Perficient Latin America

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a digital advertising agency. I’m the Product Manager. I work on the App Console tool within the Unity product suite.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

AMP Console is a user interface that allows our users to create an audience segment and reports and push those out to platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have data sources that are stored in Redshift. PSL worked with our data engine team who processes the data and provides it to PSL. They make sure that the data is presented with a new UI that enables users to easily create different audiences and reports.

What is the team dynamic?

We have 3 people on the backend, 3 on the frontend, 3 in QA, and a requirements manager. We’ve had a couple of frontend people switch within the roles.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

I didn’t make the hiring decision.

How much have you invested with them?

I don’t know.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with them since May when I came onboard, and the relationship is ongoing. PSL has been working on this specific product since January.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had a great relationship. We are building up the tools, which will be ready for launch in January. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from different people on the speed at which we’re developing different features. There have been business changes in the middle of creating features requiring us to pivot and make sure there are new data sources or complete overhauls to the tool. Their team has been very responsive and great to work with. I like how collaborative they’ve been. If I need something changed, they work with me to find out what the best way is for the user.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very organized and communicate well. We use Slack for regular chats, but we also use JIRA and Confluence. We also share documents on Google Drive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re good at their jobs. They ask good questions, and the relationship has been collaborative. They ask for feedback, and if I provide any, they’re quick to adjust to make sure everything goes smoothly. They have internal meetings and training sessions to be sure they are providing good customer service. Our team feels taken care of.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of the communication goes through engineering so I might not find out about it. That’s more because of how it’s set up on our end because the relationship was set up with engineering.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a CRM [customer relationship management] and marketing automation platform. I’m VP of software development. I manage all the development activity, the processes, the team, and everything that goes into creating our product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

We had quality issues with the outsourced team we were using. We needed a more mature team to develop our web app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our product is a SaaS [software-as-a-service]-based CRM marketing automation platform. It’s a web-based app. We use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. Some pieces use AngularJS.

The underlying system is on the Microsoft Technology Stack. Most of their backend work for us has been in.NET and C#, with some SQL Server work. We also built some parts of the stack on AWS [Amazon Web Services] and do some hosting locally. Some minor parts of the system are done in other languages; we’re working in a little bit of PHP and Ruby on Rails, which they’re reluctantly helping us with since it’s not their main area of expertise.

What is the team dynamic?

They provide our entire development team. The team of 9 includes a scrum master, QA, engineers, automation QA engineers, and frontend and backend developers. They build the product and maintain it in close collaboration with our product management team here and with me.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

Our current team wasn’t working out for us, and we wanted to make a change. We contracted with a company that helped us vet a lot of potential outsource partners. We narrowed it down to 3 companies, based on what we were looking for, and interviewed each. After talking to them all extensively, we decided that PSL Corp. was far and above the best.

One of our criteria was that the firm share a time zone with us or be very close. We have the same time zone with PSL Corp. half of the year until daylight savings, which is manageable.

More important than time zone was their maturity in process. They’re an agile shop and have been for a long time. They know more about agile processes than I do, even though I consider myself an expert. Their company culture matches ours very well. One of our core values is “do the right thing.” They were right on par with us on that.

How much have you invested with them?

$500,000–$1,000,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, we’ve done 4–5 releases to production with them. It took them a little while to ramp up, but since then it’s been going well. There have been no bumps at all with 3 out of 4 of those releases.

We push releases in the middle of the night. The next morning, the support team can’t tell that we’ve released something new. That’s how seamless their work is. While our previous team’s releases would need 2 or more rounds of support adjustments, these releases require none. It makes everybody in the company smile. I’m very happy about that.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

Organizationally and team-wise, they’re great. We started off using Scrum and quickly progressed to Kanban. That was my suggestion, and they took to it right away. It’s been very nice to work with a team that is excited about using such an advanced process.

I was impressed with their initiative in researching Kanban. One team member was out a few days due to illness, and he spent that whole time researching it so he’d be ready to go with it when he got back. It’s been neat to see that.

Our next step, which we’ve already begun, is to move to more of a DevOps-style process. It won’t involve the Kanban approach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The difference in work quality, and quality-focused mindset, between them and our previous team underscores that they’re who we were looking for. Our previous team would push out code very quickly, but it was almost always poor-quality. It had bugs and either didn’t fix the original problem or caused worse problems. That meant our actual productivity was low, even though they worked quickly.

