Adastra

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Manager of Cloud Platforms and Data Management of an insurance company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Alongside offering life insurance in the US and Canada and life insurance and savings solutions in the UK, we partner with members to help them do more of the good they want to do.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Adastra to accomplish?

• o Achieve full IFRS 17 compliance by integrating data systems and automating financial reporting processes.
• o Improve financial transparency and optimize workflows to speed up reporting times.

SOLUTION

How did you find Adastra?

Referral

Why did you select Adastra over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from Adastra were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Adastra helped us achieve IFRS 17 compliance by modernizing our data landscape, integrating actuarial, finance, and risk systems, and automating critical reporting workflows. They delivered a centralized data governance framework and developed automated workflows for IFRS 17 reporting.

Key deliverables included a reliable IT infrastructure to handle contract-level granularity, automated risk adjustments and cash flow discounting, and advanced scenario modeling tools for forecasting. Their solution provided seamless data reconciliation across departments, improved transparency, and ensured compliance with the new regulatory standards across all regions we operate in.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We achieved full IFRS 17 compliance modernizing our data warehouse for more efficient workflows. Adastra’s solution enhanced our reporting capabilities and helped us generate IFRS 17 reports in a timely and accurate fashion. Our financial statements became more transparent, fostering better relationships with investors and regulators. Additionally, the data workflows they implemented provided scalability and flexibility, positioning us for future growth and easier adaptation to regulatory changes.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Adastra’s project management was excellent. They delivered key milestones on time, communicated progress effectively, and responded swiftly to any challenges that arose. Their team was proactive in addressing our specific needs and tailored solutions to our requirements, ensuring smooth collaboration throughout the project. They were flexible and transparent in their approach, always aligning deliverables with our goals.

What was your primary form of communication with Adastra?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What impressed us most was Adastra’s deep understanding of our industry and the technical expertise they brought to the table. Their ability to integrate complex systems, implement cutting-edge technology, and provide scalable solutions tailored to our needs set them apart. Their focus on data governance and automation was impressive and transformative for our compliance efforts.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Adastra could have done differently?

More training resources for our team during the implementation would have been helpful.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at (a/an) Agriculture

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A fresh indoor farming company making a big impact on the future of agriculture with ultra-fresh, more nutritious leafy greens that are significantly better for the environment, year-round.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Adastra to accomplish?

• Inventory Management Solution Optimization

SOLUTION

How did you find Adastra?

• Referral

Why did you select Adastra over others?

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

What was the size of Adastra’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The Adastra Managed Services team was involved from the analysis stage, through design, development, test, delivery and ongoing support and maintenance. For this initiative, the scope was focused on improving the performance and reliability of our Inventory Management solution which tracks product from packaging to customer.

The scope was achieved through a combination of code and environment optimization as well as implementing a data archiving strategy through automation. As part of the initiative, regular status meetups were well utilized to drive bi-directional communication and to fail fast from unexpected discoveries thoughout the project lifecycle.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Performance Improvements (time to perform specific functions within the solution)
• Reliability and Stability (count of incidents)

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

On top of the technical expertise which Adastra delivers, they put a lot of effort in getting deep into the business aspect of our operations, which ensures effective communication on all levels. Since the delivery, which was on-time and on-budget, the primary goals for the initiative were exceeded with noticeable improvements in performance being measured and recognized by the user community as a significant incident count reduction.

The communications between the teams were timely and at an appropriate detail. The components were delivered incrementally, providing value throughout the project.

What was your primary form of communication with Adastra?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

With Adastra, the relationship has evolved beyond a vendor/client into a partnership, whereby they are more of an extension of my team and measure their success by the success of our business.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Adastra could have done differently?

