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| FAQs about Harvest Technology Corporation |
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In the spirit of trying something new, we thought it would be interesting to offer a Q&A format in explaining who we are and what we do.
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| Q: What exactly do you do? | |
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A: We provide consulting services to financial services firms, targeting asset management, prime brokerage, fund administration, custody, and wealth management.
Not
surprisingly, our services and subject matter
expertise in financial services are in demand from
both buy-side and sell-side firms.
We offer services as a business analyst, bridging the gap between a business/product managers and their corresponding IT staff. In this role, we gather business requirements, develop prototypes, assess the usability of client solutions, review application architectures, and prepare roadmaps, and manage project execution. Typically, for such assignments, our senior business analysts work on-site with clients for the project duration. We are finding a demand for these business/domain skills from both buy-side and sell-side firms.
Our software development and systems integration work targets the buy-side. We are developing customized and integrated solutions, based on a component framework that we have built using Microsoft technologies (SQL Server, .NET, C#, C++, Excel, Pivot Table Services, Analysis Server, ASP, etc.) and select vendor products (e.g., BloombergTM). We have worked with many vendor products in the front, middle, and back office suite, and interfaced with many prime brokers, executing brokers, fund administrators, and other 3rd party vendors. We provide full support for all of the software solutions that we develop for our clients.
We don’t offer services in
QA, testing, mainframe technology, network
administration, or technical writing.
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Q: Do you develop software? | |
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A: Yes. We are developing our own software to target hedge funds and asset managers, in addition to doing programming work as a contractor for hire.
Our skill set in technology is quite extensive, encompassing Microsoft, Unix, SQL database, XML, .NET/C#, Java, C++, and many vendor products. We employ a database-centric, object-oriented approach to software development with leading edge technology, architecting ergonomic, modular, client-centric applications.
Harvest Technology framework components and packaged solutions are sold on an annual licensing fee basis. The work that we do for clients is done as a “contractor for hire” and becomes the property of our client, with licensing fees attached only to those components (if any) that we brought to the client. Please note that most of our software development work for the buy-side is done out of our New Jersey office, and then subsequently installed on the client’s network.
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Q: Are you a product vendor? | |
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A: No. We are seeing more demand from the buy-side for our ability to integrate and customize solutions than for generic products.
We do have a solution framework/approach for the buy-side that addresses the needs of Front-Office Trading, Risk Management, Consolidated Reporting, Investor Services, and a CFO/COO Toolkit for Operational Control/Risk. We are able to build rapid, customized solutions for each client using this framework. We charge annual license fees for the use of our components (based on what gets deployed) and per diem rates for our consulting/integration services. We are careful not to push any of our components on our clients, and instead offer them as part of our consultative approach to meet business objectives. Remember, we’re consultants, and our focus is on problem solving for our clients, not selling our framework.
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Q: Are you a general-purpose body shop, search firm, or a placement agency? | |
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A: No, but our clients do ask us to find skilled resources with domain expertise. We are often able to leverage our full-time staff and network of professional consultants to service our clients with such requests.
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Q: What is the size of your typical projects? | |
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A: Our client relationships usually last many years, consisting of a steady stream of project work. Many of our projects are 2-6 months in duration and range in price from $25K to $500K. We don’t accept any projects less than 1 month in duration or priced below $25K.
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Q: How many people work for your firm? | |
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A: Our staff
size varies based on our client workload. We have
a sizable network of professional consultants and
domain experts that work with us on client
engagements.
We are
currently hiring to add to our full-time
staff.
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Q: Do you work on-site with clients? | |
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A: Most
definitely. Our ability to work with traders, end
users, and product managers is one of our
strongest skills. Our sell-side clients often ask
us to talk to their customers in order to gather
intelligence and business requirements about their
service offerings.
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Q: Do you work on a fixed-price basis? | |
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A: No. Although we have done fixed-price work based on deliverables in the past, we, and our clients, have come to the joint conclusion that the best service model for consulting is based on “time and materials” pricing.
The success of technology projects is based wholly on building solutions that are aligned with business objectives and following a disciplined process in project execution – i.e., Requirements Definition, Prototyping, Analysis & Design, Data Modeling, and Application Architecture; the actual Software Development work is the least problematic phase of delivery. We believe that delivering business results is an iterative process to build the “right” solution with the “right” resources, not a marching exercise to travel on a straight line.
Our experience has taught us that fixed-price work ends up becoming a game of limiting scope and enforcing constraints, instead of fostering an iterative process of joint solution development with the client. We believe quite strongly that consulting, especially in financial services, is about working towards good outcomes. Fixed-price contracts shortchange clients and force consulting firms to find ways to preserve margins. For these reasons, and many others, we do not do fixed-price work. We are currently working on an article related to this topic that is likely to get published in a trade journal
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Q: What are your rates? | |
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A: Sorry, but we don’t publish our rates. Generally, our pricing is relationship-based, and our rates are well below that of management consultants, product vendors, and other general purpose software consultancy firms. Our premium resources (e.g., our CEO, our Directors) are priced commensurate with the depth of their experience in financial services and technology. We do not try to compete with the rates of offshore companies, given that our service offering is differentiated from their resource-based model. We have no overhead in our pricing, and we’re transparent about how we offer our services. Clients appreciate our approach and typically give us commitments that allow us to service them effectively with the “right” resources.
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Q: Why don’t you list your clients or have samples of your work on your web site? | |
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A: Much of our work is proprietary and we are
sensitive about protecting the confidentiality of
our client work. Our client list includes the top
sell-side and buy-side firms on the street.
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| About
Our Logo |
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Our Logo
Conceived by an independent branding
consultant and designed by a professional graphics
artist, our logo represents a path leading to the
future, guided by Harvest Technology. |
The logo symbolizes many important
characteristics about our company: |
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Trust | |
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Creativity | |
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Multi-dimensional
thinking | |
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Commitment to a
journey to the future | |
The choice of dark red for the path reflects our intensity.
The
choice of subtle shading in the path reflects our
ability to understand complexity.
The choice of yellow for our name
reflects our clarity. |
Our
Name
Our name, Harvest Technology, is
meant to evoke the auspicious image of harvesting. |
Our name is also a gentle suggestion to our clients to continue the process of using technology to deliver business results – with our help of course.
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