We haven’t seen that with PSL Corp. The developers are very careful to deliver a quality product from the start. The QA engineers don’t let errors slip through. It’s been a good, high-quality experience so far. Nothing is perfect dealing with human beings, but it has been very smooth. They’re clearly very interested in making sure that their quality metrics are high.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They ask me almost too often how well they’re doing so they can improve. That’s not a bad thing. The management team has been flexible and willing to do business in ways that are slightly different from their normal process.

There is a downside in working with them that’s also an upside: They’ve developed a particular system to ensure that they deliver a high-quality product. This extends not only to code, but also to the engineers and the teams that they assign. When have requests that deviate somewhat from their system, they push back with the concern that their product won’t be as high quality with that change.

That’s both heartening and frustrating. I’ve worked with teams that promise they can deliver whatever you ask for. That always feels good on the front end, but when they fail to truly deliver it, that’s a problem. So while I appreciate their honesty, they could improve by broadening their areas of expertise. For instance, I’ve requested a Ruby developer, and they’re working on it. But they don’t have that as a center of excellence. I’d love for them to add technologies to the ones they already feel comfortable with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Novaventa, a company that is a part of the Nutresa Group. Grupo Nutresa has a strong food network across the country and has more than 50 companies in Colombia. It is also very strong in Central America. We are different than the other companies in the group and we are the only company in the group with direct outreach and access to consumers. We have around 200 million dollars in revenue per year. We try to reach customers through alternative channels, such as sales catalogs, vending machines, retail, physical stores, e-commerce, and all others forms we can use to have direct access to consumers.

I am in charge of the technology department for Novaventa. We lead all technology projects for the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp.?

About 10 years ago, Grupo Nutresa was migrating its ERP [enterprise resource planning] from JD Edwards to SAP. In these implementations, we saw that SAP wasn’t a fit for Novaventa. In 2009 or so, we started looking at which software solutions were available in the market for catalog sales, and we found that PSL had developed one for another catalog sales company in Mexico and Peru.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In 2009–2010 we bought PSL's software and adapted it to our business needs. This is what we call the Antares software today. It’s a legacy software that has been tailored for us with new modules and we have been investing in it ever since.

This project started with 11 developers. Since that moment we’ve had an average of 6–7 developers on average per year. At the moment we have a team of 11 people working with us. Basically, the main development components are done using Java with database integrations DB2 and SQL. There are certain technology frameworks that they use such as Angular, Confluence for requirements analysis, and JIRA for tasks and project management. All of these technologies are used for project management. They use a strong framework which is a coding accelerator called Gbrain, which has allowed us to have great speed in development for the creation of automatic screens. For OPS topics, development of automatic tests, for central security, and auditing modules there’s a Gbrain framework that we have acquired on which we are working on as well.

Since 2010, this software, which is a web solution, has allowed us to triple our business sales since its implementation 6 years ago. This web-based solution has allowed us to connect with our large network of clients and the market itself. 

We have more than 150,000 clients and a network of 2 million consumers. PSL acted as a consultant and a strategic ally that has supported us in the development of these new modules that we’ve needed. It’s been 6 years of full development. I would like to highlight that all of the projects we are working on with PSL are done in Agile, Scrum, and Kanban, and this has allowed us to be quick with deliverables for the business.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

We did an RFP [request for proposal] in 2009–2010. Based on our experience, we didn’t want a software made from scratch. We searched the market to see which software existed for catalog sales companies. In that time, we only found two types of software in the world of catalog sales. We discarded one because it wasn’t adaptable to our needs. The other one was PSL’s solution.

Additionally, we wanted a proper RFP, a well-managed selection process, so we invited 6 big providers and software shops in Colombia. To give you a point of reference, some of them are Intergroup, MDM, Pragma, and Tap. The board of directors of Novaventa participated in the selection process.

We evaluated the resumes of the participants, evaluated the company as a whole, and evaluated functionalities and technical specifications. In the end, we chose the best-qualified candidate in an evaluation process that lasted two months. Price Waterhouse Cooper audited the group and the whole process as well and said it was a very well conducted process.

PSL had a big advantage of having developed a system for direct sales in Mexico and Peru. This was the main reason for choosing them in my opinion because we didn’t want to have to start a software from zero with a provider that didn’t know about the world of catalog sales. They already had knowledge on this sector and had developed a similar software like this one. This was a big motivator to make the decision to work with them on this project. 

How much have you invested with PSL Corp.?

