things I always find is, uh, I'm sure you
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
do this when you're talking to people. It's always like, well, I want to do this, this, and this. you're like, stop for a second. What are you trying to achieve? Where do you want end up? And if you don't ask that question multiple times, you're not going to get the right answer at all. So you're going to go down a rabbit hole. But it's very cool. I also worked for a large company back in the day. I worked for a large advertising holding company. And when I in the chocolate, you were talking about the 90s.
Dan Ricks:
Yes. Yes.
Georg Dauterman:
I think about video conferencing in the late nineties and early two thousands when it didn't work, when it was a, like a bald faced lie that you could, that you could video conference successfully from disparate systems and disparate applications without ISDN lines of, and I, and I think that, you know, one of the things that is so interesting is that, um, we take such a special granted, um, and how powerful these tools have become. Um, and how, uh,
Dan Ricks:
Hehehehehe
Megan Quick:
Ha
Dan Ricks:
Yeah? Yeah? Nah.
Megan Quick:
Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
injected into the workstream that they are. And just even as a fact that we're doing this, you're in Atlanta, we're in New York, and it's seamless. And it looks great and sounds great and it's amazing. Over a web browser, imagine this, 30 years ago, 25 years ago, you couldn't even imagine it.
Megan Quick:
That's what I just say.
Dan Ricks:
so imagine that. Yes, so now we're very agile. We're very scrum agile, safe, agile. I know those are some more acronyms, but what that means is we're again for the smaller mid-market clients. You don't need to implement SAP or some of those big tools, but we help you find the right application that fits your needs for today and tomorrow cost effectively and able to implement and then we manage that change, right? Implementing new technology, new processes within an organization.
Georg Dauterman:
Right.
Dan Ricks:
causes a little bit of chaos, a little bit of angst. And so we help manage through that change of getting people comfortable and, hey, you used to do things the old way. Here's the way you do things now. Here's the new technology you've got available to you. And it's all about helping you to be able to do your job better and have more information at your fingertips so that you can actually at every single role within the company, help to move the company forward and be be happier with your job because you feel better about yourself.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah.
Megan Quick:
Exactly.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, I mean, that's sort of interesting. you know, one of the things that I think that most IT, um, uh, sort of anger towards IT is a lack of results. Um, and, and, it's, and just, just, just working with you and you you seem very results driven, which is different than most IT people. Most people, IT people are like, I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but not results are not them. So how do you ensure that result is gonna happen? What's sort of your process to be effective? it's something I struggle with myself as time is just like, it's hard.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah, yeah, well, another. Well, absolutely. Another way to define what we do versus an MSP is everything we do. I call it project based, right? Everything we do for a client, unless they're hiring us on an ongoing basis as a fractional consultant. But typically all of our engagements are having defined start date and end date. We have specific statements of work or proposals and defined objectives and scope of what work we're going to do, what deliverables we're going to provide, what the outcome should be.
Georg Dauterman:
Right.
Dan Ricks:
And again, this is all planned ahead of time, working with my client on what their needs are. And we scope it out. We're experts in project management, program management. We're experts at managing the schedule, the cost, the resources and the scope of getting things done. And so our very results oriented and the results differ. Right. We again, we interview our clients up front. What are what are they looking to do? Are they looking to reduce risk? Are they looking to increase sales and revenues? Are looking to reduce costs?
Georg Dauterman:
Right.
Dan Ricks:
or they're looking to get products to market quicker. And inevitably, the answer to all of those is yes, they want a combination of all of that. So then the question is what you know, and then we prioritize what is it you're looking to do now versus later. So we're basically again, back to my business degrees and helping us solve the business problem of where they're what they're trying to do and then finding the right technology to implement and and use for them. So that's how we drive results. We manage.
Georg Dauterman:
Everything.
Dan Ricks:
on a daily, weekly basis with stand up meetings, with weekly check ins, monthly stakeholder meetings, all of the normal routines you would expect to make sure that a project or engagement stays on track. I mentioned change management earlier, communication management is just as expensive. Make sure to communicate with all the stakeholders, letting them know what's going on, et cetera.
Megan Quick:
Right.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Yeah. Now I see, you know, it's interesting having just run multiple projects over the years, even internally here. It's always like the communication is a part that's always, always a struggle because you're always kind of fighting the IT persons like, have nothing, no news. So we're not going to say anything or nothing's changed. I don't know why they want to hear from me. You're like, cause they want to know that you're moving forward or this is what a blood roadblock is. And so it's always a challenge. think just working with, you know, folks who, I know myself, I worked with a lot of folks who want to hide out in the server room or the data center and don't want to deal with talking to the folks. You have to always kind of find that balance of like, Hey, this is a personal person who can like break this down into like a conversational, uh, understandable tidbit, like, and I think that's a powerful tool is being able to do that. And you know, just, just in general, like being able to like say, Hey, this is the business case for why we're doing all these things. I think. most, I think, and I just haven't worked on it in long time, I find it's one of the things that tends to not get discussed. you know, is this the right thing to do? Does it make sense?
