Future Processing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director for DX Network Services Limited, part of the DX (Group) PLC. We’re a parcel, logistics, and freight solution provider. We deliver many packages all around the country on different services. I’ve worked with DX for 30 years, and I’m based in Liverpool, the company’s IT center of operations.

We have a separate part of the business called the Document Exchange, which is the oldest part of DX and why the company was created. The Document Exchange is a member’s only network to move secure and sensitive documents around the UK, predominantly for the legal space. However, we also work with other types of organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

During the pandemic, many people's working environment changed, many of our Document Exchange customers found themselves working at home instead of working in their offices. We wanted to augment our Document Exchange (a private member’s only physical document network) with a digital equivalent. We believed that having a solid digital offering along with our unique physical delivery proposition in the UK puts us in a very strong position.

Initially, we looked at the sort of product that we wanted to create and realized that besides all the essential features expected in any kind of digital exchange platform, the solution needed to be extremely strong in privacy and security. For example, many of the documents that move through our network are related to ongoing court cases or somebody’s mortgage documents for a new house. Therefore, the digital equivalent of those documents could contain a lot of sensitive and private information.

At that point in time, the internal was fully engaged on other development priorities, also we wanted to tap into leading edge secure development knowledge. We needed someone to help us with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started fleshing out our strategic vision, collaboratively with Future Processing’s developers.  We’d decided to make the platform as secure as possible by keeping it separate from the rest of our IT environments, completely firewalled in its own secure area. We selected the Azure cloud for that environment, and we relied heavily on Future Processing’s skills to develop that arena.

At the moment, that work is drawing to a conclusion. We’ve developed the DX Exchange Portal and are currently running a pilot.

What is the team composition?

They’ve been excellent at scaling up and down the team when we reached specific pieces of work. Providing just the right skill sets as and when required. At the moment, we’re working with eight employees who are pretty much dedicated full-time to this project.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

We were looking around the marketplace for a development partner that could do the bulk of the work we needed, bringing key knowledge sets in areas of security.  We loved Future Processing’s story and attitude, there was a strong cultural fit.

Future Processing gave us a lot of confidence, both in the structure that they operate and in the individual capabilities of the team. They have incredibly strong skillsets in secure application design. Therefore, we awarded the contract to Future Processing.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Future Processing has delivered everything they said they would and more. The Document Exchange is a private member’s network; there’s a high level of interest from many of our customers. Many of those organizations are looking into their own digital journey,  we’re effectively making that journey easier for them.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done really well. We’ve worked with many different partners over the years, and Future Processing is definitely in the top three in terms of capability. They’re very clear and concise in their communications, and they give us complete visibility in every aspect of the development — both from the high-level project management approach and down to all of the daily technical activities that are happening.

Also, they’re great at managing stakeholders, particularly when it is a brand-new custom software. As a customer, we can potentially get carried away and throw the kitchen sink in there because we keep thinking of all these great ideas. However, Future Processing is excellent at holding us to the brief and making sure that we make good progress on our true objectives.

Moreover, they’ve worked well as part of the team. They’re a very personable bunch, and it’s easy to get along with them — they’re very clear and effective.

We use a variety of project management and discovery tools, but Jira and Confluence are the bread and butter. In the early stages of design, we used Miro, which allowed us to collaborate on the design. This was during the height of the pandemic, so we were both operating outside of our normal working ways.  Usually, we’d get people together in a big room and spend several days on design workshops. Instead we had to do all of that remotely and electronically. At this point in the development, we have a minimum of three Teams meetings every week to keep everything on track and answer any detailed design questions that arise as part of the agile development process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their approach to estimating costs and sticking to those costs is one of the best I’ve experienced. They absolutely make sure that we have just what we need, and if we’re not using something, it’s instantly dialed down.

