Quarry Hill Advisors, a financial planning firm, was grappling with the challenge of time-consuming administrative tasks. The team was losing one to two hours each week on data entry tasks such as creating contacts and adding emails to newsletters. This was time taken away from their core job of serving clients. The financial planners calculated that they were effectively spending a significant amount of money on these administrative tasks, considering their hourly billing rate. The challenge was to find a way to reduce the time spent on these tasks and redirect it towards more productive activities.

OCUS, a company that provides smart visual content to enterprise companies through a global network of 35,000 photographers, was keen to assess its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The company was aware of the environmental impact of its operations, particularly in the digital world, and wanted to involve its clients in its sustainability efforts. The challenge was to accurately measure the company's carbon footprint, which was essential for structuring an effective environmental policy and creating a long-term action plan to reduce emissions. The company's carbon footprint was largely due to photographer travel, which accounted for 87.5% of its total emissions. Other significant contributors were the purchase of services and digital operations, each accounting for 4.6% of the total emissions.

Ashurst, a leading international law firm, faced a significant challenge after a major merger that almost doubled its size. The firm's HR function aimed to transform its operations to support the ongoing strategic growth objectives. The merger presented challenges in managing talent, developing skills, and rewarding performance across the global business. Each part of the business had its own systems and processes for managing absences, tracking performance, and rewarding success. This led to increased manual effort and cost, reduced ability to ensure globally consistent definitions of human capital management metrics, and difficulty in generating comprehensive reports. The firm also faced challenges in answering important questions related to employee skillsets, retention, and compensation policies across the organization.

Airbus Intelligence, a unit of Airbus Defence and Space, provides comprehensive satellite imagery and data to over 1,200 customers in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Airbus Intelligence has expanded its client base from governmental security to include entities that benefit from high-quality imagery such as agricultural companies. However, the company faced a challenge in meeting the growing expectations of its customers due to the limitations of its existing solution. The traditional process involved capturing images from satellites, processing them, and downloading them into the company’s library. Customers would then select the images they wanted from a catalogue and receive them several hours later. As Airbus added more satellites and technology became more sophisticated, the company was able to provide better quality data and imagery at increasingly large volumes. However, the existing solution could not speed up the production and delivery of its image and data products.

BBVA, a leading bank in Spain, was facing the challenge of digital transformation in the highly regulated banking industry. The bank was under pressure to compete with digital-native fintech companies while maintaining the trust of its 78.9 million customers. The banking industry, being an attractive target for cybercriminals, had traditionally kept their IT infrastructures on-premises to maintain control over data security and privacy. However, BBVA recognized the need to embrace cloud computing to gain agility and anticipate future banking needs. The bank also aimed to reduce its carbon footprint and become an environmentally sustainable business. The challenge was to navigate this transformation while maintaining stringent data security and privacy standards.

The Dürr Group, a leading mechanical and plant engineering firm, faced several challenges in aligning its IT with its company-wide OneDürrGroup strategy. The company's consistent expansion and diverse customer base resulted in a complex IT infrastructure, characterized by different integration solutions and a hybrid application landscape. The company aimed to implement its OneDürrGroup strategy across all locations and divisions, which naturally impacted its own IT. The diverse range of solutions—on-premises, Integration-Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) and Software-as-a-Service—meant more cost and effort and required more expertise in different technologies, as well as a mass of redundant interfaces. The company believed that an integrated architecture could achieve significant streamlining in the HR landscape alone.

Lozier Corporation, a leading manufacturer of products for retailers, was facing significant challenges due to its outdated ERP system. The system, residing on an ageing mainframe, was unable to deliver reliable business management systems, consolidated data, and efficient processes. The company's business processes were sometimes inefficient due to these disparate systems. For instance, digital orders from customers had to be processed manually by Lozier's team, which was not only time-consuming but also increased the risk of inaccuracies and errors. The leadership team at Lozier recognized the need for a modern ERP system and industry best practices to drive operational excellence and ensure the company's continued success in the retail industry.

