 This is JSA TV the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals. I'm Dean Perine and welcome to JSA TV I am coming at you on location in beautiful downtown Chicago, Illinois at the Mavenwave offices Mavenwave is celebrating 10 years of growth in 2018 so we thought we'd stop in and Talk to their their partners their founders today and one of those founders is with me right now Mr. Jeff Lee Jeff again is one of the co-founders along with along with his brother who I just spoke to and who you will get to know Jason as well, but Jeff welcome to JSA TV. We appreciate it. You bet you bet So I'm just gonna jump right in The question here is inflection point for Mavenwave. Can you pinpoint for us? What at what point did you say we did it or we're a success? Actually, I can't it's definitely the year 2015 There's there's there's a lot of components needed to be successful in this type of business But as a startup to make it to the next grade, there's two Primary capabilities that have to have to flourish one of them is the ability to land major new clients that that Flow has to keep coming. Otherwise you run out of work and people can't promote you can't get bigger and you die perhaps slowly the other thing and so that year we had a Real breakthrough with respect to the position of clients shifting the cloud We developed a really strong position with in our relationship with Google We felt we had earned our way to become a go-to partner for Google So now as clients shifted more toward cloud and they were ready to embrace it We were in a great position to take that on so landing new clients became it became evident that we'd be able to do that quite well the other aspect that you need is talent and To us talent is everything and it makes the difference between winning and losing and We felt we had really built an exceptional set of talents here in our reputation in the industry had really grown and our networks Amongst those talents had really flourished as well. So our ability to bring on new talents We knew we nailed it by 2015 and all of these forces came together We knew we were on our way to to a sustained success very cool And I was talking to your brother Jason earlier and he talked Yeah, he was he was lovely. You're fine though as well So but no I in the in the you know two and a half or three hours that I've been in your office is just this morning It's clear that there is a very strong working environment and culture here at Mavenway Why don't you talk to us a little bit about what it is that you're looking for in that talent great question? Well, we all need technologists We all need business domain skills, etc But the the the main element we always talk about that makes the difference is X factor and to us the term X factor means it's an intangible quality and it really leads to likeability and magnetism and influence and you tend to be successful in situations and It just makes it makes a big difference So you can go through a project and have wonderful technology capabilities, but if nobody likes working with you It's a total failure. You really don't have a business going forward So we work very hard to build this X factor and it's a it's a DNA. It's a DNA DNA we recognize when we're recruiting and interviewing and So it it makes a big difference because we're a relationship business So the relationships with clients when you bring X factor that to the table clients want you to work on their projects and Partners like Google want you to work with them to sell and deliver New business and new talents coming on want to work amongst you. They want to be on your teams, etc So it really it's pervasive and it is our number one difference maker So we work hard to build a culture that's centered around that X factor and the ideals that that it brings Outstanding so let's talk turkey a little bit and I and you know one of the things I promise myself. I wouldn't do is just kick around buzzwords all afternoon but I'm gonna throw one at you right now data analytics and And the the the existing climb climate But more specifically security those those data analytics big data analytics and security don't often Mesh necessarily they're both sexy in their own rights, but in today's client climate if they have to mesh Why don't you talk to us a little bit about how maven wave operates in that? Yeah, well, it's a whole it's kind of a whole progression to get clients to cloud and security is definitely a big part of it But from the beginning we've been big proponents of cloud and we've kind of seen what cloud was going to bring And we knew that we're gonna have to bring is a multiple multiple disciplines to help clients be successful It certainly starts with management consulting to understand where are the right opportunities and as at least to security There's some great places. There's some not so smart places to go cloud And of course you've got to bring then this lift-and-shift Infrastructure ability to get current applications over into the cloud and there's some architecting you have to do to make them Appropriate for cloud and make them ready to to operate safely securely, etc And then there's application development abilities that to build these elegant elegant solutions that that perform well and kind of a cloud Kind of a digital your environment and then a security really is a combination of The methods and disciplines you put to that and the care you put into plus the cloud providers are making a whole Whole lot of headway in that way and making it much easier for us To build those protections you're obviously protecting the data and you're protecting access to the applications and We've worked hard to develop those those those expertise that are necessary to do that So we're on the subject of consulting. Obviously. There's a lot of upfront Back and forth that has to happen Consultative is that a word consultative? I think okay consulting in your job really is to kind of pinpoint what those pain points Might be on the consulting side. So, you know, how do you do that? What tell me a little bit about the strategy that great great question, too There's a lot of hype about Digital and digital transformation and digital era, etc. And to us that really means It really means a Move forward in expectations The millennial way is taking over and that's a good thing people want to do everything online They want social around it. They want new product coming at them fast They want the the company to know about them before they even have to tell the company about them And they want everything mobile, etc. That's all great things And so that expectations that is moving forward quickly and these are employees in their companies and these are Customers these are real people. They're working on the other side. So that expectations that is moving out there fast So now it's up to which companies can race after that and actually capture and deliver on those expectations It gives