ScienceSoft

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time the project happened I worked as a project manager at a wireless carrier company. I supervised software development and IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We were working on several technology projects and we were having some challenges in recruiting and keeping the appropriate technology staff on site. We either couldn't find quality software engineers or we couldn't keep those engineers long enough to make meaningful progress on our projects. We were a small company so we couldn't afford to employ a large team. This is the reason we started looking for a contractor with expertise in app development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked on many projects together over years. Their team developed web applications, web API services, mobile applications, mobile APIs, and a web service for automatic processing for us. They provided design services, including user experience design, marketing material, and technical writing services. We also had database ETL and analytics. My senior developer and myself worked closely with them to schedule and execute tasks in a scrum agile methodology.

One of our most recent projects was also one of the largest. For this project, they provided backend services, exposed APIs, and a message queuing system for a very large mobile application. The mobile applications were loaded on all of our clients' Android smartphones, and this application had to send and receive data from all of those handsets periodically throughout the day. It managed a massive amount of data efficiently and provided value to us and to our end customers.

Our backend technology was primarily written in PHP and Symfony 2 framework. Some of the technology stacks around communicating with the mobile devices are MQTT, Kafka, Redshift, and Amazon S3.

What is the team composition?

They assigned a development team to us, and, eventually, we grew into having a full-time project manager. We also had a full-time database ETL engineer, a part-time lead software architect, a part-time designer for UX, a user experience expert, a technical writing and marketing expert, and part-time infrastructure support for our Amazon Web Services.

How did you come to work with them?

Our CEO had a colleague who recommended them to us after having a positive experience with them in the past. We reviewed them against other providers and chose them partially based on good presentation and good service offerings, not so much on price (they're a little pricey).

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in May 2015 and we worked with them them during my entire time there – up through October 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered a high quality product. Most of the time they had high quality contributors on their team and were always eager to help us find and replace the team members who weren't pulling their weight.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

Initially, we handled the project management process in-house, and they worked with that. When they started providing some project management resources, they did an excellent job. We used Slack and Jira. We also had UberConference for our daily conference calls.

They were very responsive and available during business hours. Even after they went home (which was about 11:00 AM my time), they were back online, signed into Slack, available to answer my questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We always had an honest and trustworthy relationship: I trusted their guidance and their actions as far as the quality of their code. They never gave me any reason for distrust. Their engineers always gave us honest and frank feedback, which made the technology projects go much smoother. I had worked with different outsourced providers in different countries and was not always supplied with that kind of upfront feedback, which could sometimes really hinder our projects with those vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes the quality of the voice connections to Belarus was not good. I eventually had to implement a conference call system to fix that but it was still poor every now and then.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to constructive feedback from your resources. Sometimes they can be very blunt, so embrace that and turn that into a positive experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Emolytics provides automated market research technology (e.g., easy-to-customize survey and feedback technology for websites, email, and point-of-sale) for B2C companies. I am the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

I was looking for an high-quality, reasonably priced outsourcing partner for PHP and JavaScript. I’d had experience with several outsourcing partners in Russia, Belgium, and other countries, but wanted to find an outsourced group that could become a part of the team. They also needed to be near us geographically in order to reduce time-zone issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked together on the whole spectrum of our technology—feedback capture to data processing, reporting, data analysis, etc. ScienceSoft was tasked with full-stack development for email, website, and point-of-sale survey and feedback tools. They also improved the report-generating piece of our solution and reworked many of our APIs and backend SQL database structures.

What is the team composition?

The project was small, consisting of two resources from their end in the first few months, which was reduced to one. Despite having an account manager on ScienceSoft’s end, we interacted directly with the developer. Their account management is in place only for our contract and other details.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

I explored a few countries, including Russia, Belarus, Romania, Poland and even France. Price was one factor, but the main one was quality. I wanted to find someone I could feel comfortable with. Beyond junior or senior resources, we wanted to find someone who was willing to learn and evolve alongside our product.

