French & Company is a C2C consulting firm providing ad-hoc expertise in business intelligence and data analytics including IBM Cognos, Oracle OBIEE/OAS, QLIK, custom SQL solutions, and data migration/automation.
Get the expertise your business needs when you need it with the flexibility of a corp-to-corp partnership meaning you only pay for what you use and avoid the cost of long-term contracts or full-time hires.
Delivering Solutions with Integrity
Q&A with Principal Consultant
I’m Chris French, the principal consultant of French & Company, Inc. My career experience spans 28 years across the spectrum of information technology and industry. You may learn more about me here. These are questions I’ve been asked lately:
Q: How is AI impacting your arena? A: AI is an incredible partner for people with my skillset and I work with AI every day in some capacity. I’ve set up local AI environments and have trained LoRAs on specific data to learn how to best bridge the gap between LLMs and company specific data. General purpose Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on vast data but this is generally not your data – your data is stored in relational databases such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. There is not a simple plug-n-play tool that turns your legacy data environment into an AI powered analytics platform. Oracle is working on it with SELECT AI, Microsoft is integrating AI into its products, QLIK and other BI software are using AI to map database schemas. The landscape is shifting and my job is to shift with it. Here are my more in-depth thoughts on AI.
Q: What’s your value-add? A: I began my career working with Cognos at the beginning of the Business Intelligence revolution. I’ve grown with it and other BI tools and have spent my life in various data environments ranging from government agencies with massive databases, corporate conglomerates feeding data from numerous systems into data warehouses, to smaller operations looking to leverage their data to their advantage. I bring a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience to the table.
Q: Why you instead of a large consulting company? A: It really comes down to what you need. I’m a specialist. My clients call me in when they have a data project – whether creating automated data feeds or building executive dashboards or custom SQL solutions – and I show up and deliver. I get to know you, your company, your software environment and I give it to you straight. If I can do it, I do it. If I cannot, I’ll let you know right away and, if possible, put you in contact with someone who can.
Q: What type of projects do you take on? A: I’m working one long-term contract with fixed hours so with the remaining hours I fill with short-term projects or ad-hoc support. Typically a client sends me a laptop or remote access to their system and when they need something, they email or call, I do the work and send an invoice. It’s a win-win where they get high-level specialist but only pay for when they need it as opposed to keeping full-time people on payroll.
