Sciant (part of Sirma Group)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of integrations at Groups360.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sciant?

We needed staff augmentation to support the development of integrations forour partners. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sciant provided us with an embedded development team working specifically on integrations for our partners. We used multiple languages, including Java, Ruby, and .NET.

What is the team composition?

We worked with six teammates, including a lead architect, a business account manager, a project manager, and multiple developers.

How did you come to work with Sciant?

We met them at an industry event. The speed to market was critical to us, and we were looking for coding and integration skills focused on hospitality central reservation systems and property management systems. We chose Sciant for their expertise in hospitality software integrations and willingness to create custom deliverables for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2023–December 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sciant's work helped us save time and money. Our metrics were the delivery of new projects and connections, and the team delivered four integrations.

How did Sciant perform from a project management standpoint?

We had exceptional communication through phone calls, emails, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Jira, and chat.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Darko was our lead account manager and helped ensure that our requirements were understood, our objectives were clearly defined, and that the Sciant team was well-positioned to not just meet but exceed those expectations within time and budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could provide additional time zone coverage.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start fast and get to work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Group IT at Ligentia, an international supply chain logistics company. We work with a number of industries and assist them in moving products from where they’re made to where they’re consumed. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sciant?

We need help with custom software development. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are helping develop a new BI platform. We’ve created a project team and have been working with Sciant to deliver a new Azure Synapse Analytics capability for reporting. The project includes taking data from all of our finance, operational, and HR platforms and transforming it as required using Power BI. 

We started with a proof of concept (POC) and took data from the IT platform. We’ve also created some KPI measures to add to our Power BI dashboards. Sciat transforms that data, stores it in Azure Synapse Analytics, and pulls the KPIs as a data set. 

Their business analyst works with the stakeholders, and we have Power BI dashboards with security around them. The group functions can access all of the data, and the regional teams, like the UK team, can access the same dashboards but only see their data. Security has been one of our primary concerns in this project because we not only want to deliver data, we want to deliver data to the right people with the proper security. 

We’ve pushed out a series of approved dashboards and have used Sciat recently to migrate another company we’ve purchased. We’re moving them onto our finance platform, and Sciant is doing a gap analysis to ensure that our finance platform can deliver specific Poland tax and legal rules. We will continue to use their business and project manager to deliver the migration to the new finance platform. 

What is the team composition? 

We work with business analysts, QA individuals, and developers. 

How did you come to work with Sciant?

They were recommended to us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €600,000 (approximately $643,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2021, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The key metric is the feedback we get from the external assessment of the Azure Synapse Analytics. We’ve completed two evaluations, and the feedback has been very positive, with strong results. 

How did Sciant perform from a project management standpoint?

They deliver on time, and we have a weekly Microsoft Teams meeting for the entire team. We also have specific team meetings to design custom workshops that are customer-focused. We have members from Sciant on the project team working alongside internal resources and, in some cases, working alongside external resources. 

We’ve never had any issues, and Sciant's team members act like a part of our team; it’s been a very good engagement. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their technical design is very strong, and they’re very open.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They did a good job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet them if you can and build up your trust very quickly because they’re very good. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder & CEO of the startup company RobosizeME. RobosizeMe is an award winning process automation specialist for the global hospitality industry, helping companies automate their operational processes based on unique industry knowledge and deep experience. Our virtual robots can help hospitality providers automate processes and optimize human effort in all areas of hotel operations, including reservations, front of house, back office, revenue management, group sales, engineering and meetings and events.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sciant?

We wanted a low-code, cloud-based middleware solution for our RPA (Robotic Process Automation) that initially processes booking data, manages rates from various PMS systems, makes deposits and settlements of payments to various PMS systems, and can be extended to handle a wide range of future functionality. The solution had to capture any type of errors and make them available to our team via our Oracle APEX based technical support portal so we can take further action.