This initiative was big and it had an implementation cost of more or less 5 million dollars. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted less than a year. It started in 2010, lasted around 10 months, and was finalized in the same year. Since then, we have been working for 6 years with this provider. The relationship is ongoing and it keeps expanding.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

There are many things to highlight in terms of the results. The software solution has allowed us to migrate all of our catalog sales. Previously, in 2010–2011 everything in catalog sales was done on paper. Our clients made orders through physical order forms. What we did was to digitalize those orders.

Since we started to evolve this software towards a more digital process, we have managed to migrate it. In 2011, 10% of our sales started to come from the digital world. The next year, it was 30%, and today we count with 80% of our sales being done digitally.

Thanks to having implemented this system, we have been able to migrate 80% of our sales to digital formats. Five years ago, we didn’t imagine this would happen. Today, all of our sales come through digital media through our platform and this is a supremely positive win! This is one of the main indicators.

In 2010, with our previous systems, we had the capacity to bill more or less 1,000–2,000 orders, or 3,000 daily orders maximum because of the capacity of our information system. Today we are having peaks; for example, this season has had more than 10,000–15,000 orders. As I mentioned, we have tripled. We wouldn’t have been able to sustain this level of business growth using JD Edwards.

This new system allowed us to support the triplication of our business; sometimes it’s even quadrupled. Today, we are using more or less half of the capacity it has. The system, as we planned it in the beginning, supports around 30,000 to 40,000 daily orders. We are only filling 10,000–15,000. An important item is that this system is billing around 2 to 3 million annual orders. In previous systems, this was not possible. 

How did PSL Corp. perform from a project management standpoint?

Another important milestone is that PSL, as a provider of Agile methodologies, has allowed us to have early victories and faster speeds that have been very different to the projects we used to do before which were very traditional. Today, we are implementing close to 20 annual projects with them. The power of being able to implement so many projects in a year is possible thanks to the good relationship we have with this provider. The Agile methodologies have been a big win inside Novaventa because we used to spend a year implementing a project, and today, we easily implement things in 1 or 2 months. The longer projects that we have implemented with this provider have lasted 3 months. 

Previously, all of the project management was done following PMI [Project Management Institute]. When we changed to the Agile methodology, we mixed PMI topics with an Agile method. Today, there are tools that the provider uses that allows us to do all the project management. There is a Scrum master on behalf of PSL. She is in charge of coordinating with the development team. We synchronize our team with the Scrum master from PSL with tools that support Agile such as JIRA, Confluence, and Trello. We do daily stand-up meetings, retrospectives, and everything else in that methodology. 

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp.?

There's something that really grabs my attention about this provider. The added value they provide is that they deliver what we ask of them. Every time I send the business requirements, they deliver more than what was expected. I know that they will always meet my expectations. 

I always tell them, “Please understand that as a business leader, I will ask you to solve my need. I always expect you not only to do what I ask but that you give me a better solution. I want you to propose things, to surprise me with various alternatives to my needs." In these 5 years, they have always managed to surprise me. They are always proposing relevant things and updated technologies, and I think this is what I want to highlight that they do really well. They don't only deliver what the client is asking for, but they generate added value.

Are there any areas PSL Corp. could improve?

No, honestly, the relationship with them has been really good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of business development for Celerix, a shared services/consulting company. We act as consultants for areas such as IT, human resources, legal, and accounting for small and mid-sized businesses in Colombia. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

We needed to create a new core system for the entire credit application approval and collection process of one of our clients, a consumer finance company. That was the first and biggest project we did with PSL Corp. We’ve also worked with PSL on several other projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was led by a small team of the IT people from Celerix and our client. The big development was all PSL; they provided the architects and developers for the project. Our client and my company provided the business development and the specific know-how of the project itself. PSL was there from the beginning. They developed a core system—a software and service product—to handle the financing process of one of our clients.

One component is a web application that allows the financing company’s sales associates to have a presence inside third-party motorcycle dealerships, which is a big business in Colombia. It’s a one-stop shop between different financial entities for people who are looking for a motorcycle loan. Customers apply for financing within the dealerships, and then the sales associates upload the applications into the core system. From there, the information goes into our databases, where specific tasks are created for different people. It’s a role-based system in which different employees have access to different parts of the software. It’s flexible and allows us to create specific task work for specific roles, which is helpful in the financial application approval process. Our client wanted to make sure that not every employee could approve a credit application. Every step of the process had to be verified only by the people with enough criteria and hierarchy to do so. Then comes the collection process, which PSL also developed and handled well. For instance, they included alerts for when accounts were past due and allowed our client to prioritize collection services. The backend of the motorcycle loan system is quite complex.

