Chicago-based management consultancy AArete provides advanced analytics capabilities through its Center for Data Excellence (CODE). AArete was named one of Consulting magazine's Seven Small Jewels in 2016 and has been one of Consulting's Fastest Growing Firms three years in a row, ranking No. 49, No. 26 and No. 37 the last three years. ALM's Liz DeVito recently sat down with CEO Loren Trimble and Mike Kim, Director and Head of CODE, to learn more.
ALM Intelligence: What led to the Center of Data Excellence (CODE)?
Trimble: CODE was a natural extension of AArete's core philosophy and founding rationale. When I launched AArete in 2008, my vision for the business was based on the premise that organizations could improve operational performance and achieve strategic cost reductions without reducing headcount. That's a big promise and we've found a way to deliver on it using a number of proven methodologies, but it's how we use advanced data and analytics that really makes an impact on our ability to serve clients better and help them achieve profitable growth.
ALM Intelligence: How has CODE improved your service offering and delivery capabilities?
Trimble: To some extent, data and analytics were always a part of every project we do at AArete. About three to four years ago, however, we noticed that our clients were demanding a new level of service from us for a number of reasons. First, the sheer volume and complexity of the data they were asking us to move every day was growing significantly and we needed to ensure its stability and security. Also, our buyers are just more sophisticated than they were five to 10 years ago. Many are former consultants themselves, who have more insight into the nature and availability of data overall. In order for our consultants and data scientists to produce meaningful analysis for these sophisticated clients, they have to have real-time access to the data, which a centralized function provides.
ALM Intelligence: What is your talent sourcing strategy for CODE?
Trimble: Our talent strategy is one of AArete's most critical differentiators. We're really proud of the caliber of our data scientists and their ability to work with clients as members of project delivery teams. When we recruit, we assess for a broad range of hard and soft skills. Yes, we want data scientists, data engineers, and data analysts, but we also want them to have practical business and industry experience. They also must be able to derive and communicate actionable insights from data specific to the client's unique environment. We look for diverse skills and capabilities, whether it's a different programming language or software platform they've had experience with in different industries. This strategy creates a mosaic of skill sets that helps AArete adapt to any type of client.: What's happening in the data and analytics market?
Kim: The push to invest in data management capabilities occurred several years ago. Today, companies have either made the investment and are seeking advice on additional improvements. We see a lot of vendors responding to market demand with turnkey and push-button solutions, software-as-a-service, or standalone products that fit a specific data or analytics niche, but our data scientists are tools-agnostic. They are well-versed in every situation and tool out there, but have a strong preference for open source software because it's usually scalable and can be replicated.
ALM Intelligence: What are you working on now that excites you?
Kim: We're particularly excited about some work we're doing internally on the distributed computing environment, which will make the promise of Big Data and trends like AI a reality for our clients. We can start in-taking data at a faster rate than we ever dreamed of before. Secondly, with these new Big Data capabilities, we'll be able to provide some pretty cool insights from a data visualization and machine-learning perspective.
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