bluCursor Infotech Private Limited

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a tax and credit advisory and monitoring firm that’s been in business for about 23 years. Our team offers services to multi-family syndicators, banks, management companies, and developers. It’s important for us to ensure compliance with any number of affordable housing programs in the United States. I’m the chief revenue officer, so I’m in charge of all of the sales, marketing, finances, and technology involved in the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with bluCursor Infotech Private Limited?

We’d been using a legacy system that was custom-developed for us. However, we were quickly outgrowing it. After deciding to replace our system with Salesforce, we elected to bring on an outsourced team because of our lack of experience in scaling CRMs. bluCursor Infotech Private Limited was brought on to handle that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve configured the sales, service, and community clouds within Salesforce to support the business processes and service delivery of the company. Their work involved extensive customization for delivering the services which we provide to our customers that use Salesforce. They activated the built-in Salesforce tools that we needed to run our business smoothly.

What is the team composition?

I worked closely with Deepak (Founder & CEO, bluCursor Infotech Private Limited), my primary contact. We also have contact with a development lead. He organizes our daily standups and provides demonstrations of our main contacts. Aside from that, we’ve had between 6–7 developers actively working on the account on various aspects of the system.

How did you come to work with bluCursor Infotech Private Limited?

We did an extensive search, starting with Salesforce-recommended partners. Those suggestions didn’t work out because responsiveness wasn’t great from them and the cost was extremely high. We weren’t getting the value for our money with those partners. After that, we were searching high and low for companies that could fill their shoes. Using my prior connections in India, I found bluCursor Infotech Private Limited and engaged them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2019 and continue to collaborate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still going through internal testing before rolling the product out to our customers. However, the internal feedback has been phenomenal. The entire team is excited to have workflows supported within a system and platform, so we can do away with extraneous spreadsheets. The manual processes that we used to have can be rolled off. 

Their team has done a wonderful job focusing on how we can automate more of our day-to-day processes moving forward. Salesforce allows us to really measure every aspect of the engagement with detailed analytics. Now, we’re able to become a metrics-driven organization. We’re excited to see this platform launch at the end of January 2020.

How did bluCursor Infotech Private Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

We started out knowing that our requirements weren’t formalized. Deciding to undertake an agile development, we have our project organized in sprints using Asana. We look at that tool during our daily standup to track and understand our projects. That’s the main communication tool between our teams. During our meetings, we review their work from the day and prioritize their continual work for the next day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Deepak is a tremendous individual. As I’ve gotten to know him over the last nine months, I’ve noticed a can-do attitude. We’ve challenged the team a number of times with pretty complex situations, but they always come out on top. 

They bring all necessary resources into their developments to get the expertise and perspectives they need. We haven’t run into an insurmountable obstacle yet. They always find a way around issues to keep the project moving forward.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because of the specialization of our industry, it took some time to nail down all of the rules and regulations that we operate under. That was a steep learning curve. Now, their recommendations and solutions are in-line with the regulations. So, it was a slow start. However, they invested in us and our business. At this point, their understanding of the industry is great and so are the solutions they offer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

In hindsight, if we took the time up-front to better specify the requirements, we could have circumvented the learning curve. However, we’re a small team, so that would’ve been difficult. Sometimes, our team didn’t maintain a requirements document. 

So, it would’ve been helpful to them if we could’ve fleshed out something more concrete prior to the engagement. That caused confusion and inefficiency on their end. Because of this, I’d recommend being able to communicate and clarify requirements right off the bat. That’ll help you get the best value for your money.