We also have had excellent visibility of what the development is costing us at any point in time. It’s basically a greenfield development; we’re building a new solution, not replacing, modifying, or refreshing something. It’s a completely new business requirement, and we’ve done incredibly well at sticking to the budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re reaching the end of our time together (at least for this project), so we’re now doing a little bit of a handover at a technical level. I think both parties would’ve preferred to meet more frequently in person.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anybody as a solutions development partner, especially to augment an existing team; they represent great value. However, you need to fully commit to their level of intensity and make sure that you have IT and business stakeholders dedicating their time frequently and regularly. There needs to be a commitment throughout the development lifecycle so Future Processing can do their best work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are the leading privacy-first, location-powered programmatic advertising partner. I'm the Chief Technology Officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing, and what were your goals?

Future Processing was brought in to help us build a new data visualization and management application, working in conjunction with our Product team and designers. Our key initial goal was to accelerate our time-to-market relative to building it strictly in-house.

SOLUTION

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

I received a set of recommendations for development partners from other CTOs in my network. My team and I met with these companies and evaluated them on culture fit, the depth and similarity of their portfolio, extent of technical competency, our gut feeling on trustworthiness, and also the perceived value for investment. We felt Future Processing's working style was the best fit for ours and we had confidence in their trustworthiness and technical capability. Although they were not the lowest price potential partner, we felt we'd get the best return on investment from them.

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

We began the project with a set of specifications and designs put together by our Product and design team. Working with the FP team, we crafted these into user stories that fit into the Kanban working style we wanted to work in. We defined some technology standards for the project (e.g. Java backend, React frontend, and Docker and Kubernetes for containerization) and the FP team proposed an architectural framework to build the application. The project was launched with daily standups and typical Kanban rituals attended by the FP team and our assigned product managers. Development, from the initial launch and through to ongoing refinement, is done using agile practices that aim to deliver incremental functionality quickly and often. All pull requests are code reviewed by our in-house development team that support the relationship.

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

The initial team consisted of two java engineers, two frontend engineers, and a fractional project manager. We've since expanded the team to bring on two additional java engineers and another frontend engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Future Processing exceeded our expectations on project delivery and were able to deliver on-time and on-spec in a manner I'd typically only expect from an in-house team.

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

FP's project management was well executed and well structured. We executed against a Kanban process to allow flexibility and FP were consistently able to deliver against expectations, without requiring or relying upon excessive management overhead or time spent in meetings.

We primarily communicated "in person" in the daily standups and planning rituals, with frequent ongoing communication via Slack. Our Product team would communicate new features using product specifications, shared and refined via Google Docs.

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

I've worked with a number of development partner organizations over the years and almost all of the experiences have been less than great. One of the common areas these relationships can breakdown is if tasks aren't delivered on time or if the partner organization is unable to see the product with the same eyes as the sponsoring organization.

Future Processing has been aligned with our vision and has had the appropriate processes to keep aligned. As such, the product we've built with them has fulfilled our vision. Importantly, we feel the code has been written to a high standard and we're confident that, were we ever to inhouse it, we could maintain it and not be hindered by technical debt.

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

We've been happy with the relationship and whenever there have been bumps, as there will always be, we've felt FP has handled them exceptionally well and transparently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Triq builds digital endurance sports training prescription application for triathletes that generates personalized training plans— scientifically backed by the latest sport science insights to provide better training success in the highly individualised and fast changing lives of ambitious hobbyists endurance athletes. The plan is generated based on race goal, the personal schedule and current fitness status. I'm the CTO of TRIQ.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing, and what were your goals?

Developing a state of the art visually appealing mobile app and cloud infrastructure. We were looking for expert developers, a quick start and a fairly dynamic access to talent.

SOLUTION

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

Near shore. Good expertise and talent, availability, english skills.

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

First key deliverable was an app to release for the market fit phase. We have 2 weeks sprints producing a releasable mobile application. Tech used is iOS, Swift, .NET, C#, Azure, Azure App Services, Azure Functions, Python, Garmin API, web, Firebase push notifications, CleverTap, etc

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

Scrum master, lead dev, 1-3 iOS developer, 1-2 Python developers, 1-2 backend developers, 1-3 QA, 1 requirements engineer for sometime.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Every two weeks we get a well tested high quality application from the team. Consistently.

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

Classic Scrum. Because of the pandemic, we've rarely met in person. Various meetings online: Dailies, all the sprint rituals. Slack. Jira, Confluence. It works well.

