Polestar Solutions & Services

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head-IT for Consumer Goods organisation. We have around 400 employees

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Polestar Solutions & Services?

We hired Polestar to implement PowerBI based BI analytcis for our organisation

SOLUTION

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

We had evaluated many vendors as well as products and then decided on Polestar based on their competence, work ethic and skill level. This had also got highlighted during reference check calls with other customers.

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

The project envisaged created dashboards for our Sales & marketing function taking in data from our ERP and other systems. The idea was to build a easy to use and maintain BI system which would help our business users to drive business growth through better insights.

The project started with a discovery phase in which the requirements of users were mapped. Towards end of this phase , the technology architecture of the project was mapped Then the realisation phase started. The data model creation took a large part of the time and later the dashboard development commenced around 6 weeks into the project.

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

A part time project manager, 2 ETL developers and 1 PowerBI developer. There were daily operation meetings and weekly project meetings. The founder also reviewed the deliverables

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Currently system has just gone live, The users are very pleased with daily morning mailers depicting state of business as of previous day end.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very effective. We created a team for this project on MS teams. In case of any query the Polestar team used to immediately ping my team and query used to be resolved very fast. Whenever required they used to stretch beyond office hours

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

The team recommended a good architecture. They implemented the data upload processes in such a way that it did not require any technical person to monitor it. They stretched beyond normal working hours during critical phases of the project.

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

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BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of Terlato Wine Group. We’re a global premier wine company. We market and produce wine as well as have a series of wineries and affiliations with other wineries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

Polestar has been instrumental within our reporting and analytics space. We rely heavily upon them from both an operation and strategic perspective and at the database level.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re a heavy SQL technology base and a Qlik & QlikView space. We’ve leveraged Polestar in both of those areas. Our team was really focusing on the optimization of both of those. Polestar has helped us optimize our SQL environment.

Their team has worked with us through that work plan and timeline as well as gave us examples of what that’ll look like in the future. This helps us create a vision for where we want to go. They’re going to help us from an operational perspective as well.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with two individuals and an extended team of five people.

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

It was a joint representation. They reached out, and we followed up after doing research. Ultimately, we were impressed with their willingness to work with us knowing that we had to embrace them slowly from a managed service component. They were more than willing to let us slow roll with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest about $120,000 a year with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in January 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Now that we have a strong working relationship with them, both groups are actively engaged and available at any time. Additionally, they provide overlap into our working hours so we get a 3–4-hour overlap where we get a lot of meetings done. The two groups working together has been very successful.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

We have strong and open communication. They make themselves available and vice versa.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like their flexibility. They’ve met our needs. We’ve had spiked demands that they’ve successfully met. What’s more, their resources have been extremely knowledgeable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be fantastic if they could be more available during our hours.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very precise in what you need and let them know. Get good resources and hold on to them. Make sure you’re clear in your communication with them. If they understand what you need, they’ll do a strong job to tailor things to you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of IT applications for an energy company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

We needed help with Power BI analysis.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We discussed the requirements on the financial platform. They do the Power BI analysis for our company. We used their dashboards for the analysis.

What is the team composition?

We hired one resource from them. I am in contact with a salesperson and the director.

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

I’m not sure how we got in touch but we had a few interactions with them. We received two demos from them on Power BI which were really good. Their business people have seamless dashboards. It seemed they had good capability in implementing our plan. They were committed.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $10,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2020 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve not done any projects with them. We’ve only taken on a resource from them as of now. The resource has been good. We are in discussions about a project.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Whenever we have any queries, they’re prompt. We manage their resource. We use phone calls and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have good knowledge of the latest technologies. It reflects their commitment. We have people from their company who join the conversations and we find them to be quite good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s a very limited engagement with them. I can’t comment on any delivery.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We’ve found the people we’ve interacted with to be quite impressive. Be very clear with them about what you’re looking for.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an aftermarket auto warranty insurance provider. I’m the head of business intelligence and data services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

At a very high level, the business has a rapidly expanding appetite for BI and is in the early- to mid-stages of expanding its consumption and the availability of the data it owns in a reportable manner. We were a small IT department with access to a great deal of data and a rapidly growing appetite for that data. The challenge I faced when I started was meeting the business demand for the BI that was available to us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’d worked with Polestar at a previous company, leveraging their BI development services. It was a great engagement, so I turned to them this time for their data and BI specialty. Initially, it was mostly a small trial to see how they fit with the company. We weren’t accustomed to using 3rd-party arrangements, but once we got a good introduction, I brought them on in two capacities: staff augmentation (one senior developer) to help execute business as usuals and a second resource to provide additional development expertise, as well as operational support capitalizing on the hour differences. One person was our overnight support person, and what cycles they had outside of that we put to development. It amounted to one developer and one half-developer and a half-support specialist. That was the main engagement.

