Future Processing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a consultant for an employee benefits software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

The existing product we had was based on old legacy technology and was no longer meeting the needs of the market. We needed Future Processing to do a complete redesign and redevelopment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing developed our new website based on the Microsoft Technology stack which was delivered within the Microsoft Cloud Platform. They worked alongside our in-house architecture, development, and product teams. 

The team was involved in low-level design work as well as development, testing, and QA work. They were also involved in specific enhancements to the product.

What is the team composition?

There were over 30 resources. 

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

They had been working for a number of years with us before we changed our name to Zest. We considered looking for other partners, but we felt they had the knowledge of the business and technical capabilities to score what we wanted to do. Overall, they were highly regarded. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $3.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from March 2015–February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When new requirements arise, we will work with them again because we were very happy with their quality of work, technical capabilities, and overall support. It was a good partnership. The product itself has been highly successful in terms of market penetration. 

Customers have migrated from the old product and new customers who have come on since have all been very happy with the product. It’s been the market leader within the employee benefits technology market. We’ve had extremely positive outcomes for the business. For example, we won an award last year for being the best technology provider in the sector. 

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

They provided development support but not project management specifically. The team provided agile scrum teams alongside our internal agile scrum teams. They were responsive to our needs, and we communicated via collaboration tools and conference video calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their technical competence and quality of output were impressive. Future Processing worked very hard on being a partner, and they were conscious of the role they played in the business. They made sure that they were working with us towards our objectives.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As a company, they had processes they needed to follow. There were some cases where we felt that their processes weren’t wholly responsive enough for what we do. That has nothing to do with the people, just the way they operate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you’re asking of them. Once they understand what you’re looking for, they’re a very constructive partner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Algorithm People (TAP) offer a revolutionary solution called My Transport Planner. It is a pay as you go, web-based transport planning tool designed for commercial vehicle operators of all sizes. TAP

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Future Processing to expedite the development of My Transport Planner. The opportunity to move in the market place swiftly was important to us and hiring in the expertise made sense to our business.

What were your goals for this project?

The key areas for My Transport Planner was to ensure the user gained efficiencies which were measured in five key areas: A saving in planning time A reduction in total mileage An increase in productivity A reduction in costs A reduction in emissions

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Future Processing were highly recommended. We found them to be competitively priced with a wide breadth of experience in development and project management.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed the front and back end system. This was based on specification drawn up by our product development team who worked alongside FP . The work was broken down into Phases and from there broken down into Sprints.

What was the team composition?

The team was lead by a project manager and we had a number of developers working on the project. The consistency of the project manager was key as they led throughout the development and this was vitally important to overall objective and making sure we hit the time lines that we were working to.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Our solution is due to be launched to the general public in May. First feedback from beta testers has been very positive and we are very much looking forward to the response from the marketplace. We are already looking ahead to Phase 2 development

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was very effective. As previously mentioned it was consistent and we always had a point of contact. "We were impressed that if there was an issue it would be dealt with swiftly and professionally.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Flexibility and diligence. With experience in software development and a strong drive to get the development completed we have been a demanding client. However, this has been no issue to the team at FP and they have been happy to adjust the plan balanced with being realistic in what can be achieved. Nothing has been too much trouble and it has been executed well and professionally.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is very little to be improved on as a whole the project has gone very well. If anything time frames could be more specific, however, we appreciate this is not always an exact science in software development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of an award-winning customer relationship management (CRM) and internet marketing company based out of Indianapolis.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

We were looking to engage top quality software engineers from a company that had mature software development processes and experiences.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We view Future Processing not as a vendor that’s executing on a specific project but as a long-term partner. For this reason, different teams may engage in different types of projects.

