Member Spotlight | Improving & Adi Raina
Read Time 3 MinutesBusiness: a full stack IT consulting company
Background: Improving’s Palm Beach County office was formerly part of Innovative Architects, an IT consulting company acquired by Dallas-based Improving in January 2019.
Services: cloud strategies, interactive design, custom development, integration services, strategic consulting, collaborative solutions, data engineering, agile training and coaching.
No. of employees: 600+ across North America
Website: Improving.com
Trust Changes Everything – it’s Improving’s tagline.
Improving is a technology management and consulting services firm rooted in its deep commitment to establishing trust within its team and with clients, partners and communities. Trusted advisorship is what the company offers.
“With any IT project, we can fit in anywhere,” explains Adi Raina, Principal Consultant with Improving in Palm Beach County. “We are also one of the largest trainers of agile and scrum in the nation. We are doing multiple projects from mobile to data or consulting.”
As Covid-19 began its deadly spread in the U.S. forcing businesses to close or go fully remote, many of Improving’s clients found themselves needing help with the challenge of working virtually for the first time and making sure the remote environment was cyber secure so they could resume their businesses, said Raina, who has engineering degrees from Georgia Tech and Southern Polytechnic State University and has worked for Improving for 12 years.
During the pandemic, a lot of businesses have leaned on Improving’s trusted advisorship more than ever. “They are saying I have so many things going on I am glad I can hand this off to you and focus on the other 10 things. Everybody’s job has changed and everyone is wearing multiple hats in business and in their personal lives,” said Raina.
Navigating these COVID times has put a spotlight on the importance of communication and relationship building. Some businesses have had to delay projects, but Improving has helped them keep learning and innovating, Raina said. “We ask them, how can we help you so you are not suffering operationally and also not suffering by not having any innovation.”
As a conscious capitalist company, Improving is responsible for its customers’ success, Raina said. “We could say ‘you can do it a different way,’ which might reduce our hours but it is better for you,” he said. “We are the managers they trust enough to say ‘we trust you to lead our teams’.”
Education and training is a big part of what Improving’s team does, and during COVID, they found was that by offering education sessions virtually they could help more people, including distributed team members in Europe and Asia, as the sessions could be viewed anytime.
Take Improving’s popular lunch and learns. for instance. Topics have ranged from how to run a good Zoom meeting, to talking about new software upgrades on the horizon, to providing specific learning opportunities.
“We try to cover awesome new topics and technology. We put our lunch and learns online for everyone to see them free,” Raina said. “The feedback has been tremendous. We are going to continue some version of this going forward. We are giving clients a chance to request topics too.”
Giving back to the community is also key pillar of Improving. Raina, who moved to Palm Beach County with Improving in 2017, serves on the board of Palm Beach Tech, where he is the Community Chair, and has served on the School Advisory Council of South Olive Elementary School since 2018.
Raina said the company looks forward to getting back to participating in local in-person events and good old-fashioned networking when the time is right. That includes resuming its “Game Nights,” where Improving invites the community in for a night of board games. No technology required.