Perficient Latin America

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a communications officer at the Illinois Municipal Retirement Funds (IMRF). We’re the second-largest public pension in Illinois. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Inflection Point?

Our public website in 2014 was antiquated and unable to meet our needs. We needed to blow up the old site and launch a new one. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We partnered with Inflection Point to redesign and relaunch our public website. The team was involved in every step from concept to launch to support and maintenance. 

They were involved in our survey work and focus groups where we collected feedback from staff and customers. We then worked to design the information architecture. After that, Inflection Point built the website in Sitecore CMS. They helped create the testing plan prior to roll-out. To this day, they continue to maintain the site and implement improvements. 

What is the team composition?

There’s a core group of people at Inflection Point with whom we’ve had an ongoing relationship. Ramiro (CTO & VP of Technology) has been our project manager for our web design and is still part of the maintenance work. However, Inflection Point has also brought in new people over the years with new skills and fresh ideas to innovate the website. There’s a perfect balance of long-term relationships and new blood, consistency and innovation.

How did you come to work with Inflection Point?

We’re a public entity, so we have to go through a competitive bidding process for large projects. Inflection Point submitted a competitive bid that was then rated by a team. Inflection Point had the highest score among all submissions based on their price point and the quality of their responses. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $500,000, which is a great value for us and our members.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in January 2015 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our web traffic has doubled over five years. Users also spend more time on our site, and the number of customers who create online accounts with us has increased. The fact that our relationship with Inflection Point has gone beyond the project also speaks to their outstanding level of service and our confidence in the firm.  

How did Inflection Point perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is one of Inflection Point’s strengths: they’re very process-oriented. We have a cadence of meetings to identify work that needs to be done in the coming months. Their team uses tools to track the work as well as a well-developed process for defining requirements and for us to approve the work they’re going to do. 

At the same time, if I need to get someone on phone right away, I don’t have to jump through hoops. I can send an email or make a call and get whoever I need on the phone within an hour. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The CMS that we use is Sitecore. Inflection Point has a full team of Sitecore experts, which is a huge plus for us. Second, the value they provide in our relationship stands out. They offered the lowest price point in addition to the best services among all the bids we considered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, it’s been a great relationship. We wouldn’t be working with Inflection Point going on five years if we were dissatisfied in any way.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have open, transparent communication about your expectations of the team. Also, have the confidence to provide feedback on the services they provide. Those are important to having initial success and maintaining this success in the long term. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a vice-president in the global investment technology department of an investment management company. We have slightly over $500,000,000,000 in assets under management, and I run a team of global business analysts as well as managing technology product delivery for our investment and operations areas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Inflection Point?

They worked with us in the capacity of an elastic consulting firm. We hired them for development work, essentially to augment our staff with developers, business analysts, and quality assurance analysts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The staff that they provided for us worked with us on a variety of software development projects across the firm. That includes our website, operational applications, and trading systems rollouts. A lot of the work is completed in Java, as well as some SQL Server reporting services, and Salesforce.

What is the team composition?

They have provided a number of staff members over the years, both analysts and developers. I’m not sure of the exact number.

How did you come to work with Inflection Point?

Somebody at our company had worked with them in the past and recommended them for the job.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent a little over $6,000,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our teams have been working together for almost 12 years, starting around 2008 and continuing today.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have SLAs that we use to review them. They’ve always met those metrics for us, and that combined with our satisfaction with the quality of their work and the level of service they provide to us is the reason they are still here after so many years.

How did Inflection Point perform from a project management standpoint?

They generally go above and beyond how other vendors perform around deadlines and communication. The folks that service our accounts are quick to escalate things when people don’t have enough work or when they want to flag other things for us, which we really appreciate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

More than other providers, they have very low turnover, which makes their members really become part of your team. Probably half to three-quarters of their team has been with us for 3–5 years. Because of that, we treat them like members of our own team and have been able to build really strong relationships with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that could improve is their relative size, which is obviously not entirely in their control.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t go into it with the expectation that they will know everything the minute they walk in the door. As long as you are committed to bringing them up to speed and putting in the time necessary, you will have a great experience with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m the project manager at Eventellect. We are a B2B company that works in live event promotion and ticket sales. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Inflection Point?

We wanted to increase the capability of our in-house development team in a few specific areas, one of which was third-party technology integrations. 

We also needed to upgrade our internal user interface from Microsoft WTS client application to a new web application. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Inflection Point integrated several technology partners common in the ticketing industry.  