I interviewed several less-expensive providers in other countries, but ScienceSoft stood out in terms of quality and price. Our communication with them was very good and they were the right size. Plus, they were able to work with different technologies and could help me in the future with data analysis, security, and testing. Their extra capabilities aren’t being exploited at the moment, but they will likely be helpful in the future.

How much have you invested with them?

The investment to date has been over 100-150K€. 

​​​​​​What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2016 and they are still a part of the team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of the work produced by our engineer as well as the overall skill set is better than any of my previous outsourced experiences. The team is motivated and hard-working, and my account manager has been friendly.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

While we’ve never met anyone from ScienceSoft in person, they’ve been very responsive over Skype, Slack, Google Hangouts, and email. I’ve never had a problem in communicating with them.

Our developer reacted quickly whenever there was an issue to solve. He was reactive and always willing to make sure that the features being released worked well. It was a pleasant surprise to see his level of involvement and motivation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They deliver the work and often go the extra mile. If I find a bug, I know that I can count on the person I’m working with. He’s been there to solve issues and monitor the work. This trait is difficult to find and it’s a very good fit for us from a cultural standpoint.

Are there any areas they could improve?

English language skills on their end can be inconsistent. I had a choice between several developers and chose someone stronger in that area. Their development knowledge is high and they’re not client-facing, so I don’t really care about English, but I would recommend making your own screening if you want to work with them for client support. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a startup in the U.S. We facilitate the claims process on behalf of our customers. We view ourselves as a technology company first and a services company second. Our style is to solve problems technologically and then bridge that with services until such time we had the ability to resolve issues.

Our original company is in Germany, and it has been around for 13 years. We’re bringing a similar business model to the U.S., although some of the products and markets are different from those in Europe.

I’m the VP of technology. I take care of all the technology and business operations, including customer service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We were looking for local development resources from a cost perspective.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ScienceSoft continued the development of a mobile web app that we had inherited from our parent company in Germany. We localized it and released a prototype for client interaction and sales purposes.

The product is a photo estimating application that involves 3D model interactions. For accident reports, we developed different 3D models for automobiles. Users could select and deselect damaged parts. ScienceSoft integrated our backend platform with the product. They’ve worked on many other things as well.

What is the team dynamic?

We started with one person, and the team has grown to three people. That number has gone up and down, depending on our budget.

The team has been pretty stable. We had to reduce the team because of our budget, but that was our choice. Recently, one team member decided to take on new opportunities, so now I have to find another person to replace him.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

I had worked with them in the past at my own business where I was consulting for different organizations and organizing development resources. I was looking at other companies overseas as well in Ukraine, Russia, and India.

Based on our previous experience and relationship with ScienceSoft, I gave them a chance. My other reasons for choosing them were based on their cost and expertise.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2016. We did the prototype first and then expanded things in October.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve just launched the full self-service estimating platform for our first customer. It’s live, but I can’t say there has been any specific feedback at the moment.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

I manage the team, and my team interacts directly with their development team. We use Skype for meetings. We also use a VPN [virtual private network] and standard tools to connect ScienceSoft’s team to our environment.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re small and don’t have a lot of resources, so it was important for us to get the right resource and have a good relationship. ScienceSoft is very open to that. Other companies like to establish multiple layers of self-management versus our management, especially with how clients interact with them. In contrast, I like making people part of our team. I like developing a personal relationship with people, and they made it simple to do that. They’ve been very open to us working directly with the developers.

