Coherent Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Databiz Group, a consulting firm. We offer end-to-end application development, handling everything from design to front- and backend development and the whole process of delivering the application to production.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We needed to increase our team’s development capacity in building an application for a large bank in Europe.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the application on Java EE 6.0. The services are run on JBoss EAP 6. The frontend technology is Angular 8. For the data, we use Oracle 11 and Hadoop. They’re actually working for just this one customer, but we’re thinking about increasing their support for other customers that we have.

What is the team composition?

There are five frontend developers and five backend developers working with us.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

I knew Coherent Solutions’ director from his previous job. When I had the need to increase my team, I tried to contact the company he worked at and they told me that he moved to Coherent Solutions. We interviewed people from Coherent Solutions and they had a deep competence in the technologies that we needed for the project. Thanks to that, we were able to convince our customer to accept a remote working model.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €200,000 euros (approximately $223,100 USD) on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m really satisfied with the relationship. We track the work's status with them on a weekly basis, both internally and then with the customer just to be sure that all tasks are fully completed to satisfaction. We haven’t had any kind of problems with them.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They don’t provide project management—we handle that on our side. Coherent Solutions is well organized. We have access to a primary point of contact who is able to manage their team’s activities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are cheap for us compared to other suppliers and have really strong developers. Coherent Solutions doesn’t need to be micromanaged. They’re precise and if we give them proper specifications, they’re able to finish tasks on time without any issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could offer the possibility of having a periodic physical presence on-premise of the customer. Working remotely is good, but sometimes clients need a closer relationship. If they could stay one week per month in Italy, that would be great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are highly competent in the technologies that I need. Also, their ramp up time is very short. They were able to assign a whole team in a couple of weeks.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of systems and controls for Daikin, an HVAC company. I recently left that position.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired Coherent Solutions to integrate a frontend user interface that integrated and utilized data from a controller on our HVAC equipment, such as rooftop units, chillers, and any equipment we use in large retail spaces.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked with us to develop an interface that would accumulate data. We had roughly 40,000 points of data from our equipment that needed to be stored and analyzed. Using HTML 5, they established a dynamic sizing interface and used Wind River to integrate the data with the Azure environment they built.   

So we can perform more data analytics in the future, they developed a data lake that we could use ourselves. They also created a mobile app that was utilized to control a 22-ton chilling unit from the user’s phone.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager, a software manager, and between 6–8 developers on our team.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

I had a prior relationship with their COO, but I also heard several good things about them from other people they’ve worked with.

How much have you invested with them?

While I was there, we spent between $4,000,000–$4,500,000, but the project has been ongoing since I left.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2013, and they have an ongoing partnership with Daikin.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They always provided us with more than one solution and wouldn’t try to oversell certain options. They delivered exactly what we needed. I was really satisfied with our working partnership with Coherent Solutions, and I know they’re still collaborating.

During beta testing, our users and clients were able to use the product to make sure there were no issues. We provided their team with business requirements, and they would check them off as we go to ensure that we never had any miscommunications before final tests.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was great. They use a model in which their staff is available to us for half the day. It was unbelievably successful because our teams could interact directly despite being in different time zones. They always set realistic deliverable dates but were able to expedite certain processes when needed. About 95% of the time, they delivered when indicated. If they did ever miss a deadline, they created a lessons-learned sheet to explain why. We always had weekly check-ins, relieving a tremendous of stress.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are the best outsourcing firm I’ve ever used. Two of their developers would spend a week with us every 7–8 months to make sure all of our bases were covered.

They were very budget-minded, giving us estimates, tracking that we spent, and notifying us is we needed to dial back our spending or were approaching our budget.

Despite our long-term partnership, they created continuity within the team. We had a solid group of people that stayed with us, and we weren’t onboarding new people very often.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any suggestions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re reliant on you, so you need to deliver your business requirements when needed. Ambiguity decreases your chances of getting what you really want.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a company that builds fatigue test equipment. The fatigue test system uses several hydraulic actuators and hydraulic pumps to power those actuators. The oil pumped to the actuators is handled by a computer, and that computer is connected to a controller. I am the application software manager who handles the controller applications that interface with all of the equipment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired Coherent Solutions about 12 years ago to help develop the software that is now known as our test control suite. They have been involved with us since the very beginning to create that web application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The app is based in C# and WPF and runs under Windows. It enables users to input different control parameters for different specimens, such as vibration testing on the radiator of a car. They are also providing a scrum master for us to help with running all the scheduling and plans.