With Celerix, the company I work with, we’re partnering with PSL on other new developments and big projects. During my time with Celerix, we’ve basically done 3 big projects; 2 of them are ongoing and the third is closed. But PSL continues to create products out of the initial project, so they’re developing things on their own.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

We knew that PSL had relevant experience in creating the core backend systems of financial banking institutions. They’ve done a similar project for one of the largest banks in Colombia. That experience showed us that PSL was trustworthy and had robust software development skills. The other factor we took into account was that their location and ours were in the same city. This made having impromptu and face-to-face meetings possible and easier to arrange.

How much have you invested with PSL Corp?

I would say we’ve spent around $3 million to $4 million on all of our different projects with PSL.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work is ongoing. This particular project began around May 2014 and went live November 2015. We’re still doing some new developments to manage those databases, but I would say 80% to 90% of the work is done. We still use them for maintenance and updates. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We went live about 18 months ago, and the number of bugs and errors have been low. Our previous system would crash frequently. Another benefit of the web application is that it allows the sales associates to work offline because the Internet connectivity is spotty in some areas of Colombia. Once connectivity is reestablished, the system updates the new information. That function wasn’t available before. Overall, we’ve seen a growth in efficiency since the new system has been implemented thanks to the robustness and reliability of PSL’s technology and software practices.

I don't necessarily handle all the technical KPIs because I'm more on the business development side. But from a big picture perspective, we’ve seen tremendous flexibility in what we can do with the new system from PSL. For example, with our legacy core system, launching a new product would take 2 or 3 months. With PSL’s new system, the process takes 2 or 3 days, which allows the whole process to go much faster. Our rate of product introductions has increased significantly.

They have also used data to create an analytics aspect, which has facilitated a new system that’s much more flexible. The consumer finance company can turn around a complex analysis in a matter of days where before, it used to take weeks. So these are tangible results we’re experiencing. With the new system from PSL, we haven't experienced any major issues with the system crashing or having to dig into the data to correct it. We haven't quantified all the benefits of the new system, but from an anecdotal perspective, they are substantial.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

I would say they performed well overall. We had only 1 minor situation with one of the team members. Once we mentioned it to them, they were quick to change that team member and put in place a person who was better equipped to serve the needs of our client. It proves their ability to cater to a client's needs. The architects and the project managers from PSL were proactive. They knew about the industry we were working with, so they had relevant, industry-specific knowledge that was useful. They also were able to take our internal IT team to a new level. Our IT team feels they learned a lot in the process and they are better at their jobs since working at PSL.

The communication was always very fluid because they already knew about making the core of a finance product. It was just a matter of us explaining our approval, application, and collection process to them so they could adapt our project to the core financing technology that they had already developed for other clients. The interaction was always smooth.

We had experienced team leaders who helped us maneuver all these financial regulations. They helped us address the challenges of having the redundancy of a large number of clients in the database. They also provided an agile way of working, which was new for this company and for Celerix at the time. It proved to be quite efficient because we did iterations and sprints. Every 2 or 3 weeks, we would meet and have a little bit more of the project done. We had a lot more visibility in how the project was progressing than we were used to seeing in other projects, where we would see updates every 2 or 3 months. That was helpful in making sure that the final product we were producing was what we really wanted.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

The local software developers are way ahead and agile. Their team members tend to take pride in their work, and they go the extra mile when it’s required. It’s always comforting when you find committed people while outsourcing. They feel the client’s pain. Like with any process, we had our ups and downs, but the relationship went smoothly in the end.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

I would say some specific team members might have areas for improvement, but I feel they did very well. I can’t think of anything worth mentioning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Seon started as a company dedicated to video recording hardware for school buses and other types of transportation. After a few years doing that, we started making software to manage those devices. Seon is now part of a larger company called Safe Fleet.

I am an offshore software manager for Seon and I manage 2 groups of PSL Corp engineers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

We needed software engineers to take over the software development that we needed for our devices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
The initial project with PSL Corp had to do with a robust handheld device that parents used to locate school bus routes to pick up or drop off their kids. They get alerts when they are getting close to picking up their kids. It was an MDT that ran over Windows. Another one was a live-feed software that enables features and grants permissions for users to access other modules. They also built software that gathers information from AVL and GPS devices. It showed that information on the screen along with features and functionalities that allow users to follow school buses. They can also get a live feed from the cameras inside the buses. Those were the main projects they built in the past.