The regular meetings and team availability with Adastra Managed Services Team demonstrated a high level professionalism and dedication. The team agility and flexibility show proactiveness and niche expertise.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Solution Architect leading number of information management and reporting projects in a large credit union institution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

We relied on their proven-track record in the governance and analytics space to help us build a modern data analytics and governance program that enhances data-driven decision making across the organization and streamlines regulatory reporting.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Adastra has already been our long-term IT partner, hence an integral part of the list of preferred vendors.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The project had several stages. First, they implemented a metadata repository and data profiling technology. Next, they prioritized the development of the reports and assisted in documenting the critical data definitions and rules. This includes assessing the data against different business rules. In addition, their team addressed some data quality gaps and facilitated their resolution with the data champions. Once the data was ready, they developed and implemented a Data Governance dashboard. To make sure the critical data remains accurate, additional controls were implemented.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Adastra’s consultants were part of a larger team of 15 people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

As an outcome of this partnership, we have built a single source of truth for all the data we process. We leverage our data more intensively and gain actionable business insights with speed and quality. We now have a new dedicated process for ETL which helps us integrate data from disparate sources, shorten time to insights, and eventually power a data-driven journey that we all have imagined. We become fully compliant with government regulations and streamlined collaboration and effectiveness on reporting across departments.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were able to facilitate flawless communication flow by implementing an agile approach to project delivery. That were daily standup meetings and dedicated working sessions based on the specific user stories.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Adastra’s proven track record in data governance and analytics, especially in the financial services space, brought significant value to our core business and backed up our processes with a modern data analytics and governance program.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None that I can think of

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Skylight Health Group is a healthcare service and technology company, working to positively impact patient health outcomes. The company operates a US multi-state health network that comprises physical multi-disciplinary medical clinics providing a range of services from primary care, sub-specialty, allied health, and laboratory/diagnostic testing.

I am Chris Smith, the VP of Digital Health at Skylight. I am responsible for the development of our technology infastructure and enterprise-wide reporting across all aspects of our organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

Our company has decided to rely on use Adastra’s exeprtise as a top AWS Data and Analytics Consulting partner and a profoundly reliable vendor in general. Having a partner with proven track record of implementing modern analytics solutions in various markets and domains gave us confidence that our initiative will be successfully seen through.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The main objective was to build an analytics solution that allowed for data integration from the numerous existing Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems, various accompanied data sources, and a level of predictive and prescriptive analytics.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Adastra developed a platform that consisted of two main components:

• AWS S3 Data Lake to ingest efficiently any data from a number of various sources, utilizing different ingestion strategies. The data is stored in a cost-effective manner, using encryption-at-rest, and easily accessible by downstream data consumer applications, including ML models.
• AWS Redshift Data Warehouse to provide structure to the data and satisfy all pre-defined reporting requirements. The petabyte-scale Data Warehouse served as a source for building interactive BI dashboards with BI tools like AWS QuickSights and Tableau.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

In the beginning of the project a Cloud Solution Architect was involved to perform the initial requirements discovery and to propose a high-level solution architecture as well as an evolution roadmap. Adastra is known for its successfully working global delivery model, so the actual implementation was performed by data engineers in Bulgaria, which still worked closely with the core team in Canada.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The implementation of the AWS Cloud Analytics Platform powered complex insights into our business in an automated fashion. This eliminated the need of manual data manipulations and allowed all business users to focus on our main mission - offer high-quality, affordable healthcare and deliver integrated medical services with compassion and care.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The level of cooperation between members of our organization and Adastra has always been outstanding. It is easy to say that both parties work together as a single unit, and I am looking forward to further cooperation with Adastra.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Adastra measures its success by the success of the organizations they provide support to and that is proved by their actions and work ethics. I was really happy with Adastra’s capabilities of not only delivering the right solution to our needs but also helping us with planning how the Cloud Analytics Platform can evolve in the near future in order to better support our growth and success.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Currently, the project is going into Post-Go-Live phase, but the Cloud Analytics Platform will grow over time, adding more sources, data, and purpose to it. I am confident that if at any moment we need support – we will receive it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are one of the largest automotive groups in the world. I am a Project Manager within the sales department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

We needed a centralized, cloud-based repository to track and analyse the performance and financial situation of our business field worldwide. Adastra’s team had to consolidate various data sources into a single data warehouse and deploy dashboards that answer business critical questions.

What were your goals for this project?

