Harnessing ingenuity to advance client solutions: International Consulting Associates, Inc.

In the highly competitive world, we live in, businesses are continuously striving to fulfill their growth potential and increase their value. In such cases, business consultants can be crucial in providing turnkey solutions, as they help organizations create value, maximize growth and solve issues and improve business performance. Their knowledge and expertise in business help provide businesses with much-needed clarity and help an organization develop any specialist skills that it may be lacking. Businesses can improve their overall performances with the right consultants who understand their core business values. The right consultants will assist businesses in using resources at their disposal in a more efficient manner with the help of data analyses and automation, thereby maximizing the use of financial and human resources. Highly skilled and focused consultants will guide businesses from strength to strength.

Globally, there are numerous management consultants providing excellent services, but International Consulting Associates, Inc. (ICA) stands out. Founded in 2009, ICA began its journey with a vision to provide innovative solutions in the international development and institutional capacity building space. ICA aimed to integrate innovative approaches to mission critical programs to maximize efficiency, impact, and sustainability. In due course, the company grew out of the consultancy space and shifted its focus toward the implementation of transformative programs.

In conversation with Aws Ali, President of International Consulting Associates, Inc.

Q. Can you explain about your services in brief?

Evolving over the years, ICA has established itself as the go-to company for clients seeking help to identify, evaluate, and apply innovative technologies to modernize their missions. With the majority of its portfolio now focused on supporting federal programs with an emphasis on tech infusion initiatives, the company provides customers with a range of management solutions and technical services. ICA is a proud implementation partner for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Many of our programs are focused on advancing AI initiatives within federal agencies. As an implementing partner, we help them develop strategies to better leverage their data. We have programs that range from developing NLP models to process unique medical text to process imagery data to detect issues with infrastructure. On one program we support a federal health client to develop an analytics tool that leverages AI to identify significant safety issues. Demonstrating the impact of technology, our tool was able to identify issues that were leading to substantial patient harm and death, and in some cases, nearly two and a half years ahead of the existing process. Our AI based solution was able to help reorient resources and personnel time away from manual review to guided and prioritised processes that leads to higher impact interventions.

Q. What are the challenges you had to face while developing solutions for ICA? How did you overcome them?

When working with large agencies looking to leverage AI, it can be challenging to get their initiatives off the ground. Much of their data exist in legacy databases and were not collected in a way that is optimized for data science initiatives. In addition, many clients aren’t exactly sure what they want out of these programs or even what is possible. Our job is to help them develop a strategy to better leverage their data in a way that advances their mission and organizational goals.

Q. How do you market your services?

Our primary market is the federal services space. We strive to create real value for our clients. We do this by coupling a great consulting practice with a strong technical team. You have to really understand your client’s problem to develop a right sized technical solution, and that exactly what  we.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

ICA has a bright future. We are here to advance the AI industry at large, by working collaboratively with large and small business partners, and integrating end-to-end solutions and capabilities that best meet our clients’ needs. So it is less about competition and more about collaboration that create impactful solutions for our clients. When there are practical successes, across the industry, at deploying impactful AI, that helps us boost client confidence and increases their apatite tackle more projects. We see this as way to grow the pie while growing ICA. This is why we invest significantly in finding partners, small and large businesses and those with niche capabilities, to align with. Acting as solution integrator builds trust with our clients and ensures that we bring them substantive solutions. This approach makes it easier for our clients, as they can share their most complex challenges and trust that we will bring the optimal team to meet the demands of their requirements.

Existing Partners include: Harvard University, Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Regulatory Sciences, Booz Allen Hamilton, Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center, American College of Radiology, Rackner.

“ICA proactively partners with leading practitioners from industry and academia to support critical research initiatives. Aligning prominent experts to high priority efforts ensures our clients receive best in class support with quality results”