SOLUTION

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

We selected Sciant due to their OIC expertise and Travel & Hospitality industry knowledge, especially around hotel systems and integration

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

RobosizeME delivers process automation for hotels and restaurants as a managed service using robotic process automation (RPA). RobosizeME needed a cloud-based, low-code middleware solution to provide connectivity between the RPA orchestration and various client systems. Sciant developed the middleware infrastructure, as well as integrations with Oracle Opera Cloud, Maestro PMS and MEWS and published endpoints for the RPA to get the needed data. For OHIP, the prebuilt adapter for Opera Hospitality was used and for connecting to other PMS systems, Sciant built custom REST connectors. For monitoring, the data was exported from the Monitoring API and was passed to the RobosizeMe Oracle Cloud database service.

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

We have worked with three people during the the project - an industry consultant, a technical lead, and a software engineer. Besides the software engineering team, we have worked also with the Travel & Hospitality solution support team to setup hotel PMS test environments.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The reusable and extendable OIC low-code middleware is highly flexible and is enabling us to rapidly adapt to the needs of our customers and deploy their solutions quickly.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project was following strict project guidelines and timelines, with regular standups and sprint planning and grooming sessions. Frequent demos were presented to us to collect constant feedback loops and fine tune the solution.

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

The most impressive thing about Sciant is the combination of the strong domain knowledge in Travel & Hospitality and the technology excellence the software engineers can offer. They are a highly engaging, very experienced partner. They didn't just listen and take our requests. They brought very deep knowledge to the table, challenged our ideas with long term thinking and delivered a great solution.

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

The most impressive thing about Sciant is the combination of the strong domain knowledge in Travel & Hospitality and the technology excellence the software engineers can offer. They are a highly engaging, very experienced partner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Product for a ticketing solution for the Arts and Entertainment Industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sciant?

We were looking to augment our team with React developers to support the transfer of our product from a Java client to be support via modern web technologies.

SOLUTION

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

Recruitment of permanent staff in the UK is difficult at this time and we had used local contractors with varying results. We invited a few near shore organisations to submit a proposal. Sciant pricing was fair, they provided good CV's and staff that would work with the team and we also had references from within our network that supported their claims.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Sciant provided 2 experienced front end developers to augment and lead the development of our React App's. We are a small team with demanding customers so we had to do a pivot for a short period soon after joining and the Sciant team were able to get up to speed very quickly in areas in which they were not engaged, learning new integrations. The team are now back on the original project and driving front end development and sharing their knowledge and experience with the broader team.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We discuss the project with the account manager, we try to provide as much notice as possible to ensure we get opportunity to get the best candidates, we review C.V.'s and interview and make a decision and on-board in a timely manner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the support of the Sciant team, we had to do a short pivot to open up a new digital channel for the worlds largest arts festival. Within 8 weeks we had successfully released a new online channel and the festival launched and was twice as successful as expected during the 2021 covid pandemic

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

When they joined our team, we were working remotely and the Sciant team fitted in very well with out team participating in all the necessary ceremonies and communicating well with the team and the ir stakeholders.

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

I appreciate their experienced and engaged developers that provide cost-effective solutions

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

Communication regarding local holidays in the countries where the staff are working. We sometimes get last minute notifications of these holidays as the staff in in different countries.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of development of a software company, and we mainly provide our services to hotels.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sciant?

I needed help with staff augmentation.

SOLUTION

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

All the developers we’ve gotten from Sciant are perfect. The integration with them is a no-brainer because they know our systems so well — we save time and money working with them.

The project-based work is easy to assess because we define schedules when we’re scoping the job. If Sciant commits to a project, they deliver. There’s no delivery as such for the dedicated resources, but they’re performing as expected.

How did Sciant perform from a project management standpoint?

This is why I love working with them; they understand my industry, so I never need to explain something to them in excessive detail. I tell them what I want, and they tell me how long it’ll take. They also consistently deliver exactly what I need by the deadlines they set, and most of the communication is through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their deep understanding of the hospitality software business is outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sciant should expand their services to include support and implementation. They should also expand the range of spoken languages in the company — not everything can be done in English, and using the local language is ideal at times.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Knowing precisely what you want and being as precise as possible in the requirements will bring results much faster.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the developers we’ve gotten from Sciant are perfect. The integration with them is a no-brainer because they know our systems so well — we save time and money working with them.