The current project that I am working on is also for school buses but focused on routing for school districts in the United States. It allows searching for schools, students, vehicles, buses, and the stops needed for the bus systems to pick up and drop off kids. The system connects to ArcGIS, a software from Esri, which creates runs. Although we have a lot of functionalities to manage schools and students, the core of the system is to create routes that are timed to work with these buses and their drivers. When we started working on this software, it was for maintenance and Scrum support. After a couple of months, we shifted our focus to developing new features. Every time we developed a new feature, we had to go back and work on top of it, getting faster over time.

Seon has a few QA engineers, but all of the development is done at PSL. They work with .NET, C#, SQL Server databases, web applications, and web services. We add or remove engineers as we need during the year.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

I wouldn’t know how that process began.

What is the status of this engagement?

Projects with PSL started around 6 years ago. We have a general contract with PSL with several agreements. They send in invoices every month, depending on the number of engineers assigned to our groups. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Before we started working with PSL, customers that worked with the Routing software I am managing right now were not happy with it. The legacy software had a lot of issues with customers running late with deliveries. After we started working with PSL, things started changing. Satisfaction from the customers is now higher. We even have new business opportunities. It is really better than what it was before.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a good track of what is being delivered and planned. Some sprints may miss a few things to deliver, but other sprints deliver more. It’s flexible. We do not have all the requirements at the beginning for them to go forward and plan the work for the entire year. We usually move and play a lot with priorities. It is hard to have metrics, but we know the speed of the team and know how many hours they work.

We use a platform called JIRA which records activities, implementations, bugs, assignment priority, plan times, and actual execution times. That software also has several metrics and diagrams that we use on a regular basis to see the accomplishment of each sprint. We work with them mainly using Scrum as the methodology.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

The main thing to highlight from PSL is that they follow very good methodologies. Since they have been certified as a CMMI for a long time, they have several processes and standards within the company. These processes help produce better software quality.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

None. We are doing fine. We do not have any major issues with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Cadreon is a programmatic advertising company that is part of a much larger organization called IPG. In total, the size of our media spend is $37 billion.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

The partners that we have are fragmented and there are a lot of point solutions. We needed to aggregate all of those into a unified product. We’re developing a marketplace tool that builds on a number of different marketplaces already existing. This product aggregates all of the inventory of those marketplaces in 1 place. On top of that, we’re also building a workflow tool that goes across the entire company as a holding company structure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The specific services provided by PSL have been software engineering, everything from design to development and QA testing. We just started in June of this year. We had them onsite for about 2 weeks and were able to get them up to speed on the vertical that we operate in. It’s a very complex space so it was pretty impressive how quickly they ramped up. We started development just 2 weeks after that and the development has gone pretty well. We have 3 front-end, 3 backend, and 3 QA resources from PSL.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

We wanted to experiment with a nearshore outsourced team. Currently, we’re working with teams in Kiev and India. We thought this would be a good project to try a vendor from Latin America. The price was also another factor.                                                

How much have you invested with PSL Corp?

We paid $600,000 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in June 2016 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We launched our minimal viable product last week. To get something to market that quickly was tremendous. I have previously done a very similar product with another company, and it took 3 years and close to $50M to get to this type of position.

Initially, I was concerned because PSL’s sales pitch focused on their certifications for ISO and CMMI Level 5. I was afraid the team may be too process-heavy, but it turned out to be the opposite. PSL has been fast to ship quality code. Our communication went really well with PSL and their knowledge of the Agile process was impressive.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

Everybody has been very open and willing to share their opinions and ideas, which is a really good thing. The PSL team is not waiting for instruction on how to do something or what to do. They’re very active in the process. It’s a team where everybody is able to contribute.

We used Slack, Google Hangouts, WebEx, Jira and Confluence to communicate. Because they’re nearshore, we have constant communication throughout the day. Given DST, there’s a 2-hour difference during half the year and then a 3-hour difference the other half. In terms of communication, working with PSL is equal to or better than working with New York from San Francisco . We make sure to leave the video cameras on so we have that connection as we’re speaking and working together.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

Working with the PSL team has been a better experience than working with an onshore team. The communication has been tremendous. They are able to adapt their fast process to ours and try to share best practices between the 2 companies. It’s been educational on both sides.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

Face to face communication would be good. That would be the only thing I would recommend but that’s not their company’s fault. It’s more of a budgetary constraint.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

GTL is the nation’s leading software company for corrections. We do software for jails, prisons, and everything to do with corrections.

