Kavi Global

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an electronics manufacturer that makes different types of connectors and products for phones, automobiles, and industrial connectors. We have a portfolio of about 100,000 products. I’m the data science and IoT manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kavi Global?

We saw that the world was moving towards a data-centric approach. Due to the uniqueness of our sensors and the niche applications that we were pursuing, we couldn’t find anything available in the market. We needed to find the right partner to build out our own IoT platform that met those requirements.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our IoT platform. We worked with them to build a protocol-agnostic platform that can talk with different sensors.

It’s an end-to-end solution and a live, real-time system. It connects with the sensors, get the detail on a streaming basis, and talks to the sensors through its two-way communication element. They built a big data architecture that can support thousands of sensors.

The end-to-end solution was built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). They used technologies like Spark and SQL databases like MongoDB and Cassandra to build a web interface for users to interface with the data.

What is the team composition?

It’s a team of about 15 people. I’m very involved with the process and work with the solutions leader, who is my primary contact. I also know all the developers, and I know exactly what they’re building.

How did you come to work with Kavi Global?

We reached out to Kavi Global and a few other vendors. They were a strong reference from SaaS.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The platform is currently in beta, and initial feedback has been good. We deployed four different types last year. This year, we’re trying to do a few reasonable deployments. We’re calling June 25 a production-only release, but it’s only a release for internal use.

One of the platform’s most striking features was its velocity. We built in a lot of capabilities that we liked. Flexibility was another big element. As we were starting the project, we had a lot of provision but less idea of the specifics. We’ve already tweaked the solution and modified it multiple times. They have the flexibility to build the architecture in an abstracted, agnostic way.

How did Kavi Global perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m very happy with the project management. It’s helpful they’re in the same location. I try to meet them at least twice a week in person, and we sit through code reviews. They use an Agile methodology with two-week sprints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have the depth and knowledge to deal with big data technologies. I’m impressed with their agility, their flexibility, and the offerings they provide.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re a small, limited company. They should increase their size so they can address multiple applications without being constrained.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an analytic architect working on a digital platform for a technology enterprise.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kavi Global?

We were starting to build out a platform and infrastructure to associate and support big data initiatives. I needed help to build stress tests for the new evolving platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were looking at taking data from sensors that were aggregated outside the cloud environment, then putting it into our cloud platform. It used Cassandra for the time series database, as well as Redis, a lot of the HDFS, and additional Hadoop infrastructure. We also had to deal with data stores, eventually dealing with a presentation layer that was Tableau. They helped me design and create test cases for going through that infrastructure.

For each of those technologies and the integration of those technologies, they created a synopsis of the details of what was done, how it was done, as well as the outcome of it.

What is the team composition?

I had a project manager and three engineers working on the project, as well as one of their VPs.

How did you come to work with Kavi Global?

I’d used them for a number of years and interacted with them at my previous employer.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent approximately $1,000,000–$5,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from April 2013 to April 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The idea was to find holes in the system and identify them, so that information could be fed back to our internal developers to modify or change technologies. The whole purpose of the stress test was to see if things were working.

Hadoop remains in our stack. A Chorus DB was challenging, which the testing highlighted. We also looked at Spark streaming, but it didn’t fit the demands of our data processing rate, which was another thing identified as part of this process. Overall, we’re happy with the outcomes and deliverables.

How did Kavi Global perform from a project management standpoint?

We were happy with the level of communication. It was more of an agile process, while we used written reports as well as status reports.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very lean and knowledgeable about current technologies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We sometimes ran into staffing challenges because they didn’t have enough people.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We do IT services for the freight railroad industry.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the director of our Commercial Products and Services Group. I received a set of software services and systems that manages the location of railcars. We manage data that is communicated between rail lines to help keep trains moving, to help manage financial settlements. There are various types of data I deal with. We also do large-scale analytics to support business decisions in the industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Kavi Associates?

We’ve done several projects with Kavi, they fall in three distinct areas. One was that we had to look at some internal systems to identify where we had issues or challenges in how we use data to support decisions. We wanted to determine whether there was a better way to streamline or more smartly utilize the data we had to identify trends to support industry decisions programmatically. We needed to change algorithms in our systems, and we needed to bring in a third party to do that. We selected Kavi to validate our own data systems.

Secondly, we used Kavi to identify areas of investment for us to see where we can utilize existing data sets to bring value to the industry. We have lots of data. We utilized them to determine which combinations of data could help to provide meaning.

Thirdly, we hired them to do an external market analysis. We have done several such studies leveraging their industry expertise. These studies have helped us understand our customer needs and intelligently price our service offerings.  