Ricky Willems, an electrical engineer and a fan of the popular show “BattleBots”, was inspired to build his own robots with the goal of competing on the show. The challenge was to create a mechanical warrior that could compete in the show, which required custom hardware, electronics, and a team of up to eight people to operate the bots. The design process was complex, involving the creation of a 6’4”, 250 lb flame-throwing robot capable of catapulting another robot across a ring. The design also needed to be scalable, as the robots needed to prove their worth on smaller stages before moving to prime time. The design process was further complicated by the need for the robot to withstand damage while putting out staggering horsepower in a package that was as light and small as possible.

Automation Research Group, a Philadelphia-based engineering and design company, was facing challenges in managing and transmitting data securely. With the advent of high-speed internet, data transmission became faster but also brought along security concerns. For some clients, having a private network tethered to a building was more secure than using WiFi or broadband internet connections. This led the company to revisit the idea of using power lines as an alternative to WiFi for data transmission. However, this method, while more secure, was slower and required specialized equipment. Additionally, the company was also struggling with managing parts for their custom-designed PCBs. The parts management was all in a local database and there was no way to determine if the parts were outdated.

Wynk Music, one of India's largest mobile entertainment platforms, faced a significant challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. The music industry was experiencing a halt in new music releases, leading to a supply problem. This situation resulted in a considerable amount of dormant behavior among Wynk's customers. The company needed to find a way to re-engage these dormant users and maintain its position in the market. The challenge was not only to identify these inactive users but also to understand their music preferences to provide personalized recommendations.

Accuphase Laboratories, a respected manufacturer of high-performance audio products based in Yokohama, Japan, faced a significant challenge in maintaining the quality and consistency of their circuit board production. The company's iterative design approach, which is based on sequential circuit refinement in response to both subjective and objective performance testing, resulted in the creation of many prototypes. This process led to short, critical PCB design cycles for Accuphase’s engineers. To maintain their high standards, Accuphase needed to complete all phases of their board-level design in-house while maintaining the highest possible quality. The demands of the high-end audio equipment industry, akin to the limited-production luxury car market, placed high demands on both their design engineers and the electronic product development software they used. Production volumes were low, research and development was a primary focus, and design quality was never compromised.

New Ocean needed a platform that would enable them to visually design and code their Insight Engine, which all of their data streams or inputs feed into. The Insight Engine determines a number of things including whether an activity or challenge is complete or rewards have been met. Messaging is created for chronic condition cases, reminding users to do things with pop-up messages. Tracking is set up for monitoring how users are doing against goals, such as running three days a week for four weeks, to satisfy rewards. The rewards depend on the company and there are three basic reward types that are built into the application. These include dollars, badges, or points. New Ocean wanted to house downstream business logic in a single system and they decided to look into a rules engine.

Deliverr, a platform that enables sellers to sell across multiple channels and impress their customers with 1-day or 2-day delivery, was facing a significant challenge. The company's mission to democratize fulfillment and help small and mid-sized companies compete with the delivery expectations set by Amazon required a substantial investment in technology, operations, and a network of nimble warehouses across the country. However, their existing Warehouse Management System (WMS) was unable to keep up with their volume during the peak season of 2020. This situation necessitated a change in their WMS to ensure efficient operations and meet the increasing demand. Jim Heinecke, head of the WMS and Systems Integration team at Deliverr, and his team conducted a rigorous evaluation of 10-15 WMS software providers to find a solution.

OYO, a global platform that empowers entrepreneurs and small businesses with hotels and homes, was facing challenges in maximizing the impact of their customer interactions across various campaigns. The company runs different campaigns with triggered journeys based on customer action on their app, and it was crucial for them to understand which message variant was performing the best. The results of effective engagement campaigns would reflect in the incremental CTR (click-through rate) improvement, which ultimately adds to the bottom line in terms of new and repeat hotel bookings. However, the process required a lot of manual intervention to configure the better performing variation and maximize its use. This was particularly difficult with automatic trigger and period campaigns that run for longer durations. Additionally, it resulted in the loss of CTR during the initial stage of experimentation.

