ACAP

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company works in the insurance sector and I work to provide my company with a strong online presence through brand awareness and audience conversion. I accomplish this by creating marketing material and advertising campaigns that have successfully reached our target audience and created a conversion rate of prospects to customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ACAP, and what were your goals?

Our Company has started Living Insurance. to create a platform for local Insurance Agents and artisans to sell their Service globally. We don’t have a website for this company. So we hired ACAP to design and develop an interactive website for us and go for brand awareness. We also hire same company for marketing our brand

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for companies who can design and develop a website, and heard about ACAP on Clutch. We reviewed their website and customer reviews about them and then selected ACAP.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and marking tools used.

We had a meeting to discuss our objectives behind starting this website. There were different categories from which we wanted to distribute the product. So they delivered a wireframe design that was approved by us, and then they set up a team that would work with us. He then designed and developed a PHP-based website that was interactive yet attractive and user-friendly.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager was our main point of contact. 5 to 6 people were working on this project which included developers, designers, and programmers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We have not yet launched our website but we are sure that it will definitely rule the mind of the user.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had daily communication with his project manager regarding the development of this project. The team connected with us at Teamwork and everyone has to do daily tasks at Teamwork which were reviewed and approved by us. The project management style was strictly according to the timeline as well as our satisfaction level.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They have the perfect vision that a startup requires. They also patiently taught us about every part of the project.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not now but when my project is done sure I will share my whole words about the company because right now company completing my digital marketing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a site that places travel nurses around the country. We offer resources on our website that allow nurses to perform research on different agencies.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

We needed to scale our IT support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ACAP does a lot of our integration and API setups. Sometimes they talk directly to clients to streamline integration as quickly as possible. The team also handles site updates when it comes to aesthetics or web design. Additionally, they program our sites so users can find which role is best for them.

What is the team composition?

We work with two project managers directly.

How did you come to work with ACAP?

I found them online.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $75,000–$80,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2015, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

ACAP is usually very punctual, which is a big deal. They’re always able to deliver on deadlines that we’ve set. We’ve worked with companies in the past that have had 3–6 week delays.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

ACAP has always been able to deliver what we need in a timely fashion. It’s great that our project manager has a team underneath him; it allows our projects to move forward, even when he’s not available; it helps us feel important, and it keeps our clients satisfied.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their attention to deadlines and communication stands out. I can contact them anytime, including on weekends or holidays. I always get a response back within a handful of hours.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve had great success with them. They can adapt to any project in a timely fashion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very knowledgeable, they’re always on time with project deadlines, and they manage our proprietary platforms seamlessly. We can’t say anything but fantastic things about ACAP. They’ve never said no to a challenge, whatever it may be.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We offer an online registration and event management software program. I’m the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

They were supposed to build online registration and event management modules for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built and released modules one at a time. We did regression testing, so the issues with code worsened as we continued to release new modules.

What was the team composition?

We only dealt with one person.

How did you come to work with ACAP?

We searched online and found 2 other companies, but they were outside of the country. ACAP was based in Fort Lauderdale, and we thought the close proximity would be beneficial for us. We interviewed them and explained the project scope, and my CEO and I thought they were the best match for us.

How much did you invest with them?

We prefer to keep this confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in 2013, and our last interaction was in late 2014 when we officially parted ways and asked for our money back. We were going to sue them, but decided it wasn’t worth getting attorneys involved. They completely failed to remedy the situation, and lied about being a U.S. corporation. They were actually based in India.

We ended up redoing the software and getting it launched correctly within the last 2 months. We tried fixing the code, but ended up having to rewrite it completely. Thankfully, we had the old code to use in order to keep our system running while we implemented the changes and performed testing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

They used the waterfall method, so we didn’t get to see anything until it was finished. Prior to giving us a final release of the code, they created and hosted a site on which we perform testing. We started finding more and more problems, and kept having to fix things, so we demanded to see the code.

We found that they gave our modules to different people to build, but failed to perform code checks or retain consistency before delivering them to us. When we got the code back for review, our CTO found out that 3–4 coders in India had written in prior versions of .NET. There was no quality control, which created incompatibilities and errors.

We got into a big argument with them over this about 9–10 months into the engagement, and ultimately ended up losing 1.5 years worth of work.

Did they notify you, at any point, that they were going to use third party vendors?

There was no clause in our contact that prevented them from doing so, but they were deceitful when we asked about it. I wouldn’t have cared if they offshored development if they all would’ve used the current version of .NET. They led us to believe that they were keeping everything consistent and internal, but they failed to apply basic development skills by knowingly creating so many incompatibilities.

Did they try to resolve the issue?

They didn’t try to remedy anything. By the end of 2013, after we found out how big of a mess everything was, we gave them a few months to fix it. They were doing QA [quality assurance] already by the time we told them it wasn’t working. They said they would fix the problem, but never did. The incompatibilities between the 5 modules (each with 3–4 submodules) made it impossible to fix any one issue without creating another somewhere else.

