In the inaugural episode of the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast, host Kerry Boudreaux and producer Jim Ray discuss the podcast’s purpose, the value it aims to provide to listeners, and a brief overview of the expertise of the FourthSquare team. They highlight the importance of sharing knowledge, the significance of guest insights, and FourthSquare’s core differentiators in the market. They’ll also address the podcast’s accessibility across various platforms.
Chapters
00:27 Introduction to the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast
04:30 Upcoming Guests on the Podcast
08:40 Core Differentiators for FourthSquare
11:47 A Global Boutique IT Firm
15:00 Where to Find the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast
17:42 Conclusion
Episode 1:
Kerry Boudreaux
Hi and welcome to episode one of the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast. I’m excited to have with
me today our producer Jim Ray. Jim, good afternoon.
Jim Ray
What a good afternoon. It’s always good to talk to you, man. Are you pretty excited by now,
huh?
Kerry Boudreaux
I’m super excited, super excited, Jim. You and I go back a long way, gosh, 10 or 15 years? So
today, what I want to do is have just a brief conversation of what you, the audience member,
can expect to experience with the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast. We’re going to take a
50,000-foot view of that experience and just kind of lay the groundwork of where we’re going
and what we’re doing with this podcast.
Jim Ray
I think this is a great place to start because anytime you launch a new initiative like this, the
question is, well, as a viewer, as an audience member, what’s in it for me? And we’ve gone
through a pretty long development path here. We’ve involved the entire team in terms of trying
to put this together and figuring out how we provide value by taking complex IT issues and
breaking them down a little bit, while focusing on client challenges.
As an Oracle partner, we’ll explore the solutions and the capabilities that FourthSquare brings to
the market and how you couple that relationship for the benefit of your client. I think that’s a
fantastic approach. I’m looking forward to rolling out these episodes with you.
Kerry Boudreaux
Absolutely. You touched on a good point which is information, the people and the knowledge
base that we have here at FourthSquare. When I’m in front of our customers with our
consultants, I’m just amazed at how much benefit our customers get out of this knowledge
base. But we don’t get a lot of time in front of the customers because our customers are so
busy.
So how can we better share? How can we give an additional platform for our customers to go
and learn, to go and pick the brains of our experts that we have here at FourthSquare? And let
me tell you something, we have some of the best consultants that money can buy. But it’s not
only just our consultants and our team members.
In this podcast, I’m going to bring to you customers, live customers that we have who have
leveraged our knowledge and leverage the Oracle experience, the Oracle applications and
technology. We’ll discuss how they’ve leveraged all of that to improve their business and how
to create their sustainable business. We all want to be around long after we’re gone, right?
That’s kind of our legacy.
How are IT professionals, how are line of business professionals such as finance, HR, supply
chain experts, how are they leveraging IT to build their business and to transform their
business? And so we’re not only going to bring along customers, but we’re going to actually
bring on experts from our partner, Oracle, and bring in their knowledge as well.
Jim Ray
I think that’s a big part of this because before a firm makes this jump, this transition to bringing
in a new mission critical IT company, you want to know a little bit about them. You want to
know a little bit about their personality, that ethos as a business and the some of the players
that you may be interfacing with.
If you can do some of that due diligence and I think a platform like this where you guys are
having an open and candid conversations, that’s really going to help set the stage for anybody
that’s looking at making those transitions in the next year or two and wanting to find the right
partner. Having recorded a few of these episodes with you already, you really get a sense that
yeah FourthSquare is there.
So let’s talk a little bit about some of the some of the guests that we’ve got lined-up. I know you
recently recorded an episode with the CEO of the company, right?
Upcoming Guests on the Podcast
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, absolutely. Vinkat Kovela. You’re going to hear directly from him. He’s the Founder and
CEO of FourthSquare. He’s got 30 plus years of consulting under his belt. Not only that, but he’s
a what they call a Certified Chartered Accountant. That’s India’s equivalent to a CPA. He’s one
of those few people in that I’ve run across, in my 20 plus years of working in IT, who
understands the technology and understands the line of business. For example, a day in the life
of a finance director and how he or she can take technology and again, improve their life in the
finance world or even in HR. He fully understands the day of the life of an HR director because
he studied this and he’s worked in this area for so many years.
So, I’m excited to have him on as one of our first guests. Another guest we’re having is our
Senior Vice President of Alliances, Joe Tolod. He has spent years in the Oracle ecosystem. He
understands how to navigate, you know, that large organization to bring and extract value for
our customers. You’re going to hear his ideas and his understanding of how organizations are
embarking on their digital journey.