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

They are really good. Experienced, bright, professional. They work well together in the team. They follow best practices without asking for it.

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

Nothing that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CONNECTS has been designed to care about SMEs, Start-ups and Suppliers and the business networks they are organised in. Our vision is to create a global level playing field for all entrepreneurs and companies to do successful business. We’ve created a global matchmaking and community management service that connects businesses and businesspeople via their local chamber and business networks.

It opens up a world of opportunities to develop new business connections and collaborate within communities of common interest. Today the CONNECTS platform hosts almost 50 Chambers of Commerce from representing more than 60 different countries around the world, with more than 35.000 of their members making an average of 5.000 monthly queries. Position: Head of Partnerships

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing, and what were your goals?

First, we needed to migrate the platform to a newer version of the Symphony framework and PHP, to ensure secure and sustainable development of the service as the previous framework was no longer to be supported. Second, we needed to extend the functionality of the platform to deliver new modules to our clients within the agreed timescale.

SOLUTION

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

I have been collaborating with Future Processing over the past 3 years in different software development projects and knew the way they work and deliver. We needed to scale up in short amount of time with a partner that could support our growth. After reviewing several candidates, we decided that Future Processing was the best fit.

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

Future Processing developed the new features of the Communities module, which enables users to join online communities to connect, do business, and exchange information and ideas with other companies. The module was based on the code of our existing functionality enhanced with additional features. Apart from development work, Future Processing helped automate quality testing and part of the deployment process. Technologies used: PHP Symfony 5

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

There were 4 people in the core team, 2 developers, 1 DevOps and 1 QA. This team was supported by 2 project managers, one relationship manager, one partner manager and one presales solution architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Despite some initial challenges in the cooperation between Future Processing and CONNECTS’ development teams, we communicated very well on the management level. As a result, together, we managed to turn things around and deliver a fully functioning Communities module within the agreed timescale. Through our cooperation, we achieved our business goal of being able to offer our clients a new opportunity to develop relationships, cooperate and share expertise.

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

The project management communication was open, transparent and timely. Tools used: Teams, Zoom, our CONNECTS platform, GitLab, to which we added in-person meetings and visit to each of our offices.

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

We were impressed by their focus on people and building relationships. This is what Future Processing prides itself for.

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

In our project review, both parties recognized that we started the project too quickly, more time should have been spent on scoping out the project and socializing the internal and external teams. More in-depth feedback should have been sought about the quality of some of the junior staff put on the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an IT director at Stalexport Autostrady SA. We specialize in toll motorway operation and maintenance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

We needed their expertise in custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to automate our payment system, so we tasked Future Processing with building this new platform for us. Their team used Microsoft Azure to implement software solutions based on our preferences on design and functionality. The software was divided into two subsystems, one for our internal operations and the other system focusing on our client-related contacts and transactions. The latter system promoted our existing products and served as our selling platform as well.

Future Processing already accomplished the development of our platform, but we continue to rely on their support for system maintenance and management.

What is the team composition?

We've started with a team of 16 resources and had to downsize to eight members as the project evolved. The team is normally composed of a product owner, developers, business analysts, and graphic designers.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

We needed a local agency with a reasonable price point, and Future Processing was the team that met all our requirements — apart from only being 40 kilometers away from our office, they also gave the best offer among our other options.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $500,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The development project ran from August 2019–June 2020, but our collaboration with Future Processing is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Future Processing has helped us hit our main goal of moving from a traditional to an automated payment system — that's our main success metric for their work. Our previous system has only enticed about 50% of our clientele to purchase from our website, but that rate has skyrocketed to almost 95% through our new payment portal. Apart from giving us lucrative options, it also helps us cut down on expenditure, which is especially beneficial now that we're going through a global pandemic.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

Future Processing is a communicative and cooperative team — they adhere to our project terms and work promptly despite the challenges that the pandemic has caused. Overall, it's safe to say that our collaboration with Future Processing has been one of the best projects I've ever handled in our company.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Future Processing strives to deliver quality results based on their in-depth understanding of our needs — we have great trust in their team's work ethic.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's nothing constructive to say. Our ongoing collaboration is enough proof that we're impressed with the quality of their services.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Future Processing is a responsible team that's worth cooperating with — don't hesitate to hire them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering for an insurance company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

Our business segment is growing globally and we need technology to support the growth. We are developing a configurable platform to deploy in multiple countries. To scale up the program, we partnered with Future Processing to work with our teams.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing provides a whole agile team to be part of our program. Initially, we provided the information so they’d help us execute. They’ve used a mix of AWS cloud technologies, JavaScript, and Spring Boot, and everything is furnished by Serverless Orlando Services. They’ve also contributed to the design.