I am the group manager for OMS, which is our jail management software product. The system goes into the facility and is used by correction officers to track inmates on a day to day basis. Everything that the inmates do is tracked using the OMS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

We saw an enormous amount of growth in a short period of time with new business. Each new customer has specific customizations written into the contracts and we’re obliged to build them quickly. When we initiated our relationship with PSL, we had just signed several agreements with some very large customers. They had a lot of custom development requirements and we needed to be able to scale up quickly. We’re also in the midst of a technology upgrade with our application’s front-end, which was becoming very stale. We lacked the expertise in newer technologies and frameworks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The OMS product is huge. For my group, that was the only project that they worked on, but the OMS product was made up of many small projects. They’re too numerous to name. The biggest project was the front-end rewrite and that’s still ongoing. For the first year, a group of 5 engineers operated independently as a Scrum team. I would feed them requirements and they would build it. In our second year, we began embedding them with our in-house development staff. They have Agile/Scrum experience at PSL. We were a traditional Waterfall shop, but we were anxious to move more towards the Agile/Scrum framework. In embedding their engineers with ours and vice versa, we were able to get some of that Scrum experience on all of our teams. We had 1 QA, 1 Scrum master, and 4 developers. The Scrum master was also a developer.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

We evaluated several developers and it came down to 2 in the end. Both seemed to be very capable. We gave each a sample project and asked how they would break down the project and perform the development. PSL came back with a very impressive presentation. They broke our project into user stories and outlined exactly how they would do it. The other one was a little more nebulous so it wasn’t nearly as impressive. PSL did a better job overall.

One of the things that was appealing about PSL was that we could scale up and scale down as needed versus bringing people on board in our in-house shop. Scaling down is much more difficult when we hire employees. PSL also had a lot of the expertise that we lacked, so we were able to have them spearhead that project in revamping our front-end.

How much have you invested with PSL Corp?

We spent between $50,000 to $60,000 a month. It started smaller than that, though, and has ramped up. We have several resources from PSL right now. In total, it has cost between $200,000 and $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in September or October 2014. In October 2014, we had our big onsite kickoff where they came and visited us. I think our relationship may have actually started a couple of weeks prior, in September. We’ve had a relationship with PSL for over a year now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It’s been difficult to measure. Probably the biggest successes were a couple of projects in the first year that they ran with. We needed a kiosk application to do a very specific function. We gave them the requirements and a couple of months later, we had working software. Similarly, they did some new modules in our OMS application. It’s more difficult to track now that they’re embedded in our team, though. Since we have collaborated to build software, we have been producing at a very high level. The bug count is very low with PSL. When they give us software, it’s quality software. When there are bugs, they get fixed quickly.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

In the last year, we’ve adopted the Scrum process and PSL was a big part of that. PSL’s process was something to behold. We learned a lot from it, picking up a lot of pointers from the way they did Scrum versus just reading about Scrum. We were able to see it firsthand as they were building software for us. That was always very nice. Also, when we needed estimates, they were very quick to get us accurate estimates and then deliver upon them.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

PSL is really the only offshore development team that I’ve had any chance to work with so I don’t have anything to compare it to. I am a very satisfied customer, though. We’ve been very happy with our relationship with PSL. We were impressed with the front-end rewrite project. Our in-house staff had very little experience with new frameworks and they were able to help us identify the correct frameworks to use, and then start building first prototypes and actual pages of the software application using new technologies. PSL even did a few proof of concept modules with different types of technology so we could do make comparisons. That was very beneficial since we didn’t have that knowledge in-house. PSL has a UX team at their disposal, so there were a couple times where they were able to go and talk to their in-house usability experts and point us in the right direction.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

An area where we’ve had a couple complaints was continuity in the teams. There was some turnover when we were really getting into a groove with the team we had. As a result, some of the key employees that we liked either left PSL or moved to a different project within PSL. We would have preferred to have some of that continuity, but that’s a problem that every development shop faces. The same applies to our in-house staff. I’d prefer to have the same group the whole way through, but people come and go. We had a few different bodies moving around from 1 team to another or people leaving the company altogether.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work with Xtiva Financial Systems, which is the industry leader in compensation solutions for dealer-broker organizations in the financial services market. Xtiva's been operating in that market for almost 20 years and our customers are typically banks and other financial institutions.

