Moving On - Joining Advancing Analytics

Hello!

For the last 6 years, I've been working with Adatis Consulting, growing with them personally and professionally, as they grew from a small group of BI developers to a leading consultancy - but all things must come to an end. I've had a seriously awesome time and wish them huge success, but it's time for me to find a new challenge.

I am thrilled to announce that I am joining forces with Terry McCann and coming on board as Director of Engineering with Advancing Analytics. I've worked with Terry on some seriously awesome projects in our prior lives, and I could not be more excited about what we can achieve as Advancing Analytics. Terry has already achieved some amazing things, but together we're super excited about what we can offer with our backgrounds combined.

We are going to be focusing on three key pillars of engagement - all centred around helping clients meet their advanced analytics objectives. We've defined these pillars as: Advisory, Delivery and Education, each of which with several offerings underpinning them.

It is this focus and narrow scope that means we can operate as true specialists in our area.

Advisory

Areas such as Data Science, Engineering and AI are relatively new fields, and yet they need the same level of senior leadership as any other company. But how do you find senior people in a field that is still emerging and maturing? How do you compare to the rest of your industry? How should you be defining "success" when you're not even sure what "good" looks like?

We're working with clients to help them define their data strategies and uncover any maturity gaps in their current data estate, then guiding them to build out their new analytics capabilities and then working with their fledgling leadership teams to coach and mentor them to success.

Delivery

It's no good just talking about analytics - you need to put it into practice. We've worked with clients across all sectors, designing and building analytical platforms in Microsoft Azure and we have no intention of stopping.

We specialise in two areas - establishing a "Modern Data Warehouse" using efficient, scaleable technologies, and building out Data Science capabilities, preferably building the two together for the most beneficial system. However, we rarely build entire systems ourselves - we prefer to work with our clients to teach their developers new skills, define the patterns and frameworks they can then adopt and tackle the really risky parts of the solution. This means our clients are left with a team that truly understands the platform they're now supporting rather than building reliance on external parties for every change!

Education

Of course, on-the-job training does have its limitations - if you're starting from absolute zero there's going to be drag on project delivery timescales. As leading experts in delivering systems, Advancing Analytics can also train your teams in a range of cutting edge tools and technologies to get them ready for the next challenge.

Our training is delivered exclusively by our industry experts and we prefer to tailor our courses to each client, meaning you're learning the specific skills you need for the next phases of your project. We're always expanding our training catalogue as we work with new tools, new clients and new challenges - so if there's something you'd like to learn, get in touch and we'll see what we can do!

Business As Usual

Other than the major career shift, things will be continuing as normal - you can still follow me on twitter, I'll be even more involved with the Microsoft Data London User Group, I'll be pumping out some thoughtful pieces on the Advancing Analytics blog and might even make a couple of guest appearances on the Advancing Analytics Youtube channel.

If there's any problems that you think Advancing Analytics can help you with, I'd love to have a chat and see if we can help. Here's to the future!

Simon