MENU 2025 Year in Review
An Eventful Year is Done… A Transformative Year Awaits
2025 was an eventful year for Orion Development Group. Just as the “new normal” settled in after years of pandemic-driven changes, aggressive cost-cutting by the Federal government and talk of AI (and other tech innovations) brought new uncertainty. Our 32 years of operational excellence expertise provided Orion’s clients and professional development customers with a solid foundation to tackle these new challenges.
Here are 10 highlights:
- Back to Campus… Finally!
- Real Government Efficiency (Don’t Get DOGE’d)
- Helping Small Companies Grow
- Preparing the Next Generation
- The Benchmark for Operational Excellence
- Still the Process Doc Leaders
- A Silver Milestone – 25-Year Success Story
- Process Documentation Across Borders
- Native Americans
- Implementing the Newest SAP
1) Back to Campus… Finally!
From May 1994 until the COVID lockdown in 2020, hardly a month passed without Orion teaching a professional development seminar at a university campus somewhere in North America. By the fall of 2020, all of our training assignments were shifted online until last March when Michigan State University – our first higher education partner – brought the Business Process Management Certificate Series back to Lansing! We will be on campus again this semester… though the courses are still available online.
2) Real Government Efficiency
Orion may have more experience improving efficiency in the public sector than any other BPM firm in America. While we applaud Federal efforts to save taxpayer money, the chainsaw is not the most effective tool in most cases – especially if you want to achieve long-term operational excellence. Based on our track record of success, Orion laid out a series of actions your government agency can take to trim waste without cutting muscle.
3) Helping Small Companies Grow
2025 was a time of growth for small to-mid-sized companies that survived the pandemic years. However, sudden growth is not necessarily profitable growth. To be able to maintain quality service for your customers and retain or increase your margin, your managers and employees need a solid business process foundation. Orion helped multiple clients like Acme Homes lay that foundation for Smart Growth.
4) Preparing the Next Generation
One of Orion’s favorite ongoing assignments is not one that saves a corporation millions of dollars, it is a Lean Six Sigma program for high school students in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. It would be amazing to check in 20 years from now to see what impact the LSS program had on the careers and lives of these students.
5) The Benchmark for Operational Excellence
Orion is proud that some of our finest work has been on behalf of public pension systems – agencies that manage the retirement benefits for public sector employees. In June, one of those agencies – Ohio Public Employees Retirement System – was featured at the annual industry benchmarking conference (CEM). OPERS’ dramatic and ongoing performance excellence set a new standard among their peers.
6) Still the Process Doc Leaders
Having unparalleled experience in creating process maps and standard operating procedures for clients across all industries, Orion was the perfect choice to create the white paper Best Practices in Business Process Documentation that was promoted by Modern Analyst magazine. It represents a lifetime of experience distilled into six key lessons.
7) A Silver Milestone
Speaking of public pension systems, Orion’s first client in this space was the Michigan Office of Retirement Services. ORS not only transformed processes in order to implement new technology, they rethought strategy, metrics, and cross-functional governance. The structures they created in 2000 are still the keys to success 25 years later.
8) Native Americans
America is unusual in that we have nations within our borders – lands governed by Native American tribes. Orion was proud to continue its relationship with the Navajo via a strategic planning engagement and to begin a new relationship with Choctaw Nation, where we delivered Comprehensive BPM training for a team of internal experts.
9) Process Documentation Across Borders
Two of our more interesting process documentation consulting assignments involved adapting standard procedures for international operations. As a rule, it is always ideal to reduce variation in process execution across different locations. However, when operations exist in multiple countries, regulatory variation is unavoidable. Your organization must find the ideal common workflow and then adjust as required. In 2025, Orion facilitated projects to adapt Human Resources processes for Fidelity Investments and Fluidra.
10) Implementing the Newest SAP
Since the 1990’s, SAP has consistently been a market leader for enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, both in terms of market share and innovation. Ahead of the major technology upgrade to the latest SAP system (S/4HANA), one of Orion’s manufacturing clients engaged our team to document existing business processes and inform the configuration of their new enterprise-wide, cloud-based application. Our client understood that more than 70% of ERP implementations fall short of their business goals when there is a gap between process needs and the “out-of-the-box” application workflow. Orion was there to make sure our client achieves maximum ROI.
Bonus: Finishing Strong – New Program Sold Out
With the new wave of technology changes coming to public pension organizations, Orion decided the time was right to create an industry-specific program on process improvement and redesign. Improvement is critical to streamline operations and reduce non-value-added activities prior to automation. Redesign helps the organization achieve the greatest possible return from a technology investment. Orion’s new program covered the full journey from opportunity identification to future state definition to change management/implementation. It was a hit! The online class was full… and gave our instructors outstanding evaluations. We are looking forward to the next cohort which begins on February 24.
2025 was eventful. Orion expects 2026 to be transformational.
In 2026, we will get a better sense of what’s real when it comes to Artificial Intelligence and what is hype. (There is a lot of the latter!) Organizations must figure out how to incorporate AI into workflows and how to put quality process information into AI solutions – so that the results are helpful both for your employees and the customers you serve. Regardless of how advanced the technology is, garbage-in still equals garbage-out.
For larger organizations, cloud-based ERP systems have matured such that the benefits imagined 10 years ago are finally fully achievable – if you can align process innovation and knowledge management with ERP configuration. Expect to read about great successes… and more disappointments.
For small and mid-sized organizations, there is tremendous potential for growth – if you pursue the right opportunities and are able to scale operations efficiently.
In our 33rd year, Orion remains ready to assist you in building a better future for your organization. Our team looks forward to working with you in 2026. Contact us today so we can explore the possibilities.