They are willing to work with the way we do development—how quickly we turn an idea to a requirement to getting it done. Other companies do something similar, so it’s hard to say they do it better than someone else. It is always important to have a low-maintenance vendor.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be good if ScienceSoft felt more confident about giving feedback about our side of the project. That would be the ideal scenario. However, it’s a byproduct of the type of team we’ve assembled. We’ve established a direct interaction instead of having a customer service model. I can’t really say that it’s on them to improve this.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of IT for a large Canadian producer (licensed) of medical cannabis. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

I usually keep 3–4 offshore vendors available for our various projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our projects are mostly intranet-related, as well as some public-facing. ScienceSoft provided web-based backend development. The system is large, but I usually distill the work to simple tasks. I use ScienceSoft for sprint projects in the Java jQuery stack, Spring, and Tomcat.

What is the team dynamic?

I work with two Java developers and another for HTML/JavaScript. ScienceSoft augmented my built-in process. We have an architect, a project manager, and developers internally, who guide ScienceSoft and ensure that their deliverables meet our expectations. ScienceSoft strictly follows my team’s instructions, with everything prepared for them.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

They reached out to me and told me they had the capacity to join an active project. I had at least four vendors at the time, and I hadn’t worked with ScienceSoft before. I prefer to mix and match different skillsets, which is one of the reasons ScienceSoft came on board. They had different rates and quality developers compared to our other vendors.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in May 2017. We’ve worked together on three separate web projects, and two of them are ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The first project goes live within a couple of weeks. We had no major issues, and their performance met my expectations. I have strict guidelines for code, so I reviewed everything ScienceSoft delivered. From a development point of view, ScienceSoft has the skills and knowledge required to complete tasks well. They are worth what I pay for their services.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The collaboration is completely remote. We communicate well, and their English level is good. Our daily scrum calls are via Skype, where we use screen sharing, and we also use JIRA for our ticketing system. I need to know about developer vacations, and there hasn’t been any unexpected departures.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The major factor in any outsourced project is time management. ScienceSoft does 95–100% of the work I pay for, which is better than a 100-person team with poor output. ScienceSoft has a good skillset and knowledge, and they also do things right and on time. They never cause delays, and they always overdeliver.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I use ScienceSoft as staff augmentation, so they don’t make decisions on their own. They complete work reliably, and I’m happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company provides online book sales and on-demand printing. We're an in-between for manufacturers, publishers, and consumers, specializing in niche markets like role-playing games, war games, comics, and so on. I am the vice president and chief technical officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We wanted to create a desktop application that would allow people to synchronize and download purchases they'd made from our site easily.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ScienceSoft used a framework called qt.io as a front-end, which functions across multiple operating systems. Our initial program was for Windows, but we were looking to branch out to OSX, iOS, and so on. The communication is done over HTTPS, with ScienceSoft's program calling APIs [application programming interfaces] on our server. Visual Studio was used for most of the programming. ScienceSoft created some user interface and user experience designs, based on our general idea of what kind of program we wanted and what options we had available.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

I did a Google search looking at software development companies specializing in OSX and other platforms, made a laundry list, and contacted the ones that looked promising. I received a request for proposal from each one and decided to go with ScienceSoft.

How much have you invested with ScienceSoft?

The total cost of our project with ScienceSoft was between $30,000 and $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016. ScienceSoft has made a working Windows version, but we plan to have an ongoing collaboration, making further iterations of the program and also porting it to other platforms.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven't released the software yet and are still doing some internal alpha and beta testing with bigger customers, but we do feel that the project was successful. We don't have many metrics around the software yet but, overall, it seemed to have very few bugs. Anything that we identified was fixed by ScienceSoft's development team within a day or two. There were fewer than 15 bugs so far, most of them small.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The main thing worth noting is that ScienceSoft uses Russian developers, which don't work on United States time. Sometimes, when we had bug fixes to request or questions, it could take ScienceSoft a day to get back to us, making the communication a bit difficult. A 3- or 4-email conversation could sometimes take a few days to complete.

Are there any areas ScienceSoft could improve?

Other than communication, I can't think of anything for ScienceSoft to improve. They were nice to work with.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with ScienceSoft?