6thStreet.com, a leading e-commerce fashion destination from Apparel Group, faced the challenge of driving customer engagement and retention. With over 1000+ international brands, the platform had a vast selection of products but needed to ensure that customers were not only attracted to the platform but also converted their interest into purchases. The brand was initially using traditional channels such as emails and SMS for customer communication. However, these methods were not yielding the desired results in terms of customer retention and conversion rates. The brand needed a more effective way to understand customer behavior, monitor campaign health, and send communications at the right time.

Stahlman-England, a company with a rich history in the irrigation and construction industries, was tasked with the renovation of the existing irrigation control system at Verona Walk, a lakefront property in Naples, Florida. The property, home to a variety of families and individuals, is surrounded by lush landscapes and lake views. The existing irrigation system at Verona Walk was outdated and inefficient. The IDS two-wire controllers used had been discontinued in 2006 and had no central capacity for reporting, managing water, or remotely accessing the irrigation system. Over the years, much of the communication wire had been damaged. The challenge was to retrofit and upgrade the system to conserve water and manage it efficiently across the complex landscape, especially in the Florida heat where water is a crucial resource.

Transport Scotland was seeking to improve its real-time traffic information and network management capabilities. The agency was interested in third-party big data sources but found that many providers only offered access to the data without a user-friendly interface for extracting value from it. The challenge was to find a solution that not only provided access to comprehensive traffic data but also offered an easy-to-use platform for analyzing this data. The agency was also looking to reduce its reliance on roadside infrastructure for traffic monitoring, which was concentrated in densely populated areas and lacked coverage in more remote parts of the country.

Experity, a dynamic Health Information Technology company, was formed from the merger of the two largest urgent care Electronic Medical Records (EMR) companies in the country. The merger led to a rapid expansion of personnel, office locations, software, and services, creating unique challenges for the security team. The team was tasked with protecting the company from loss events of any kind, requiring business continuity and standardization. The small security team was overwhelmed with the task of managing security operations and building resilience in their security program. The company's growth also meant that the security team needed a platform to vet alerts from the increasing number of employees and contractors. The existing Managed Detection and Response (MDR) platform was inadequate as it only monitored network and server activity and not endpoint activity.

Cencosud Colombia SA, a leading retail market player, was faced with the challenge of providing consistent services to its associates across all its stores in five countries - Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia. The company needed a solution that would enable it to maintain its regional retail market leadership while delivering excellent service to its customers. The challenge was to consolidate information regarding Cencosud’s customer loyalty program, sweepstakes, vouchers, and other promotional activities conducted by stores or groups of stores. The company also required a system that could provide 24/7 support in Portuguese and Spanish to approximately 7,000 end-users across all stores, including a procurement center in China.

Enpro Inc.'s customers, primarily beverage companies, rely on automated, high-speed filling lines that produce up to 2,500 items per minute per line. A key component of these lines is the vent tube, which is used to fill cans and bottles and vent out the carbonation-related gas. However, due to wear and tear, these vent tubes can occasionally fall off and into the cans and bottles, leading to safety and quality issues. The loss or damage of a vent tube during the filling process can result in large amounts of finished packaged product being discarded, as locating the missing vent tube is a costly and time-consuming process. Therefore, Enpro Inc.'s customers needed a reliable way to detect the presence or absence of a vent tube, eliminating the need for manual checks and potential line halts.

Tokenizz, a global real estate business, was facing significant communication challenges due to the multinational nature of its operations. Misunderstandings and conflicts were common due to language barriers and different linguistic norms. These issues were not only causing internal disruptions but were also costing the company financially, as miscommunication is known to cost small companies up to $420,000 per year. The company was losing track of conversations, finding it difficult to follow specific accents, and important information was getting lost in translation. Additionally, the process of manually taking notes during meetings was leading to further misunderstandings and disrupting the natural flow of meetings. Tokenizz was also struggling with task documentation and prioritization, which was causing both short-term and long-term problems.

