Our Co-Founders, Monica Ly & Howard Gu, featured in the AFR this week sharing their thoughts on AI, EdgeRed's differentiators, and our approach to hiring.
The consultant telling business what not to do with AI
Professional services editor
Jul 9, 2024 – 4.30pm
Data analytics expert Monica Ly says there are only two reasons an organisation should use artificial intelligence, and when they call wanting help implementing the disruptive technology she checks what they want to achieve.
“A lot of the time I ask them ‘why?’” said Ms Ly, the co-founder of data consultancy EdgeRed.
“There’s really only two things that every single project should deliver: one is cost savings, two is revenue generation. And if it’s not tied to either, why are you doing this?”
Business leaders across sectors are under growing pressure from their boards and bosses to make sure they don’t get left behind by rivals using new AI capabilities. They know they want to adopt AI, but often not how or why.
Ms Ly said big productivity gains were possible, but these typically came in the back-office and operations, rather than the more commonly expected examples of using generative AI tools like ChatGPT to create content.
Faster, cheaper data advisory
During this time, the boutique analytics consultancy has built a client roster that includes data science company Quantium (where Ms Ly and her co-founder Howard Gu met), ASX-listed telco and internet provider Superloop and the Australian Football League.
The firm’s elevator pitch is that it can deliver data projects cheaper and quicker than larger consultancies.
“We are more competitive when it comes to pricing, there’s no doubt about that,” Ms Ly said. “We don’t have all the crazy expenses, like the fancy offices, that the likes EY and Deloitte have. That means that we can operate at a lower rate and still make a decent margin.”
She claims EdgeRed’s “speed to delivery” is faster because “the way we approach things is we don’t pitch you the Mercedes of the project, trying to sell you all the bells and whistles. What we do is something more pragmatic.”
‘Quickly build and iterate’
This approach, to quickly build what is often called a “minimum viable product”, means the client will usually start to see something worthwhile within weeks.
“We iterate through the work to add incremental value in areas that matter to the client. And that way, when we’re building things on top of the initial concept, we’re building things that the client actually cares about,” Ms Ly said.
The firm tends to hire graduates straight from university and trains them up.
“They’ve either finished their bachelor, master’s or sometimes PhD. They’re usually from a STEM background, like actuarial or mathematics, we’re not fussed.
“More recently there’s been some hires with data analytics degrees, that wasn’t a thing in the past ... and then we also got some really strange ones, like the personal trainer turned data analyst, or people with psychology degrees.”
The firm has begun using a custom version of ChatGPT, dubbed ERICA (EdgeRed Internal Chatbot Assistant) to help clients find answers to standard queries themselves.
“So [ERICA] acts like ChatGPT but it’s trained on [the client’s] internal information,” Ms Ly said.
“Right now, we’re doing the pilot phase. There’s a particular team that gets asked questions, day in and out day out, about operational things.
“They can now access the tool to ask questions in plain English themselves. It makes their internal data accessible to everybody across the business, not just the specialists.”
A major milestone 🎉
We are so excited to be featured in the reputable The Australian Financial Review. A big thank you to Edmund Tadros. Edmund is a well respected Professional Services editor, he recently won the Gold Walkley for his coverage of the PwC tax leaks.
Read more about our AI solutions in our latest blogs,
Interested in joining our team?
Applications for FY25 Graduates are now open! We are looking for Graduate Data Analysts and Graduate Data Engineers to join our team. Applications close 31st July 2024.
About EdgeRed
EdgeRed is an Australian boutique consultancy specialising in data and analytics. We draw value and insights through data science and artificial intelligence to help companies make faster and smarter decisions.
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our latest data analysis and reports directly to your inbox.
Comments