We collaborated with the senior resource, with him doing development and deployment and me doing knowledge share and peer review. With the operation support resource, there was a lot of documentation and training. In the initial phases, he would provide reports on what issues he found and we’d handle them. As we went on, he had a list of action items he could initiate on his own. He also started enriching documentation on his own.;

In the last two months, we also defined an Azure-founded application framework we wanted to build. We engaged additional resources from Polestar with a pure project focus. We gave them a scope of work, they gave us a quote, and we worked on a fixed project timeline. They’ve helped us create this from the ground up, including documentation and training videos.

We’ve used several different core skill sets from them including data, SQL server-heavy, Azure-heavy, DevOps-heavy, and even a Python resource. With all these, we’ve never lost time to ramp up. This is why I go to them a lot. I’ve always been able to pick a date, ask for someone to be ready to go, and they’ll be ready to go on day one. Other consultants I’ve worked with have taken 2-3 days to start working, and we can’t accommodate that.

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

They found me about four years ago when I was working in a different industry. They reached out to me directly, and I didn’t have any specific needs. I knew I would need them in the future, so I asked them to call me back in six months. They kept in touch, and, when I needed resources, I reached out to them. That project went very well and they delivered a lot of value. When I moved to my current company, we kept in touch and I reached out to them to fill our need here.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $60,000 on the staff augmentation, and the project work was $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The staff augmentation project ran between May and November 2020. There was nothing negative about the relationship; our budget constraints changed unexpectedly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Dollar for dollar, they’re extremely economical. This was a huge part of selling them to both my current company and my previous company. Once in the door, the senior developer for staff augmentation was fantastic. The work quality was very good, and he was very personable. The operations resource was also very professional, especially in his documentation of ticket tracking. Both their skill sets were exceptional.

It was a well-priced project and we got a very advanced body of work. We were very happy from a rate and a quality-to-rate standpoint.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They were punctual to meetings, which was impressive, as it was off-hours for them. I was expecting there to be a learning curve with the junior-level operations resource and he ramped up to the necessary knowledge level at a very reasonable time rate. It made the budget we put into his corner well spent.

Additionally, the skill set for the project work was very different from the skillset for the base needs, and they filled that gap nicely. Their ability to plug and play with different skill sets and personnel is great. And they never make me sign contracts of any length for really focused, limited needs. We work out ad-hoc billing arrangements when we need to.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always an element of documentation that I have to be pretty clear about. I generally think consultants should overcompensate on the documentation side to ensure they know how to deliver a concise and accurate set. Polestar could have grown a little bit there. They were good and thorough, and there’s a level of precision and conciseness that is tough to get. There were a couple of times — and this is always one of my feedback points — when I wanted to see people take an extra step to explore ideas when there’s a problem or a need for a solution. They often said “this is going to work,” and I also wanted to hear them say “and here are a couple of other things that may be better, and here’s why.”

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They tend to be very favorable to do trial engagements. Give them a fixed period of time or body of work. Set clear expectations for yourself and them so you can present that to Polestar to help you achieve. They complement existing teams well.

Additionally, throw something at them related to their breadth of skills. Don’t just ask for a SQL developer. Bring an application to them that needs three different skillsets and ask them how they can support it or enhance it. It’s really neat to see everything they can bring to bear and package skills that span multiple resources.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of business intelligence for the New Look Vision Group. I oversee reporting, dashboarding, data warehousing, and analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

I joined the company in July 2019, and we did not have any business intelligence at that time. I was brought on board, and I wanted to create the foundation in terms of data warehousing and all the automation and reporting. After that, the challenge was that there was so much demand from our business users, and we needed more resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I got in touch with Polestar. They provide us with resources, and they have a dedicated business intelligence programmer that they assigned to me. I use that resource for all the tools like APL Packages, Cube reports, and Power BI. It is an open resource and not specific to one project – it is for all the development for business intelligence.

One of the applications was built to create automation for PDF documents. 

What is the team composition?

I’m using one resource from their team right now. We have also used one resource who is a .NET programmer. He created some applications that we needed. I have worked with the account executive and project lead as well.

We have some plans to add more resources next year, as the need arises. 

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

I had worked with them at a previous company, which is how I knew them. At that company, we wanted to work with extra resources because there was so much demand. 