Clients should work with ScienceSoft on the software specifications document. ScienceSoft did most of that work for us and did a good job. They know their own processes and procedures, which was helpful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a services provider based in the US. We deliver custom software, project management, and deployment to customers in the transportation sector. We are a small company and work on a limited number of projects. I am an owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We needed additional resources, which ScienceSoft was able to provide.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with ScienceSoft on some small but important projects, whenever we couldn't acquire the necessary number of resources. Most of the time, they've been able to assist us. ScienceSoft has been our only outsourcing company. 

ScienceSoft has mostly provided .NET, JavaScript, and Objective-C [iOS] coders. We have used up to two full-time resources from their side. I have a development background myself and have had multiple roles, including those of architect and project manager.

We had an issue with an iOS deployment at one point, and ScienceSoft had to engage a senior resource, which wasn't a problem. Our issue got resolved.

ScienceSoft also offered design and user experience specialists, but our end-customer already had those resources on-staff.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

I knew their vice president of sales and found this to be good leverage in the case of any issues. ScienceSoft was one of the more serious options we were considering at the time, but we also looked at hiring individual offshore consultants. This usually doesn't work well, though. Our customer was happy with ScienceSoft's estimate, so we moved forward.

How much have you invested with ScienceSoft?

The total cost of ScienceSoft's resources has been around $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ScienceSoft around 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The resources provided by ScienceSoft were all qualified, and have delivered what we've asked of them. I can't say anything negative about ScienceSoft. It's a good company to work with.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We usually requested the resource allocations. ScienceSoft was able to accommodate us only in some cases, but this was mostly due to our own company. Most of the time, ScienceSoft did find resources when we needed extra work after an initial engagement. Resources never disappeared from a project, quite the opposite. We have worked strictly on a time-and-materials basis.

I have an assigned account manager from ScienceSoft, and can communicate anything to her in order to stay informed on what resources are available, and when.

We use Jira and Source Control internally. ScienceSoft offered its own management tools, but we've preferred to use our own systems. Everything is posted on our platforms at the end of the day.

What did you find most impressive about ScienceSoft?

I don't know how their other accounts are managed, but I am pretty happy with ScienceSoft.

Are there any areas ScienceSoft could improve?

I have been working in this industry for a long time and improvements can always be made, but I'm not in the position to suggest something about ScienceSoft. They're a competent company and I'm happy as a customer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Arbela Technologies is located in Irvine, California. We are an AX CRM Microsoft solutions gold partner. I am the CRM lead for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We have several in-house consultants, but we don't have CRM developers, so we've primarily used ScienceSoft's services for any development work and estimate gathering in the pre-sales phase.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ScienceSoft has been heavily involved in building our systems, both in terms of development, as well as functionality design to a lesser extent. ScienceSoft has been in charge of JavaScript coding, plug-in modifications, custom reports, and changing out-of-the-box functionalities in our CRM, over the course of a couple of projects.

ScienceSoft assigned at least 3-4 people for our projects, out of which 2 of them worked with us on a constant basis. We've also had some administrators involved for on-premises installations. We work with resources directly.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

Our president and Chief Executive Officer was the one who initially contacted ScienceSoft, so I'm not sure how the connection was made. We do employ resources in their area of the world, having headquarters in Belarus and other European locations. At one point, we met with one of the lead developers from ScienceSoft locally, in Irvine. Together with him, we came up with a plan of how we could utilize ScienceSoft's development skills.

How much have you invested with ScienceSoft?

