Case Study Application Development

A major (international) company in the financial securities industry thought if they could better understand how they won and lost bids in the securities resale auctions, they could fine tune their bidding process to win more business at lower costs.

This conversation with the client happened during a sales call to the client where they were explaining why they DIDN'T need a recruiter! They had no IT budget and everything they needed had to be provided from their out-of-state home office. The client was trying to figure out how they could implement an application locally for reporting and analysis; which was not captured by national IT support.

During our discussions - we were shown their myriad of spread sheets currently used to manage the process - and listened to how they had so many issues with versioning control. At the heart of it - it was clear that moving from spreadsheets to a SQL database would not be an overly complicated procedure - and once in the database, we could begin implementing rules and writing code to help project the future based on the past. Of course - this is a gross simplification of a project that grew to a third generation level, filling a need to support the home office - and managed by PB&A.

The project DID optimize the clients' market profitability. It was entirely managed by PB&A and staffed by PB&A. We were very creative with the client in financing the project in a way that did not violate any of their business rules, because they weren't supposed to have an IT staff.