Jim Ray
I love how we titled that episode, “Navigating the Digital Journey.” And it’s really from a client’s
perspective; a customer perspective. That’s, again, the breadth and depth of experience your
consultants have. It really comes through in these types of discussions, because they’ve been
on the ground before. These guys have experience. They’ve seen multiple use cases. They draw
from that when they’re sitting in front of a new client or a prospective client. It’s a really
interesting format of a conversation that I hope is going to add a lot of insights and value for the
audience.
You’ve also got one recorded with Sanjay Venkatraman on Data and AI. That’s a pretty good
deep dive there.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, when you talk to CEOs around the world, they say their two most valuable resources are
their people and their data. We definitely wanted to build out a data practice because we know
that it’s going to be asked of us and very incumbent on us. And of course, AI, right?
Even though AI has been around for years and years. It’s this generative AI that’s this new shiny
object. It’s the talk of the town. Sanjay is an expert in AI and we couldn’t be more honored to
have him on our team and more privileged, if you will, to have somebody of his experience and
his understanding of AI and data on our team to build out that entire practice and to present
those innovations to our customers.
Jim Ray
Well, the fact is it’s not just the technology, but it’s how FourthSquare can actually partner with
a company to leverage the power of AI. It’s also to make sure they take a very staged approach
to integrating and implementing those new capabilities within the client. You guys always focus
on a long-term relationship. It’s not like, OK, it’s installed, we’re gone. You guys really value that
long-term relationship. And again, I think in these conversations it’ll become apparent.
Core Differentiators for FourthSquare
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, you’ve touched upon in the last couple of minutes two of what I consider our core
differentiators here at FourthSquare. Number one is that EXPERIENCE you talked about; that
expertise. Every one of your consultants have an average of 15 years of experience working with
Oracle, working in their field of expertise.
So, when they’re brought onto a project, you’re not going to hear, “We’ve never seen that” or
“We’ve never done that before.” I like to say, you don’t want your surgeon or your pilot to look
up and say, “Hmm, I’ve never seen or heard that before.” You’re not going get that with one of
our consultants.
Then the second core tenant, the second core differentiator that I want to highlight is our
APPROACH.
We don’t take the go live and go home approach with a project. Go live is just the beginning of
your digital journey. We want to be that partner there to walk side-by-side with you so you can
grow and mature with that new application or with that new piece of technology you’re
bringing on. Because in our business, as you well know, these are not one-year decisions.
They’re not two-year decisions. These are 10-year decisions that you’re making. These are
career decisions that you are making. You want to make sure you get it right and you have the
right partner to walk with you on this journey.
Jim Ray
That makes a lot and it rolls right into that third key differentiator, which is TRUST. You want to
talk about that just for a moment?
Kerry Boudreaux
Absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up.
These are mission critical projects. I mention this time and time again and you’ll often hear me
say, “We’re not delivering babies, but we are darn close to that with these projects.” Failure in
these projects is not an option. Absolutely not an option. And we at FourthSquare are very
happy to say that we’ve never had a failed implementation. We hang our hat on that. And when
you bring FourthSquare on board as a partner, they’ll always say there’s always a first, but I can
tell you on my watch, there’s not going to be a first when it comes to failed implementations.
Jim Ray
That’s something I think the audience wants to hear. They want to know your level of
commitment is there and again when you look at the educational approach you all take, when
you look at the tenure of your people and just the ethos which I think Venkat (the Founder and
CEO) really brought that out. He explained the personality and the philosophy of FourthSquare.
It really shines through in pretty much every touch point you guys have.
A Global Boutique IT Firm
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, absolutely. Unlike larger consulting firms like a Deloitte or an Accenture, they’ve got this
huge ship they’re trying to navigate, right? You think of them as more like an aircraft carrier.
Think of FourthSquare as more of like a smaller ship, a destroyer. We can turn on a dime. We’re
very nimble. But we’re very focused on what we do.
Most businesses need a more than a consultant. They need a partner who can change on the
dime. They don’t need a change order every time your blood pressure changes, right? And
those change orders, we know how much they can cost. I’m not saying we never do change
orders, but what I’m saying is that we are much more nimble, we are much more flexible in how
we go about working with your organization.
We are a global company. We are a global organization. We have resources here in the United
States. We’re headquartered in Dallas. But we have resources spread throughout the United
States. And we have resources located in Canada. We have a nice office in India that can do a lot
of the technical work that would otherwise, if we didn’t have that office, would be located here
in the US.