Their team works on projects from building internal tools to improving the quality of our codebase to new feature development. Our development technologies are primarily C#, .NET, and Angular.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we work with one team of four individuals but expect to add several teams this year.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

I targeted our search to central and eastern Europe because there’s a better time zone overlap and a strong engineering education in those areas. Based on the research and reviews that I read, Future Processing was an obvious choice. They had a great combination of a fantastic track record, reasonable rates, and top-notch staff.

How much have you invested with them?

We will have spent in excess of $100,000 this year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2020 and the partnership’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our team reviews their code. Our QA and business teams provide testing for the development they’ve done. It has been of exceptional quality. Our experiences with them have been incredibly positive. We’ve had a good relationship.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via video calls and Slack. They’re probably the best vendor that I’ve worked with at this company. Their team has a mature project management methodology. They go to great lengths to be flexible with their clients and make sure that they’re following best practices while also working within the context of the partnership.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I specifically sought a mature company that we could feel confident in assigning work to them and receive work to our standards. They’ve shown to be capable of completing work to our standards.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind at this point.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any outsourced partner, set clear expectations and communicate details quickly. It’s also critical to give them access to any resources within your team to address questions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a healthcare technology firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

We had an internal strategic objective to develop a new suite of intuitive products. We wanted to consider the UI/UX carefully but didn’t have the expertise internally. We wanted to be able to scale our software development capacity as needed using an external resource.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing helped develop a style guide with a set of UX guidelines for us to apply to all of our projects moving forward. We worked with their UX team directly to develop the style guide. Their team came to the UK for a number of days to understand our business and our software users. 

They also delivered a number of web applications to us. For one project, their team developed an application that deals with the brokerage of care packages in a cloud environment. At the moment, they’re helping to support and maintain our products, making small bug fixes and feature enhancements.

What is the team composition?

We engaged with 3-4 people primarily but worked with up to 15-20 people. The size of the team depends on where we are in our project roadmap and development lifecycle.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

When I was with a different organization, I worked with Future Processing. I continued the relationship because of their deliverables and operations, which I knew would fit well with our workflows. There weren’t many other outsourced companies that offered the same range of services or had the same reputation as Future Processing.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent  £500,000—£1 million pounds (approximately $620,000—$1.25 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016 and the engagement’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We developed a number of applications for customers using the style guide that Future Processing created. Customers find the applications intuitive and easy to use, so it requires little training to understand how to use them. The ultimate success metric is that a user can pick up our platforms and use them easily. That means that we’ve got our UX/UI right.

We haven’t had any high-priority issues with the web app. From day one, we’ve been able to onboard customers. We continue to onboard customers and generate revenue.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

Key stakeholders in the UK engage with Future Processing’s scrum teams and scrum master who leads their teams. During the development, we had daily standup meetings with them to understand how they progressed. We used Confluence, Microsoft Teams, and Skype for video conferencing.

Their team was proactive in raising the risk. If we asked them to complete a task but their team thought there was a better method, they highlighted their recommendations. We have a collaborative working relationship. It’s easy to communicate with them, which isn’t a quality that I found with past outsourced partners.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Future Processing takes the same amount of pride in the outcome of a project as our internal team. Their team approaches development with the same seriousness and dedication as us. They’re professional and dedicated to delivering the best that they can. It doesn’t feel like we’re working with an outsourcing company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I haven't worked with a better outsourcing company. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get them involved in the process early. Future Processing has a technical specialist team that can advise your early technical decisions based on their experiences. Keep your product owner close to your business but also make use of Future Processing’s proxy product owner. This means that Future Processing has a product owner to turn to if they have immediate questions that need to be answered about features and priorities.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am founder of a startup company which aims to deliver mobile solutions for clients in the hospitality industry

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Mainly to develop mobile application using Flutter framework for Barrio. Barrio connects clients with restaurants making it more efficient to book and plan happy hour events.

What were your goals for this project?

Most important was to get to market as quickly as possible with early adopters. The second goal was aligned to show progress with investors who were interested in the project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Future processing was highly recommended from a former employee. They have high caliber talent and can deliver on dedicated timelines.