What is the team composition?

We have a fairly large team comprised of members from both sides of the project.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

There are still a couple of original members, but for the most part, the team has completely changed since we started working together 12 years ago.

How much have you invested with them?

We are spending over half a million a year right now.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in 2007 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The best evidence of our program’s success is that our customers are using it on a daily basis, testing everything from small material samples for property determination all the way up to large component testing.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Since we’ve been working together so long, they’ve actually gotten to the point where we can hand projects off to them and they manage it themselves. They’re really great in that regard.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It is definitely unique to have such a dedicated workforce with such a long view of these kinds of engagements. They’ve got people there who are passionate about working on these problems. Their team presents us with really excellent value for our money.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints. Everything we have asked them about, they’ve been able to handle. Even things like contingency plans for politics in Europe, to expanding or contracting the workforce, they have met our needs and exceeded them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would suggest thinking in longer terms on projects with Coherent Solutions. They are great for projects of any length, but it is in the arc of our relationship with them that we’ve seen the real benefits.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the software engineering manager at CliqStudios, and we are a direct-to-consumer custom cabinet manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired Coherent Solutions for Staff Augmentation to ramp up some of our business processes rather than trying to find all of the resources we needed on our own.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re primarily supporting our WordPress site, where we have a microservices backend that they’re helping us enhance. We’re leveraging them on some QA automation and dev ops practice optimizations as well.

What is the team composition?

We’ve got seven people working directly with us, which includes an automation person, a dev-ops person, a local architect, and a team lead, along with three other general team members.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

Our company’s previous CTO decided to work with them, so I’m not sure how that decision was made.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a little over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work started in June 2019 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we haven’t launched anything yet, the only thing that we’re measuring against is our sprints velocity, which has had a big gap. Our first few sprints were a little slow as our teams got used to collaborating with one another, but now they’ve started to more proactively contribute to the work things are moving much faster.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We do all of the project management on our side, so I’m not sure how their capabilities are in that regard.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were able to pick up on our architecture very well and quickly understand what is going on. It’s by no means entry-level stuff that we’re working on, and the code itself is very challenging, so it’s impressive that they’ve been able to adapt to that as well and as quickly as they have.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The biggest difficulty we have is in our differences in culture. We’re a very open, gregarious sort of friendly group of people, and it can be difficult to tell when someone is upset or just very matter of fact about something. I wouldn’t say that it has been a significant barrier to our work though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It is extremely important to have a plan of execution. Understand where you’re going to inject them and set boundaries around that point of injection so that they’ve got the internal resources to support them for the first few months until they have completely adapted to your style and goals as a company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of the Drive Smarter Platform at Cedar Electronics, a technology company that owns Escort Radar and Cobra Electronics. We create innovative solutions to enhance safety, awareness, and connectivity for people on the move.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired Coherent Solutions to get our app back on track. We had a unified dash camera and radar detector app with the intent to replace legacy apps and support our new products. The app had been struggling for two years, so we brought Coherent Solutions in to fix it. However, by the time I joined the team, it became apparent that we had to do a redesign and a big refactor.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Coherent Solutions has cleaned up and debugged the current codebase and made recommendations based on that experience. The team has redesigned the app and mapped out a plan to do so. Coherent Solutions has gathered requirements, come up with the design, and refactored the app. The goal is to move the app’s rating from 1.3 stars to a minimum of 4 stars.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 25 teammates from Coherent Solutions at full strength. We’ve scaled the team down to 16 now.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

Coherent Solutions was already onboarded to the project when I joined the team. We had moved from an Asia-based team to Coherent Solutions. The team was referred to us by the previous product owner, who had just left the company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Coherent Solutions in January 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve moved from 1.3 stars in the Apple App Store and 1.6 stars in the Google Play Store to a solid 4+ stars on both platforms. We’ve introduced CarPlay and Android Auto and started monetizing customers without our companion hardware. We’ve had 20% growth year-over-year (YoY) and a 246% engagement increase. More people use our app, and they use it more frequently and for longer periods of time.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Coherent Solutions has delivered on time and within budget. We communicate via Microsoft Teams and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by Coherent Solutions’ approach. I like their communication style; they’re direct, open, and honest. They do what they say and say what they do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they could improve on, as far as I can tell.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Apaleo

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

SaaS property management platform for hotels (ERP system)

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Scale our tech team

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Coherent Solutions were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Coherent Solution has been supplementing our own engineering teams for several years, helping us to conceptualize, design and implement a cloud-based ERP platform for hotel chains. Thy have been involved in technical design, RFCs, implementation, test automation, DevOps.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Scalable hotel management features as API-1st platform.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project ans product management has been conducted by Apaleo themselves. In this setup Coherent engineers delivered on time with good speed even when requirements were complex.