I don't have this information. We use ScienceSoft on an ongoing basis, and they invoice us monthly. There's always active work for ScienceSoft to do.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ScienceSoft one year ago, which is also when I started working with the company. They may have done previous work for our company before that time. We have an ongoing relationship with ScienceSoft. We're now finishing the design phase on a new project, and I've sent them some other items on which I want an estimate. ScienceSoft has been involved in several projects, both for ongoing maintenance and functionality changes, as well as brand-new implementations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We keep going back to ScienceSoft for more work, so we've been very happy with the quality of their code and general understanding of our CRM. I've worked with other overseas companies, which came with some challenges. I've not experienced this with ScienceSoft.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

ScienceSoft has always delivered on-budget or under, and their turnaround time has been excellent. Whenever we needed to get some work done on a tight schedule, ScienceSoft had good responsiveness. One of the reasons for going back to ScienceSoft was that, whenever they made a time estimate, they stuck to it. There was only one exception to this, when ScienceSoft went over-schedule by a couple of hours, but I could understand their circumstances. The requirements changed slightly, and ScienceSoft still delivered within reasonable time.

We don't use any specialized project management tools. We mostly communicate with ScienceSoft through email and Excel. I start a new spreadsheet of ongoing issues to be fixed, or new functionalities and features. I make descriptions in as much detail as possible, sometimes providing additional design documents for more complicated tasks. We have a back-and-forth process with ScienceSoft, through which they will provide an initial time and budget estimate. Once in a while, we'll also use GoToMeeting, whenever we need to create an overly-complicated functionality which I need to ensure that ScienceSoft will understand.

What did you find most impressive about ScienceSoft?

Typically, ScienceSoft has been able to easily understand what's needed. I also appreciate the fact that I can bounce ideas off of ScienceSoft's team, and figure out the best way of handling a task. I have my own ideas, but it's good to have a back-and-forth process nonetheless. As an example, a customer wanted to introduce product hierarchies. We'd been discussing the pros and cons between creating custom entities and fields, or using out-of-the-box functionalities. ScienceSoft gave me insight into their experience with each approach. I appreciated the fact that ScienceSoft won't simply do what is asked of them, but rather bring in their own feedback and ideas of what is best for a particular functionality. ScienceSoft never came back to me with a straight no, but rather offered alternatives for any request. I've tried to do this with my own customers.

I find ScienceSoft to be very responsive, knowledgeable, and overall pleasant to work with. It's been a good partnership thus far, so good that we haven't had to hire any internal resources. We have consultants, but no developers.

Are there any areas ScienceSoft could improve?

Our only limitation is that, because I'm located in the West Coast, our hours don't match up very well at times. ScienceSoft has performed well overall, though.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with ScienceSoft?

ScienceSoft is a proven commodity to us, but in general, unless a client checks a developer's references, or knows where they're coming from, they won't know what kind of code that company will deliver. ScienceSoft has always delivered for me, so I would recommend them, but there are always unknown factors.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We develop turnkey and bespoke software, including connectivity, telematics, and infotainment systems.

What is your position?

I am the founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We wanted to expand our capabilities beyond the resources that we had and, at the same time, find a way to be more competitive on the market as far as development cost was concerned.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We have used ScienceSoft on a collaboration basis, combining resources from both of our companies.

We've worked on four projects together. Our involvement with ScienceSoft varies from project to project. We tend to receive work with a broad spectrum with mobile apps and websites as components.

We developed a turn-by-turn navigation system for a large OEM [original equipment manufacturer]. It encompassed everything from a back-end, middleware, and front-end to third-party integration and mobile apps. Another project was a complete radio system for a tier-one supplier. It included both hardware and software components, with the hardware side being handled by a partner. 

We are currently developing a proposal for an upcoming project using ScienceSoft. Our clients tend to be larger, Fortune 50 companies. When an opportunity comes up, we will bid on the work along with many other, larger companies. We haven't been successful every time, but we've certainly tried.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

We were looking for a culture fit with our company. There are many overseas developers, but not all of them approach projects the same as us. ScienceSoft contacted us, we went through a due-diligence process and gave them a few teaser projects in order to see if there was a culture fit. So far, I've liked ScienceSoft's responsiveness and approach to projects. They are a no-nonsense and straightforward company. Regardless of what happened, ScienceSoft stood by their claims, which was important to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with ScienceSoft for two years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It has been very helpful to have ScienceSoft as a partner. Their work has been efficient and well-received by our clients. On a couple of projects in particular, ScienceSoft's quality of work was high enough to attract follow-up projects.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We've been able to collaborate with everyone in ScienceSoft's team, rather than just specific project managers. From their end, ScienceSoft has managed the work well enough to keep up with timelines and not miss anything.

