« In 2008, Duke Street engaged InSYNC to advise us on the commissioning and implementation of a new CRM system. We already had a long and successful history with the company stretching back to work on portfolio companies, including B&B and Insert.

Our project manager, Eric Fanton, was hugely helpful in engaging with key users to understand our needs and map out the system’s spec. He then helped identify a shortlist of potential software providers and guided us towards the most appropriate partner.

Then the hard work began! We made an early decision to undergo extensive customisation of the system. Eric was at the interface between e-Front (our chosen partner) and the Duke Street team.

Eric delivered the project to time and budget (including upgrades to the spec agreed with us during the process). He is a rare beast in the IT world: a technician who thinks commercially and can communicate in plain English.
We’d have no hesitation in using him again.« 

Le Delas is a prominent operator of the Rungis wholesale food market, which is number 1 in the world. Its business model is brick-and-mortar, cash-and-carry.

« I hired Eric Fanton, because I needed assistance in several critical issues regarding the marketing and business development strategies I was putting in place.
We had regular exchanges, through which he was able to understand and reformulate my business strategy. He then translated it in a new organization and implemented the corresponding information systems.
He was able to understand our company culture and collaborate efficiently with key member of staff in order to manage the change process. His IT knowledge enabled him to propose, design, and implement appropriate and realistic technical orientations. In the end, the objectives were met and Le Delas is on the strategic path I wanted.
As CEO, I appreciate to have easy access to a good level executive, non-salaried, competent in a number of domains, able to get results without close supervision, acting in a symbiotic manner with the organization, and using means which are reasonable and consistent with our size.
I would recommend Eric Fanton to any company in a situation comparable to ours.« 

April is #1 insurance broker and wholesaler in France. InSYNC advised April on integration of a subsidiaries portfolio, recently acquired through external growth strategy.

« E. Fanton proposed a mergers methodology between two subsidiaries.
• First, it fully respected the alignment with our strategic priorities
• The work breakdown of the different tasks was very relevant. Stakes, constraints and risks were all clarified in a reference document
• Managers’ individual and collective responsibilities were clearly outlined
• Schedule and budgets were defined with an increased level of details
The resulting roadmap provided a structure for the mergers task force’s course of action, as well as a control tool for management. This was a defining moment in the mergers project« 

« As an external consultant, Eric Fanton brought a useful outside view on our processes. He improved them significantly, using his best practices experience.
He proved competent in a wide range of subject of high interest to us (IT, Finance, Supply-chain, legal…) which gave him high credibility in system and organizational design. As a result, he was able to evaluate with a full 360° approach all the restructuring and functional scenarios we envisioned.
We appreciated his technological pragmatism. He took full account of the particularities of our legacy system, which is non-standard by many counts, and used its positive aspect in a realistic manner. His management of third party supplier is very rigorous and he proved to be a good defender of our interest.
He is very consistent in his project management techniques and always keep the project aligned with initial strategic decisions. He proved also skillful in stakeholder’s management. Their respective interests were properly reformulated so as to produce a consensus and a workable project orientation.
In the end the solutions we adopted were consistent with our company’s policy, both in terms of cost and technological choices, and our projects were successfully concluded.« 

« We hired E. Fanton in emergency, in order to turn-around a 7000 man-day Private Equity project. Our client is a big Middle-East financial institution, representing for Polarys a key account in a strategic market.

E. Fanton responded to our demand with very short notice. His excellent command of the English language enabled him a high-level interaction with local decision makers. He quickly reached a position where he could:
• exercise leadership on the IT team
• correct key processes as well as introduce new ones
• influence steering committee
• and, finally, balance project forces so as to conduct it to a stable milestone.

Eventually, the client was satisfied and the local IT team wrote very warm, positive comments at the end of the mission.

We would strongly recommend Eric for any IT-oriented mission with global reach. »

« Quilvest & Partners hired Eric Fanton to help me manage the first year, of our major Private Equity, efront-based, implementation project.
Eric is a project management professional who demonstrated with us considerable savvy and acumen. The thing I appreciated most was the strength and depth of his methodological background. He analyzed our setting quickly, outlined significant improvement to be made and led us to a host of new orientations and reorganizations. In the long run, it proved suitable to our organization, and beneficial to the project.
He is good at spotting risks; he makes accurate predictions. Many of them derived from his several experiences with, and understanding of, efront, our software vendor. His competence extends to system and process design. He proposed several innovative functional approaches, in terms of payments, document management, and system interfacing, for example. He knows many project management tools and is competent at introducing and using them.
He has been successful in hiring and training our application manager. He adequately organized our end-users’ contribution to the project and was very respected and liked by the staff and line managers. He is keen to communicate and transmit knowledge, and I found him to be a good personal coach.
Some of our partners found him rough. I would rather describe him as demanding, unforgiving toward substandard work quality and always focused on his client’s interest.
In the end, Eric handed over to me valuable knowledge and a well-functioning project. He made my life a lot easier and I would gladly collaborate again with him, given the opportunity.« 

Proclif is a group of private hospitals, operating in the Paris region, in France. Initially based on a combination of two hospitals, Proclif raised funds and embarked in an ambitious external growth strategy, acquiring 6 additional hospitals in less than a year.

