Ahmed Talaat:
My name is Ahmed Talaat and I'm a partner at BDO. I'm joined today with one of my favorite clients, Asher. I'm joined by Mr. Brent Banda, who is the VP of marketing and strategy, as well as Feras Aslan, who is the Chief Information Officer. Welcome to BDO.
Brent Banda:
Thank you.
Feras Aslan:
Thank you.
Ahmed Talaat:
Can you tell us a little bit about the unique work that you do in the market?
Brent Banda:
Asher runs charitable home lotteries for healthcare foundations. Most of our clients are hospitals. We raise millions of dollars per year for these hospitals to use as they serve their patients. We have offices in Australia and United States and Canada, and we own the technology that we run our lotteries on. It has to be secure and handle high transaction volumes and be able to operate in a heavily regulated environment.
Ahmed Talaat:
Can you share with us some of the challenges you were having before you engage with BDO?
Brent Banda:
Our business needs were such that our internal technology team needed some support to address the scalability and the reliability of the system that we were operating. We needed a consulting partner that was able to bring some new skills to the table and also help our internal people do their best work as they worked through some of the challenges.
Ahmed Talaat:
Were there non-technology specific challenges that you were dealing with as well when you engaged with us?
Brent Banda:
There were. We had a leadership gap with our technology function in our business at the time, and we needed a consulting firm that was able to step in, provide that leadership, as well as management support for our technology employees and also the skilled employees that the consultant was bringing to the table, and this was a period of time before we had hired Feras as our CIO.
Ahmed Talaat:
Brent, what led you to choose BDO? What stood out?
Brent Banda:
We had evaluated four consulting firms before we made the decision to go ahead with BDO. BDO brought deep expertise, which we recognize that we required, and your team also brought a collaborative approach and we recognized it right away. It stood out as we were trying to understand our options. It fit very well with the way that we make decisions in our business and what we were looking for. It was clear that BDO was going to work with us more as a partner than as a vendor. In the early stages, we worked closely with you to co-develop the project scope, and that was very important to us. We appreciated the transparency and the candor that you and your team brought before we started the engagement, and it continued throughout the engagement as well. I think it's fair to say that your team integrated seamlessly with our internal technology employees.
Ahmed Talaat:
That's great to hear. Tell us, what stood out in terms of how we showed up for you and how we engaged with you?
Brent Banda:
Right from the start, we were in a situation where we needed interim leadership from BDO as our consultant in the situation because we were in a situation between leaders. This was before Feras was hired as our CIO.
Feras Aslan:
As I stepped into the role of CIO at Asher, I found a well-functioning technology team with short-term objectives and long-term roadmap items with clear outcomes of what the team is able to do. Execution excellence and project management was a great skill that BDO brought to the table, which enabled our team to deliver on time and on budget. We also had the BDO team coach and up-skill our junior staff to a level where they're comfortable working with the technology.
Ahmed Talaat:
So you've been working with us for over a year now, and we're still engaged in various ways. Can you share a little bit of the impact that we've had on your business and technology?
Feras Aslan:
BDO was able to help us build an enhanced lottery management program. BDO brought in a human-centric development approach to technology, which focused on customer experience. This helped us tremendously in removing friction from the process. BDO also enabled our internal teams with standards, best practices, improving their skills. BDO also strengthened Asher's technology, operations and decision-making abilities.
Brent Banda:
All of this helped us to service our clients better, the charities, the hospital foundations that we work with, and it resulted in superior fundraising success. The results materialized from all of this work.
Ahmed Talaat:
That's awesome to hear. Thank you for sharing that. In closing, one of the things we aspire to do is to leave a lasting impact on our clients. Is there anything that you could share with us about how we impacted your business in the way we work together?
Feras Aslan:
Great question, Ahmed. So BDO, were not just vendors. BDO, were coaches, advisors, and partners.
Brent Banda:
What stands out to me isn't just the technical work that was completed, it was done well, it was what we needed, but also the way that your team worked with our team. As Feras said, you were a coach, a mentor. There's definitely leadership that we benefited from. It was a partnership and it was exactly what we needed at that point in time.
Ahmed Talaat:
My last question to you, we aspire, as part of our strategy and as part of how we work with our clients, to show up with kindness, how did this manifest, if at all, in the way we engaged with you?
Brent Banda:
It's interesting to think about the working relationship. Yes, you and your team were kind, you were gentle with us when you needed to be, but you were also appropriately... You pushed us when we needed to have a push, and I think that balance was exactly what we needed through the engagement.
Feras Aslan:
Yeah, kindness was really important, especially with the young technology team that we had that needed mentorship and guidance along the way. Most of the time, you were kind, easygoing, showing them what to do, but sometimes we needed to be tough and you showed up. Thank you.
Ahmed Talaat:
Brent, Feras, thank you so much for your kind words, for sharing your story with us. It's been a delight to work with you. We look forward to continuing to engaging with you and adding value to your business.
Feras Aslan:
Thank you, Ahmed. Thank you, BDO. We do appreciate your commitment to our success. We are now on the path of self-sufficiency. Thank you.