They were defensive when we showed them that the code was faulty. We showed them exactly what we were encountering, but they were completely uninterested.

How was project management handled?

They refused to take ownership of the project. The person we contracted with didn’t make sure they delivered what they were supposed to.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

We still use outside contractors, but now, we use sites like Upwork where we can pay for deliverables after we’ve performed testing ourselves.

I had the benefit of having a CTO who could look at the source code, but otherwise, I would’ve been completely taken advantage of. I cannot stress the importance of a project supervisor enough.

I don’t want to focus on the fact that they weren’t a U.S. entity too much, because that’s not what our problem was. We were only concerned that they lied to us about our project and that they sacrificed quality control. Their team needs to focus more on being good software developers and staying current, rather than just contracting to get the best price.

Company Responses

At ACAP since 2005, we strive to deliver mission critical software solutions that provide exceptional value for our customers. An important tenet of our mission is to offer best-in-class management and significantly positive ROI. We work very hard on each and every project to deliver the best results however we are not perfect and in this case we fell short on this promise. For this I am truly sorry. 

We take our responsibility seriously to address concerns about solutions delivery and customer satisfaction. Over the past 5 years, we have made significant key improvements to our delivery processes starting with internal tracking and management tools, true delivery transparency, all the way to increasing average seniority of our technical team members. We are still the same American owned company, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida but we have grown our staff size 3x to over 75 resources across multiple offices in US and India. We now provide 24/7 production support, industry leading 1-year warranty and are currently achieving 94% customer satisfaction and 89% customer retention rates. 

When we fall short, we pick ourselves up, figure out what is wrong and try much harder. Although it has been many years since your negative experience, I am happy to talk about how we can make things right for you. Thank you for your feedback.

Sincerely,

Burtay Arat

President - ACAP

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a global energy cable company. I work in the Latin American division. We supply building wire and submarine cable and mining cables.

What is your position?

I'm a business intelligence analyst in the IT [information technology] department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

I believe I got their information off the Kentico website as a partner with that content management platform. They were local, and I wanted somebody that if I needed to I could go sit down and have a conversation. A vendor recommended them to me, so I gave them a call and tested them out.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We were doing a multi-country website for Latin America. It included Asia Pacific and Africa. I needed them to help us with platform setup, upgrades, administration, and content, initial template creation, initial content loading in some cases. I needed someone that knew Kentico and could serve as my second or third line of support.

Kentico is a content management system. Being a Kentico partner, I could not only have them do the work, but also purchase licenses through them. We had the system in place before we hired them. The initial engagement included a platform upgrade to the current version as well as setting up templates for the new website. We are satisfied with the content management system after the upgrade.

I interacted directly with the project manager. I believe they outsource some of their work overseas. The developers weren't in Miami, but the project manager is.

We haven't expanded the scope since then. The platform they set up is still in production, but our corporate parent actually adopted the Kentico platform and, ultimately, we're going to move all the content on their set up in Kentucky. ACAP's work with us is going to be retired in the next six months or so because our corporate parent has their own team they work with, so it has nothing to do with them.

How did you come to work with ACAP?

A vendor recommended them to me. I didn't investigate too many potential vendors at the time because I trusted the referral.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work with them is now concluded, and it's unlikely we'll begin anything new with them because of our corporate parent.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

No. A good example is that we had a change request from one of our users the other day and the bottom line was that the user was satisfied. The issue was cited and resolved almost immediately. I didn't get any heat that things were taking too long. Those are my benchmarks. The fact is that they're very reliable and attentive. They have a good approach and a solid work ethic. It's hard to quantify their involvement, or the involvement of any IT provider, in general.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

We used email and Excel to manage their involvement and the work we assigned to them. It was efficient for the scope of the project. It wasn't that intricate to be honest. They performed very well given the project scope and the technical specs. 

What distinguishes ACAP from other providers?

They're pretty flexible. They're not trying to nickel and dime their clients. If something was significant, they did add to the project but that was to be expected. I think they're very reasonable. Their pricing is also very reasonable.

Is there anything ACAP could have improved or done differently?

They could improve their QA [quality assurance] testing, perhaps integrate it more fully into the development process. I would do some testing and find things they should have found, but other than that, I'm pleased.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We license a Medicare-approved intensive cardiac rehab program to hospitals for their cardiac rehab. We are working closely with hospitals around the country. We're a small organization. The longest that we've been with a hospital is more than two and a half years, and we're growing. What we bring to the table is certainly education and a roadmap for people to use as they recover from a cardiac-related event.

What is your position?