Worldwide transparency and consistency. All mayor KPIs combined in one central tool. Up-to-date data availability. Individualized data assessment through BI functionality. Decrease of manually created reporting & ad-hoc queries. Highest quality of decision making for experts and executives by having analytics at the tip of their fingers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Adastra is one of our IT partners within our Group for quite a long time. They are already part of our preferred vendor list.

Describe the project in detail.

Adastra created a full self-sustainable business intelligence system where multiple level of users can interact, explore, and visualize vitally important data about their business. The cloud-based Tableau site offers everything from user upload and automatic data cleanse portal to algorithmic statistical insights and dynamic user interface. Quality and delivery of data is being monitored and the ETL pipeline incorporates data cleansing infused with business understanding.

Business users can use a specially designed file upload portal to directly feed the data warehouse, which goes through automated data quality checks. The business intelligence solution provides interactive UX, enabling the users to slice the data across locations, time, and multiple dimensional hierarchies. Radius map analysis, drill down visuals, dynamic trend analysis and scoring systems are just some of the features implemented by Adastra to guide users through the data collected.

What was the team composition?

Initially their team was composed of 2 front-end and 3 back-end BI consultants. As the project evolved, now we have a team of 10-15 consultants, and we could add further competencies from Adastra side.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We experience huge benefits by using Adastra’s BI system in Tableau. The whole process saves a huge amount of time (reporting processes & data processing). Their solution makes the decision process easy and provides a self-serving business intelligence capability. Moreover, by interrelating all data sources we get very interesting new insights and perspectives into our own data.

One major milestone achieved is the single source of truth for all the data we have. The state of art data infrastructure allows almost instant query time and leaves no question unanswered. The process is continuously being improved by their consultants, and the data and robustness of the cloud-based server site is becoming a complete and full BI application for analyzing our corporate performance and financial situation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We’ve been experiencing flawless collaboration as well as timely and reliable communication. Both parties get engaged in daily stand-ups to sync on progress and roadblocks regularly. They are always responsive when we need them.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They embrace our challenges as their own dedicating all their experience and knowledge in making our goals become reality. We strongly rely on their judgement and knowledge on a daily basis.  Outstanding is the fact that they always think ahead: it happened more than once that we wanted to request something which was already implemented independently.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is nothing to dislike as everything is very collaborative and our project works very well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are part of a large financial company operating in North America. I am the senior developer in an AI research lab leading several AI and data science projects. The team spans the entire life cycle of an AI product, from ideation through scientific research to production at a massive scale.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

We want to implement CI/CD in our AI practice and develop scalable applications on GCP.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We chose Adastra because of their background in Information Management, GCP and AI. We needed a partner that understands AI and software development to support the development of our DevOps strategy so we can launch projects as secure and scalable applications on GCP.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Adastra initially supported the establishment of a CI/CD pipeline and best practices for our team. Adastra then helped design, develop, and deploy our applications to GCP. Their team helps us manage GCP resources and support our AI team in deployments of our data models.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Technical Lead, Account Manager, 2 Cloud Consultants

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Adastra’s CI/CD solution and best practice guidance allow our team to collaborate in development and deployment activities more efficiently. Adastra’s use of serverless services for applications helps increase cost efficiency while guarantees high availability and scalability of our applications.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The Adastra team has integrated seamlessly into our team. We experience flawless collaboration as Adastra joined in as part of our team’s established daily stand up. Their team always supports us not only for the projects they are engaged with, but also with any kind of GCP issues in other projects.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Adastra cares about the success of our team and is a reliable delivery partner. They respond quickly to our needs and their consultants regularly offered feedback and valuable insights during the design and development process.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing specific but just keep doing the great work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am working in Commerzbank AG Germany as head of reporting Intensive Care.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

We are going to improve our management reports and deliver them via an web application.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Commerzbank AG is already working with Adastra and was supported by Adastra in several digitalization projects. So we selected Adastra due to their experience.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We improved decision making for the operational units (recipients of the management reports) by providing digitalized reports and gain better insights for the quality of the data. The new app will be the single point of truth and saves time for creating the reports.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