What is your position?

I'm the CIO of Xtiva and a board member. I stepped into the CIO role this year to help accelerate a massive technology platform development project that Xtiva has been planning on investing in for a couple of years now. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with PSL?

We engaged PSL a couple of years ago [in 2014]. We were looking to evaluate a number of different external resources to augment our goal of developing a completely new technology platform and a new suite of applications essentially to replace the legacy solution that we've built in-house and expanded during the last 18 years or so. We'll be producing a whole new generation of industry-facing solutions for financial services that are based on a very advanced technology platform and a very flexible application development suite. That's the context of our interaction with PSL.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We've put the technology architecture together with PSL's help – a combined team that really represents the complete end-to-end development cycle. For a services point of view, we engaged PSL from the top down in terms of technology architecture as well as application and data development and QA [quality assurance] services. The teams that we have organized within PSL represent an extension of our own company and a complete end-to-end development team, not just QA testers or some coders.

How did you come to work with PSL?

We were actually referred to them through organizations that we came into contact with in South America. We were looking for just the right kind of partner to work with to engage not as an "outsource," but to engage as a true development partner. That's when we decided that PSL would be the appropriate partner based on their technical capabilities, and also their willingness to work within the framework of our particular flavor of agile methodology. They have the right level of engagement that we wanted to have with a development team, and they became a very tight extension of ourselves rather than a hands-off, outsource-type relationship.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I'd rather not go into the financial side. I will say that we have on the order of 25 people working on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began exploratory work with them on the architecture I think just about two years ago. Currently, we are involved with completing the first level of our platform and expanding a set of applications on that platform. We expect to be in the market with this new solution at the end of this year.

It was a series of exploratory projects and platform developments for the first two years. We've ramped up the project this year, and we expect to finish this year in the market and then continue at this pace, possibly adding resources to the team in the years to come. We don't think of it as a project. We think of it as a partnership. It's a continuum.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I think probably the best time for us to answer that will be toward the end of the year. We've done some alpha testing with a BI [business intelligence] component of our solution and received very positive responses. We do expect that the volume of work that we'll be able to handle, and the performance of this new system will be orders of magnitude more scalable than anything that we've been able to produce before. It's a paradigm-shifting platform, so it's hard to put direct numbers on the product until we're actually out in the market with the customers.

How did PSL perform from a project management standpoint?

We're very pleased with their approach to project management. Our organization has been going through what I would call a business transformation, moving from a traditional waterfall approach to a more agile approach to business. It's been beneficial to gain experience from the PSL project management team. Our scrum master, for example, is an expert at that delicate balance between process and diplomacy and has done a very good job of helping a number of people on the Xtiva side of the equation pick up and learn the agile process in a practical way.

I have to say that Jorge [Aramburo], the founder of the company, and Alejandro [Vasquez], our relationship manager, are really good, really responsive. They understand the software industry and how to help companies who are in the service of other companies like ourselves develop a platform and adapt new technology. There was a good chemistry from the beginning.

What distinguishes PSL from other providers?

There are a couple of things I'd like to highlight. One is I think they've been extraordinarily flexible in working to adapt to Xtiva culture. Often in working with other third-party sources, we've had issues in communications or in synchronization internally versus externally, and PSL has turned out to be very easy to work with. They've helped introduce some best practice and been very patient while we go through growing pains on the Xtiva side. That's a big plus.

The other is that the culture is very positive. The organization seems to do a good job of engaging and retaining its staff. There's a lot of focus on training and camaraderie among the staff, so there's a nice family feel to the culture at PSL. They're not as sterile or corporate or hyper-devoted to the process as we've seen in other organizations. They do a nice job of importing the Colombian culture, to the team, and that's been very beneficial. It helps with cohesion in the team and supporting one another to achieve some very challenging goals.

Is there anything PSL could have improved or done differently?

I would say that we've worked with them to embed the team into our organization I think to a deeper level than they might've been used to. Exporting that idea to other engagements will be good. I think that the Xtiva engagement has been a bit unusual in that regard, but I think that by applying that, they'll actually be able to serve even broader groups of people.