The project-based work is easy to assess because we define schedules when we’re scoping the job. If Sciant commits to a project, they deliver. There’s no delivery as such for the dedicated resources, but they’re performing as expected.

How did Sciant perform from a project management standpoint?

This is why I love working with them.; they understand my industry, so I never need to explain something to them in excessive detail. I tell them what I want, and they tell me how long it’ll take. They also consistently deliver exactly what I need by the deadlines they set, and most of the communication is through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their deep understanding of the hospitality software business is outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sciant should expand their services to include support and implementation. They should also expand the range of spoken languages in the company — not everything can be done in English, and using the local language is ideal at times.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Knowing precisely what you want and being as precise as possible in the requirements will bring results much faster.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the global director of technology for a supply chain management company. We handle both the process and technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sciant?

We had multiple challenges and wanted to provide ourselves with a pool of flexible resources for outside support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sciant provides IT, cloud consulting, and development services. After a discovery phase, they executed on a scope of work, working with our ASP.NET stack. Their team helps us with some issues we were having with our ERP. They also help us maintain and improve our relationship with our CRM.

What is the team composition?

We worked with five members of Sciant’s team.

How did you come to work with Sciant?

I had an ongoing relationship with members of their board. I approached them with specific project work, and they said they could help.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest about $50,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in November 2020 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is still ongoing, so we don’t have any results yet, but it’s been going well so far.

How did Sciant perform from a project management standpoint?

Sciant always delivers on time and within budget. Our teams communicated over email, video calls, and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Sciant is easy to communicate with. They always make sure we get what we want. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything has been great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and transparent to get the best out of the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Chief Growth Officer at a Swedish based pricing optimisation software-as-a-service provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sciant?

In order to accurately price hotel rooms we require a real-time feed of reservation data from the hotel's property management system. The deployment of a new customer is dependent of the configuration of the system interface.

This can be a time consuming and complex process. We use Sciant's services to ensure that these interfaces are configured and deployed in fastest manner possible.

What were your goals for this project?

Our objective to to ensure our customers get to realise the value of our services in the shortest time possible. A critical component in achieving this is to streamline the system interface configuration.

SOLUTION

How did you select Sciant?

Sciant was selected because of their proven track record over many years in configuring hotel property management system interfaces and their vast experience and expertise in hotel technology.

Describe the project in detail.

Sciant have been contracted on an ongoing basis to configure the interface between our proprietary pricing application and a variety of hotel property management systems. This service is provided for each new customer deployment.

What was the team composition?

The Sciant team consists of a project manager and pool of system analysts. The number of people working for us is directly dependent on the number of new customer deployments.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sciant's knowledge, experience, expertise and contacts in the hospitality technology space means that they are able to achieve results that we could not achieve on our own.

It is s great comfort to us and our customers that the deployment of our software is less dependent on the availability of the relevant vendor resources and can be deployed in a predictable and consistent manner.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The engagement between the teams is well defined and efficient resulting in predictable outcomes. The Sciant team is very responsive to any queries raised and provide a good visibility into the project progress.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I am most impressed with the depth of domain knowledge that the entire team possesses. This is extremely beneficial in over coming challenges and getting things done.

I also greatly value their responsiveness. The Sciant team understand the importance of responding quickly to questions and queries, and meeting the expectations of our customers.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company provides revenue management services for hotels in Asia Pacific. We have also developed a BI tool that assists hotels in automating all their reporting needs. I am the managing director of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

The goal was to provide a solution to extract data from the Property Management Systems from the hotels that we are working with full accuracy.

SOLUTION

How did you select Sciant and what were the deciding factors?

I chose to work with Sciant because they already had the experience on such project. As the development of IT solutions in hospitality is a very niche area it is hard to find qualified companies. I previously worked with another company which was unable to deliver the accuracy promised.