They helped us select the technology we used for the UI upgrade by having us engage in a short term POC. We identified a slate of three different potential frameworks and then had different team members develop a prototype using an assigned framework. 

In the end, we decided to replace our UI with a new web application built with JavaScript using an Angular framework. 

What is the team composition? 

Throughout our engagement, we’ve worked with a total of seven people. We started with one point of contact but had five team members working with us during the POC. Currently, there is one teammate working on the UI upgrade. 

How did you come to work with Inflection Point?

One of our owners received a recommendation from a friend at another company. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $300,000-$400,000 over the course of our engagement. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Inflection Point in fall 2018, and our engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

None of Inflection Point’s development work goes live without review and approval from the Eventellect team. We’ve never received work from Inflection Point that wasn't able to go live, so I would say our engagement has been successful. 

How did Inflection Point perform from a project management standpoint?

Although we were initially reluctant to engage with a third-party vendor, Inflection Point has been really good.

Their communication is fantastic. Their team sends us statuses every morning that we can use during our daily stand-ups. They also update us if anything might affect their productivity. For example, they let us know about small things like when their office had a fire drill. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Inflection Point has a depth of experience that we could never maintain in-house. The team is also great about being proactive if our requirements for a project are unclear. They ask the right questions and think of ways to create value and make continuous progress. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything right now. Their team fits in perfectly with the rest of the office despite working remotely. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

During onboarding, it is helpful to set aside some time to give Inflection Point a technical overview of the project. This is a worthy investment of time because once their team is set up, they’re really efficient.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a consultant. I own David Black and Associates and work with various companies doing executive management of technology projects as well as system design and architecture.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed development support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve contracted with PSL Corp. on behalf of four clients so far. I believe we brought their first North American client to them. The first project they worked on was developing a fleet management and tracking solution for a company in Vancouver. PSL Corp. also developed video management systems for that client and another company. They’re currently developing an access control system. 

For all of the projects, the software has had to interact with hardware and custom electronics, so it’s not just pure software development that they’re doing. They develop using the Java Composite Application Platform Suite (CAPS) based on J2EE (now Java EE) and KSP. They do some mobile development in Cordova and Native, and they’re about to take on another mobile development project in React Native.  

What is the team composition?

Over the years, I’ve probably worked with 40 team members.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

For the first project, I evaluated companies in 12 South American cities—including Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru—over 14 days. Besides the 12 companies I looked at in South America, I also considered four in Europe and two in Eastern Europe. I conducted preliminary research and compiled a shortlist of companies, which I presented to the company’s executive management. Then, the CEO, the COO, and I traveled back to the top three companies we chose and did a second round of interviews. We spent a couple of months doing a very serious evaluation. The executive team ultimately chose PSL Corp.; I just made the shortlist. 

PSL Corp. was my second choice; however, at the time, the company I was representing was about to buy another company in Colombia, and we felt that it would be nice to have a partner in a country we’d be traveling to anyways. For that reason, we chose PSL Corp. This turned out to be a great choice because I ended up doing a project with my first-choice company, and it was a disaster.

Although PSL Corp. was probably the most expensive company we looked at, I felt a high level of trust with them that I didn’t with other companies. I’ve always believed that any technical problem can be solved as long as there’s a trusting client-vendor relationship. I felt it was less important to worry about whether the vendor had perfect resources or processes, and much more important to find a company that we could have a true working relationship with. That way, if problems arose, which they inevitably do, we’d be able to resolve them. 

How much have you invested with them?

The first project cost around $1 million. All of the projects we’ve done and are currently working on total about $6 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with PSL Corp. in 2009, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve done a lot of outsourcing with different companies. At the end of the day, the quality of the results depends on the quality of the team that the company puts together for that particular project. As with any outsourcing company, we’ve had some great teams and a couple of weak ones from PSL. Corp., but their teams are a little bit stronger than the average outsourcing teams. Their real strength is that they’re always willing to improve the team they provide if it’s not strong enough.

When we have a weak team, PSL Corp. is open to talking about it and doing whatever is necessary to improve the situation. This can mean re-educating team members, adding somebody who is more experienced to coach the team, or replacing team members with other resources that I’m happier with. PSL Corp.’s strong suit is that they’re always willing to do that. They’ve never said that they don’t have other resources or that the issue is on us. 