Describe the project in detail.

Once we decided to try this project with Future Processing, we had a video call describing the project goals and timeline. As a result, based on Future Processing's recommendations we created a backlog in Jira and BitBucket repository. For the development part we decided to hire two developers (mobile frontend part and backend) and used so called "test sprint" - we could decide after this sprint whether we are satisfied and if we wanted to continue development or we would move forward with another vendor. As we were happy with the progress, we decided to continue cooperation. We could say it was typical tie and material contract, 2 week sprints, regular video call and discussions on slack.

What was the team composition?

Product Owner and two developers on site

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Please note that this is confidential given the startup nature

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As mentioned earlier, it was only one Product Owner on the site and two developers. Additionally we only checked code quality by one of the senior developers to make sure everything was fine.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

For us it was very important to start and deliver this project quickly. It wasn't the biggest project but we needed results quickly and we got it. I was impressed that they reacted so quickly because they are quite a big software house. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

Hard to say at this stage. It was quick and small project and we are satisfied with the progress. In the next project we would expect more feedback from the vendor's site on our ideas and decisions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the consulting director at Plaut Consulting Poland. We have been in the Polish market for 10 years and are a member of the Plaut Group, headquartered in Vienna. We are present in seven countries with nine companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

Our team developed an SAP software for communication with the Polish Ministry of Finance, and we contracted Future Processing to develop one portion of that software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing developed the communications portion of the software. Their team worked in .NET to create the software, which enables our customers to communicate with the Ministry of Finance API. Their team met with us in-house to cover the requirements and developed the software remotely. Future Processing also provided post-implementation services to our customers.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with two members of the Future Processing team. 

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

Future Processing is our office neighbor, so we frequently cooperate.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested about €20,000 (approximately $22,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Future Processing ran from June–October 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Future Processing did excellent work for us. We were working within a very short timeframe due to deadlines from the Minister of Finance. It was a huge development project and they were able to complete it on time. The software either works or it doesn’t, and it’s been working great. Anytime there have been issues, their team is engaged in helping to solve it.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

The Future Processing team communicates with us directly. Their team was efficient, finishing a task at a speed our own department could not have.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their services were great from a cost-benefit perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I would recommend working with their team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Choose Future Processing for your next project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Lenso is a exclusive distributor of GOM optical measuring systems in Poland. An experienced and competent team of engineers, helps to choose an appropriate measuring system, perform the machine presentations, provide system implementations and support.

Lenso is also a part of the Metrology Competence Centre – the platform which integrates companies providing services and products essential for every branch of industry in scope of metrology, quality control and reverse engineering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We approached to Future Processing because we needed a solution to better handle their client management and business processes. We needed most was a place to store the information about their relationships with clients – a people-oriented IT solution.

What were your goals for this project?

To get the solution to better handle their client management and business processes.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We got the good recommendation about Future Processing.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We got the software which not only made our daily job easier but also more systematic, since employees are guided through execution of each task. This helps to increase productivity and focus on what’s most important — delivering excellent customer service.

Apart from the solution itself, we went an extra mile and Future Processing adjusted it to optical measurement solutions industry, in which we operates. Each of the available entities is custom-made and specific to the environment in which GOM’s products are being used.

What was the team composition?

We generally work with one senior developers and a team leader.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

It is definitely a better model of cooperating with the Client, and we have full control over it. We have a good database for conferences, trade shows, user meetings, analysis of work of our employees, analysis of the progress of the entire sales process – to name just a few.