We had looked at other consultants in Montreal. They were very expensive, and they did not deliver to my expectations. I had done some research and found resources from overseas. I came across Polestar, and we got in touch.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started at the end of July 2020, and our relationship is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In terms of the speed of availability, for example, we had some reports that our users wanted, so with their help now, something that would take the user two days can be accomplished in a couple of hours.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Every day, they send me a status report of what they did during the day and the next steps and tasks. I have been using a tool where I keep track of the tasks that I have given to them, but that is more on my side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I know I can depend on them. I know they will deliver, and there is a level of trust I have built with them. They have really good expertise in all the technical development I have asked for. They are really number one in all the business intelligence expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It could be how their infrastructure is in that part of the region, and I had mentioned it to them at some point, but they could invest in a more reliable connection. Sometimes, I find that there is a lag when we are doing conference calls, but it is more to do with the infrastructure, and that could be region-dependent.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I acted as a project manager, and I have been giving them the work. You can go that way and just have technical resources from Polestar’s side, or you can have a project manager at Polestar, and everything can be done from their side.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of finance for a finance, accounting, and tech support provider with mainly US-based customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

We’re working with Polestar Solutions & Services for our BI needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Polestar is developing Power BI analytics, dashboards, and visualizations for our accounting customers. They’ve done the work from scratch.

They’re also enhancing our internal applications, which were originally developed by our team. The team has also developed an internal VPN portal for us.

What is the team composition?

I’m in touch with their principal, the Power BI manager, and the project lead.

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

We made an analysis when looking for someone who understood the relevant Power BI and financial aspects. Polestar showed good expertise, and their higher-ups were involved in the discussion for selecting them as our vendor. 

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of the project has been 2,000,000 Indian rupees (approximately $27,000 USD). We’re paying them on a monthly basis for support.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Polestar in June 2020 and they’re continuing to support us. The latest project ended in August 2020, though. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had clearly-defined requirements for these projects and Polestar fulfills them.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

There is involvement from each level of their organization. We set up a daily call to discuss the progress of each ongoing activity, and we have weekly high-level meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate the involvement of their top management. I haven’t seen that from any of the other vendors and partners I’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Polestar is a good partner and I definitely recommend others use them. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the business intelligence engineer for Sabra Dipping Company. Sabra is a leader in the hummus category in the United States and the biggest producer of hummus in the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Polestar Solutions & Services?

We use Qlik Sense as a reporting and dashboard tool. It also works as our main hub of knowledge, from a high to a very detailed level of information. Polestar is helping us to integrate different sources of data, and develop data model and dashboards in Qlik Sense.

What were your goals for this project?

We have several projects that we have been working with Polestar, but this one in specific is an integration of three very different data sets, in order to create KPIs for perfect order tracking and performance in Supply Chain. We have been using Polestar resources to help us develop the data model, KPIs, and visualizations in Qlik Sense.

SOLUTION

How did you select Polestar Solutions & Services?

I heard about Polestar at a Qlik conference several years ago, and decided to try them out. Outsourcing your project overseas, it is always challenging because of the lack of knowledge about the company, and the time difference. Ever since we have been working with them.

Describe the project in detail.

We have three different dashboards with very different data models for Supply Chain. We needed to combine the three different data sets to create one dashboard with all relevant KPIs under one roof, to track what we call as "Perfect Order". The level of granularity and type of dates were different on each dashboard. Polestar helped us create the integrated data set, and the dashboard with all relevant KPIs. 

What was the team composition?

Internal development and project management team (3 people), Polestar developer (1 person), and business users (8 people). 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

First of all, constant communication. The developer from Polestar showed complete competency in understanding what was needed, and many questions when something was not clear. Extremely responsive, always in a timely manner despite the time difference.

In a matter of a month, with full participation from users as well, the data model was done. Now we are just finalizing the visualizations. Also, Polestar management has always been involved in ensuring satisfaction on the work by our team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective with constant communication and full availability from Polestar team. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The professionalism, dedication to satisfaction from our team, and availability despite the time difference.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Due to people working from home, we understand that internet connection quality can vary from house to house. There were times when hearing was difficult, breaking up, and background noise. So, the improvement I would recommend is technical, providing their employees with better equipment, and resources.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

NOMD Technologies is a consulting firm in the area of business intelligence and data analytics. I’m a delivery manager for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Polestar Solutions & Services?

We had a project with one of the largest telecom companies in Saudi Arabia, related to their HR department. We engaged with Polestar for Qlik Sense resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided data analytics services using Qlik Sense Enterprise. We had a couple of senior Qlik developers on our team, and we engaged them to assist with some of the backend modules. We developed the frontend.

The client was developing analytics software for their HR department. They had 10–11 business areas, each one with around 10 dashboards.

There were multiple data sources involved, and the client wanted month-level granularity. The data sources included demographics, appraisals, attendance, and more. Our team had some initial challenges with the data modelling, and this is where Polestar really helped.

What is the team composition?

We first got in touch with an account manager, who put us in touch with Varun (SVP & Analytics Business Head). We initially started with two development resources, and we added one more.