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

We had a first meeting with the developer where we went to the potential solutions of implementing the interface. After we agree on what would be the best course of action we set a timeline on the steps of development of the project. This included an initial meeting to go through all the required specifications of the required export. We then had meetings every 2 weeks to review the progress and for me to share my feedback on the proposed solution and adjustments required. The deliverables were custom reports to install on the Property management systems of our clients. The main technology used for this development is Oracle SQL.

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

I have worked with 3 people during the time. At first I was in touch with the commercial director to identify the potential solutions for my project based on their experience. I then worked mainly with their developer so that they understand the key specifications and required outcomes of the project. During the time of the project we were also supported by the Director services to ensure the regular progress and quality control.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The deliverables are matching the expected accuracy which was the main challenges for the project. I am very pleased to have the correct exports which will allow us to complete our tool and start selling in a month. There are however compromises that needed to be made to get to that level but I do not think this is the vendor's fault.

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

We used basecamp to managed the overall development of the project and Atlassian for the technical specifications. We also had several meetings on Google meet so that we could discuss directly the issues and potential solutions. I appreciated that I could discuss directly with the developer as this definitely played a major role in finding a functional solution to the project. The project took a few weeks delay due to unforeseen challenges related to the specifications required. In my experiences these kind of projects always have slight delays due to challenges so I found it acceptable.

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

I think their knowledge and transparency were most impressive. Sciant delivered what they promised where other vendors failed. It the industry that I am it is very hard o find reliable vendors and I would be confident doing more projects with Sciant in the future.

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

As mentioned I had to do some compromises which are unfortunate but the deliverables still fulfil their main functions so I cannot blame the vendor for this.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO in a startup based in the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We work in the hospitality sector where integration to specific supplier systems are needed to create end-to-end solutions - in our case leveraging mobile services for guests. We needed a partner who could work with our tech stack (Python / AWS) and had experience with the systems we needed to integrate with. Our goal was to develop multiple 3 integrations with different vendors over the course of 2020.

SOLUTION

How did you select Sciant and what were the deciding factors?

We selected Sciant after doing after looking around the market and doing an initial scoping / discovery exercise. We were impressed with the depth of their knowledge and their open communication style.

We were able to discuss multiple architectural options and they listed valuable insights that led to us deciding on a chosen architectural approach. Communication was also key - we wanted a provider who we felt understand our needs and would work with us as a partner to accomplish our goals.

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

After an initial discovery workshop, they spent time with us going over specific user flows in more detail and assessing various elements like API sequence diagrams and specific protocol specification points. We then moved into implementation phase where they worked over the course of weeks and months (depending on vendor availability) to implement the solution.

We had regular meetings with them where we shared progress updates and clarifying questions were surfaced for quick resolution. The resulting integrations were delivered on time and we deployed them with pilot projects after smooth internal testing which they also supported.

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

We worked with 2 Software Engineers, 1 Test Lead and 1 Project Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the course of 2020, we successfully developed the specified integrations which became a major part of our product set. We had clients using each of the integrations to some degree and were able to validate solutions end-to-end in a real world situations. This significantly enhanced our product offering, opening up new sales opportunities and increasing our customer base.

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

We communicated openly through regular meetings but, more importantly, using Slack for day-to-day questions and issues. This allowed for quick resolution and direct, informal communication between appropriate technical contacts resulting in quick turnaround for any issues.

They also tracked project issues through Basecamp to document any proposals which required review and assign actions from meetings. Financial updates and project updates were provided regularly throughout the project.

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

I was most impressed with their commitment and determination to help us achieve our goal. In true partnership, they didn't just implement what we asked them but validated situations they felt may lead to the wrong outcome and suggested different approaches where appropriate that could help us reduce effort or further enhance our product offering with little effort. This translated to a high degree of trust where they would work directly with vendors while keeping us involved and updated.

They also impressed us with the level of direct access to technical team members. By making their entire team available directly on Slack, we had open discussions across teams which led to quicker issue resolution and a higher quality outcome in the end.

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

We were really happy with the service and quality provided so it's hard to identify any specific area where they could have improved. We're continuing to work with them on new projects which says a lot about our views on their work!