How Consulting Firm With Zero Coders Builds Software for Highly Regulated Industries

Unlike typical consulting firms, Vision to Action (V2A) goes beyond simply providing clients with business advice. As their name implies, they deliver “implementable solutions.”   

With highly regulated industries to serve in multiple locations and numerous digital transformation tools to deliver alongside strategies, V2A knew they needed to forgo legacy systems for custom applications that accommodate their business model.

But here lies the challenge — V2A only has 50 employees, none of whom are coders.  

Here’s how a small consulting firm with zero technical developers uses Caspio’s low-code platform to help clients drive massive business goals from vision to action.

Schedule a free consultation to see how Caspio helps consultancy firms build custom database applications without coding.

Creating Implementable Solutions With Low Code

V2A helps clients achieve their unique business goals through “strategic planning, profit improvement, restructuring and integration services.” And instead of merely handing companies a ready-made action plan, V2A works collaboratively with their clients, believing management teams should play an active role in building their strategy.

Launched in 2004, the management consultancy firm has expanded to three locations: Miami, FL in the US, San Juan in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. They work with a variety of industries, including healthcare, financial services, government and utilities.

Because they had no unified communication system, and their assets were initially spread across different platforms, V2A struggled to collaborate effectively with clients.

Many of their partners also had limited IT resources, preventing them from developing the recommended solutions. While some off-the-shelf software have the potential to serve a variety of businesses, they often fall short of addressing the unique challenges of V2A’s clients. All parties need to make significant adjustments to fully utilize the software, too. As a result, adapting to the technology consumes both time and energy.

At one point, they needed a time-stamping tool to determine the processing time of documents. “We experimented with internal tools that we developed with MS Access, but we had multiple locations,” shared Rene Yamin, V2A executive director.

Vision to Action knew they needed an online database to unify all their assets and help clients accelerate their digital solutions. That’s exactly what Yamin searched online and how he found Caspio.

Winning the ‘Hunger Games’ for IT Resources

Many of V2A’s clients used outdated systems that overburdened their IT departments.

Yamin and his team usually spend two or three months collaborating with a client to design new processes and identify what areas to automate. By the time they’re done, they almost always hit a wall with IT.

“IT would come up and say, ‘Well, how are we going to do it? We only have ten guys who can do that, and we outsource everything else. This is our budget, and this is our list and we do a Hunger Games type of selection of things and you’re not in,’” he quipped.           

Things improved when they migrated from Access and other outdated systems and to adopt Caspio.

They now build prototypes or full-scale custom applications for clients in just a short period, without having to modify processes to accommodate the software or queue the project with IT.

“It makes our consulting process a little bit more agile,” Yamin said.

Digitally Transforming Clients in Regulated Industries

Because they work with clients in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services, they use Caspio’s compliance edition to ensure data security. “Caspio takes care of the infrastructure and all the security with it, and we take care of everything else,” Yamin said.

Here are some of the applications they’ve built on Caspio so far:

Credit Origination for Financial Services

V2A designed a commercial credit application process where companies sought a line of credit or term loans, and built an app for the entire workflow on Caspio. The new system lessened appraisal ordering time from 34 days to 22 days and reduced review time from 125 days to 22 days. It also increased reviewer productivity from 11 appraisals monthly to 17. The client ran a $4 billion portfolio on that Caspio-powered app.

Enrollment Processing for Healthcare

V2A created a new venture from what was initially a consultant project. They collaborated with a healthcare provider in Florida, transformed their enrollment process for Medicare Advantage plans and enabled the HIPAA-compliant system on Caspio’s low-code platform. “This is a very good example of using Caspio for both as a consultant and as a business or startup,” Yamin said, highlighting the platform’s strength in quickly building proofs-of-concept (POCs).

Resource Management for Utilities/HR

V2A also built a portal they now use in their weekly partners’ meeting to check their recruitment pipeline and projects. Interviewees take the test and are evaluated inside the same portal. “We have the whole process there and we can make decisions quickly on the hiring process,” he elaborated. They’ve also developed capacity management tools that help water, telecom and other utilities companies maximize resources.

Culture of Continuous Improvement and Support

Yamin recounted how he received a call from Caspio Support five minutes after opening a trial account, asking if they need any help with their project. “That sent me a powerful message of what kind of support we will get from using the platform, which was important to us because, again, we’re not coders,” he said.

Aside from leveraging Caspio Support in finding technical solutions, Vision to Action also continuously works to upskill their staff.

Way back in 2012, they started hosting regular “Caspio-thons” or hackathons. Staff get divided into teams, choose problems they want to solve — internal or client-facing — and develop solutions using the platform. Their recruiting app and a client-facing POC are only some of the fruits of their hackathons.

“I encourage you to work on the cultural side because it’s also part of the adoption. Employees need tools and training. But more so, they need to all think in a way that solves problems quickly and implement solutions.”

Building Digital Solutions Without Coders

Despite having zero developers in their small firm, Yamin and the Vision to Action team continue to build digital transformation tools for their clients.

V2A leverages Caspio’s secure online database to consolidate data from multiple locations while ensuring compliance in highly regulated industries. They rapidly prototype proofs-of-concept using visual, point-and-click tools, helping their clients gain the software they need without the risks and costs of additional IT talent and infrastructure.

“Caspio is an empowering tool for our consultants,” Yamin said.

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