How did you come to work with Polestar Solutions & Services?

We’d engaged with them on a previous project.

How much have you invested with them?

We were spending $7,000–$14,000 per month with them, depending on the number of resources we were engaging.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran between June–October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The feedback was incredible from the moment the first two developers engaged with us. We were having trouble with the data modeling and the performance of the application. Polestar’s developers redesigned and redeveloped the data module, making amazing changes and progress. The customer feedback was excellent.

The performance and usability of the app were so good that we even received praise from the client’s VPs.

How did Polestar Solutions & Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was done on our side, and we had a timeline and materials agreement with Polestar. I acted as a project manager, and I had a senior consultant on our side take over at one point.

This was my first offshore development project, and it took me 3–4 days to get used to the model. We’re in Saudi Arabia, and they’re in India, which made it a bit of a challenge in the beginning. After a conversation with their VP, account manager, and developers, we really got onboard as a team.

Everything was delivered on time from Polestar’s side. We used Microsoft Teams for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very professional, understanding our challenges, and provided real-time solutions. I was a bit hesitant in the beginning, but their developers were trust-worthy. I was impressed by how much they increased the performance of our app.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any comments regarding the resources, and the project was a great success. It was a challenge to onboard the third developer.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Ours is a leading mobile and enterprise app development & global IT Outsourcing Services company based out of US. I work as the Director & Global Head for Salesforce & Analytics division.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Polestar Solutions & Services?

We needed resources on different technology stacks for processing big data. We needed the technology services vendors with prior experience of managing projects on Apache Spark Tech stack for big data processing.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of the project was to scale up the data processing power of the existing systems both horizontally and vertically. Also, the platform should handle the information stored in the form of images, videos and text and process it to report deviations from business rules.

SOLUTION

How did you select Polestar Solutions & Services?

We had heard about Polestar's work around cloud, big data (Hadoop) with some other clients. They are also Microsoft Gold Partners and have a good track record on technologies such as Microsoft Azure Data Services and Hadoop Stack including Apache Spark (using both Scala and Python).

We had an initial discussion around the problem statement wherein Polestar presented their solution approach which covered all the bases and later on, was followed during the project implementation.

Describe the project in detail.

We needed an API platform on Apache Spark to use it with the front end of one of our client’s application. They helped our DevOps team in delivering the required big data processing capabilities and optimized the required PySpark scripts.

The project majorly revolved around setting up architecture and upgradation of the infrastructure needed to deliver the desired business outcome.

What was the team composition?

It comprises a Data Engineer & Solution Architect along with a Project Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before their engagement, the system was only able to handle 50 concurrent requests per minute. But now, with their help it can manage more than 1000 concurrent requests per minute.

Also, their development optimized the script and implemented parallel processing using PySpark.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very smooth as their team was very meticulous about the project details. They were very approachable and collaborative in addressing our queries.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Very professional in their approach and deliverables are always on time. They have expertise across a wide array of technologies, which helped our in-house team further to seek their consultation with the new tech stack, wherever needed.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Asia Pacific-wide digital advertising and big data services. I am the Head of FP&A.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Polestar Solutions & Services?

Polestar built a range of PowerBI dashboards for reporting and analysis for us spanning the key areas of financial analysis - P&L, headcount, revenues, expenses and key performance indicators. Being a first time adoption, Polestar helped us formulate our vision and plans for PowerBI, implemented the dashboards and shared best practices for ongoing ownership of our suite of dashboards.

What were your goals for this project?

Transition from Excel-based, manual reporting to automated data preparation and reporting, reducing the time taken to report and minimise risk of errors while providing users with on-demand reporting in a visual and easy to use tool.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had worked with the founder and many key personnel of Polestar in their prior roles in Big 4 consulting firms as a colleague. I knew of their quality having worked alongside them, so it was an easy decision for me to make, given I was solely dependent on outside advisor help for this project to succeed.

Describe the project in detail.

Polestar helped us to:

1. Define our PowerBI journey
2. Understand and model our data
3. Build reporting processes to calculate and present information
4. Collaborate with us to find effective visual representations
5. Train resources in my team to own / update the dashboards and data model going forward

What was the team composition?

1. PowerBI developer dedicated to my build
2. Augementing the team with more senior resources whenever a specific problem required it / when I needed to discuss issues / brainstorm

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are using the dashboards monthly - have a decent amount of coverage from our Phase 1 projects. Dashboards are used by the intended audience as I had hoped. I'm already planning a Phase 2 to build on the base that has been created.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The interaction worked very well. I do not have complaints.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Polestar is very responsive. If you ask for help, or if extra support is needed, support is provided. We were able to meet the targets and deadlines we set out for the project without any roadblocks.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not observed in this engagement