Deep Data at Macys: Searching Hierarchical Documents for eCommerce Merchandising
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKxQBechNiE
Grid Dynamics was a high rate contractor who netted high dollar amount from Macy's San Francisco due to critical dependency on them. In summary most of the innovation was actually spearheaded by Grid Dynamics contractors – what a pathetic state of affairs. I truly commend the new CTO (Naveen) to shut down San Francisco.
Grid Dynamics does not belong in San Francisco Bay Area except for continued existence of dynosaur tech operation like Macy's or Kohl's ... Their billing rate is extremely high and they kicked back to CTO. I am very happy now a days that Corona will take out millions of such money s—er leeches out of business.
Each vendor is making money on clients. Some vendors at the same time delivering value and making their champions successful. Other vendors are delivering value ten times slower. Each CTO making his own choice
Grid Dynamics Goes Public through Business Combination with ChaSerg Technology Acquisition Corp.
March 5, 2020, 4:00 pm
Combined Company Renamed Grid Dynamics Holdings, Inc. and will Trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under Ticker GDYN
Grid Dynamics Holdings, Inc. ("Grid Dynamics"), a leader in enterprise-level digital transformation, together with ChaSerg Technology Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: CTAC) ("ChaSerg"), a special purpose acquisition company, today announced that they have completed their previously announced business combination. The business combination was approved at a special meeting of stockholders of ChaSerg on March 4, 2020, and closed on March 5, 2020. Upon completion of the business combination, Grid Dynamics Holdings, Inc. common stock and warrants are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol "GDYN" and "GDYNW," respectively, commencing March 6, 2020. At the time of closing, Grid Dynamics had a market capitalization of approximately $660 million.
"Follow the money."
Exactly ... Macy's did not need Grid Dynamics. It was a conduit for money laundering for some folks.
Once again though the question remains. Why hire a company to take years building something that is already COTS at less cost? You could have implemented the same strategy sooner for less cost but instead you built something. Follow the money.
Contractor (Grid Dynamics) driven / led innovation is not the model to adopt in San Francisco. It is better to move to Georgia ... Good Riddance Adios Amigos!!
" There is viable economic model to support innovation in Bay Area at low cost. (Startup survives on that)"
Right. Walmart Labs, in Sunnyvale, is an example of ecommerce taking advantage of the rich tech innovation culture in Silicon Valley. Now if you want to have a boring but functional website like Home Depot, then Georgia is your go-to place.
I suspect San Francisco managers were getting kickback too. CTS is famous for kickbacks. It is too easy to pass kickbacks in the form of cash or deferred cash ...
Now the world class CTO (in HAL's language) will pass on all the innovation work to his Indian friends for big kick backs. GD or CTS or TCS every body has his favorite. If you really care about tech innovation you should have hired and expanded more in silicon valley. There is viable economic model to support innovation in Bay Area at low cost. (Startup survives on that)
People shutting SF office for saving cost and saying that we cant compete with Amazon for same day delivery shouldn't talk about Innovation
However high quality GD contractors have – they will happily take money wasting project coding when there are open source options available. This kind of attitude is not compatible with high rate / long duration money-blood s—ing engagement with Macy's. Macy's went down because GD s—ed Macy's dry over several years.
the difference is you only need 10 minutes to explain to a GD engineer and a couple days later, they will finish it and unblock many people. with the contractors that Naveen wants... you will need several meetings to repeat the same concepts and they still won't know how to do it. every meeting, they will tell you there is some blocker that they are waiting for some other person/team to resolve. and until then, they can't do anything else and they will just waste time, blaming others for their slow progress. weeks and months will pass like this. everyone here knows what I'm talking about.
You have to understand GD worked in onshore-offshore model for these projects. Its unfair to compare with other contractors and FTE who are in staff augmentation mode. Its number game and in past every leader had their favorite vendor which were taken care of.Also if 50hrs is answer to impact, there are folks who are in office beyond 60 hrs per week and still cant whiteboard their project architecture. Everyone is replaceable - vendor or an individual. Not that GD has 100% delivery rate.
Skava, GD, Nissum, GSPANN had created the first version of a software getting paid by Macy's. Then they turned around and created the 2nd and better version of that software and sold it to other clients. This is a normal and smart practice for consulting companies.
They also benefited from the hyper growth at Macys.com circa 2007-2015, as well as many FTEs inside Macy's. High tide lift all boats.
"I do not believe there was any software worth stealing ever created at Macy's Tech."
I wholeheartedly agree.
I do not believe there was any software worth stealing ever created at Macy's Tech.
Macy's tech employees are not Google materials and the gap is growing wider with Naveen's at the helm. Sometimes you need outside help for the more high tech work and leave the low level toiling to Infosys, TCS, etc.
Not all contractors/consultants are the same. GD specializes in Platform and ML. They're very good at what they do. Even Naveen can't get rid of them though he tried. If he's smart, he will drop his ego and consult GD on the different ML use cases they can help with.
I managed GD folks before. They can be obtuse, hard to communicate, self-righteous, but most of them worked hard, loved to solve hard problem, and built things the right way. Most Macy's FTEs couldn't keep up and blamed it on GD.
Here are approximate off-shore rates for these contractors. Remember, you get what you paid for:
GD: $60-$90 (Russia, Ukraine)
Nissum, GSPANN: $30-$50 (India)
Ave Code: $50-$80 (South America)
Infosys, TCS: $15 (India)
See the difference? See why Naveen wants to move everything to Infosys, etc? I'm sure he'll get some kickbacks too. It's part of the game.
Get used to work with low end contractors. This is what life feels like working for a non-performing executives who treat you like a cost center. 8 out 10 times from now on, any changes will be to lower cost while trying to keep the decrease in quality as minimal as possible. At whose expense? You.
keystone logic, a contractor that was used at Macy's Johns Creek, pretty much stole the supply chain software and made a few people very rich. Now they go to other customers with the same software created at Macy's Tech and tout it as their own. Indian contracting companies will s— every ounce of the companies advantage and money.
Someone should seriously look into this b—s— every single contractor is doing, its no wonder they are moving everything to Atlanta, more of their buddies are there to steal the wheels.
Whoever you are that’s commending Naveen, you have no clue what’s cooking in Atlanta for the so called Indian consulting companies - Infosys, TCS and another. Naveen will head and make them rich and triple his income in the process. Wait and watch! He’s not stupid to be here to just slog and go. He and Jeff will let Macys sink and s— up everything to the last penny.
Considering one set of contractors made sub 20 hr and the other over 100 hr I’d hope the hire paid one turned out better work
Good for them. Rich = American Dream. Accomplished.
GD only made up a small portion of macys sf. yes, they used the work they did at macy's for their other clients as well. but at the same time, none of the indian contracting firms could have done the work with the same quality and speed. i've worked with both. GD contractors in sf work around the clock, easily 50+ hrs/week. Indian contractors, on the other hand, are 11am-4pm and never provide the answers you need