One single person, BI consultant (Qlik developer).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The data itself is confidental. The project was established succesfully; all goals were reached in time. The outcome of the partnership allowed us to get better insights in our data and improve the quality of the analysis.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Due to Corona, we communicated most of the time via phone or MS Teams. Questions were answered quickly and in good quality. The collaboration was very effective.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They provide tailored solutions for our demands on every level.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We improved the way of collaboration during the development process. So the difficulties due to Corona restrictions were mastered properly and in a very good way.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a large retail company operating in North America. I am a Senior Technical Project Manager leading Data monetization program.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

We wanted to replace an existing data platform with a collaborative BI solution that help us drive insights, make smarter decisions, and deliver measurably better results. We engaged with Adastra to support us in this endeavor.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Adastra appeared as the best option for our needs and mission. Adastra was chosen for this project, because of their extensive large-enterprise background in the Information Management. We needed a skilled partner, who would design, develop and support a professional and highly secured analytics solution.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Adastra initially supported our in-house BI development teams. They performed code reviews and proposed ideas how to optimize the performance of our platform. Adastra helped us optimize our cloud investments. They build a cost optimization services that drive cost insights beforehand and enable us to act accordingly.

Not only their team supported us to execute our CI/CD pipeline, but also upgraded our CI/CD strategy by implementing a custom process for automated deployment of multiple BI applications. Adastra’s cloud consultants ensure high availability for our architecture. They provide 24/7 monitoring and support to the production environments as well as incident management by handling customers’ requests.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

5 Cloud Administrators, 3 BI Consultants

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Their deployment solution automated manual efforts and ensured high scalability of the entire CI/CD strategy. We now execute much faster deployment for all the BI applications. As an outcome of the cloud cost optimization, on average, we experience 30% faster queries execution time as well as significantly reduced cost per query. They ensure the high availability of our infrastructure and 24/7 incident management.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Throughout time, we have built an excellent collaboration model. We have daily standups plus a couple of triages a week. All these ensure seamless information flow across all parties. Adastra’s global delivery teams are very easy to work with and they provide 24/7 support.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I am truly impressed by the mindset of their team members. They do not miss any chance to consult us on strategic platform enhancements which drives tremendous outcomes in the long run. I also value the quick response time and feel we there is someone reliable on our side if we need it. They embrace our mission as their own.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We are extremely happy with the work that Adastra is doing and will be happy to work with the company going forward.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Project Manager, Vehicle Finance Company. Our Vehicle Finance company is active on the Belgian market, and offers various vehicle finance related products such as operative / finance lease, vehicle loans and car dealership financing products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Adastra?

Adastra was selected as a reliable vendor which would help us create our enterprise data warehouse and build a robust BI solution on top of it.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of our engagement have been to have our company's information easily accessible and build a single source of truth for our data. It would serve as the foundation for an improved decision-making process and allows to source other systems in an automated way.

SOLUTION

How did you select Adastra?

We received a direct reference from one of our shareholder companies which short-listed Adastra as a preferred IT organization. Adastra already successfully participated in a number of IT projects at this shareholder company.

Describe the project in detail.

Adastra created a new enterprise data warehouse in order to address the different reporting needs and enable enhanced decision-making process in our organization. Their development team participated in all the stages of the project, starting from the analysis, going through the modelling and the design, and finally the implementation and testing of the solution.

Adastra’s BI consultants collaborated closely with business users and data analysts on our side, discussing and evaluating the business requirements, in order to create a significant part of the needed reports and visuals.

What was the team composition?

The team we worked with consisted of a Technical Lead, Data Modeler, ETL and BI developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

As a result of this collaboration with Adastra, we have an excellent consolidated view of our data and we will be gaining important business insights.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Both parties worked closely, constantly communicating, discussing, and analyzing the ongoing topics, focused on the timely delivery of the tasks. In general, I would say we managed to achieve a smooth and effective collaboration, which led to the desired project results. The project was done via near-shoring, in which the Adastra Technical Lead made regular on-site visits.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They offer a diverse set of skills which were readily usable to support us throughout this project. Even while the circumstances with the COVID pandemic were less easy (on-site visits no longer possible), targets were still met and the project continued as foreseen.