I'm the senior director project management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

I was not with the company at that time. I've been with the company right at two years, and I've been working with ACAP since I began. But, the work with ACAP began before I was even here. If I'm not mistaken, the relationship has been ongoing since 2011. The scope was that we needed a web-based solution for hospitals to input information about how people are going through our program, the sessions they're doing, and just content around how people are progressing through our program. How we started working with ACAP, in particular, I don't know, but I just know that it has evolved. The scope has been pretty much the same since the beginning of work together until today.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They are the developers for our web-based program. Actually, it's not only tracking how the patients go through the program, but part of our education with the program is video-based. The portal that ACAP has developed for us is the method by which people access and view our videos as they're going through the program from an educational standpoint. Part of it is monitoring how people are going through the program and part of it is hosting part of our educational content. Again, they've been the primary developers for this. They created it from scratch. We work together on discovery and requirements validation.

What is the status of this engagement?

We still use their services. We have a bunch of ongoing projects with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I think a couple of years ago where we had developed a portal, and it was very theoretical at that point, there were a number of bugs. As we started working directly with the hospitals and the hospitals were using the portal and we got feedback and more "real world" with it, Burtay [Arat, director of professional services at ACAP] and his team were excellent with their follow-up. I would say that in the last couple of years, it has worked extremely well. There will be issues from time to time as we tweak things. But, overall, we rely on them, and we've not had an issue where it's been down for a period of time or anything like that. It's working well for us. End-users have given us mostly positive feedback and several recommendations for future features and functionalities. We will be working with ACAP to really flesh those out and get them implemented.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

We did not use any specific tools for project management. It was phone calls and emails – I will send them an email with what I'm looking for. We'll then talk about it on the phone and work out the final details. Then, they'll send me a work order. I'll confirm the work order on my side and then they begin. We're also doing testing with them. In our portal, we have a testing site and the live production site. We're working hard on the testing site to make sure it works well before it moves to production.

They have always been on top of follow-ups. Whenever there is an issue or a bug or what have you, they're on it. My dealings with Burtay have been very good.

What distinguishes ACAP from other providers?

Just the hands-on follow-up, and, again, if I need to get a hold of them, they're available. If there's an issue, they respond right away. Their client support is just fantastic.

Is there anything ACAP could have improved or done differently?

I think there is one area where we are challenged at times and it's not all on ACAP. It's on us, too. I would say that it's how we communicate around developing reports. On the inputting side, things are great. On the reporting side, we're trying to get reports out of this system. Sometimes, it can be a challenge with what we're looking for and finally getting to what we need in terms of we may go through a number of iterations before we get back what we exactly need. Part of it is just communication. I don't how many different levels are involved in the process. But, if we could make that more efficient in time, that would be helpful.

Do you have any advice for future clients?

I am not an IT [information technology] person, so I think that they've been very good to work with in terms of taking what they do on the IT side and making it work for me on the business side. Again, they're very responsive, which is great. It's always great to work with a partner that can explain things in terms you can understand easily.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a local municipality in the state of Florida.

What is your position?

I'm the director of information technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ACAP?

Doing some in-depth revamping of an online form submission process for a custom database. The database is for vendor registration so we could build a comprehensive list for vendors and see what the products and services are so that managers in the city could use it as a resource.

Before, in the past, it was just a form submitted that went into an Access database that has no query to it and which is exported down to Excel sheets. What we wanted was interaction for the end-user and some dynamic searching tools. The vendors would register and users would have access to go in and do a search imported to a database right away. The new database was built with SQL.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They developed the front-end set of the server, a variant connected to the database, did the graphics from start to finish. The whole product – they did it all. I only dealt with one person through ACAP, the project manager. We delegated the entire implementation to them, and they built the whole thing out with our guidance.

How did you come to work with ACAP?

As a local government we have to, after a certain dollar amount, get three quotes for competitive bidding or pricing so that residents are getting their fair share of their money's worth out of it. The local search for web developers from Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami for price comparison and just did Google search. Searching down they weren't the first ones that popped up on the list, but through their presence on the web, and the resources they had on their site allowed me to put them in a pool of vendors that I could pull from. They looked like a professional company, and they seemed to have a good amount of completed work.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

That project lasted about a month. I think it had an eight-week turnaround. We have been working with them on and off for about two years now. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I have an extensive background in web design, so I knew what I wanted, and database administration as well, so I knew how it worked. Unfortunately, I didn't have personnel on my team to do this, so that's when we subcontract this project out, but the end result is exactly what I requested from the initial meeting. There were some tweaks here and there that came about during the project scope, but they met all the needs that we'd requested. It's not an option with us to go over budget.

How did ACAP perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great, always on time, responsive, and able and willing to make valuable recommendations.

What distinguishes ACAP from other providers?

Their response time is extremely quick, even whenever something is reported wrong with the site or a customer discovers something we didn't find during the testing. I'd say within less than 15 to 20 minutes, there's a response back through email and then the problem is resolved within 24 hours. You don't normally find that with local shops to be able to be that responsive. I've worked with businesses that are traded on the stock market down here, such as IT [information technology] businesses, and it's three or four weeks before you get a response back on what the problem was.

Is there anything ACAP could have improved or done differently?

Nothing that I could come up with. They meet all of our expectations, and they're very reliable.