Since the launch of Optilogic, we’re beyond excited to see the influx of new users and what they’ve been able to accomplish in our cloud-based platform. As optimizations continue to get more advanced, we’ve decided to assemble a core team to provide the support users will need to make the most awesome applications. Introducing Mark Outslay, Head of Professional Services at Optilogic. Mark has a 20 year career in supply chain technology and consulting. He works out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

We interviewed Mark about how his vision for services will help Optilogic customers and partners experience more value on the platform.

Q: How will Optilogic’s Professional Services benefit customers and partners?

What differentiates us from other platforms is that we provide customers and users direct access to Python models so they can take a model and tailor it to their specific needs. With this mission in mind, our Professional Services team is here to support customers and partners with both the platform and their in-house skills so that they’re successful with the technology. For our customers, we’re here to help them develop and implement their dream models with the right types of services. Ideally we want to teach them how to efficiently create models themselves so customers don’t feel the need to shell out huge sums of money each time their needs for a model change. As for partners, we look forward to powerful collaborations. With our team being equipped with people who are highly skilled in data analysis, operations research, visualization, and Python – just to name a few – we’d like to help partners build their skills and return amazing results for their clients.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about how you’re building up the team of experts?

A: We’re finding folks that are experts in Python, Operations Research, and are highly skilled in Visualization UI. Now, having all of these skills is rare. Specifically, it’s the advanced solving piece of the puzzle that’s tougher to build expertise in. Organizations looking to build custom applications might not have this sort of talent in-house. So we’re taking time to build up our team and making sure we’ve got the right people. Because at the end of the day, we know organizations are going to look to us for expertise in visualizing and utilizing their models.

Q: What types of offerings are available through the Professional Services team?

A: We tailor our services to the needs of the client. This includes project delivery, advisory, and education. For project delivery, we’re talking start to finish – meaning we’ll help scope the project, define goals and deliverables, deliver on the objectives, and guide the client through to the end, building up their competencies along the way. On the advisory side, we help clients select the right optimization and simulation approaches as well as do the heavy lifting on model set up, customization, and solver tuning. Finally, we offer education and training to help clients both navigate the platform and build up their in-house skills. We’re continuing to build out our services, but the bottom line is that we’re here to help clients become successful, however, they need us.

Q: You’ve done a couple of pilot projects so far. How have those been going?

A: We’ve been working with early adopters on a few initial models, and I’m happy to say that our clients are enthusiastic about the results so far. A lot of what we bring is the ability to do rapid prototyping with various scenarios. For our customers, time to insight by developing agile model building is a key KPI. In addition to Applied Research support, we’re helping build out applications, tailoring algorithms, and solving hard problems that can’t be solved with out-of-the-box solutions. While our API technology enables users to build our applications however they would like, it can be a bit daunting. So we’ve been providing starting points and an analytical roadmap so customers can stay on the right path.

Q: What’s on the near-term horizon for the Professional Services team?

A: We’re excited to collaborate with more customers! Our team is closely tied to the Product team, so while we continue to work with customers to solve tough problems, we’re also using our engagements to enhance the product itself. Lots of exciting things are on the horizon for Optilogic!