Collaboration with Canadian ISV to deliver a flexible data analysis platform for Martin Jenkins.

In an international collaboration, Dunedin’s Flock Consulting has teamed up with Canadian company Envision IT for the delivery of a flexible data analytics solution for Wellington-headquartered public policy consulting experts Martin Jenkins. With the delivery of the Insights Platform, Martin Jenkins is equipped to augment the human insights aspects of professional services delivery with accurate data insights as required, creating a further competitive advantage for the consulting firm.

For 30 years Martin Jenkins has specialised in providing high calibre organisational, financial, economic, and public policy services to clients in New Zealand and beyond. An energetic team of more than 60 consultants offers a wealth of in-depth knowledge and skills in financial and organisational management, process and business improvement, employment relations, economics, research, evaluation, and public policy. By connecting this skill set and applying fresh thinking, Martin Jenkins significantly lifts performance for clients around the world.

Situation

In a growth phase, Martin Jenkins has established initial resources and expanded its data analytics capabilities in support of its consulting activities as it seeks to become a leader in comprehensive data services. This ambition rests on a strategic enhancement of its technical infrastructure, explains Digital and IT Lead Niall Harkin. “We’ve always integrated data analytics into our consulting engagements, but the delivery was somewhat uneven,” he says.

“As a discipline, it was spread around different areas in the business with a resultant inconsistency in delivery and execution,” he says. “As analytics is a component of our value proposition – adding quantitative insights to qualitative observations - we opted for forming a data-focused team and providing them with appropriate collaborative tools.”

Harkin says the nature of Martin Jenkins’ engagements varies wildly, each engagement unique; this required a flexible analytics platform capable of adapting to various use cases, scenarios, and even unanticipated future possibilities.

With some prior knowledge of Flock Consulting, he approached the team and put in a request for proposal (which also went out to the broader market). “Flock's recommendation showed they listened to our needs; they proposed a solution best suited to our unique requirements.”

Solution

Appreciating the necessity for a flexible, scalable solution, Flock brought on board Canadian software developer Envision IT as a partner for its ExtranetUserManager portal. This provides an essential user entry point to the eventual ‘Insights Platform’, including secure user authentication, access control and collaborative tools for working on customisable data projects, dashboards, and reports.

With this aspect handled by ExtraNetUserManager, Flock set about creating the analytics platform with Microsoft’s Azure Lakehouse architecture. This provides several key benefits, including open, reliable, and scalable storage, ETL (Extract, Transform and Load – essential for handling data from diverse source systems) and stream processing with Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) transactions.

Lakehouse also provides support for metadata, versioning, caching, and indexing for manageability and high performance when querying, and SQL APIs for Business Intelligence analysts and reporting, along with declarative DataFrame APIs for data science and machine learning.

Harkin says Flock and EnvisionIT coordinated delivery seamlessly though the teams were about as distant as is possible. “A phased delivery saw the Canadian part completed first, before Flock got on with the back-end data science component, with each taking about a month. From there it was another month with testing, documentation, and feedback from the data team. Overall, it went pretty well,” he confirms.

Harkin adds that the creation of a flexible platform presents challenges because it is expected to perform multiple tasks, not all of which are clear at the point of initial delivery. “It needs continuous work; we may not use all features all the time, and we may well require additional features as use cases arise.”

Results

The Data Insights platform provides Martin Jenkins with faster and more efficient processing of complex data analysis, resulting in improved security, faster response times, and ultimately, higher-quality outcomes. “In many instances, data analysis was being done with nothing more sophisticated that spreadsheets,” comments Harkin. “While flexible, Excel isn’t a database, and it can’t handle at scale analysis tasks; it is also error-prone and can be a time sink.”

While the limitations of Excel weren’t a primary driver for the creation of the Data Insights platform, moving consultants away is considered an advantage, along with standardisation and the ready availability of an appropriate tool. “We work on a wide range of tasks and there are multiple avenues where the platform is useful. We can respond faster to client needs with a ready-built analysis capability, and as we onboard and train staff, we’re expecting Data Insights to slot into regular tasks and become part of our delivery,” Harkin says.

He adds that the collaborative feature of the solution, thanks to Envision IT’s work, is expected to help Martin Jenkins consultants work more efficiently. “Previously we relied on workarounds which weren’t the most graceful. Now, analysis all happens in one place.”

With a pay-as-you-go pricing model and built-in management tools, Data Insights can also contribute to reduced costs associated with quality analysis, freeing IT staff to focus on other tasks.

Ultimately, Harkin says the Insights Platform allows Martin Jenkins to combine the human element of consulting with data-driven facts. “It reflects our business becoming more intentional in how we work with data, bringing efficiency to our work along with discipline and rigour. With standardised tools, we offer a consistent outcome, there’s continuity for staff members working across different projects. And when data analysis is necessary in any engagement, we’re not constantly reinventing the wheel.”