The platform is a full-suite insurance lifecycle and value stream. It’s an in-house iterative software application.

Future Processing formed an autonomous agile product team as part of this particular program.

What is the team composition?

We have over 20 people on our team, including a scrum master, product owner (PO), architects, product designers, and engineers.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

Future Processing was introduced to our company. This program, started in 2019, was the first engagement with FP.  Since then, as a result of the success of this program, the partnership with FP has grown multi-fold.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $1–$5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement with the program started in 2019 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, it’s easy to work with Future Processing. They have industry-standard agile team skills and come up to speed quickly in every role they play.  The team not only gels into the program, they bring expertise and insights and are an integral part of the program.  

The team grew from 5 people to 20+ in the past 18 months, which speaks well about how satisfied we are with our partnership.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

Future Processing team comes with industry-standard agile team skills. They were able to form the backlog quickly and were mindful to grow the team's velocity over time. They’ve reduced the onboarding time for new team members. Now, someone can show up and be able to develop and check-in code within two weeks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism, flexibility, and company culture are most impressive.

I am most impressed by the professionalism and the quality of the team. They took the time to absorb and understand our business and technology landscape, which made them contribute quickly as a partner. People in every role bring their A-game. 

We started with five individuals, and they were able to jumpstart the team and get in a productive state within 2–4 weeks. FP listens to our needs and was able to find the right people to support us.

Throughout the pandemic, we know FP is very mindful of employees' health and wellbeing. Their company campus setup (e.g. onsite child care) indicates that they are a people company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this point, the challenge is for all of us to maintain and add to the level of capacity we have. Our demand is high because of our partnership’s success.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on what the engagement is about. If you don’t know, they can help you explore it. Future Processing has a vast service portfolio, so they’ll be able to meet your needs.

For companies in the US, be mindful of time zone differences.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Purple, we aim for business value for our clients by creating great concepts through new and innovative technologies. Which often results in a combination of hardware and software services. My rol is the Head of Project and Account at Purple.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing, and what were your goals?

We hired Future processing to develop the Automodus app, an app that helps you stop using your phone while you're driving. The goal was to develop and further develop this app for one of the biggest insurance companies in The Netherlands.

SOLUTION

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

We already have been in contact with FP for years. They have a proven track record for mobile app development. And a good price vs. quality ratio.

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

We briefed FP via mockups of the desired application. They build the app in reactive native on iOS and Android. We went through the whole process with FP, from storyboard to development, to testing and release. Currently we are still working together on additional features

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

Project manager React native developer x 2 2D design Q/A'er

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After 3 years we now have over 300.000 downloads and 4+ star rating in both appstores

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

Their PM style is great. They use the same tools as us (Slack, Jira) and are always willing to help when needed.

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

They're very well organized and always willing to scale up when needed. If we have issues or challenges, they are the ones we go to.

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

Sometimes the impact estimations where a bit on the high side

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTIO of a global B2B information group that focuses exclusively on private equity, real estate, and debt, as well as infrastructure and agri investing. As these asset classes continue to grow in scale and significance, we provide unparalleled business knowledge, intelligence, and networking events to investors, fund managers, financial practitioners, and other service industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

We were deciding whether to build our in-house engineering team or to take on a nearshore engineering development partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing is our in-house engineering team, and they work on multiple projects for us. Instead of us actually recruiting our own team and then having the overhead of managing, retaining, and developing that team internally, we brought in a service that provided that to us.

Initially, we gave them the background and history of the company. Their scope of work included the objectives, goals, and stakeholders involved. Furthermore, we presented proposals for the products that we were looking to develop or needed support. We also provided them with the system capabilities that we currently have, which we wanted to continue developing.

