Edstem Technologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief delivery officer at a company that sells custom software. We work with customers looking to build out various products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edstem Technologies?

We decided to leverage their resources to help us with various development projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They work with us on everything from requirement gathering, development, and creating an approach through to execution and completion. We do custom builds, so every project is done from scratch. They work with various technologies, like HTML, CSS, Angular, JavaScript, and Ionic. Additional offerings include DevOps, code repository management, etc.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked extensively with Jerry (Founder), a project manager, and about 10 developers.

How did you come to work with Edstem Technologies?

They're affiliated with an agency that we use to recruit talent.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost is around $250,000 this month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since June 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The largest benefit for me is the ability to tap into Edstem’s network of experts and technical skills. This allows us to scale up and down quickly and hit looming deadlines. We wouldn’t have that flexibility if we were only using our internal team.

How did Edstem Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They adhere to our budgets, and we move well through our Agile workflow. There are some delays from scope creep, though, but those aren’t the fault of their development team. The work is managed using Trello and Zoho, and we communicate over Slack, WhatsApp, and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility and reliability really stand out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Situations can always improve, but Edstem is always working to improve their performance. If any issues come up and a task gets pushed, they work to set up protocols to ensure the same situation doesn’t happen again.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be actively engaged and responsive to the project. Ensure that Edstem has the information they need to succeed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO at AyataCommerce. We're an e-commerce systems integrator firm that provides end-to-end services and mainly focuses on retail luxury brands.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edstem Technologies?

We normally work in e-commerce, but we had a new client from a different domain, which was challenging. The client had an incumbent application and wanted to get rid of it and move on to something new.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Edstem Technologies has been providing end-to-end bespoke custom software. They help us in UX designing, platform design, requirements gathering, testing, and data migration.

We wanted to spread the existing system into four different platforms, which all had to be merged into one, so that involved data migration.

Edstem also provided help with the frontend layer of the product, getting the services hosted on the AWS cloud, writing the backend services, and getting the data migrated onto NoSQL.

What is the team composition?

The team has close to 15 members, including a project manager, 5–7 backend developers, three frontend developers, a business analyst, and two testers.

How did you come to work with Edstem Technologies?

One of Edstem Technologies' co-founders is well known in our circles. We've observed their success with other clients, and they've partnered with us for bespoke software solutions.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $50,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in November 2021, and it's still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Every process on the previous system was manual; somebody had to manually collect the files, upload them, and then keep track of them. Edstem Technologies have helped us with automation, which has significantly reduced the time our client spends on the system by nearly 80%.

Also, merging the four different systems into a single NoSQL database has led to a 30%–40% reduction in cost.

How did Edstem Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been good. Some of our deadlines changed because the client had changing requirements, and they adapted to them.

Regarding tools, we use Atlassian for product management, Jira for capturing requirements and keeping track of tasks and progress, an agile scrum methodology, and Confluence project documentation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very much aligned with our core values, which are empathy, trust, and adaptability. They reached out to clients, helped them think, and were kind enough to be patient and sit with them to help them refine their requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on; they've been doing a very good job.

Any advice for potential customers?

Anybody who values their client's success should work with Edstem Technologies because they care.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director at Xpergia, an IT services and business consultancy company based in the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edstem Technologies?

We needed help with software development and business consultancy for some of our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sometimes our clients come with a fixed pricing project; we take the project from them and agree on a timeline. Edstem Technologies provides staff augmentation services to deliver those projects to our clients. We haven’t purchased any software or hardware from them. They mainly work on software development and consultation for our clients.

We’ve worked on various projects. One of the projects required expertise in JavaScript for the backend. We received support from them in that area. Also, we did a project where we had to migrate a legacy workflow management system to a new open-source workflow management system and a frontend project where we got some React developers. Recently, we’ve been doing work on the DevOps side with AWS.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a few people, including the CTO, a tech lead, and many senior and junior developers.

How did you come to work with Edstem Technologies?

We found them online while looking for companies to work with in India.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent £450,000 (approximately $541,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2019, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We hope our relationship continues because we’re satisfied with their services; we appreciate their work. They’re very knowledgeable and have a good mix of technical skills. They guarantee their work, but they never need to because they always work to the highest standards.

We measure our success on the happiness of our clients, and all of our clients are satisfied. For example, we worked on a greenfield project that was supposed to save our clients £120,000 annually and successfully delivered that. Additionally, Edstem Technologies has been very supportive of our many ongoing projects. We’re really happy with them. We’ve got a great staff working with us.

How did Edstem Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything has been spot on — there’s never been an instance where we committed to a timeline that wasn’t met. We require them to use our tools when clients want us to get into their network and tools. We usually use Jira and Confluence and communicate via Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really professional. Every individual we’ve worked with has been committed to delivering work to the highest standards. Also, they have expertise in most of the technologies. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We haven’t had any reasons to be unhappy. However, they could bring up some people in technologies they haven’t dived into, like Apache Spark.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend them to anyone. I’ve already recommended them to folks approaching me for a good software company in India.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of software and security at a medical equipment manufacturing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edstem Technologies?

We needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We didn’t have time to write requirements, so all our ideas were communicated verbally. I did the mockups, and then they refined those mockups to improve their appearance. 

They came up with the ideas for the UI/UX and how we wanted to display the data, which is critical, as there’s tons of data and only a small screen to display it on. Edstem tested their solutions before the one-month delivery deadline. They also made the prototype and are now implementing more and more changes. 

What is the team composition?

There are four people involved, including a project manager and three developers.

How did you come to work with Edstem Technologies?

They were referred to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $75,000 with them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since December 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They've been able to implement the requirements we gave them very quickly. The initial prototype was done in one month, which was amazing; nobody could believe it.

The project has high visibility and has had a huge, positive impact on the business. Everyone in our company is happy with the results, and our customers are delighted. I was complimented at three company meetings in a row because of the work Edstem has done.

The solution is helping with sales, as well. We tested here and there, and there weren’t many bugs. Most of the bugs were actually because of bad data.

How did Edstem Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m very satisfied with the project management. We use Jira, Slack, and emails and we meet two times a week. Currently, they’re working for us on an as-needed basis.

​​​​What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really smart people and are very ethical.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My bar is really high and they've been able to meet it, matching both quality and cost. I am pleasantly surprised.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is very important. Your company contact has to closely collaborate with Edstem in the beginning. I used to have daily calls when we started off until they were plugged into the project.