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

Like most everybody else, PSL Corp. uses an agile scrum methodology, and they’ve created a custom approach over the years. It’s quite an effective process, but I do think it’s a bit more process-heavy than necessary. Outsourcing companies often try to solve problems by adding to the process rather than time or materials because process doesn’t cost them anything; it only costs the client. You will get this with PSL Corp. as much as any other company. The time it takes them to complete tasks isn’t what I think it ought to be, but the quality that I get in the end is everything that I think it should be. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

As part of their process and culture, they have some very innovative ways of helping their developers improve themselves that don’t involve dictating policies and procedures. Jorge (CEO, PSL Corp.) is someone we’ll read about one day in MBA classes; he’s passionately driven to make software better. He’s a powerful leader, and the way he’s structured his organization is different from any other outsourcing company I’ve worked with.

Everyone at PSL Corp. truly feels like family. They all help each other out; it doesn’t seem like there are any office politics. PSL Corp. is an amazing company, and whenever I go to their office, I’m amazed by their culture. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness, which is the case with PSL Corp.’s culture. Everyone is always nice to each other, but when people aren’t performing, being nice isn’t always the best way. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the general manager of a creative agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking to augment our staff and expand our nearshore resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

PSL Corp. operates as an extension of our existing team in Los Angeles. They almost exclusively provide technical development, both front- and backend. Their team provided web and product development and their tech stack was pretty vast. They provided some work on the UX side as well but that was more ad hoc support. 

The recruiting process with PSL Corp. started pretty much right away. It took a little longer than we were initially expecting, I think due to the technical nature of the programming support we needed. They sourced all new people for us. 

Their team integrated into our projects just like any of our resources here in Los Angeles. They joined our team meetings and received resources just like any in-house team member would. Our security requirements required PSL Corp. to build a secure space for the team allocated to us that had biometric security entrance requirements and video cameras installed. They worked off of our networks so there was administrative support on both sites to ramp up the physical operation of that.

What is the team composition?

Over the course of the first six months, we ended up ramping up a team of about six people, which eventually grew to nine people.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

We had worked with nearshore developers in the past but were looking to hire a company in South America. PSL Corp. was one of the companies we met with in South America. We were ultimately looking for a company that was in line with our values and be able to support our development needs within our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

On average we spent about $50,000 a month for 11 months, so around $600,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with PSL Corp. ran from October 2018–August 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They deliver quality products on time, so from that perspective, we had a positive experience with them. The time difference proved to be a little bit of a challenge and limited the working hours between our teams. 

We collaborated on fixing that and they made some adjustments there to help us. PSL Corp. is a good group of people and a talented team. They certainly did the job they were hired to do for us correctly. They were great at soliciting feedback and then using that feedback to implement change.

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

They were purely dedicated to our team so they were always responsive. PSL Corp. was integrated into our Slack channels and email domains. Their team was also on all of our video conferences. They operated as though they were full-time staff members.

What did you find most impressive about them?

PSL Corp. really focuses on their team and their people, which is what we as a company operate on as well. That’s just how they operate. Every other company we talked to is just about numbers and getting clients. Their culture thrives on the well-being of individuals. 

Outside of that, their core skills were outside of what we do but they’re very well established. Large scale SaaS product development is their bread and butter. PSL Corp. is willing to learn and grow.

Are there any areas they could improve?

All of the areas, including the time difference, they were open and transparent about. They always wanted to address those at the moment. For us, once our projects ramped down, the need for a fully retained nearshore staff model didn’t fit our mold anymore. 

I would love if they could do a project-based model where we could ramp up and ramp down resources quickly. I could easily see us continuing to work together.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Before you go into a staff-augmentation model, really understand what that means and how you foresee that playing into your own organization. At the end of the day, these are contracted team members that are working for another company. Understand how you want their team to integrate into your system and how you want them to act, whether you just want pure development talent or you want them to culturally feel like a part of your company. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product engineering at an IT product & services company. I’m responsible for the analytics component of our location platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our goal was to create a platform that can manipulate and process location data at scale. We wanted to provide additional data science tools for our customers to help them solve their own problems, many of which require statistical or analytical approaches.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with PSL Corp. to build the product. One of the features that we’ve created is a notebook that lets users process and analyze data in an interactive environment. The platform also allows for Python programming, which is a standard tool for many data scientists.

What is the team composition?

The team that we had under contract was about 12-15 people, ranging from more junior engineers to some very senior people. PSL was the analytics team, and they worked under the rest of our in-house team and me.