From there, they presented back to us their understanding of what we needed, their experience in that, both in similar clients and work that they’d previously done, and the types of skill sets and team setup that they’ve involved in those similar projects.

Right now, the projects they’re working on are our engineering projects. In particular, they work in collaboration with our technology and product development teams developing our website product and all of the applications that make up our web platform.

We mainly use WordPress CMS, Node.js, and JavaScript, which are the key technologies in our stack.

What is the team composition?

We initially started with about 14 roles. The team included a development manager, architect, PHP and WordPress developers, full-stack, Node.js, AWS, JavaScript open-source, QA, and DevOps engineers, as well as some UX designers.

Not only do we get a dedicated team from them, but we also have an on-demand resource pool as well. We can scale up their team on a relatively short notice whenever we need to fulfill some of the projects that we strategically decide on over the year. Then, we scale back down off the back of that.

At the moment, we have about 30 developers of all types of skill sets. About 15 of them are a core team, and another 15 have been provided to us on-demand to deliver very specific projects with shorter-term contracts.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

We did an RFP process and had three companies shortlisted. We then traveled to various places in Western Europe and did site visits to them, where they presented themselves to us.

They responded to that RFP, and we weighed the decision based on people’s experience, skill sets, and what they delivered. We also gave them a task, and they presented back their proof of concept (POC) to show their ability to deliver what they were saying on paper. Off the back of all of that, we concluded that Future Processing was the right partner for us.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve already spent about £500,000 (approximately $706,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We completed the POC and made the decision to onboard them as our engineering partner in February 2020. We have an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A couple of metrics that we judge by are the release cycles and the volume they’re now releasing for us at the end of every sprint, which are two weeks long, so there are two releases a month.

We also look at and track the quality of what they produce, which is based on how much rework is done, how many bugs are in the code, and that type of issues. Lastly, we judge individuals based on the quality and volume of their work. It’s all about cadence tracking and having the team work cohesively to produce faster results.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

I couldn’t really comment on their project management because we don’t use it. We have our own internal project management team that works with Future Processing’s engineering team. They don’t give us project management resources per se, but they do have a team lead within the engineering team, which sits around that project management area.

Their team lead is responsible for helping the project manager ensure that team members are adequately aligned with their skills to do the job at any time we need. They help us coordinate the right skill sets, teams, and activities in order to get the job done. That area is very strong, as far as I am concerned.

We have regular account management sessions, as well as regular team meeting sessions. In those, we provide feedback both from us and their team. Out of that, we establish the sets of goals in which we’re all going to work so we can continually improve our processes.

For project management tools, we use the Atlassian toolset, so basically Jira and Confluence. We use Zoom and Slack for day-to-day conversations. Currently, we’re restricted by COVID-19, but the intention on both sides would’ve been to spend time together in each other’s offices. After the pandemic, we’re expecting to get back some part of the face-to-face communication on a regular, if not frequent basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

For us, it was the quality of the resources that they could show us and the way they manage that quality and develop their resources. Specifically, across all of their projects, they gather stats data on the information that’s coming out. They keep that anonymous for obvious reasons, but it allows us to gauge how effective someone is across each individual role. For example, we can measure how effective an engineering resource might be with a particular skill set based on how many points they make or announce in their particular sprints, as well as the quality of that work.

Also, they have data that judges that, so they can pre-empt a bit when they see problems in quality. It’s a useful measurement for us because we can benchmark our team’s performance against the rest of their teams across all of their clients, and we get a gauge as to where we stand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From an on-demand perspective, they probably could have more resources in the skill sets that we need. We know it’s a difficult thing to achieve, but that's still an area that we hope they keep improving so we’re able to scale at the pace that we want.

However, they’ve certainly worked very hard to fill gaps where we’ve needed on-demand resources, and it probably has taken them a while to recruit or mobilize those resources for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re bringing on a business like Future Processing, who’s already working with similar types of clients and problems, even potentially similar domains, I would look at those clients and the projects they’ve worked on. I would also make sure that all of them are referenced.