To be quite honest with you, we pass those savings along to our customers because we’re able
to do that. And not only that, but in India, they have highly technically skilled population. That’s
just the nature of who of those beautiful Asian-Indian friends are. They’re just highly technically
skilled. We tap into that knowledge base there. So yeah, we are a global company. We have
about 200-250 consultants that work on all of our various projects.
Jim Ray
Well, I think it’s important because as anybody that’s been through this type of an
implementation, you realize there are other capabilities or other needs. Once you get a good
feel for the capabilities of that partner whom you just brought in, there’s a natural evolution
into, hey, so could you also help here? Or what else can FourthSquare do for us? It’s just a great
testament to the type of business you guys do, the relationships formed and how you handle
the client from start to finish. It’s ongoing because again these are long-term relationships
typically, but again that’s just a credit to you guys at FourthSquare in terms of how you manage
the client how you manage the clients’ expectations and how you over deliver on those
commitments. Bravo to you guys.
Where to Find the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast
Kerry as we look at this podcast and as we go to launch, the question is always where are
people going to be able to find it? Well obviously they can go back to the website. It has a
Podcast page you can find that under Knowledge Base drop down the menu. There is a Podcast
tab there and it’ll be sprinkled throughout the site.
It’s also going to be available on LinkedIn. It’s going to be available on Spotify, iHeartRadio,
Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and many other places. In fact, we’re even uploading it to the
YouTube channel as a YouTube Podcast. These individual episodes are going to be everywhere.
The nice thing is you don’t have to listen to Episode 1 before proceeding to Episode 2. These are
standalone information and topically-focused conversations that hopefully will drive interest,
drive awareness, and lead to those types of engagements both the client and FourthSquare are
looking for.
Kerry Boudreaux
Like I said from the outset, this is a platform to share knowledge that I hope is informative. We
want you to be informed, but we also want it to be entertaining. We want it to be engaging.
We’re going to be bringing on some very interesting guests. I’ve already shared with you some
of our opening guests that we’re going to have in first few episodes. We’re super excited about
the guest lineup that we’re bringing on. I encourage everybody to stay tuned. Like you said,
follow us on LinkedIn, go to our webpage at FourthSquare.com. This is where you can find this
knowledge. It’s all about spreading the knowledge and our understanding, what we’ve learned,
our experience here at FourthSquare and our customers experiences.
There’s no better way or better person to hear from than an actual customer who’s sitting in
your shoes; you the audience’s shoes. They either started their journey or they’re well into their
journey. They’re going to be sharing with you a lot of what we did right, a lot of what they did
wrong and what they would do different.
You know, not everybody does everything just perfect at the beginning. I don’t know who said
it, but perfection is the biggest impediment to progress, right? So, you’ve got to start
somewhere. You’re going to stump your toe every now and then, but here at FourthSquare, we
want to be there. If you do stump your toe we can fix it and make it feel better.
Conclusion
Jim Ray
Absolutely. Kerry, I want to thank you for your trust in this. You gave me a call a couple of
months ago and said, “Hey, we want to launch a podcast and do some other things. Can you
help?” It all started there. You had this concept and you allowed us to really have some ongoing
conversations. We’ve spent a lot of time together fleshing it out and trying to figure out who’s
the target for this and how we could convey that information we’ve referenced in today’s
episode. I think we’ve got a good game plan. While, yes, we have a personal friendship going
back years, when it comes to actually doing business together, I really appreciate the trust
you’ve placed in me, much like clients are going to place in you, going forward.
Kerry Boudreaux
Absolutely. And Jim, thank you so much for producing this. We’re going to deliver a very positive
experience to our customers. I’m looking forward to 2025 with the launching of this podcast.
Everybody tune-in. It’s going to be a wonderful experience.
Jim Ray
Kerry, I’ve got to echo that. I think this is going to be a very interesting journey, sort of a digital
journey, if you will. Here we go! I’m looking forward to getting underway. Kerry, thanks for your
time, my friend, and I will be speaking to you again here soon.
Kerry Boudreaux
As I’ve always said, while you’re sitting there and in between episodes, always be thinking,
“How can you transform your business through technology and innovation?” That’s what it’s all
about. Thank you.
If you’d like to learn more about FourthSquare and the services we offer, click here to contact
us. You can also call us at (972) 919-6135. We’ll be happy to speak with you.