Agile Talent, a company specializing in providing talent solutions, was facing a significant challenge in managing and recording critical information from their numerous daily meetings. The back-and-forth conversations, clarifications, and note-taking during these meetings were proving to be time-consuming and inefficient. The manual note-taking process was not only overwhelming but also led to the loss of crucial information. This loss of data was impacting their business productivity, causing delays in processes, and resulting in wasted time. The company was in dire need of a solution that could efficiently record and manage the information from their meetings without the need for manual intervention.

The company faced currency issues around conversion and consolidation, processing issues due to everything taking place outside the system, and a complete lack of mobile functionality. Hallstar also needed the ability to tap into advanced analytics and web-based services, integrate with third-party packages, and ultimately remove siloes from its workflows. 

The case study revolves around an international beverage distributor that delivers soft drinks to over 700,000 vending machines in one of its territories. The company was facing challenges in optimizing its logistics network, which if improved, could lead to increased revenue, decreased fuel costs, and a reduced carbon footprint. The organization was also struggling with its data architecture, which was not supporting fast and efficient daily routing computations. The need for a solution that could enhance their delivery operations and support faster, more efficient daily routing computation was evident.

EFL S.A., a leading leasing company in Poland, was looking to upgrade their data warehouse system, a crucial component of their operations. The company was considering a full migration to Snowflake, an innovative data warehouse solution. EFL's data warehouse is large and complex, with multiple departments requiring access to different parts of it. The company wanted to verify the effectiveness of Snowflake's tools in managing this complexity. They also wanted to assess whether Snowflake could meet their needs in terms of functionality, performance, and cost-efficiency. It was important for EFL to get an independent expert opinion and not rely solely on the data and materials provided by the vendor. They chose Objectivity for this task, due to their successful past collaborations.

Wintrust IT officials wanted to enhance their data and voice networks. They reached out to top-tier providers for proposals that would help them build a best-in-class IT organization and an ecosystem of strategic suppliers to support the bank’s operations today and pave the way for continuing expansion.The organization needed a more effective, stable network to support continuing growth.

Because Xenit used Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gottschlag wanted a solution for application delivery that worked seamlessly with AWS and that was extensible to give Xenit customers an option for incorporating other public cloud solutions into their cloud portfolios. The solution also needed to make application delivery easier to manage and more cost effective.

Quantel Laser, a division of Lumibird and a global leader in laser technology, has been facing increasing challenges in meeting the evolving needs of its customers. The company, which develops solid-state lasers, laser diodes, and fiber lasers, has seen its customer needs become progressively more intricate over the years. The industry has shifted from a highly specialized technical field to one that powers a wealth of everyday essentials. The demand for more energy in a smaller size at a lower cost has pushed the company's skills to the max. The company's engineers have relied on Altium technology for decades to meet these demands. However, the advent of the global pandemic posed a new challenge for the company, as it impacted their offices in France and the United States, disrupting their design team's ability to work together.

MindMax, a company that partners with universities to increase enrollment, particularly among continuing education and adult learners, faced a significant challenge in scaling its customer base. The company's legacy analytics and BI solution required manual extraction of data from disparate sources, including Salesforce, Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, and Marketing Automation systems. This process was time-consuming and inefficient, making it difficult to create meaningful reports and dashboards that incorporated data from all these different sources. The company's VP of Technology, Brian DiScipio, and Senior Business Analyst, Kiersten Warendorf, recognized the need for a cleaner, faster way to empower their customers with data-driven insights. They knew that the full automation of BI and ETL through the creation of a modern data pipeline and stack was crucial for the company's growth.

The University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) Sunswift Racing team, led by Professor Richard Hopkins, has been competing in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge since 1996. This race, which spans the Australian Outback from Darwin to Adelaide, showcases solar-powered, custom-built cars. The Sunswift Racing team, made up of 45 undergraduate students across multiple engineering disciplines, has designed and built 6 solar-powered hybrid vehicles. Their most recent vehicle, the VIolet, ranked 2nd in the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge and set a new Guinness World Record for Lowest Energy Consumption in 2018. However, the team faced a setback when the 2021 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.