Megan Quick:
Mm.
Dan Ricks:
There's another way we add value. We're those deep dive geeky IT people, but we're also business people and communicate and can talk the business language and communicate and keep people up to date. That's what makes us different perhaps in some of our competition.
Georg Dauterman:
100%. Yeah, 100%. And as I talked to a lot of people, Dan, and you were one of the few people that had a normal conversation from the top side of it, which is a good thing. That's what we want. Yeah, but so some other things that, know, what have you seen change in the last 10 years? What have you seen change? What's been like, almost like, change you see? Because I know in my view, it's so much has changed.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah! us.
Georg Dauterman:
Fundamentals stay the same, but these little eyes change.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. I could answer that question two ways. One is from a technology standpoint. I don't think that's the important answer, but I mean, it's obviously things like AI was here 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Cyber security, right? We did talk about information security back in the day, but some of So so obviously the technology change has been prevalent and Moore's law is still out there. We're doubling in capacity every few years kind of thing. I think but I think the best way to define the change is just again, back from a business standpoint.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, right.
Megan Quick:
Mm-hmm
Georg Dauterman:
yeah. Yeah. Right.
Dan Ricks:
There's more competition. The cost of capital is going up, so people need to make the best get the best results out of the investments that they make and and just the speed at getting things done. And so, again, as a consultant, the that that change is accelerated so much. And so we're just, again, trying to advise our clients. Again, there are 30 things we could be working on, but based on.
Georg Dauterman:
Right?
Dan Ricks:
based on where you're headed and what you currently have. Here's the priorities and let's work together on focusing it and their methodologies that use the term rocks. Right. There are thousands of little pebbles, pebbles being all these problems you can solve. But if you get too busy handling those, you're not looking at the big rocks, the big things that are going to torpedo the company. So let's make sure we're focused on the big rocks and getting those done while handling some low hanging fruit here or there as needed.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You want to get those quick wins in the kind of prove the value and win trust and all that. the same token, if all you're doing is putting lipstick on the pig, there's no reason to do it. I that's what I find people like, you know, it's like, I particularly see it with cybersecurity. It's like, you want to actually secure this or do you want to do security theater? That's a choice. You can pick.
Dan Ricks:
Yeah. There you go.
Georg Dauterman:
I don't participate in security theater, but you're more than welcome to. it's interesting. So I mean, that's a big change. What do you the biggest challenges that people are facing now, besides the cybersecurity, what's your big, if you would be like, all right, here's my 30 second clip of the challenges, what would you say they are?
Dan Ricks:
It's funny, I'm going to sound a little bit dated here. Some of the biggest challenges companies face today are the same ones they faced years ago. Data. Data is important. Data is key. The old garbage in, garbage out. If you don't have access to good data out of your technology or the data is corrupted or garbage, you can be making bad decisions. Your executive teams are going to not be making good decisions.
Georg Dauterman:
Yep. yeah.
Dan Ricks:
Again, cyber security, what we used to call information security and whatever we call it before that is still a big thing. Think about this. I had a discussion with a client yesterday. They've implemented AI and somebody in their company implemented this new great shiny object AI tool and it corrupted a lot of their data. And what they also didn't know was that cyber security tool actually opened up.
Georg Dauterman:
you wow.
Dan Ricks:
some of their technology to the cloud that they didn't know they would open up to some other risk of cybersecurity breach. So AI is great. Again, I'm bullish on it, but that's just another example of don't just go implement the latest shiny tool called cybersecurity, getting your data correct, the basics of running a business, operating efficiencies and that sort of thing is still, again, the most prevalent things while you're also modernizing and speaking AI and speaking all this fancy stuff. You got to make sure they have the house in order, so to speak, first.
Georg Dauterman:
It's, it's, it's, that's why I like you, Dan, because I agree with you a hundred percent and not a hundred percent, like, no, but like philosophically, I agree with you because I think the fundamental, I sort of said earlier, the fundamentals haven't changed really the fundamentals of how things are humans operate and think and data and, and, business processes and business best practices and all that stuff hasn't changed. just,
Dan Ricks:
you Right?
Georg Dauterman:
the methodology and the tooling we have to do it is better or faster or different. I think that's a big change.
Dan Ricks:
Sure. And it's a great enabler. AI can do so much to improve processes, give data to clients that they've never had before, more easily readable. lot of my clients are implementing, George, lot of my clients are implementing something called customer experience management technology, right? If you've got external customers and you want to do a better job of providing a positive experience to those customers for how they deal with your products or services that your company provides.
Georg Dauterman:
Yes. Yep.
Dan Ricks:
There's a lot of new technology and some of us AI based also that that's come along. But nobody talks about everybody talks about AI. Nobody talks about customer experience management. That's also that's multiple things. That's a business process. That's a people oriented kind of thing that have to companies have to improve on. Plus, there's also technology to help support that and improve that. So again, there's multiple ways we talk about the old school problem, but technology can also solve.
Megan Quick:
Mm-hmm.
Georg Dauterman:
Right.
