NEC is a Fortune 1000 information and communications technology company based out of Irving, Texas. The organization has been in business for over 120 years and currently boasts more than 114,000 employees in over 50 countries. With over 47,000 patents, NEC is on a mission to create value for all members of society, orchestrating a brighter world via innovation and collaboration.
The pace of change has reached breakneck speed. With technology trends continually evolving, even the most forward-thinking companies must keep up if they want to stay ahead of the competition.
So when NEC saw a pressing opportunity to roll out an innovative new solution on behalf of its customers, the company knew it needed to act fast. But bandwidth constraints were impacting the company’s ability to kickstart this initiative.
Instead of taking the arduous approach of finding and onboarding a full-time employee to lead the development of a new solution or adding to an employee's already full plate, NEC decided to take the alternative approach. It decided to explore the on-demand talent model in the search for a highly skilled, experienced interim analytics solutions architect.
Before engaging an on-demand talent partner to source the right candidate, NEC decided to first align on the qualities it was looking for in this role. Ideally, the right candidate would be able to hit the ground running and see the project from start to finish as part of the global strategy team.
It was also important for the ideal candidate to also have rich domain application knowledge encompassing profiling, risk management, and access control, coupled with vertical expertise in the public sector.
Peer recommendations in the enterprise space are gold. So after hearing about Graphite's capabilities and in-depth network of top-tier independent subject matter experts, the hiring manager at NEC decided to engage an Account Executive (AE) to learn more.
Once connected, the AE gave the hiring manager a tour of the platform. They also described the process for starting a project and onboarding an expert on the platform, the messaging features they can use to communicate with experts in real time, and the ability to pay them directly within the platform.
Excited by the prospect of finding someone fast for the project, and the ability to manage it all in one place, the hiring manager set up a follow-up meeting with the AE to nail down the specifics of the role.
It was crucial for the hiring manager that the on-demand expert boasted significant large-scale solutions architect expertise, having previously worked on large double/triple-digit projects at an enterprise level. The ideal candidate also needed to have in-depth knowledge of analytics solutions and of big data, AI, and machine-learning platforms.
Fifteen highly qualified, experienced solutions architects applied in a short space of time. The AE narrowed it down to 10 and presented it to the hiring manager, who ended up contacting two of these experts via Graphite's messaging features.
After reviewing each candidate, the hiring manager decided to onboard a high-tech executive with experience working as an enterprise software architect on large-scale projects. The experts' background stood head and shoulders above the competition — boasting consulting experience at companies like AT&T and GE healthcare.
The expert has also worked in senior cybersecurity roles at Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank and was the Co-Founder/CEO at Cienaga Systems, which specializes in providing enterprise-grade autonomous cybersecurity solutions.
The expert met with key internal stakeholders to get the necessary background information on the project. Insights from those conversations were used to:
After setting up the project, presenting the business case, and demonstrating its value to NEC's customers, the expert began creating a solution design outline. The expert then collaborated with internal stakeholders to successfully deliver the solution architecture.
Despite the project's inherent complexity, the expert and NEC collaborated seamlessly throughout the process via weekly team conference calls and milestone check-ins. Graphite checked in periodically throughout the engagement to answer any questions, provide clarity on expected outcomes, and ensure the was delivered on time.
Time is of the essence when you're launching a new product to capture market share. But when NEC found itself with resource constraints, it turned to Graphite to find an independent solutions architecture consultant to help them bring its product to the global stage.
Eager to onboard a team that could achieve results within six months, the client and their dedicated Graphite account manager partnered to determinze the specifications for each of the four roles. They were:
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