Profusion Systems

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Vice President of Information Technology of Residential Real Estate Council

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

RRC provides designation, certification, education, networking and referral services for top Realtors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Profusion Systems to accomplish?

• Improve the reliability of our financial data and reporting
• Improve the user experience for our members
• Increase efficiency for our customer service team

SOLUTION

How did you find Profusion Systems?

Worked with vendor on previous projects

Why did you select Profusion Systems over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Profusion Systems were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Profusion evaluated our business requirements and provided a plan and scope for configuring and customizing Netsuite to achieve our goals.  They provided recommendations for our system architecture.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We received a detailed plan and scope for implementing our project.  It provided the necessary information to make an informed decision on our path forward.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Profusion provided their deliverable on time and on schedule.  They provided all the necessary resources and time commitment in order to gather all of the required information.  They were very thorough and detailed with their process.

What was your primary form of communication with Profusion Systems?

Virtual Meeting

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

Profusion provides a personal level of attention and is very knowledgeable about the technology that they work with.

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

N/A

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the IT director at Aramark, at Chicago Public Schools (CPS). I was responsible for the food and facilities IT support for all of CPS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Profusion Systems?

Aramark had a separate food contract and facilities contract as part of a $260 million deal with CPS. We needed applications and software to bridge the gap between CPS and Aramark's management systems.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Profusion Systems built web applications from scratch for us. Prior to this, we were doing Excel processing and dumping food production worksheets into a folder. It was not scalable for a system as large as CPS. Usually, the account sizes were 100 schools or fewer. This account had 700 schools. When we came to CPS, the scale and scope of Excel got corrupted, and we needed a solution outside of that. Not only that, we needed the solution to be available within three months.

They’ve also provided some scanning solutions. They used a SQL Server backend and .NET. It was all hosted on Azure. We were filling gaps wherever we needed to because we had systems from CPS, which were much larger. We needed in-depth detail into our business performance, so we used this application for those purposes.

The application was for substitute labor management. We designed this application for our cloud center at CPS, so that we could provide substitute labor for the facilities. Our call center put in the requests to labor providers. A call would come in about an open labor position at a certain school, and the notification would go out to the labor providers to assign those substitutes, each one with their specific area.

When one was assigned, all the relevant parties would get emails and text message notifications, including the principal, the district manager, and the actual person going out. At the end of the day, we had a dashboard where reporting metrics were displayed, showing how much we’d spent on substitute labor.

On the food service side, we had a food ordering application. This was used by our central kitchen to order food for about 200 public schools. Luncheon managers used the app to place orders. Our central kitchen would receive the orders, download them, and supply the food. We then enhanced this application, adding forecasting functionalities. On top of that, we started using the same application for compliance and food production purposes. In order to be compliant, we have to fill out full production worksheets for the meals produced at our facilities. The app also became our repository for those documents, and those were being filled out on a daily basis, through a very complicated process.

On top of that, we built a module that we call the “menu distribution tool”. We had 52 different menus being served across 700 schools, depending on the needs of each one. We also added a recipes library with about 300 entries. Each school could download recipes based on their menu, which was published every month. We had a publishing feature used by dieticians.

The app basically became a food service management system, where we were basically managing food production across 700 schools. We added different features and functionalities over the course of five years, including several analysis features.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager. I don’t know how many developers they were using, but I estimate three. We were also in touch with Aalap (Technology Executive, Profusion Systems). I was involved from end to end, including requirements gathering, project scheduling and management, implementation, and rollout.

How did you come to work with Profusion Systems?

They’d worked for me while I was at another organization. They made a full assessment and built us a million-dollar application there.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Profusion Systems in 2014, and they were still working with my company when I left in March 2019. There were several projects for which they gathered requirements and gave us quotes that never materialized.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In terms of metrics, the work saved us millions of dollars over that period. These applications let us see how the food was being consumed, which combinations were consumed where, and so on. We could use the app for real-time reporting for the food service side. At the end of the day, a 10-cent saving on a food item could turn out to be millions for us.

Their ability to scale our operations to the size of the CPS account was something that my company had never seen before. Profusion Systems gave us internal solutions as we developed deeper and more detailed applications in the background. For example, when we didn’t have the application ready, we would just have a basic functioning application that would just get us off the ground, and then they would enhance it in the background.

We were a food service operator with software needs. They came in with a whole spectrum of DevOps, UI, and other resources that they created to make that application a success.

How did Profusion Systems perform from a project management standpoint?

They did very well. We kept adding requirements, expanding the project, and expecting that they would deliver. There were times when we asked them to expand the scope and keep the same timeline, so they brought in more resources to work faster. Obviously, we had to pay a little extra for it, but they were able to pull it together for us. I’m very satisfied with their project management skills.

It wasn’t a very complicated project on our end, so we used a Gannt chart along with Excel sheets. They provided timelines for the tasks we requested and managed the work on their end. I don’t know what their backend was but, anytime they made a commitment, they delivered on time. They were professional, their work was above board, and they were committed to changes when we’d already finalized things. They were very kind and accommodating.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to bring in resources and quickly turn around projects was impressive. For us, the turnaround time was key, along with not falling behind in quality. If there were mistakes, we would be in big trouble, and I’m pretty sure we couldn’t have found another partner to turn it around in that short a time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They did a good job and they were able to deliver on time. When we thought we’d have problems with them in terms of pricing and timelines, we would basically set the expectations up front. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients shouldn’t box them in. We brought Profusion Systems in for what we thought would be a $30,000 application. It evolved into a huge project with several applications then, but Profusion Systems made it seem like a single environment across the board. They evolved with it, incorporating a single-sign-on and other functions to assist with that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The Chicago Dental Society is a professional association for dentists in the Chicago area. We organize the annual Midwinter Meeting and promote dental health, education, and advocacy for our 6,100+ members.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Profusion Systems?

We needed a company to provide ongoing WordPress and website support, as well as API and cloud infrastructure development with several connected platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our recent project was to rescue a badly developed e-commerce site that was malfunctioning in both the purchasing and display of products. Profusion Systems developed, built, and implemented a cloud-based database with an API front end to support an ETL job to sync data from our parent company with our registration and accounting systems. It needed to connect with several other platforms and allow for an Excel or CSV upload to update.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two teammates from Profusion Systems.

How did you come to work with Profusion Systems?

I've worked with Profusion Systems for over 12 years, at a previous employer and now at my current employer. They were referred to me at that time by a colleague.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–December 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very satisfied with the final deliverables from Profusion Systems. All project objectives were met, and we tested the data after all data was synced, and it was good. The touchpoints with goals achieved and milestones were reviewed.

How did Profusion Systems perform from a project management standpoint?

Profusion Systems delivered on time and was very responsive to our needs. Their project management process was great; it kept the projects moving forward and assured that nothing fell through the cracks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Profusion Systems has delivered on projects time and time again. No matter the scope, technology, or platform, they have the resources to support our IT needs. They are flexible and have developed custom workforce solutions to provide internal network support and create amazing mobile apps. They've always delivered on time and on budget. We communicated via email and Zoom.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing we can come up with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We recommend working with Profusion Systems.