Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Head of Analytics for Digital and Product Analytics at Thomson Reuters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We had a need to own, run, and maintain analytics tracking, deliver insights, and design experiments for our digital go-to-market product initiatives. The challenge was to go beyond routine reporting and deliver packaged insights that could be consumed by both experimentation managers and product managers alike, to drive continuous improvement in a fast-changing product space

SOLUTION

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

We put out an RFP with multiple incumbents and new vendors for a packaged scope. Factors to decide were experience in insights, past clientele size, pricing, and timing of resourcing.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

First, they had to audit the state of analytics telemetry, and produce a report, based on which a fixed quantum of telemetry or tracking work was approved. As telemetry was fixed, individual pod analysts to were assigned to “mission-based teams” who were in charge of driving insights for those individual pods.

These pods derived insights and partnered with product managers to make product changes and experimentation leads to run experiments to continuously learn the performance of product iterations.

Finally, the team measured impacts in terms of product performance lifts and reported the success or failure of each engagement

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

An engagement manager, four pod leads, two experimentation managers and a leadership sponsor who was ultimately accountable for proper delivery, escalations and timing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The biggest outcome we measured and witnessed was the improvement in customer flow in our digital properties which increased digital sales, drove higher NPS and delivered a better customer experience overall

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely effective- this reduced the friction to deliver. The team bonded really fast and their team was very responsive to feedback. The end result was a team that was Uber cohesive and worked as one large pod

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

Their ability to hire superb talent in a crunched market was impressive. We were also impressed with their muscle to deliver insights, going beyond usual reporting.

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

Not sure if this is an improvement or a compliment but they never say no to anything which sometimes puts them in stress but as a client we had zero concerns or feedback for them

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior data architect on the architecture team for a physician staffing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We engaged them on two separate projects. First, they provided an architectural diagram of our enterprise data hub, and the second engagement was to provide a method to do automated system patching on our AWS accounts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first request was the architectural diagram of the company’s data hub. Beyondsoft Consulting had worked with a different group within the company to help stand up the data hub processes. We didn’t have robust documentation or an architectural diagram that covered the scope of work, so the first thing we did was work with them to document the work they’d completed previously, which involved understanding all the work and documenting it in a way that could be consumed within a single page.

The architectural diagram showed the process for ingesting data from multiple sources, consolidating it into a single environment and refining it into usable data for reporting analysts across the company. Almost all the work was done remotely.

The second project was broader, and it was the automated system testing project. The initial step was to ensure that Beyondsoft Consulting had the appropriate access to the accounts. Then, we established the desired features for our single-use accounts — we had about 10. We first set up one account manually to ensure that all the features were working as expected. We fine-tuned those, and the next phase was to automate that to leverage a set of code in order to deploy any account. Finally, we rolled it out on all our remaining accounts.

We were primarily looking for the code to be reusable across multiple accounts so it’d work in any scenario where there was adequate documentation. Therefore, it’d help any layperson to understand what it did and how to maintain and update it. Also, we wanted it to provide a detailed report as part of the automation — the report would provide information about which instances within each account were compliant, which weren’t, and the specific issues, if any.

What is the team composition?

We primarily worked with one senior architect and an account manager.

How did you come to work with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

They completed work with a different group within our organization, but I don’t know how they got in touch with Beyondsoft Consulting at first. Since we needed some documentation around that work, we thought no one would be better to do it than the people who delivered the work in the first place.

Moreover, we worked with them again because they’d done a pretty good job. The team had extra bandwidth, and we had a pressing need to do the automated system patching. Ultimately, it was a combination of convenience and quality work.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The architectural diagram work began in May 2021, and the automated system patching started in September 2021. We’re just at the tail end of the project; we’ve iterated through the QA and revisions over the last week or two.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We probably have beyond 100 instances or servers within our AWS accounts, and if we had to log them in manually and apply the patches, it’d take us about 2–4 hours for each one on a monthly basis. We could spend thousands of hours every month, but we’ve cut them down to 10–20 hours thanks to the automated system. Patching requires a bit of governance in the frontend — people have to classify their AWS servers, document who owns them, and so on. However, once that’s done, many hours are saved, so it’s a pretty big win for us.