They provided local project management and engineering leadership, doing the bulk of the work for the analytics side. I was in charge of overall project management.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

PSL was already one of our preferred vendors for outsourcing. I was not involved with their initial selection, but they were our immediate choice for nearshore outsourcing.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with PSL about three years ago, and the project will end in September 2019. We’re terminating the contract for internal reasons, nothing to do with PSL or their performance.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The problems that we were working on were very challenging. They were, in some ways, pushing the boundaries of our field. PSL came up with solutions to address these problems that didn’t exist before. It was different than most software development projects, and many of the outcomes were hard to predict.

Because of the nature of the work, the metrics were very atypical. That being said, the quality of the work and the motivation of the team were exceptional. They were very flexible in terms of reacting and learning throughout the project. PSL had to help us make decisions as we were both learning, and we’re extremely happy with the results of that collaboration.

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

Something that we appreciated about PSL was their ability to fill in the gaps of our project management approach. They took over several project management tasks that were lacking on our end. This was all part of their desire to make everything function collectively. We had project managers on our side coming and going, which made things very challenging, but PSL was able to save the project.

We managed the project using the Scrum method and relied on in-house communication tools to stay in contact. We rely on Cisco technologies, like Webex and Cisco Spark, for conferencing and instant messaging.

We also had in-person meetings on a regular basis to talk about overall roadmaps and broader project issues. They were times when we traveled to their office in Colombia to bring the team together. We also had their key leads come to our office in Seattle for long-term planning meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Three aspects were outstanding. One was the communication. They were always clear and transparent, and we never experienced any language barriers. The second aspect is their approach. They were extraordinarily respectful, polite, and supportive.

The last aspect is the level of ownership. It was obvious that their team leads genuinely cared about the product, which made for a very fruitful collaboration process. As I mentioned previously, we had some project management issues on our side, and I’m not sure that another provider would have been able to handle that as well as PSL did.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We handpicked the team from PSL who worked on this project, and it was difficult finding people with the right skillset. This wasn’t unique or surprising, though, because our platform required a high level of specialization that is typically very rare.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them enough time and leeway to recruit the right people. This is especially important if you need specific, non-standard skill sets. PSL is flexible and well-structured, and will be able to build the right team with enough time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of engineering in one of the divisions of an opensource and enterprise solutions company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed staff augmentation for development work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

PSL Corp. helps us deliver open source software. They supply developers to work on homegrown automation frameworks as well as on some of our frontend automation. For most projects, they use different technologies like Python to write the code. Other responsibilities include performance testing.

What is the team composition?

They’ve assigned a project manager who liaises with a team of about 15 resources. I like that we’re able to interview development candidates to find ones that meet our requirements.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

I’d previously worked with PSL Corp. while at a different company and engaged them again based on that experience. My main factors for choosing them included how they presented their case studies and how they helped solve problems for other companies. What’s more, they’re also open source contributors.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $400,000 per year with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in late 2017, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It took some time to ramp up the team during the initial phase, but we now have a long-term partnership with them. They’ve helped provide services for whatever we need to do, and their solutions have had a positive impact, too.

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

Their workflow is good. I have weekly calls with the project manager who monitors the team. He relays any specific requirements that we may have and organizes additional training where necessary.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate that they’re open to hearing feedback. The team isn’t pushy, and they listen before making good recommendations. Their openness, honesty, and attention to detail have helped them build a close relationship with us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be beneficial if their team had more exposure to different technologies. Sometimes it can take a little longer to find the right candidate when we’re looking for a specific skill set.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I'm development manager for an airline, and am currently leading the app development area for our internal team and for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed work on the development of mobile apps. As an aviation company, we don’t have such a big development team so we needed a partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started an innovative project with them—the idea was to learn together. They worked on the development of a chatbot for us. Our goal is to build a platform in which we can connect any channel.

What is the team composition?

There were three developers, two architects, a master, a proxy product owner, and two testers.

How did you come to work with PSL?

We opened an RFP and PLS was one of the companies that participated.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September and the project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've done well working with them; they're a really good partner. They've been very involved in the process. They also provide excellent support on UX, development, and tool evaluation, while the internal feedback from the technology team has been great too.

How did PSL perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been great until now. We are in a transition on the project so it is evolving but everything is good so far.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their commitment has been key. Anytime we have asked for support on their side, they always respond quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are some cultural differences that can sometimes cause misunderstandings, but that’s normal and has happened to us before with suppliers from other countries.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Keystone Strategy is a consulting firm with business strategy and digital transformation expertise. I work for Keystone Labs, a subsidiary that develops technological tools to facilitate our client engagements.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with PSL Corp?

