BRF Consulting + Red Pill Analytics: A Partnership Built on Trust, Collaboration, Success

How did two boutique technology shops develop a successful and continued partnership model for almost a decade?

Navigating the rapid changes of the tech marketplace, BRF Consulting (BRFC) and Red Pill Analytics (RPA, a subsidiary of *Innive) wanted to expand their IT services and consulting business to clients in diverse sectors. 

As boutique technology shops, BRFC and RPA knew they needed to find collaborators to achieve that goal, so they partnered in 2017. Ever since, they have been able to offer personalized services to fulfill their clients’ specific needs with agility and flexibility, while focusing on quality over quantity.  

To provide specialized and niche services, they have assembled teams of highly qualified data engineers eager to learn about new technologies quickly before they hit the market, therefore staying ahead of the curve. Together, their engineers have brought combined skills that have unraveled problems and created the most creative and innovative solutions for their clients.    

How Did the Partnership Begin?

In 2017, RPA had a new contract with a global mobile engagement provider, and it needed a larger number of data engineers specialized in its clients' needs. Former RPA co-founders Stewart Bryson and Kevin McGinley needed to fill that staffing gap promptly, so McGinley contacted BRFC. 

“I worked with Kevin McGinley at BICG, a BI consulting firm, from 2007 to 2010. In 2016, I emailed him offering our services,” Angelo Buss, BRFC’s founder, recalls. “About a year later, he reached out, proposing a phone call to discuss the initial partnership terms on a Sunday evening because he was too busy to talk on a weekday.” 

Building Trust

In September that year, BRFC signed a 30-day agreement to assist RPA in creating a data lake using Streamsets Data to populate the data into a Snowflake AI Data Cloud for their client, the first joint venture between the two companies. 

“Even though I had some years of experience with similar tools, these were new technologies for me,” Buss explains. 

Buss, three BRFC data engineers, and a team from RPA implemented the solution for the client on schedule. By November, RPA had extended BRFC’s contract to work on other longer-term projects.  

“The initial purpose was to deliver high-quality services aligned with Red Pill Analytics' growth plans,” Buss says. “That 30-day assignment allowed BRF Consulting to scale up that success case to many other customers.”

Partnership Evolution

For the next three years, BRFC and RPA collaborated on several ventures across the United States that involved other Business Intelligence tools, including Oracle OBIEE, Talend, dbt Labs, and many others. 

As the worldwide pandemic struck in April 2020, American companies began to invest more in intelligence technology, optimization, and efficiency. With those new trends, BRFC and RPA rapidly adopted new technologies to serve their clients’ demands, gradually strengthening their partnership. 

“Much of our business evolved. We've evolved with the technology, which makes us adaptable, shows that we are willing to grow, learn, and accommodate our clients’ needs,” says Kristi Smith, RPA’s Account and Project Manager. 

When BRFC was founded in 2013 and RPA in 2014, Oracle OBIEE used to be the gold standard as a BI tool. Since then, the analytics and data engineering landscape has shifted dramatically. Today, both companies offer full-stack analytics solutions, including data ingestion (Fivetran, Airbyte), transformation (dbt Labs), warehousing (Snowflake), visualization (Sigma, Power BI, Looker), and more. 

Successful Collaborations

BRFC and RPA’s adaptability allowed them to expand their client list over the years. They have built more than 30 data engineering solutions for businesses in machinery manufacturing, medical, information, IT and consulting services, finance, commerce, food industry, software development, education, government administration, research and development, and other sectors. 

​​They are currently working with three clients in consulting, medical devices, and the telecom areas.

“I’ve been on multiple projects where we partnered with BRF Consulting. I can confidently say that working alongside them was the reason these projects were successful,” Smith says. “The expertise RPA and BRFC bring to our clients is unmatched.”

With clients’ needs ever shifting, BRFC and RPA have actively recruited talented remote data engineers from across the United States and Brazil. Since the pandemic, their teams of consultants have tripled in size, working on various projects together. 

Brad McGuire, RPA’s Consultant, says the collaboration has been “nothing but positive.”  

“[BRFC has] been an integral part of the project team, bringing expertise and ideas to the table, he says. “We work together seamlessly. The line between Red Pill and BRF is quite blurred at times, and if anything, it provides an advantage, so he can take care of tasks as required.”

What’s Next?

Completing an 8-year symbiotic mutualistic relationship in September 2025, BRFC plans to continue collaborating with RPA for the foreseeable future.

“This synergy of technologies and our shared values – work quality, commitment, and trustworthiness – will continue to be a solid foundation for both companies,” Buss says. “This partnership will continue due to the commitment of our professionals to our customers.” 

For RPA, this long-term partnership has been ideal. 

“RPA and BRFC work seamlessly together. That is especially true from the client's perspective,” Smith says. “We are all one team in their eyes.” 

Managing Director for RPA, Robert Barnes, sees their work as integrated and intertwined.  

“Our philosophy is that BRF consultants are members of Red Pill Analytics. We consider them a very part of our existence, so we kind of built on that relationship,” he says. 

“They're employees of the company, the way [BRF Consulting] meshes with us, so I think that's a big selling point for both of us.” 

*RPA is a subsidiary of Innive, a company founded by Ram Subramaniam and Gautham Sampath.

About the author: Anna Lopes is the Communications Associate for BRF Consulting, which specializes in Data Engineering, AI, Software Development and Salesforce.com

Sources 

Angelo Buss - Founder of BRF Consulting

Robert Barnes - Managing Director at Red Pill Analytics

Kristi Smith - Account and Project Manager at Red Pill Analytics

Brad McGuire - Consultant at Red Pill Analytics

Kevin McGinley - Former co-founder of Red Pill Analytics

Stewart Bryson - Former co-founder of Red Pill Analytics