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

Virtual Meeting

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

Good relationship to Coherent management. Great culture of Coherent developers fitting well to our team. Their technical knowledge and capabilities are impressive.

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

Provide more top engineers to us :).

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the QA Manager of Sunstream Business Services

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Builds and manages back-end software for the Farm Credit industry

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Build a QA Engineering department
• Deliver quality products to customers

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

Referral

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Coherent Solutions were assigned to this project?

23

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We are modernizing an existing loan servicing platform, which is currently managed within IBM Mainframe technologies.  The team I managed are all Quality Engineers, who produced large amounts of automated, manual and load/performance tests to ensure all software deliveries were of high quality and met the needs of end users

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Delivery of working software at the end of each 2 week iteration.
• Delivery of working products and/or feature sets at the end of each 10 week product increment.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Teams have embraced agile delivery.
• They consistently met our goals around project delivery at the end of each product increment.

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Coherent Solutions' skilled and adaptable engineers have quickly grasped our industry and new technologies.

Are there any areas. for improvement or something Coherent Solutions could have done differently?

No complaints!

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on October 21, 2023.
Matthew Weyland
VP of Engineering, Sunstream Business ServicesFinancial services

Saint Paul, Minnesota

51-200 Employees

Dec 2022 - Dec 2024

$200,000 to $999,999

Verified

Project summary
Coherent Solutions augments a business services provider's software development and QA resources.

Feedback summary
The client is pleased with the results of the engagement. Coherent Solutions is highly objectives-focused, and internal stakeholders are impressed with the service provider's quality of deliverables and ability to go beyond the project's scope.
BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP Engineering of Sunstream Business Services

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Back office support for Farm Credit institutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Deliver PLANT
• QA Automation First

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

Worked with them previously.

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Previous Successes

How many teammates from Coherent Solutions were assigned to this project?

15

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We augmented our teams with Development and QA resources.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Delivery of PI Objectives

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We didn't use them for project management.

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Quality of the resources has exceeded the teams expectations.

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

I'm pleased with the results of the ongoing partnership.
STAR RATINGS
Overall rating:
Quality: 4
Cost: 4
Schedule: 4
Willing to refer: 4

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the SVP of Stack Sports

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The Stack Sports ecosystem powers every aspect of sports from kids eager to learn the game, to college & professional athletes, to the parents & volunteers who dedicate their time to grow sports in our communities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Salesforce Engineering
• Kubernetes Devops

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

• Referral
• Prior Customer

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Coherent Solutions were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

CSI shall provide the following consulting services for Stack Sports: DevOps planning, architecture, and implementation for all Salesforce and select AWS Services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Project is ongoing and has been very successful.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Always on time, and with great communication.

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I'm impressed by Coherent Solutions' wide and diverse capabilities for projects with core and unique skill set requirements.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Engineer

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Manufactures various fluid handling systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Release custom web based user interface
• Continuous improvement to above system

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

Referral

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Coherent Solutions were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Work involved creating an application which runs on a local device and hosts a web based user interface. The application communicates with a local database and wireless hardware.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Successful launch and sales.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Projects are managed well.
• Development estimates in both time and cost are often met and beat.
• They responded to our needs quickly.

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Ease of use. They have helped me learn a great deal as well.

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

Nothing that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the SVP Engineering of the company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a data analytics and data acquisition company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Coherent Solutions to accomplish?

• Build a ReactJS UI for customer job scheduling.

SOLUTION

How did you find Coherent Solutions?

Referral, Other

Why did you select Coherent Solutions over others?

Great culture fit, Good value for cost, Company values aligned, Other

What was the size of Coherent Solutions’s team?

2-5 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with Coherent Solutions?

Virtual Meeting

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Originally Coherent was brought in to build a new interactive UI to modernize a legacy system that had been used by customers in the past. The goal was to implement a ReactJS front end and support data in Java backend running against Postgres DBs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Deliver a working tool on time

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Projects were delivered on time consistently. When there were unknowns, Coherent would help define requirements and help with project management.

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

Coherent was truly a partner with our team and not just contractors. They focused on success and engineered solutions.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

No, Coherent did everything required and more. That is why the decision to continue working with them was made even after initial projects were complete.