It's always a competitive recruiting environment. We've come to them from time to time to help scale up, for example, and sometimes that can be a challenge because we typically are looking for very senior skill sets, and often in specific niches of the technology. We've pushed the envelope on resources in that regard and, as long as they continue to grow their tech resources, they'll end up being unique in the Colombian market in terms of some of the technical skills that we're developing there.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our risk management company monitors catastrophes and provides insights for the insurance industry. We provide custom information for possible distribution of losses in order for institutions to prepare themselves for these scenarios better. We have offices spread out around the world for both our portfolio management teams and software development teams.

What is your position?

I am one of the managers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with PSL?

We needed to bring in additional resources and had a hard time hiring staff. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

There are a scrum master, three UI [user interface] developers and two back-end developers assigned to us by PSL. They help us implement data visualization into our application in order for our clients to understand the composition of their portfolio by looking at a set of SQL [structured query language] queries in a different way.

How did you come to work with PSL?

They were recommended to us by a consulting company that we hired for this purpose. We needed a team with a similar set of skills to our internal ones. They needed to be onboarded quickly and work within a close time zone to ours. Colombia is only a couple of hours ahead, so that was perfect. When I came on to the project, it had already been decided that we would be working with PSL.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Their rate is $50 per hour for a scrum master and around $40 per hour for their developers.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with PSL in March 2015. The relationship is ongoing. We've been pleased with their work and have renewed our contract.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

They have helped us enhance the reporting in our products. PSL is an independent scrum team. Although we communicate with them on a daily basis, they are autonomous, able to isolate chunks of work, and assign them to their own team. Our local developers can thus work on other elements of the application. They've given us a kind of wow factor that has been a significant advantage when showing the work to clients.

How did PSL perform from a project management standpoint?

We found that it's easier to hire outsourced front-end developers than it is to get back-end ones. It is easier to integrate them to the team and have a more collaborative effort. Having a scrum master has helped tremendously.

What distinguishes PSL from other providers?

We've received the best outcome we could hope for. PSL is highly engaged and provides us with a scrum master that helps organize things. He acts as an engineering manager, which is helpful. The team is responsive, and if we have upcoming demos, they will put in the necessary hours for supplying us with the needed functionality. English is not their first language, but they've done as well as could be expected. We could not hope for a better collaboration.

Is there anything PSL could have improved or done differently?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a software development company located in Texas.

What is your position?

I am the senior manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with PSL?

We needed additional development resources for an IT service management solution.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

PSL gathered use cases for our business analysis software and wrote the Java code for it. They provided quality assurance and automation as well. PSL worked using Scrum methodology and also helped us improve our processes.

We were looking to rewrite the old version of our software using Java, with some improved design and capabilities. It had previously been written using Perl.

How did you come to work with PSL?

Because of cost, we started looking for companies outside of the United States. We went through a due-diligence process for finding different vendors and came to choose PSL. We gave them and another vendor the same proof-of-concept project. At the end of that process, we decided to hire both companies.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I do not have this information.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with PSL in 2012. They were already working on the project when I joined the company. Our relationship lasted for five years.

When we initially hired them, we were a much smaller company and were looking for vendors exclusively for our own products. We were acquired by our parent company, which has contracts with different vendors. This is the only reason we're not still working with PSL.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did PSL perform from a project management standpoint?

PSL was very pleasant to work with. They are happy and professional people, which makes them very productive. There were times when we needed to meet a deadline fast. Without asking us, PSL worked through the weekend in order to get it done. They became part of our team and treated the product as if it was their own. They wanted to see it succeed.

At one point, there were over 100 people working on development, quality assurance, automation, business analysis, and so on. When our relationship ended, because they had hired good people, they were able to move them to other projects, instead of terminating their employment. I got the sense that PSL doesn’t hire employees just to fill a project, instead they’re aimed at acquiring long-term employees. People working for their company felt secure as a result.

They integrated with our processes very well and worked together with us to find the best solutions. Compared to other vendors, especially in Europe, this is a great advantage.

What distinguishes PSL from other providers?

We worked with two developers at the same time, and the main quality that made PSL stand out is that they were continuously improving. They ran surveys for this purpose and acted on them. I always felt that they were telling me the truth and trusted them whenever they told me what would work and what wouldn't. Whenever we had issues with any developer, they took care of it either by coaching them or having that person assigned to a different project. PSL integrated with our processes very well. Their English, for the majority of the team, was very good from the beginning. The ones that didn't have a good enough level improved quickly. This again speaks to their continuous strive for improvement.

Is there anything PSL could have improved or done differently?

Every member of our team was hardworking and did a good job, but not everyone was highly technical. This is the only point of improvement for PSL.