Consulting Magazine - November 2017

Maven Wave helps leading companies make the shift o digital and shorten the fuse to innovation. Maven Wave combines the expertise and discipline of top-tier consulting with the agility you’d expect from a cutting-edge technology firm. Partner Jeff Lee sat down with Consulting to discuss Maven Wave’s performance.

Consulting: What were the main factors that contributed to your firm’s growth?

Lee: Companies are seeking rapid digital innovation so they can disrupt markets and outpace competitors. Speed is crucial, but they are encumbered by legacy systems, processes, and behaviors, and financial resources for change can be limited. With the cloud, companies can jump immediately onto a robust, high-speed platform built to scale massively and tap into ready-made advanced capabilities in real-time analytics and beyond. They can refocus time and energy on value-creating activities, while only paying for what you use. It’s game-changing for companies of all size and stage.These companies seek consulting partners to make the leap and transform how they do business. Maven Wave helps them build capabilities to harness volumes of data and derive decision-making insights in real-time.

Consulting: How is this year
shaping up for your firm?

Lee: We are experiencing an exceptional year of growth, likely on the order of a 50 percent year-over-year increase. A good portion of this business is of a recurring nature, so it builds a foundation for continued growth into the future. Clients eager to progress their transformation plans are still initiating new projects right up through the end of the year.

Consulting: How would you describe your firm’s outlook for 2018? Where do you see the most opportunities?

Lee: The tide of customer movements toward cloud-based digital solutions is only accelerating; we’ve truly only seen the tip of the iceberg. The first movements have been onto SaaS applications such as Google’s G Suite and Salesforce, in addition to basic lift-and-shift data center utilities, such as cheaper cloud storage. We will continue to see growth in these areas.

Consulting: What would you say are your firm’s biggest challenges in 2018?

Lee: First, it will continue to be a fight for top talent and rapid technological advancements naturally create new areas of scarcity. Our growth trajectory requires sizable additions in people with new skills.

For Maven Wave, there is nothing
more pivotal to our success than the
caliber of our people. We expect to
bring aboard the most elite talents,
and we will be working diligently
to keep up with demand.

Consulting: What does being named one of Consulting’s Fastest Growing Firms mean to your firm, your employees and your clients?

Lee: It’s an honor, and we are very thankful. We also see it as validation that our formula is working. Exceptional talents plus digital solutions at the forefront of client demand equals growth. Our team members should be proud, because they earned this badge and they set the standard. When we pursue growth, our clients benefit because it propels us into the next frontiers of advancement, bringing new expertise and more cutting-edge solutions to bear.