It’s not that we didn’t do that, but that’s the advice I would certainly give to somebody else since you don’t always get that. However, if you do so, it goes a long way when you’re onboarding the team because they tend to come with some experience and knowledge that gives them a little bit of a head start.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am co-founder of Elderlearn where we match immigrants who are learning Danish with elderly people at risk of loneliness. Elderlearn has designed their own IT-system for managing the matching of these two groups.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing?

We were at first looking to outsource part of our IT development, but realised that our code structure needed to be improved before we could outsource, in order for us to improve the accessibility of the code for external developers.

What were your goals for this project?

To improve the code structure and thus make it easier and cheaper to outsource development.

SOLUTION

How did you select Future Processing?

We had several companies give offers for developing a project that we wanted outsourced. We had a lot of confidence in Future Processing from the first impression and they were the only ones to suggest an IT audit rather than an outsourcing project.

Describe the project in detail.

Our developers had ongoing meetings with a architect from future processing who at first gave recommendations for how to improve the code and afterwards followed up in terms of seeing if his suggestions were implemented correctly.

What was the team composition?

Two part time developers at Elderlearn and one architect at Future Processing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our developers were very happy with the process and the price estimation for outsourcing the project we wanted to outsource in the first place was had a significantly smaller range (was more precise) due to more accesable code.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very easy to communicate with future processing and they were flexible and easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The good customer experience was the most impressive thing about Future Processing.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I do not see any areas for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The PACT COMMUNICATION GROUP is one of the leading communication agencies in Germany for sales performance and competence and acts as a quality leader in SALES MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS ANALYTICS & TRAINING SOLUTIONS with the highest analytical, systemic and innovative competence. The four divisions PACT SALES, PACT MARKETING, PACT TRAINING and PACT INSIGHTS operate in a fully integrated and collaborative service portfolio PACT combines strategic advice with specialist implementation expertise to develop solutions in communication and sales. The company focuses on generating and activating leads and maximizing cross-channel conversion - from the first contact to successful completion at the PoS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Future Processing?

Our collaboration with Future Processing goes back until 2016. In 2019 we hired Future Processing for a project to upgrade, streamline, and re-implement our existing Business Intelligence capabilities. Even though successfully implemented, they were challenging in terms of maintenance and development due to their variety (different versions adjusted to the specific needs of each client).

What were your goals for this project?

The aim of the partnership was to create a Data Warehouse implementation with possibility to apply flexible customization tailored to our client’s particular needs.

SOLUTION

How did you select Future Processing?

We did a research to find companies who provide IT development capacities and services. After a first assessment we narrowed down the number of companies to 3 possible candidates. At the end Future Processing ended up as winner to conduct this project because we had good experiences in the past, their development skills and experiences and their specialization in Business Intelligence development.

Describe the project in detail.

Our initial solution contained complex data that had to be extracted from Microsoft SQL Server, Excel and SalesForce, transformed accordingly to our client’s needs and, finally, shared to other applications like QlikSense reporting for data insights. The main responsibility of Future Processing was to create the whole ETL (extract, transfer, load) procedure. In the course of the project, Future Processing provided services in business analysis, data flow planning, designing data warehouse architecture, data migration and system integration.

What was the team composition?

Future Processing provided a flexible team that was scaled up and down accordingly to our current business requirements. Over the course of the project their team consisted of Business Intelligence architects, developers and a quality assurance engineer as, from the very beginning, the team was constructed in the way that enabled delivery of the highest quality final product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

FP has provided us with an optimal Data Warehouse for our BI system. Even logical changes within the DWH are implemented quickly. A reprioritisation of tasks is possible at any time, even in running sprints. With the help of Future Processing we have been able to improve our sales performance. '

The new automated data world improved the visibility on our sales activities and allowed us a better management of our sales teams. Reports run automatically, so we can support our customers more effectively and faster. We have become more responsive to new customer requirements.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project was organized and executed using Scrum. In this context, we provided the Product Owner to conduct communications with our stakeholders and the development team of FP. The project organization was very effective because communication has been easy and friendly all the time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Future Processing always managed to provide exactly the right people at the right time who helped us in the different stages of the project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We can’t think of any improvements right now.