Now we can build long-term customer relationships that are personalized, proactive, and predictive across marketing, sales, and service delivery. All of the above translates into increasing organisational efficiency while delivering excellent customer service.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Future Processing provided quick response times and good communication. They are very open for our feedback. People from our company did't report problems related to work with Future Processing team. The workflow was very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Very professional approach to the customer

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we don't have to improvement solution. Sometimes we need to add new option in the software - because of new products and sales management.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the managing director of service at Service Year Alliance, a national nonprofit that connects individuals looking to do a year of service with nonprofits and public organizations that have opportunities. I oversee our platform, the ongoing development team, and the internal team that does sales, user engagement, and customer support.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

Our platform was three years old and we were looking for a sustainable development partner to nurture and expand our platform. We wanted a team to work with us 50/50 on the maintenance and needs of the platform while developing new features in an iterative way.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing provides development and maintenance to our platform. The first few months involved transitioning from our old team to theirs, but since then we've been in sprints moving forward. We plan out our development priorities and refine our work together. Their team works in Django, JavaScript, and Python.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of five from Future Processing. Four of them have been on their team since the beginning, including two developers, a QA engineer, and a team lead. We added a UI/UX   this summer. We interact directly with all members of the team on a daily basis.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

We found them through a reference from a colleague. When we were looking to move to a new vendor we reached out to individuals to see who they were working with. After a series of proposals and scoring, we felt like Future Processing and their work approach would best augment what we were trying to do. 

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $200,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Future Processing began in October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Having their support has allowed our internal team to hit most of our deadlines. We have seen an increase in the quality of the development work. There are fewer user-facing bugs and issues. Our internal team has to do less cleanup work.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

Future Processing is extremely flexible about adapting to the project management tools that work best for us. Since we are a few years into the project, we had a system down and they were willing to joint that over starting over again.

Our teams communicate via video call every morning for scrum so we are face to face every day for at least 15 minutes. We also have a weekly refinement meeting over video. Our teams regularly communicate more informally through Slack and use Github for tickets that are in process. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Future Processing is extremely committed to quality. They make it work for the client and product. I have never had a sense that there is another agenda or interest at play. Their team will talk through our needs and see what we’re trying to accomplish. They offer different solutions but are always happy to run with what is best for us as an organization. It’s about putting the best product out there.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Now that we are further into a working partnership, we’ve reached a place where they’re incredibly transparent with us. It maybe took us a while to get to that honest place. Future Processing now feels as though they can offer critiques, which we appreciate. It would have been nice if we had gotten there faster.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We are very process-oriented and have a lot of documentation. Our team gave Future Processing everything we thought they needed to understand our business goals and our product. They remarked on how no one had ever prepared so much documentation for them. I would recommend giving them all of the resources to read ahead of time so they can best offer suggestions and solutions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief product officer at GlobalGiving, a nonprofit that runs a crowdsourcing platform to connect other nonprofits in 170 countries around the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

We hired Future Processing to support a joint software development partnership project between ourselves and three other nonprofits. We needed a trusted partner to assist us in adding additional capacity above and beyond normal daily operations.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Future Processing developed a unique identifier system for nonprofit database coordination among our core organizations. They suggested and helped refine an architecture approach using AWS and a variety of technologies. They answered all of our technical questions as to how the system would work and ensured that the architecture supported our business workflows.

Since developing the system, they’ve continued to maintain it.  

What is the team composition?

I came onto the project four years ago, so I’m not sure how many team members from Future Processing have been assigned to work on this project over the years. We’ve had at least 2–3 people assigned to us in the maintenance phase, and I believe we may have had a few more during the build phase.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

One of the nonprofits on the project had worked with Future Processing in the past and suggested them. Our group vetted them along with a few other candidates before ultimately settling on Future Processing.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the full course of the engagement, we’ve spent $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

My company started working with Future Processing in early 2013, if not before that, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve always been impressed by the thoughtfulness and problem solving that they bring to making sure they achieve our business goals. They also the bigger picture in mind; if we ask them to do something, they don’t hesitate to point out potential ripple effects we hadn’t considered might negatively impact our AWS costs or other business functionalities.