On the other hand, it was vital for us to speed up the enterprise data project. Beyondsoft Consulting was valuable at helping us understand what was going on and working the automated system patching. Overall, they were pretty open to our feedback, which was essential for an amicable working relationship.

How did Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We had to have a heavy hand in project management. We had to ensure that they weren’t too far off the rails and making continuous progress. For the most part, we maintained a simple outline. Then, we began using an agile methodology with Azure DevOps, which made it easier to track progress on individual work items.

We had an internal messaging platform. Since we worked together tightly, we had excellent and frequent communication. Also, we had biweekly touchpoints with the architect and account manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Beyondsoft Consulting’s team was very open to feedback, and they made revisions to improve the engagement. Generally, they were very amicable, and we always had friendly two-way communication.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Define the scope and divide it into manageable pieces of work. If possible, have a Gantt chart that shows the timelines and when you expect these pieces to be completed. Also, make sure that you align with them before agreeing to the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Toyota Motor North America - Information Systems Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

Beyondsoft Consulting Inc provides digital analytics support for Toyota Motor North America. Primarily responsible for managing Adobe Analytics across brands and business units, Beyondsoft provides end-to-end analytics support from implementation to reporting.

Overall, the services cover digital analytics support within the overall martech stack at TMNA. This includes but is not limited to tag management, site testing and optimization, session replay, content analytics and surveys.

SOLUTION

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

Beyondsoft has been a long standing partner with TMNA, meeting all the necessary requirements.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

This was an ongoing engagement, which covered multiple projects, with respective project plans.

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

I worked with up to 18 individuals, spanning from the executive director to the analyst level.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Beyondsoft has proven the ability to deliver under various circumstances.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We considered them as an extension of our team.  Beyondsoft made sure they were able to set expectations, keep communications open and transparent, help prioritize and deliver.

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

The Beyondsoft team has the experience and expertise to help lead a digital analytics program at the enterprise level. They had the technical expertise to implement any project and see the data all the way through to analytics outputs such as dashboards and case studies. They are a reliable partner who I can absolutely depend on.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of cloud and platform services at a property-casualty insurance company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

I’m part of an information technology group and was looking for technology expertise, strategy, and consulting. I also wanted to realize some of these strategies and architectures.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. helped with the design and implementation of automating our cloud solutions. They provided a couple of people that worked hand-in-hand with my team in Houston, Texas.

Subsequently, we had a series of mini-engagements with them for architectural consulting, proof of concept, and all the technology side of it. I referred them to my peer groups within the company and they’ve done a couple of larger projects. Our company continues to work with them on other projects.

What is the team composition?

I worked with about six people from their team, including one business development director, a senior architect, DevOps engineers, and an account director.

How did you come to work with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

One of the requirements for choosing a vendor was they needed to be an AWS partner. I looked at about six competing vendors in the space. I compared the information and feedback they all provided.

I settled on Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. I knew their business development director from prior engagement. That helped out but I chose them based on their measure.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $1.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2019–April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They always delivered whatever we document as part of the statement of work and stayed within budget. They were flexible and gave a very sound and thought-out engineered product. The feedback I’ve received from peer groups within our company is that they’ve done a phenomenal job.

How did Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. usually assigned a project manager. They tried to give a biweekly status report. The statement of work was detailed enough that they could work in an agile methodology. There were deliverables by month, and they tried to be on top of them. We communicated with the technical staff as well as the project management staff using Jira and email.

When working with a lot of consulting companies, you give them work and the engineering knowledge and decision-making stay with the vendor. Once they leave, our company has to maintain the solution. However, Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. was always open to sharing the knowledge with us including the decision-making process and architectural thinking.

They even debated with us. Sometimes it took time, but when they delivered a solution to us, my team is comfortable in taking ownership and maintaining it without having to go back to them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. is very technically strong, especially in the cloud arena. They may not have a ready-made answer but I’m confident they will come up with a solution and sometimes multiple solutions.