you a nice playing field for new entrants to actually outpace the existing ones And perhaps win a lot of business that you know in the past, you know, they wouldn't be able to do that Especially with cloud technologies. They're they're able to do that So we are trying to help our clients become successful in that era and there's really a handful of strengths that they need to Get to to be successful and playing on that field One of the first ones is customer intimacy or customer obsession So they need to know what the customer needs before the customer even tells them that that's that's one another one is is product driven Velocity so the speed at which some of the most innovative companies you think about there the the Googles and the Amazons and Spotify and all that they release products so fast and a lot of these, you know, large enterprises traditionally Fight they could never keep up with that naturally. So they really need to shift to to produce Product cycles and delivery cycles in a new way the data-driven decision-making is something that clients need to be successful and obviously Leveraging the cloud and building cultures that are really high highly infused with innovation and collaboration so that ideas from the front line make their way to Make their way to the reality for customers because some of these people on the front line are the first ones to see what customers need so getting to these strengths is really the heart of what our consulting is all about and We were we were working feverishly to bring the disciplines together get the clients to understand the minds that they need to shift into and Drive the initiatives that they get them there outstanding. So digital trans transformation affects all businesses from the startup to the Googles But they kind of consulting you do obviously is going to vary depending on whether they're a fortune 500 company Which you folks work with or or you know someone just opening up a shop So what do you what is your mindset like when you go in to consult with both the mom-and-pop and the Google? Well, the mom-and-pop is is super exciting Because some ways we relate to it. We were just the mom-and-pop or brother-and-brother however everyone say that ten years ago and it's super exciting to Because again, I keep managed mention cloud But it just gives you these disruptive economics that you could never achieve in the past I mean a little guy could not compete with the big guy They just get squashed out of the market But now you have a chance because you could be much bigger than you otherwise would be you can afford to do it You can move fast and you don't have the baggage So it's really fun just like we had when we started that we can be really nimble and fast and go after we see the target We can move there. We don't have to shift the Titanic to somehow get there. So it's really fun to go in and help new new Startups get there and a lot of times they actually question whether you know Are we too much in the mindset of working with the big behemoth? Enterprises and we say no no no remember who we are this you you are who we were and we can't wait to do this for you So that's the that's the mentality with it with the startups that the new players With the large enterprise clients It's kind of funny because they They went from Resisting and deferring the idea of moving to digital moving to cloud Meaning it's not safe. It's not secure all that stuff too now. They can't get it fast enough and they're Feeling right now is there's a lot of frustration because they're tired of seeing the The sizzle of the use cases that are sort of like years in the future They they have years before they can get to this place In many cases they have the realities of legacy, you know, they have the realities of Multi, you know Complex organizations that would have that need to change to be able to embrace what what these new technologies can do for them So we like to work with the large clients to say we know that that's tomorrow and you need help today So getting together with them and focus on what can they do today? And so specifically when you're dealing with the large clients You have to you know number one you have to take you have to find threads that you can operate in you Cannot teach the entire 50,000 or person organization to change how they think and reassemble their teams and all that stuff You've got to find threads of work that you can show how it executes you build agility product-driven streams You get everyone on board and you move quickly and you deliver a stream a lot of times It's kind of like for those who are a technologist. It's like the microservices concept You know microservice breaks every all these monolithic monolithic systems down into small Solutions and services such that you can spin them up and spin them down quickly You need to do that with changing initiatives in these large organizations prove your success build some momentum a lot of people You know jump on board another aspect really is that it's kind of having a resurgence in the industry from my you know a couple of decades of experience is change management and adoption the Idea that technology is going to just be thrown into these user groups user organizations And they're all just going to embrace and start using it whether they're serving customers or it's the customers themselves is a fallacy You have to apply the change management the adoption the champion efforts the leadership the servant leadership type Concepts as well. So all of that has to be there and I would say finally These are these are massive organizations very complex. There's You have to structure the teams in a way that you can't you can't make decisions across Hundreds of you know decision-making you can't move fast if you're waiting for them all to make decisions So again these threads of work and that's where we kind of have the benefit of being a bunch of management Consultants at heart. So you have a portfolio of opportunities. You got a portfolio of I mean changing opportunities You can't plan, you know 150 projects in advance for the next two years because everything is going to change underneath you So you have to instill this mentality that you're constantly looking at a portfolio That's changing terms of the benefits that are there available to you The technology is available to you the problems that are rising to the top And you have to go through these iterative cycles to make it happen So it does involve this mind shift of change from this project and budget Orated, you know where we fix it for the next couple years to this rolling You know portfolio of what's the next greatest opportunities we can deliver on Outstanding Jeff, thank you very much and clearly that that philosophy is working for Mavenwave with ten years of growth Congratulations there. Thank you very much for being with us. We appreciate it and thank you viewers for watching JSA TV We'll see you soon