Corporate Testimonials

"... Nicole is a very talented and gifted consultant. In addition to her vast SAP and business process knowledge, she knows how to manage teams and is a great team player at the same time. She communicates effectively and is thought of as the 'go to' person when you need an answer.

Nicole's ability to help clients understand how the business process is managed through the SAP system is second to none and that skill makes her an extremely valuable team member. This skill coupled with her coaching techniques that she uses brings the best of both worlds and is what separates Nicole from the pack. I fully endorse Nicole and think very highly of her as a professional and as a person.”

Dave Moore, Partner and VP of Entrypoint, Cleveland, OH

  “Having been in business for 15 years never made me think I needed anybody to "coach" me along. Until I heard about Nicole and, since the first session was free, decided to try it, why not. I'm glad I did, because although my parameters haven't changed, my life is that much better and I have managed to put my business to a different level!   Having Nicole Gruen as a business coach is like having a massage for your tense brain to free yourself up for the possibilities that slumber inside you. Working with her really helped me to understand and carve out my strengths and turn them into much less stress running my business by doing the same thing only much better while realizing more of what's important for me, both inside and outside of my business. The changes are subtle but world changing! Before I was stuck in my tracks, but have now gained real perspective of the possibilities. Her compassion and skill in uncovering the best in me were and are amazing!  I highly recommend Nicole to anyone that is not satisfied with the second best in life and is striving to get the most out of their professional and/or personal life!”

Jennifer. Owner of Werkstatt SF

  “I've engaged Nicole in 3 different contract assignments over the last 5 years. Projects included custom applications developed in SAP, data conversion during SAP upgrades and Windchill implementation, business process redesign and user training. Nicole is the first person I would consider in future needs of these kinds due to her breadth of supply-chain knowledge, attention to detail, ability to manage multiple deliverables concurrently and particularly for her interpersonal, training skills and high standards”

Mark Hudson, Sr Director or Logistics and Operations, NVIDIA Corporation

"I am happily writing this testimonial on behalf of Nicole Gruen with whom I worked while we were both at IBM’s Storage Systems Division’s SAP Project Office in San Jose, CA. I joined IBM in January of 1997 and worked with Nicole in varying capacities until she moved to another client in 2001. IBM entered into a joint-venture with Hitachi in 2002 and formed a new company, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies,Inc with whom I am still employed. Nicole left our SAP Project Office on the best of terms and to this day is remembered as someone of the highest ethics and professionalism by the veterans of IBM SSD still at Hitachi GST.

I can recall many specific examples of Nicole’s great work –I’ll just recount one below in particular. At IBM SSD’s SAP Project Office, we had many consultants (about 50 at ithe engagement’s zenith) on-board from one the traditional “Big-6” firms. Our contract with the firm allowed for the staffing of junior consultants on our account. The level of experience of these junior consultants could never have addressed the kind of production support issue Nicole was tasked with fixing: Our SAP environment was being in essence being choked by too many background “batch” jobs. These jobs were a hold over from IBM’s legacy mainframe computing mode and since our system was used 24 x 7, by over 3000 users world-wide, there really was no “good time” for batch computing the way IBMers were used to in the past. Nicole analyzed, designed, and implemented a complete strategy for addressing the batch processing approach in our SAP environment. This approach reduced unneeded jobs by 40%, and significantly improved system performance. Furthermore, this strategy –her thinking and leadership operationalized- remains a part of the organization’s support processes today (9 years later). The fact that this solution remains totally in tact today is evidence of Nicole’s capability and offer which sets her apart."

T. Lamour - Senior Principal IT Project Manager, Hitachi Global
Storage Technologies

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Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now. -Jonatan Martensson
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