Aptitive

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization is an MGA in the commercial auto insurance space. We were previously on the carrier side owning four insurance companies, however, transitioned over to the MGA side within the last year and a half. I’m the Assistant VP of IT, so I oversee the entire landscape within IT.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aptitive?

We were using an old, inefficient data warehouse design and we wanted to evolve our practice into more of an enterprise-wide concept (many systems including legacy products). We had challenges with efficiently taking data from systems and presenting it in an easy, digestible manner for our business partners.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aptitive provided everything from analysis/discovery to the design of the data warehouse as well as development and testing activities. Our project started with a ground-up approach, where they really sat with us and our business partners to delve into what is important for Atlas from a statutory, regulatory, and operational perspective.

Atlas went through a business model shift, which was quite impactful, so we had to pause many initiatives including our data warehouse (then came COVID impacts). We are starting to see some recovery on the economic side and plan to resurrect the project, but unfortunately, like many other people in the current times, it’s limiting what we can do with external resources at the moment.

We hope a year from now, we can finish closing the loop on the remaining applications that we have with regards to feeding our new data warehouse.

We are a Microsoft shop, so Aptitive is using a combination of SSIS packages, a new cube design (using SSAS - new to Atlas), and Power BI which we are starting to use in a minor fashion (but would like to increase our use here). Additionally, we are also using the Delta Process on a daily basis instead of our legacy school concept of pulling every transaction from every system (every day) into the warehouse — which takes a long time. The Delta Process is much more efficient.

What is the team composition?

For myself and the management level folks, we mainly work with Jason (Co-Founder & COO) and Greg (Consulting Manager). Jason is one of the founding partners and serves as a lead architect for the project, and Greg does everything from a development and management perspective. Moreover, we also deal with 3–5 folks from the business and IT team.

The project was really heavy in the beginning, but when we narrowed things down a little bit, we slowed down the actual development work with Aptitive — because they were closing things at a pace we couldn’t keep up with.

How did you come to work with Aptitive?

At the time, we worked with another vendor for a variety of web development work. Through that vendor, we were introduced to Jason and his company. It was a little different than doing an RFP and interviewing three different firms. Our meeting was more of a recommendation and an intro from another party. We will be using Aptitive for everything data warehouse-related going forward.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $1.2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in May 2017.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

That’s a little bit challenging for us to answer because we haven’t been able to implement the whole product just yet. However, our plan to measure the impact is to manage the amount of time and effort it takes to accomplish tasks on a daily basis, prior to our new data warehouse model. Additionally, we’re also measuring the ability to satisfy our business partners in terms of giving them the data they need as quickly as possible.

That process with us isn’t slow, but based on how we manage our current data warehouse, there are many improvements that could’ve been logged there to basically get them the information faster.

We’re going to start introducing the self-service reporting model to our business partners, and that’s what Aptitive is going to help us through. That model is going to be a measuring stick for us in terms of how to go forward.

How did Aptitive perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a lot of baggage as an insurance company with many legacy systems and data. What Aptitive struggled with in the beginning is how and why are they going to bring in the new data warehouse. From that standpoint, Aptitive was critical in helping us identify the scope and really push us to question why — and they did a very good job in terms of the routine project management work.

The challenges encountered were all that we consider being normal/standard project management hurdles (i.e. new scope, delay with business responses due to bandwidth), and there was nothing that really surprised us, which attests to the solid analysis and project management skills of the group.

We are using a proprietary ticketing system, as well as the project artifacts and tools we developed to store, share, and collaborate mostly around SharePoint. We prefer to use our tools, but we did use SPR’s Agile Software for certain pieces of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like their ability to take their technical knowledge and recommendations, and translate that to speak other technical folks, as well as business users (that have little to no technical prowess in their portfolio) can digest. For us, that is a significant timesaver since we are a small company and our business units/users are more involved than your larger companies. 
The quicker you can do that, the more effective you’re going to be, and they did a very good job on that front. 