What distinguishes ScienceSoft from other providers?

I appreciated the fact that there's no nonsense about what ScienceSoft proposed and delivered to us. We've had many collaborations in the past, trying to get everything well-defined and understood, but there were misunderstandings along the line. Any issues that came up with ScienceSoft were remedied quickly with no problems whatsoever. This is what made our collaboration valuable. If we can put away discrepancies between partners, then the client will receive a well-put-together product.

Is there anything ScienceSoft could have improved or done differently?

ScienceSoft should try to find ways in which we could collaborate more within the United States Eastern time zone. Other than this, everything has been good. ScienceSoft is very responsive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

‎TruMethods is a training and software company for IT service providers. We teach small and medium-sized clients how to plan, build, and deliver IT services to the global small to medium-sized business market.

I am the Chief Technology Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

We are a small entrepreneurial company which was started as a training organization, providing subscription-based content to IT companies. Over time, we realized that we needed a way of providing a framework which could deliver on key best practices. We created a product called myITprocess, which is a way for IT companies to set standards, evaluating their clients' environments against those standards. What is out of alignment can be assessed for business impact, thus obtaining a long-term strategic roadmap for each client. We had been teaching this manually, but we realized that software could help with the process. We're self-funded, so we have a limited amount of resources. As we grew over time, adding hundreds of additional IT companies, we needed a way of scaling the development with outside help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a content delivery platform for which we needed some assistance. We first engaged with ScienceSoft on this smaller project, which was a way for us to evaluate their work methods and project management. ScienceSoft worked on our platform using PHP and MySQL, and also developed a native iOS and Android application for the company.

ScienceSoft is now working on our main software product, myITprocess, which was built using ASP.NET MVC, Knockout.js, DevExpress ASP.NET, and SQL server. ScienceSoft has a wide range of capabilities, which is one of the reasons for engaging with them. They've always been able to guide us and manage projects, delivering on time and on budget.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

I spent a few months interviewing different organizations and individuals, looking to possibly build an in-house team. I found ScienceSoft through LinkedIn. I chose them because of their responsiveness, understanding of what we were trying to do as a business, and willingness to dive into the work. Overall, ScienceSoft was similar to other organizations, and it was hard to make a decision based solely on a company’s website. Ultimately, I chose them because of my comfort level with ScienceSoft's account executive. He was willing to use some resources in order to understand what we wanted to do, and to give us good guidance. From there, we were comfortable with ScienceSoft's proposal. We were given different options on how we could approach the project.

How much have you invested with ScienceSoft?

The total cost of our project with ScienceSoft has been between $50,000 and $200,000 to date. The cost will quickly go above that in the near future.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ScienceSoft at the end of July 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With ScienceSoft, we've been able to reduce our development costs and decrease the timeline on new features and updates. For us, the most important part is having a partner which we can trust within the different aspects of our business. We're starting other projects, and we will be giving ScienceSoft more work. We have a number of ideas, and we have the confidence that we can accomplish them.

What did you find most impressive about ScienceSoft?

I've been working in this field for 15 years. ScienceSoft's attention to detail in how everything is documented and communicated is by far the best of any agency that I've worked with. The communication and agreement process when starting a new project has been by far the easiest to handle and most professional I've seen. My team on the product side has worked extremely well with ScienceSoft, even though they're remotely located.

Are there any areas ScienceSoft could improve?

