Alabian Solutions Limited

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Techpoint Information Systems and we build enterprise solutions for organizations in Nigeria, including CRM systems, help desks, and other kinds of business applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Alabian Solutions Limited?

At times, we need to outsource some of our development work, so we have turned to Alabian Solutions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked together to deliver a customer portal and help desk for a utility company. I provided the product roadmaps and technical documentation to Alabian, who has helped us build and provide support for the product.

The team has developed two different applications, one of which is a PHP-based web app used by 5,000 employees and about 3 million customers. There, internal users could log tickets, change a ticket’s status, and send messages amongst themselves through an Active Directory integration. A lot of effort has been put into structuring the product so that it could accommodate the client’s approximately 400 service centers, regional hubs, and state offices. 

Customers of the utility company could also use the app to log into an electricity console to view their transaction history, track how many light units they’ve purchased, and generate invoices. There are two categories of service — prepaid and postpaid — and the API is connected to both databases. This allows external users to create a profile in the system and generate a first-time login password that would be sent to them via email or phone. 

Alabian has integrated SMS features as well, since a lot of the people in the area aren’t very tech-savvy, but use their mobile phones a lot. The system also has a function to execute or escalate tickets, depending on the category of the issue, which requires a bit of SLA-based automation.

Halfway through the project, however, our client suspended the development of the mobile app due to some API issues with their own service provider.

What is the team composition?

We had about 10 people on the project. There was a person in charge of the task force as well as a service delivery manager, a customer care representative, a head of business applications, an IT specialist, and a server administrator, among others.

How did you come to work with Alabian Solutions Limited?

A friend of mine that saw Alabian’s flyer told me about them when I mentioned that I wanted to build something different. When this project came up, I knew I wanted to work with their team.

How much have you invested with them?

The project itself came out at about $100,000, but Alabian handled about $30,000 worth of work. The original estimate includes the contact center and mobile app.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2019 and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve gotten really good supervision and support from Alabian. We’re constantly upgrading, adding new features, and improving the look and feel of the system. The app itself could be used by 5,000 users apart from the customer cases, which are handled by the client’s service centers.

How did Alabian Solutions Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve found that large organizations in Nigeria can be very bureaucratic, so clients had a tendency to hold us back when a project is supposed to come to a close. This is probably the reason why the project was not delivered at the time it should’ve been delivered.It wasn’t Alabian’s fault nor ours. Our client has over a lot of employees, so it’s not easy to get all those stakeholders on the same page.

We have been using Trello and Slack to manage the project. We also use WhatsApp to communicate because it’s easier to get responses that way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their integrity and honesty. I also think that they know what they are doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing really comes to my mind except for maybe adding more people to their team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep communication very clear and establish project timelines properly so that everyone sticks to them. As we were working with our client, we found that they weren’t clear on everything they wanted. When we felt like we had delivered everything, they would come up with new backlog items that weren’t initially included, so it would be helpful for you to set up your own list of backlogs.