Additionally, even though we received executive approval on the project we still had to align with various members from our reporting team (benefits, new technology, etc.). Some people are more tangible and they need to see what we were building in order for them to say it is a good idea/approach. Aptitive did a great job helping our business partners get past their skepticism and uncertainties (which wasn’t easy and took many discussions/meetings). In the end, I feel this was one of the most significant wins for the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Besides reading our minds on what we wanted and correcting us when we didn’t know any better, honestly, they do not. All data warehouse projects are massive undertakings, I can’t think of a major roadblock that Aptitive was the cause of. They did a really good job, especially based on the situation that they were in, coming into our project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is based in Japan. It consists of different business segments, but generally speaking, we work mostly in the manufacturing industry. The segment I work with is specific to American management.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aptitive?

Primarily, we have been using Aptitive in IT business intelligence areas. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aptitive provides IT services and does development projects for us. Specifically, they have been providing extract, transform, and load assistance using Microsoft SQL Server and SSIS technology. They have laid the foundation of a management center for the business intelligence backend database and architecture. We have gone through 2 iterations to refine the backend architecture in order to satisfy our outbound and reporting needs.

How did you come to work with Aptitive?

Aptitive was already working with the company when I joined about 3 years ago. It was a new company at the time. The person who brought in Aptitive liked their technological knowledge. Back then, the cost was another consideration and Aptitive easily fit into our budget.

How much have you invested with Aptitive?

I would say we’ve spent around $800,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We still have a project going on with Aptitive.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Right now, we really don't have any metrics. Since Aptitive started working with us, we were able to expand our current architecture and quickly support it whenever an issue arose. The quality won’t be at 100%, 100 percent of the time during the process, but we usually find that they are able to pinpoint and correct any issues.

How did Aptitive perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked directly with developers from Aptitive and I worked directly with the team. We don't have a project management office, so we adopted Aptitive’s recommendations. Aptitive used their own project management tool, Asana, and we also worked with them onsite.

What did you find most impressive about Aptitive?

They have a strong team in terms of technical skills and they are also easy to work with. They collaborate well with the team and with our different users. In general, our business community really likes collaborating with them.

Are there any areas Aptitive could improve?

I personally would like it if they could simplify their design. For instance, we only have 2 internal states in my company. What we have come to realize is that when Aptitive finishes a project, it’s hard for us to support their complicated systems. I would like for the deliverables to be easier to manage internally. I’d suggest they put future production support in mind when doing a design. The documentation generally has been lacking in all of the IT projects I've had. Documentation is always the first item to be ignored and the last to be delivered. The design is sleek and smart, but it will be hard for me to find someone who can support it quickly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company generates revenue for retailers and excites consumers with delightful kiosk experiences. I was the manager of data services, and am currently the infrastructure and data operations manager of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aptitive?

We needed help with our data warehousing needs, BI [business intelligence] development, as well as data integration.

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of our projects revolved around the automation of our financial process. Aptitive's team was instrumental in helping us take on the requirements-gathering process, giving us an understanding of what changes we needed to make for our new warehousing system. Aptitive helped us develop new SSIS [SQL Server Integration Services] processes for migrating the data from our source systems into a new data warehouse being built in parallel.

Aptitive assigned 3-4 members on the BI development side, but we also used them for business analysis and development. Aptitive has a broad background, so we could utilize them from architecture, business and systems analysis, as well as development perspectives.

How did you come to work with Aptitive?

We found Aptitive through other resources that knew them. We made an introduction, talked to their team, and realized what amount of knowledge and experience depth Aptitive could bring to our warehousing project.

How much have you invested with Aptitive?

We have spent between $300,000 and $400,000 per year on Aptitive services.

What is the status of this engagement?