Testimonial :
« Proclif is an LBO-financed business, growing fast by acquisitions. In any such company, CFO’s workload is very heavy. Proclif is no exception. Any assistance is welcome, especially if it can help change company culture and practices.
InSYNC was recommended by our main shareholder. Eric Fanton’s intervention brought several benefits
• First of all, we could split the work to do between us. For instance, I could concentrate on accounts consolidation systems, reporting, communication to shareholders, and of course, business-as-usual. In the meantime, E. Fanton took charge of datawarehousing and operations reporting.
• The second is that E. Fanton has been able to bring a MIS vision, which did not exist prior his arrival. Obviously, this vision is an absolute necessity to our corporate project. To that effect, his dual competency, MIS and finance, has definitely been put to good use.
• Last, when it comes to change management, two voices speaking together, are naturally stronger than just one.
We performed a side-by-side peer collaboration. This is not usual at executive committee level. But in Proclif’s case, the sheer number of projects to complete in a small time-frame, made it a good solution. To me, it was a positive experience, and I would recommend it.« 

Passat is a French-German company, with a clear leadership position in video-assisted sales of innovative consumer products. Passat possess video point-of-sales presence in all major French supermarket chains. It is credited for having introduced several blockbusters on the market, notably in the house are and toys segment.

Passat is a publicly traded company on the Paris stock market, and is also present in southern Europe.

Testimonial :
« Everyday counts. For us, leaving the CFO position vacant for an extended period of time was out of the question. InSYNC was recommended by a leading private equity firm. We hired Eric Fanton to occupy the CFO position, introduce new practice and recruit his successor.
Our assessment of his intervention is as follows.
• E. Fanton covered flawlessly all aspects of the CFO position, which is critical for the company. In particular, he gained the trust of the accounting staff and efficiently led the yearly book closing.
• He brought in original point of views on several practice and made many players of the company aware of the necessity to change their ways.
• He went beyond business-as-usual, introduced new managerial accounting vision, and initiated projects that we will pursue.
• Last he brought a significant boost to our IT department, by coaching the young CIO, identifying outdated and dysfunctional areas, and initiating their overhaul.
In conclusion, one expects from a transition professional an ability to quickly immersed himself in an organization, quickly bring an acceleration, and leave just as quickly when required. Eric Fanton perfectly met that expectation. »

« The acquisition of the Village Hôtels network is the first major acquisitions Hôtels B&B ever performed. It was a move of very high strategic significance on many counts :
• This acquisition would permit us to gain a critical mass in France, which we did not have before
• As a result, we would achieve overnight a geographical coverage which would take us three years to complete otherwise
• We were also keen to prove our shareholders that the management team was able to successfully perform operations of that order of magnitude. Successfully integrating a company representing half our size would prove the point perfectly.
• As a consequence, every aspect of the merger had to be carefully crafted in details: HR, marketing, customer relation, communication…
No mistake was therefore acceptable.

We picked Eric Fanton to help us integrate Village Hotels, on the following basis:
• We worked with him before, and he knows Hotels B&B
• His past experience in similar works and situations was convincing
• He has an in-depth understanding of Management Information Systems, extending to managerial accounting
• The work methodology he proposed brought a decisive clarification. It pointed to the direction the management team would follow, and to the tasks it would have to complete. The path to success became visible to anyone involved.
• Eric has a direct interpersonal style well suited tour corporate culture. He is keen to coach and transmit knowledge in a very open-minded manner.

We are entirely satisfied with the work done. The merger has been a complete success and our shareholders qualified it as a “textbook example”. »

« I worked with Eric in a project where he was the leader, and I was the scrum master. We introduced Agile methodologies and concepts, in an attempt to salvage a troubled project component.
I found Eric to be trained and knowledgeable in Agile.
He exercised his leadership with an « Agile state-of-mind »: non-intrusive, supportive to team endeavors and decisions, problem solver and keen to play an interfacing role between the team and the stakeholders. Altogether he was a great ally in these difficult circumstances. »

« Transition management appeared to be a valid solution to structure our IT department and its projects. InSYNC’s intervention brought concrete and measurable results:
• The projects moved on, the agenda became clear and was followed through
• The project reporting was made using plain non-technical language. It was linked to the company strategic goals and tactical options. At the same time, technical issues were under control. All of this made the project much clearer to stakeholders.
• The project setting and organization was also clarified, so that it became easy to take it over at the end of InSYNC’s mission.
• The CIO was efficiently coached. Freed-up from program management tasks, he could concentrate on other urgent core duties.
As an external project manager, Eric Fanton presented several decisive qualities for the job:
• He blends IT knowledge and business acumen with sufficient depth to effectively bring together between technology and company strategy and produce a consistent result.
• He built up quality relationships with most key players of the project, while maintaining a high level of authority
• His contractual flexibility allowed us to minimize the cost of his intervention «