Their architecture and engineering skills are very solid. They have very smart people who share their decision-making process and why idea B is better than idea A.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of the very hard problems that my team can’t solve internally, we give to them. They try to do a perfect job and I really appreciate it, but sometimes they end up burning more time than necessary effort-wise. That puts them under a lot of stress and sometimes we feel that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are great. I strongly recommend them to anybody. If you want a top-notch solution that is well thought out and maintainable by you, I strongly recommend Beyondsoft Consulting Inc..They are top-tier consultants.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of IT operations of an IT services company in the retail space. I manage the production environments and the operations for our customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We wanted to migrate our systems to the cloud, so we hired them to provide infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Beyondsoft is our managed service provider (MSP) for cloud services. They provide teammates on-site in our Dallas office, and they have another team in Shanghai who handles the overnight hours for our 24/7 operation. 

At the start of the project, we had many on-premise systems in a data center that we asked them to move to AWS. The team designed and implemented the systems. They used the lift and shift approach for some data, and they redeveloped the rest as part of the migration. We've now migrated 100% of our systems to AWS, and Beyondsoft played a key role in infrastructure work. They continue to provide support for our systems.

What is the team composition?

I worked with six people overall. The on-site teammates are architects, one senior-level and two mid-level, who worked on the design and implementation of the systems. The other three in Shanghai do low-level production support work. 

How did you come to work with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We've had a long history with Beyondsoft in another division of our company. Both our company and Beyondsoft are large IT companies in Asia, and we've been in a relationship for many years in that region. They opened an office in Dallas several years ago when one of their large customers moved here. It just seemed like a logical next step to talk to them about some of our needs. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our yearly spend is $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measured their impact by comparing our current performance against existing service-level agreements (SLAs). We were moving existing systems, so we already had SLAs with our customers — upon moving to the cloud, we expected goal metrics to be met or exceeded since the systems were underpowered in our old on-premise environment. We definitely saw improvements after moving into the cloud, so I think they've been doing an excellent job these past two years. It's been a very smooth process. 

How did Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily use Jira for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The skill level of their staff is very impressive. Beyondsoft has very exceptional talent — even though cloud technology was new at the time, they really knew what they were doing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Early on, we assumed that the remote group in Shanghai would play a more active role in terms of new implementations. We found that it just wasn't going to work — I don't know if it was the language barrier, the differing time zones, their skill level, or all of the above. Ultimately, we ended up utilizing that group for production support. We might have been expecting too much, but we thought their team would be doing more than that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend them, but just keep in mind that the offshore teams are geared more towards support than critical work unless you've got a big enough project that you can put a management structure in place wherever that offshore team is. It doesn’t work for what we're trying to do, and that was my only concern.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the general manager of Boyle Software, a 30-year-old company based in New York City. We do software development primarily for open-source clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies. 

We're completely vertical agnostic, so we’re working for all sorts of people. The vast majority of the work we've done for the last 20 or so years has been website and mobile development, but we also do backend systems integrations and everything else that our customers want us to do.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We have a large shoe retailer customer whose business model is a combination of brick-and-mortar and web. We’re working with this customer on a variety of things, including their e-commerce site. We’re also helping them figure out their data infrastructure and strategy. 

I needed somebody who understands big data and knows how to guide clients on data warehouses and data lakes. The person should also be knowledgeable about platforms like AWS, Redshift, Terraform, and Snowflake. I don’t have anyone on staff who understands those things, so I hired Jeremy (Principal Data Architect) from Beyondsoft. He helps me work with this customer. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Jeremy works as a senior engineer that specializes in big data and cloud infrastructure, so he deals primarily with AWS. However, he also works on Google Cloud and similar things. 

In our initial engagement with the customer, Jeremy provided insights about security audit and infrastructure questions about the deployment of their reporting platform on AWS. He’s also done some hands-on work for the customer, but it’s mostly consultative.  

What is the team composition?

From Beyondsoft, I only work with Jeremy. 

How did you come to work with Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

I’ve actually been speaking to Jeremy prior to this project. Last fall, I was looking for somebody to work on another project with a different customer, and his name came up. A friend, probably from LinkedIn, recommended him to me. He had a way of speaking to me about that work, although it didn’t come to fruition. 

When this new opportunity came up, it made me think of him instantly, and this is the first actual engagement that came to fruition.

What is the status of this engagement?

I signed him up for this project in January 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Jeremy is the reason why the customer keeps calling back. They trust him. His work with them brought a lot of goodwill to our company, which is why I’m now starting to ramp up more work that will involve him. I will certainly use Jeremy again.  He’s been fabulous, and he continues to be fabulous.

