IT Cloud Consulting Services for Financial Data Company
- Other IT Consulting and SI
- $10,000 to $49,999
- June 2019 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 4.5
- Schedule
- 4.5
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"I trust their advice and expertise 100%."
- Financial services
- New York City, New York
- 1-10 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
A financial data company was looking to fill a knowledge in regards to their IT capabilities, so they hired Qualescend for their IT cloud consulting services to manage their development team and tech stack.
Thanks to the efforts of Qualescend, the company is able to expand their reach to the public equity and real estate sector. The team has created a seamless platform to better manage the billions of databases. Internal stakeholders are impressed with their technical prowess and trustworthiness.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
My company, AnalyzeMarkets.com is an artificial intelligence company based on global financial data, and investment intelligence platforms. I'm the founder of that company.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Qualascend?
I didn't have much of an IT background, so Qualascend helped me a lot to design the whole architect, which is the backbone of the IT system that we have. It's one of the largest databases we have. They provide us with a tech stack tool, help us with the actual implementation, select the right technology, choose the right people, give us advice, and do the work whenever it’s required.
As I told you, I needed an IT expert for this big platform and since I didn't have that kind of in-house expertise, Qualascend really helped us.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
My contribution is more on the product side because it's an investment intelligence platform. I’m the architect of the operational side, and all the IT side is left to Qualescend. The first thing we did was pick the tech stack to use for the front- and backend, chose the kind of databases, and with whom we have to work — we had to pick and interview a team of developers and select what kind of expertise and experience we should have.
When the development started, they oversaw the process and helped me navigate through the IT system, which supported the operational side that came from my IT partners — I trust their advice and expertise 100%. If you're building a product from scratch, choosing the wrong tech stack would be a waste of time and money. It’s not a simple solution that you can just change overnight, Qualescend really helped me out so I left the whole IT development to them.
In addition to the first phase of the development, they did more of the discovery, but I had things in my head that I shared with them — I'm an operational guy, so I could explain things operationally. Obviously, those operational level details were in writing, but again, they weren’t IT-related because I didn't have much information or knowledge about the IT side of the project — that was their responsibility to cover. First, I had to tell them what the product was, what the features of the product will be, and how the client will use it. All those operational kinds of stuff and details came from my side, and it obviously helped my team.
The IT part is the prime responsibility of Qualascend, to make sure that they’d help and guide us deliver the project without any issues. As I said, it's a huge database with billions of data points, so it really requires someone to take care of the IT side. They’re the advisors and the IT experts on the project and the platform we’ve been developing, and their focus is mainly to ensure that the project is rightly executed from an IT perspective.
All IT advice comes from them. From an architectural and tech stack perspective, they decide on which database and cloud services we need to use. For each particular instance, there would be different options in front of us, so we opt for the optimal, highly efficient, and cost-effective option. They help me using their expertise to choose which tech stack is better for us, and what the pros and cons are for each option.
What is the team composition?
I’m involved with the development because it’s my baby product, but from Qualascend's side, we’re working with Hussain Fakhruddin (CTO). I don't know how many people are supporting him for the execution, but my level is just to directly deal with him.
How did you come to work with Qualascend?
I knew Hussain personally, but before that, I had tried 2–3 other companies. I hired another company from another country, but after two months of starting the project, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to finish the project if I was to continue with them for the next five years. At that time, I also had this realization that even if you hire a developer's team, it would be difficult to manage that team if you’re not an expert yourself.
I then tried Qualascend since I knew the background of Hussain, and that he has done projects with this kind of magnitude — which he has successfully executed to run on all kinds of platforms. Initially, we had those discussions of how they would execute the project, the timelines, and the costs because I didn’t want to prolong the project.
It still got prolonged, but it’s fine because we were building the platform from scratch. As I said, this is not a website. It’s a huge database with systems working inside the logins — we have billions of data points because we put financial data at the global level.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent around $40,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in June 2019, and we have an ongoing partnership. We have phased the project, and a few others are still in the pipeline. They are currently in the development phase and once the development is finished, I will still need an IT expert, even if I already have an IT team since I can’t manage them by myself. That was the initial idea of having and forging a long-term partnership with Qualascend from the beginning — they would always be there, even if the development is done.
Developments are relatively easy things. The challenge starts when you start a commercial operation. You get real-time problems and different kinds of scenarios that you might’ve never thought of when you were building and designing the system. That is where you need the right people to take responsibility and are available — that is even more important than the developing stage.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
If you go on AnalyzeMarkets.com, you would see some kind of investment intelligence briefs. Those are our marketing things to let people know the quality and the kind of work we do, but the real thing is inside the login where the actual databases are working. As I said, we have huge databases, and we have more than 50,000 companies that we track from a management perspective — both public and private across the globe. We are the only platform that actually caters to multiple asset classes under one platform.
Usually, our competitors or existing global players are much focused either in the private markets or in the public markets. Even in the private markets, they are only in the private equity, but they don't go real estate. We do real estate as well and we go with public equities. The depth of the platform, its functionalities, the data storage, and the investing intelligence come from the brains of the investment analysts, who are working for us.
It doesn’t have much to do with the IT system itself, but when it comes to the data, then it's all about the system.
How did Qualascend perform from a project management standpoint?
We have a number of means to communicate depending on the heat of the moment, and I could just pick up the phone and have a direct discussion with them. If the project timeline is being met and things are going smoothly, then we have Slack, emails, and conferences through Zoom.
What did you find most impressive about them?
I would say two things because one would not be enough. One is the trust and that peace of mind that they give to an entrepreneur who isn’t a technical person. I learned a lesson when I had a partnership with another firm. It comes to the trust level that someone is there, and that you are hiring from a whole IT project perspective to deliver. The second thing is their expertise, experience, the know-how to execute the project, the best technologies we can use, and the pros and cons of each available option.
As you know, there are dozens of options available to build any platform, but each has its own pros and cons. If you're not familiar with them and you, by mistake, choose or pick the wrong tech stack, then your project could get stuck.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I didn't see any with me personally, because our project was created from scratch. I think I'm very happy from a financial perspective because I got the quotation from different countries and different teams before I picked Qualascend.
Any advice for potential customers?
I would say that it would be difficult to manage a development team of IT experts if you’re not an expert yourself. You will need an expert with you to be successful.
RATINGS
-
Quality
4.5Service & Deliverables
-
Schedule
4.5On time / deadlines
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
-
Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