I initially started working with Aptitive several years ago, before 2014.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our project was completed on time and on budget. It was highly complex work, given that we're a rapidly-growing business, with 200%+ growth on an annual basis. We had a lot of data coming in and needed to quickly go about designing a new warehouse, pulling in resources and applications. 

How did Aptitive perform from a project management standpoint?

From a company perspective, our project has followed a typical Agile process. Project management took the lead for overall execution. Gathering requirements, performing an analysis of the existing system, and other details were handled by various resources within the team.

What did you find most impressive about Aptitive?

The overall knowledge and experience that Aptitive's team has around the BI and data services landscape was highly instrumental. They're not just a technical development team; Aptitive has business professionals that can understand how to work with users. This was instrumental in the requirements-gathering phase. From development to QA efforts and helping us get deployed, as well as the post-deployment monitoring, Aptitive had an end-to-end process.

Are there any areas Aptitive could improve?

No. Aptitive should continue with what it does. Not only have they helped with our development, but also shared knowledge with our employees.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the chief technology officer of a financial services and alternative lending company. We are a B2B company providing capital for those who cannot find it through banks.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aptitive?

We needed programming services, particularly for SQL Server systems.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aptitive provided outsourced development for a particular scope of work. We have worked with broad definitions at times, but the work has always been project-based. Aptitive has written some complicated storage procedures that required detailed involvement. The work was split between DBA and transactional SQL programming.

How did you come to work with Aptitive?

We found Aptitive through a referral from a personal contact.

How much have you invested with Aptitive?

The cost of Aptitive's services has been between $25,000 and $50,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Aptitive in 2015. Our relationship is ongoing.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Aptitive is a nice group to work with, but I don't have any particular metrics to share. Aptitive proved to be an accessible and communicative company. We started out with small tasks and then expanded our collaboration.

How did Aptitive perform from a project management standpoint?

Aptitive is a very professional and punctual team. They're always on target and communicate well.

What did you find most impressive about Aptitive?

Everything handled by Aptitive was top-notch. If the task wasn't achieved the first time, Aptitive made an effort to discover our business domain in more detail.

Are there any areas Aptitive could improve?

I haven't worked with many other consultants, so I couldn't give any recommendations or criticisms.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are one of the world’s leading organizations of independent audit, tax, and advisory firms. I am an enterprise architect for the company. I was also in charge of the company's BI [business intelligence], data warehouse, and data management practices.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Aptitive?

We needed consulting services for the different areas we're managing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aptitive has provided consultation on data warehouse, database design, and ETL [extract, transform, load] projects. We have also leveraged Aptitive for the testing efforts around an Informatica upgrade project.

Our other project involved upgrading our Informatica system to the latest version. Aptitive mostly provided quality assurance for this, while my team handled technical aspects.

How did you come to work with Aptitive?

One of Aptitive's founders used to work for another company. I had a relationship with him there and he had worked on our data warehouse in the past. When he built Aptitive, I decided to contact him and leverage the company's consulting services. I had faith that Aptitive could deliver what we wanted.

How much have you invested with Aptitive?

One of our projects with Aptitive alone had a cost between $300,000 and $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Aptitive 3 years ago, and have worked on 2 projects during this time. We have since moved to a single managed service provider, so we stopped our collaboration with Aptitive in December 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our real-time integration project using Informatica PowerExchange was centered on a billing and a client-facing system which needed to be bridged. Aptitive helped us achieve this. From a technical perspective, Aptitive has strong resources, whether it's testing or development.

How did Aptitive perform from a project management standpoint?

We have our own project managers, so we haven't used the ones from Aptitive. They were able to deliver on time. Any out-of-scope elements were brought to either my or my project manager's attention. Aptitive was collaborative throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about Aptitive?

The resources that Aptitive provided were quite strong. They vetted the team well, making sure that the right people were put on the job.

Are there any areas Aptitive could improve?

Aptitive only focused on data, so I'm not sure if they're able to expand into areas like business technology or analytics.