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work. Did they build models or help with visualization with your team?

They developed several models, proposed solutions based on models, and they delivered them to us. They helped us visualize that and provided proposed solutions.

What was your process for selecting Kavi Associates?

We did not issue a formal RFP. We analyzed various consultants in the space. We spoke informally with Kavi and two other firms. We tried to identify someone that had the combination of analytics knowledge with proven results and some expertise within our industry. They had some history in our industry with some other clients. They could provide deep analytics capabilities that we wouldn’t have to hire on a full-time basis. We could just tap into their expertise. We selected them out of those three.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

I'd rather leave that confidential.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

At the beginning of December of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the last project?

It was successful. With all the work that Kavi has done for us, the main thing they do is support us by giving us data and facts to make good decisions. This project enabled us to make good decisions around a particular business unit. We also took advantage of using Kavi Labs to speedup our projects and reduce costs.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

When we’ve worked with other consultants, we usually have to take one to three months to get them up to speed on our business and our systems because of the complexity. We don’t have to do that with Kavi. They’re very quick, even when they’re bringing in new personnel on their side: They already invested the time and dollars on their side to get them up to speed. They are very quick to onboard, grasp the material, and hit the ground running. We're able to see results very quickly, early in the project.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

They are a very technical company. They also helped us with packaging and articulating the business value. The president of Kavi [Vijitha Kaduwela] does that very well, carries that responsibility, and does it better than just about anybody I’ve ever seen. As the company grows, he's going to need more people like him to do that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a global sales and marketing consulting company. We have approximately 2,500 employees globally. Half of the organization is in India, and the other half is in the U.S. and EU. We perform basic sales and marketing solutions for pharmaceutical companies, which is our major vertical, in addition to airlines, manufacturing, and technology organizations. We also host various solutions within our organization, such as business analytic solutions. We have a custom-developed application called Javelin that we developed internally that does employee compensation, sales territory alignment, and various other sales and marketing solutions.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the CIO of the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Kavi Associates?

We worked with them on a couple of occasions, including working with our Teradata data warehouse solution and optimizing the Informatica code, the ETL code that we use with Teradata that pushed optimization technology. They were able to perform some analysis of our code within Informatica and optimize that code to run within the Teradata data warehouse environment.

The other project involved SAS analytics and Teradata in analyzing the SAS codes that we have written and that are running on our Sun servers, and getting that code to be able to be run within the Teradata environment. That consists of a couple of primary projects, and we have subsequently converted some of those projects internally after they did the initial analysis, development, and changes to our code to optimize the Teradata data warehouse.

They deal with ETL, business intelligence, and data warehouses, which are the key areas that we utilize their organization for.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work?

The scope of each project consisted of them scoping out the project to determine what we wanted to accomplish. They came in and project managed the engagement from a development standpoint, they configured the infrastructure and tested it. Now, the work involves transfer and training of our internal teams. The transfer knowledge gave us the capabilities to take that information, and perform some of the functions internally as we migrated that to other projects within the organization.

What was your process for selecting Kavi Associates?

We looked at some vendors in the Chicago area and on the East Coast. The critical criterion was their deep expertise in the SAS environment, as well as their expertise with Teradata. The combination of those two capabilities were critical for us. That’s why we chose that organization. Their headquarters is located here in Chicago as well.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

It varies based on the scope of the project. One project cost us 15,000 hours, and the other project took us 250,000 to 300,000 hours. I don’t feel it’s overpriced, but it varies on the number of hours and the scope of the project. The nice thing about their organization is that they will take on a small project. If it’s 15,000 to 30,000 hours, they will do an initial analysis of the project or configure some infrastructure for our organization that is specialized. I see them as a boutique firm, specializing in these areas. We try to pick out boutique firms for specialty areas when we don’t have the deep expertise to do it internally.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

In October of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We migrated from our old Sun servers and SAS environment to the newer version of SAS and the new servers. It was a four to six-week project, and they set up the new environment for us. We migrated most of the projects more than to the new servers. It improved our performance of our servers, but it didn’t have anything to do with them in that particular project. The new servers provided the value-added improvement in performance. They had the deep expertise to be able to migrate that information to the new environment.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Overall, their project management is strong, and their deep expertise in these particular areas is strong. If they ran into any problems, they didn’t hesitate to contact the vendor of the product in trying to determine the problem. They have great communication skills.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Not necessarily to improve upon, but the challenge that we encounter is the ability to schedule projects. If we’re looking for expertise in a particular area, they are limited in the resources that they have. That is sometimes a challenge, so we might be pushed back a few weeks in order to get that project started. That’s the risk you take in working with a smaller boutique firm like Kavi.