They make sure we think through all of the implications. They’re not just a partner who’s going to blindly do whatever we say, regardless of the consequences, and then bill us to fix it later. They are true development partners in that they make sure we’re achieving the goals we set out to achieve.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well in this regard. We use the Atlassian suite with Confluence and Jira to communicate about specific needs. We also have dedicated email support channels so that we can send requests and get status updates from them, easily going back and forth. My team can look at project plans and past incidents or work requests through a web portal, which has saved us a lot of time over the years.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been most impressed by their ability to be a part of our development team and business planning.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing in particular comes to mind.

Any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be generic in the sense that if you’re outsourcing, you need to make sure you’re providing as much context as possible. This will allow Future Processing to understand your business goals and create a solution for what you need, rather than the solution for what you say or think you need.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of operations for Styles&Wood, a construction company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Future Processing?

The original brief was to deliver a modular property management system. That was completed in late 2017 and was very successful. Since then, we’ve engaged with them to support us through a number of migrations of our client base.

We had a legacy solution on ASP.NET that was based on pretty old technology. It was a package we had originally purchased and customized. We felt like it was time to change it, and we wanted to move to something that was much more modern in its look and feel.

We wanted to change it from being a one-size-fits-all product to being a more generic, modular system, where clients could pick and choose what they wanted to do. The goal was to create a solution that would provide our clients with a significant amount of configuration capabilities. This way, clients could tailor the solution to their business, despite it being an off-the-shelf SaaS product.

We had an in-house development team that was focused mainly on the legacy system, but we didn’t have access to a modern skills base. We needed a company that could provide modern techniques to give our product a much wider exposure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They updated our software and designed the UI/UX of the platform. The development work is done using the Microsoft stack, specifically ASP.NET. They also leverage HTML5 and the Kendo forms loader.

We have some very large retail clients in the UK, and they’ve helped us migrate them over onto the new platform. Future Processing is also working with us to continuously enhance the product. We’ve consulted with them for two or three more additional modules, as well as a decision analytics integration.

Future Processing also manages our codebase and our release process, and they provide us with third line support for the product. We have a second line support desk based here in the UK, and they provide development support through their office in Poland.

What is the team composition?

The size of the team varied over the course of the engagement. There’s always been between 12–17 people. We have a dedicated team that includes a team lead, two business analysts, one solution architect, nine developers, and four test analysts.

How did you come to work with Future Processing?

We were looking for a technology partner who was operating in our space and could give us access to modern technologies. Future Processing was recommended by a couple of other contacts within the industry. They have a fairly significant footprint in the UK.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent £2.5 million (approximately $3 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve worked with them on a series of projects, and they're very good at hitting timelines and getting results.

How did Future Processing perform from a project management standpoint?

The original project was kicked off using Kanban. Since then, we’ve moved more into a Scrum hybrid that's not pure agile. We do quite a lot of requirement specifications.

They continue to perform incredibly well, especially at managing their own resources. We hold weekly meetings with them to make sure the sprint plan is effective and to keep them focused on our current priorities. We have shared access to Git libraries. They use Jira, and we use Azure DevOps.

These common tools help us manage the progress of the project. We also use Slack frequently. We work together closely and have an excellent working relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most significant value add that they give us is access to a pretty substantial knowledge base. They have between 800–900 employees who work on a broad portfolio of projects across multiple sectors. There’s a constant supply of fresh talent coming through.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We sometimes struggle to get estimates out at a reasonable time. During the initial engagement, we were developing a completely new product from scratch, and there were no real pressures in terms of client demands. Now we work in an environment that is much more client-led.

Sometimes keeping our focus on the commercial aspect of what we’re trying to do can be a little bit challenging. It’s easy to spend time just thinking about the architecture of the solution. There are times when we need them to be a little quicker. It can be difficult when we’re managing budgets against clients and trying to keep the scope really tight.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You’ll get the most out of your engagement with them by making sure your team is invested in the project. If you work with them on an agile basis, you’ll need to buy into agile completely.