How did Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of communication, we use everything under the sun, including phone, Skype, Slack, and email. This ongoing work flares up for a couple of weeks and then goes away for four weeks or so. As a result, it’s not consistent how much I interact with Jeremy. 

However, when things are moving, he and I speak 4–5 times a week. Otherwise, we’re letting each other know once a week where the client is or when they might need him back. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Setting up with Beyondsoft has been much easier than it can frequently be. Sometimes, doing this type of work is like pulling teeth, and there’s a lot of back-and-forth on paperwork. However, Beyondsoft made it easy to get Jeremy involved. Late negotiations are typical, but I don’t feel beat up at the end of the day.

In addition to that, Jeremy’s ability to clearly communicate complex technical solutions to a client brought us a lot of goodwill. There are a lot of smart technologists in the world, but very few of them can speak to non-technologists. 

With Beyondsoft, it never feels like I’m being taken to the cleaners or something is hidden from me. There have been no weird negotiations. I’m not an expert in big data and infrastructure, so I need to educate myself about the resources I need and the knowledge that the resources should have. I did that before dealing with Beyondsoft because I wanted to have a basic understanding of what I’m looking for. So far, the engagement has been easy, and they’ve been great people. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. Our engagement has been pretty limited, but if more data issues or projects come up, I will return to Beyondsoft. They’re global, and I want to work with more people from them to see if the quality is consistent. However, I couldn’t be more pleased with the small sampling of work that I’ve received from them. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and director of a business solutions company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyondsoft Consulting Inc., and what were your goals?

Adobe Exeperience Manager (AEM) consulting and development resources. To be able to work with truly experienced AEM expert team.

SOLUTION

How did you select Beyondsoft Consulting Inc. and what were the deciding factors?

They have very impressive profile, and the experts we talked to during very stage of the project discussion were able to offer insights that were actually beyond our own expertise. It shows very clearly of their experience in the past 20 years in the domain of experience platform design.

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

Architecture design consultancy AEM development resources from offshore Support Engineer/Devop Support services

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

Technical PM, Senior Solution Architect who manages an offshore team for us

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Not only the development work went as planned, there has been a lot of knowledge transfer. Our own staff learnt from BCI. BCI presales director is also able to provide good insights on product roadmap. Overall it is an enriching experience working with BCI.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Very solid PM skills throughout the entire SDLC. They seem to take PMP framework very seriously which is reassuring for us (we are also following PMP framework). They also seem very experienced in managing cross-time zone projects. We used MS Teams, Jira when necessary.

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

The depth of technical expertise, coupled with 20 years of experience (which come with a lot of case studies), makes them stand out. The strong business acumen carried by the presale team and the availability of a very wide range of resources are the most impressive factor.

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

Thought for 5 minutes and nothing truly substantial came up.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Teamhealth, health care industry outsource clinicians across the american hospitals. I work as data architect in Data and Analytics team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

We have hired Beyondsoft to provide solution and implementation of Hadoop and Netezza migration to Snowflake.

SOLUTION

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

The proposal was so clear and neat. very skilled techinical side

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Hadoop and Netezza on-perm migration to snowflake

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

5 Architect,Data Engineer,Project manager,Account director and BI engineers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Implemented the CI/CD pipeline for build and deployment for IaC , ingestion and transformation. Framework has been built to support the RDBMS and File-based ingestion and transformation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They are so cool and easy to work with.

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

The skills and experience that they bring to the table are impressive.

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

I have no comments at this point of time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

IT- Leader for TMHCC principal strategic platform for PAS

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

Digital transformation journey converting a monolith into cloud native micro-services architecture.

What were your goals for this project?

Performance, data residency, CI/CD automation

SOLUTION

How did you select Beyondsoft Consulting Inc.?

Previous POC done to other teams on TMHCC, technical soundness of BS leaders.

Describe the project in detail.

Domain Driven Design analysis selecting the ideal domains to move out of our legacy monolith into their own domains with independent micro-services

What was the team composition?

Architect, Senior Tech Lead, few offshore resources

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

250% performance increase on micro-services

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Highly engaged daily tag-ups. They worked great as an extension of the company.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Technical skillset - JP and Michael Mancuso

Are there any areas for improvement?

"Sales and Marketing" of the deliverables.