Dan Ricks:
new problems today that we didn't think about back that day. We didn't have customer experience problems, or at least if we did, didn't know what we're doing, haven't had any way to do anything about it.
Georg Dauterman:
no one cared. It was definitely like, I think the difference is the challenges that how fast, it's actually fast, how fast bad news gets out. You know, someone has a bad experience with your product or service, you could be ruined in minutes. And I've seen some of these tools that come out to help people manage that or.
Megan Quick:
Mm.
Georg Dauterman:
They said the customer experience management, there's like this AI reputation management tooling, like all this really interesting stuff. And I'm with you, I'm very bullish on AI. think that, know, like much like when the automobile came, everyone cried about the loss of horses, but we created a whole new set of jobs that were like jobs you couldn't even imagine and things opened up. Now, of course, in that process, it can be painful. This is a transition period, like always, you know, nothing's...
Dan Ricks:
Yeah.
Georg Dauterman:
Nothing goes without some price, but I think there's some unbelievable changes going to happen that hopefully will be net positive for businesses and society as a whole. So that's great. That's great. Yeah. mean, Megan, there anything that you think would be that a good question or that we didn't get to talk to today? Because Megan always has good ones. So we're just fine.
Dan Ricks:
Fantastic.
Megan Quick:
No, no, no. Well, listening to y'all was really great. And I think there's so much intersection. We're talking about the differences of our services, obviously. And we are different. So much of this, you talk about the communication. And also, I I kept thinking about a lot of this is, I mean, business is emotional, you know? And I think a lot of what you were saying, Dan, it...
Georg Dauterman:
That's true.
Megan Quick:
it drove home to me that you have so much experience in helping, I don't want to say manage emotions, because that sounds like they're a problem, but it's hard to adopt new systems. It's hard to improve your business because people get stuck, because it feels comfortable. And like anything else in your life, sometimes you just need that outside voice helping you figure out the better way to operate. And I feel like that's what I kind of gathered as you talked.
Georg Dauterman:
Absolutely true.
Megan Quick:
And I know we, George, you and I, from an MSP perspective, they don't always love to see us coming when we were like, you have to do your MFA. We promise we're not doing it for our egos.
Georg Dauterman:
We have we Yeah, we don't want to you pain.
Dan Ricks:
Maybe Megan, maybe you could use some customer experience improvements.
Georg Dauterman:
That's right. I love it. I could do that.
Megan Quick:
Wow, wait, I know an expert on that. Now, Dan, before we close out, is there anywhere folks can find you if they've loved listening to you today and wanna maybe find more of your content? Yeah.
Dan Ricks:
Just kidding with you. Yeah, our website, our website is brightwaterconsulting.com. It's completely spelled out. Brightwater Consulting. My email address is drix at brightwaterconsulting.com. Feel free to reach out to us. And again, I guess bottom line is if I could take 30 more seconds, we're actually business operators. I should have mentioned that up front. mean, me and my most senior partner are both business operators. We've run divisions of large companies and we've run companies.
Megan Quick:
Go.
Georg Dauterman:
Of
Dan Ricks:
And so that's why maybe some of the difference you see in us is we we are your partner, right? If you're the CEO, the CEO, the CFO, we partner with you to solve your business problems through the implementation of technology and process improvement and automation. we're not just the technology guys. We're also right there beside you. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?
Megan Quick:
Right.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, it's very different than like a VAR selling you a piece of software and rolling it out. This is like a very deep dive into their business and helping them really have a measurable outcome to that. That's the difference. think that, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting thing. Like, I always say, I like to be the person who, who serves the function of getting that done. so that people like yourself can get work out the door and change the businesses. So like, I'm there to keep it safe and sound and you're there to change it for them. So I think that's the idea here. So awesome. Love it. I love it.
Megan Quick:
Yeah, that's great. That's a great way to finish on it, George. Yeah, thank you for coming and I'm sure we'll have you on again. This has been so fun. And Dan, I said I'm from Florida by way of Tennessee and I just, I...
Dan Ricks:
Thanks guys, I enjoyed the talk.
Georg Dauterman:
Yeah, that was great. It very fun.
Dan Ricks:
you
Georg Dauterman:
Ha ha ha!
Megan Quick:
whip, you said whippersnapper. And I was like, I, when I was, I was a nanny in New York, sorry, if this too, I was a nanny, we can cut this out, but I was a nanny in New York and I said hullabaloo. And the, and the kid I nannied said, stop, what are you saying? And I was like, I, and I said, get out of the city. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Dan, and can't wait to have you on next time.
Dan Ricks:
There you go.
Georg Dauterman:
Ha ha. Why is that even makes sense? Too much steady for you, is that healthy? Excellent, all right.
Dan Ricks:
Thanks guys.
Georg Dauterman:
So all right, awesome. Thanks, Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks, Dan. All right. Bye now.
Dan Ricks:
I enjoyed it and George to stay in touch.
Megan Quick:
Bye.
Dan Ricks:
Thanks. Bye bye.
Tags:
May 20, 2026