Member Spotlight Article: Mountaineer Business Technology

Established in 2016 and incorporated five years later, CIECA member company Mountaineer Business Technology provides software development and consultation services to companies in the automotive industry and others. In addition to web development, the company assists with integrating B2B applications and modernizing legacy systems. Since its formation, many of Mountaineer Business Technology’s clients have requested assistance with CIECA Standards and API development.

We recently talked to Pete Sheehan, owner of Mountaineer Business Technology, about CIECA Standards and how they are used on behalf of clients.

Q: How does Mountaineer Business Technology use CIECA Standards on behalf of its clients?

A: Although we don’t use EMS or BMS internally because we don’t handle collision data, we have made use of every CIECA Standard on behalf of clients, including EMS, BMS, and CIECA's API Standards (CAPIS).

We’ve found that many of our clients have a strong need to utilize CIECA standards because the data providers or partners they are working with also utilize them. For example, I've worked on major shop management system provider’s API, which uses BMS.

We’ve also created desktop utilities that utilize EMS, CIECA’s legacy standard, which many small companies use daily. Some claims management systems are starting to utilize CAPIS, which I find to be a real pleasure to work with since JSON is a lot smoother way to access data than XML, to say nothing of the older EMS standard's dBase IV format, which can be rather difficult to work with on modern systems.

Naturally, since they are intended for interoperability, CIECA Standards have mainly been relevant when building integrations to (or between) existing systems. For example, we created an EMS import module for an appraisal management software.

Q: What are some of the benefits of using CIECA Standards and how have you found them helpful when communicating with other industry segments?

A: The work CIECA has done in creating and documenting these standards has been invaluable. Without these standards, it would be substantially harder to build technical infrastructure in the industry. There are other industries that have multiple competing data standards, or no set standard, and it creates a huge amount of redundancy and errors.

Since interoperability is often the most challenging thing to achieve in B2B applications, CIECA standards have been crucial in my company’s work in these areas.

If the standards were looser or didn't exist at all, it would be much more difficult to achieve efficient interoperability. However, there are still a lot of companies working on legacy stacks or using older versions of the BMS format, which amounts to a considerable amount of technical debt.

Q: Are you part of any CIECA committees and what is the importance of getting involved to help improve the CIECA Standards?

A: Currently, I am part of CIECA’s AI Committee and the Architecture Committee. I've found that throughout the business world there are precious few people willing to put in the effort on a purely voluntary basis to contribute to the overall technical health of the community. Those people who do put in the effort are doing a huge service.

For more information about Mountaineer Business Technology, contact Pete Sheehan.