We’re currently building new capabilities for our business. As part of this process, we had worked with some outsourced vendors from Costa Rica. Those teams didn’t provide the level of quality we needed, so we hired PSL Corp as our new partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with PSL Corp on multiple projects including a collaborative invoicing tool. At the start of our collaboration, we restructured our workflow and management processes. They developed all the API endpoints to connect our databases to each service we use.

The team initially developed our mobile app on AngularJS. Currently, they’re in the process of migrating it to React. They developed most of our frontend using Material Design, Material Components, and in-depth programming with JavaScript.

One of the main aspects of our relationship is acquiring new knowledge that we didn’t previously have available internally. Their services include a mentoring program that allows our in-house team members to learn from their more senior developers.

 What is the team composition?

We work with five nearshores of PSL Corp’s developers who are based in Colombia. They collaborate with our internal management and design engineering team that’s located in San Francisco.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp?

I have a good friend in the startup space who works out of Colombia. He recommended working with PSL Corp. Based on research I conducted on Clutch.co and similar websites, they’re top-rated in Colombia for this kind of job.
 
How much have you invested with them?

We spend $30,000 per month on their services.
 
What is the status of this engagement?

We started our business relationship with PSL Corp about six months ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

PSL Corp supports our vision of finding ways to integrate data with the best available solutions. At our directive, they build best-in-class (rather than all-encompassing) software for each necessity to our business growth. Our product is still in development. While it’s difficult to comment on metrics, PSL Corp has undoubtedly produced results. 

Over the last three months, we’ve transitioned some of our users to the new platform. So far, we’ve processed around $3 million through our invoicing app. While not strictly due to their work, these results are from a combination of factors that occurred around that time.

PSL Corp empowers our company to build a more cohesive and results-oriented team. Their mentorship program has edified our in-house teammates, who have learned much from the team’s senior developers.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

Both our teams are using the same project management systems. We established what those would be, and how we wanted PSL to work with them. We mostly use Jira for project management, Confluence as a knowledge repository. Through slack, we have a constant level of communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

PSL Corp maintains a focus on quality and customer satisfaction. The company is very responsive and continuously assesses if their team is meeting expectations. For me, the best part for me has been working with the business development lead. Our consistent contact helps ensure that we’re happy.

When they select new developers for us to work, we have the chance to test them out first. Then, we can determine whether to keep them on at a discounted fee or even for free. This level of consideration and involvement makes us feel like a valuable partner. PSL Corp is always looking for ways to improve our relationship. It’s obvious they’ll grow their business if we end up hiring additional resources. In the end, their approach shows how invested they are in our success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could manage some of the staffing process-related communication issues better. There’s been some latency in responses from the administrative side of their business. We also expected lower costs. The current price point is comparable to the U.S. or European market, so we expected them to produce better results autonomously with less involvement from our side.

We’d initially budgeted for lower-level developers, but those resources didn’t meet our expectations. Hiring more senior developers increased the total cost more than we expected. Even with the higher-level engineers, we’ve had to invest a lot of time ensuring they’ve understood our requirements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of engineering for a location and mapping platform. We create the developer framework for our flagship product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed web development for our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were specifically tasked with helping my team build the web portal to the platform and were critical in executing against my plans to deliver on this part of the platform. They owned a significant part, approximately 25%, in that contribution in the developer frameworks.

They use good software engineering practices such as test automation, continuous integration and deployments using Angular technologies with JavaScript, and test automation tools such as Selenium, Cucumber, and Mocha. They have also been using Node.js on the backend for the server. They use all the latest technology stacks that anyone building single web applications would expect.

What is the team dynamic?

There's been a combination of eight to nine people, with a mix of about six developers and three test automation engineers throughout the collaboration.

How did you come to work with PSL Corp.?

Our company vetted different vendors and chose them based on affordability, trust, dependability, and technology experience. We were interested in finding a development center that was somewhat central to our U.S. locations in Seattle, Chicago, and Burlington. We felt that they could accommodate those different time zones.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in June of this year, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a big delivery in September/October this year. Without PSL’s help, we would not have made that deliverable. They stepped up even during the final few weeks. They were always able to help and contributed every way they could, without any limits to their working hours.

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

As part of our agreement with them, they must use our tools: Confluence and Jira, as well as our online communications tools based on Cisco.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their way of working is truly a partnership versus a vendor. Even if bad things are happening within their company, they're up front with us so we can work together to find the solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only area of improvement would be to control their churn a little bit, as one of the negatives we had during our engagement was developers leaving the team. We invested the time in training those developers, and then they would leave.