When working through fixed-price projects, it can be a challenge for some people to understand all the details. Streamlining that process would be an improvement, but I can't identify anything glaring about ScienceSoft's work at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I'm the chief executive officer at Type 2 Consulting, a management consultancy, specifically focused on integrating finance and marketing perspectives on business operations. We tend to deal with a lot of data on the customer's side, as well as a lot of data on the internal costs of companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ScienceSoft?

I was looking for an outsourced data service for business intelligence, coding for web apps, website design, and so on and so forth. Although this is a part of our offering, it's not the core of what we do, so we tend to outsource that kind of work to 3rd party suppliers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

I'd been nurturing our project on the calculation of intangible valuing within the global economy and had reached the limits of what was possible to do in Excel. I was looking for a developer that could port the data into a proper relational database. It seemed like ScienceSoft was a better match for this kind of work than for our other project, which was more to do with frontend user experience design, with little data manipulation on the backend. ScienceSoft used KYUBIT, which is a business intelligence package from a Croatian supplier that I'd never heard of before. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing and demoed what KYUBIT was able to do.

ScienceSoft is hosting the application for me at the moment, through a dedicated server. I ultimately want to offer this as a service for my customers, so there needs to be a robust backend and ongoing support for it.

I don't have a lot of insight into the number of resources allocated by ScienceSoft to my project. They're based in Belarus, and I haven't gotten the sense that there's a huge depth of English capability within their team. I've been consistently dealing with the project manager from ScienceSoft, who's been a first-class asset. I also interact with ScienceSoft's head developer. I've gotten the sense from our conference calls that there have been 2-3 other resources for our project.

How did you come to work with ScienceSoft?

We initially needed to build a web app for one of our customers, which is why I responded to some outreach from ScienceSoft. As I talked to them, I got the sense that ScienceSoft was extremely robust on the data management side, particularly database management.

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

I signed up with ScienceSoft for 2 services: a hosted server and ongoing time-and-materials maintenance. Our original contract was for less than $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We initially came in contact with ScienceSoft in June 2015 and started the work in September. The project was finalized in December. As I was able to look at the data in greater depth, I realized that much of it was sourced out of the S&P Capital IQ service. It is nowhere near as clean as we'd want it to be: local currencies appear when selecting dollars, the same company was allocated to multiple countries even though it only had one headquarters, and so on. I realized that I'd have to take on more data cleansing than I'd anticipated, which has led to a second stage of the project in 2016, by which ScienceSoft is helping me write the code for data cleansing activities. When we import the next year of data, we aim to have it be a less painful process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I was delighted by the results of ScienceSoft's work. Having our data in an Excel format meant that there were only so many lookup functions which could be implemented before everything ground to a halt. I was able to slice and dice the data in ways which were not possible before: I could select individual years, countries, separate the data into deciles and quartiles, and analyze it independently. This has been a huge benefit for us.

How did ScienceSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

In working with ScienceSoft, we did nothing more sophisticated than using a shared Dropbox folder. We had good briefing sessions and I wrote project descriptions. I am not able to read code to any useful degree, so there was no point in me seeing work in progress. The first time I saw the application was when it was up-and-running in the beta stage. From ScienceSoft's point of view, there wasn't much to share, apart from a couple of screen grabs of wireframes, showing how they were planning to lay out the data, so there was no need for robust project management support.

What distinguishes ScienceSoft from other providers?

I've worked extensively with an Argentinian developer in the past, which I primarily used for web coding, as well as with an Indian one, which was assigned mobile app development and responsive design implementations. Compared to them, ScienceSoft has been very strong on the backend. This view is influenced by the fact that I haven't given ScienceSoft much to do in terms of user experience. They exuded extreme competence whenever I explained the type of analysis that I was trying to do, as well as the data filtering and logic tests required.

ScienceSoft was delightful to work with and proved to be different from the Indians, for example, who have immaculate but rather dated English language skills. The ScienceSoft team was very quick on the uptake, never making me explain myself twice. This was a huge plus, given the fact that most people won't understand what it is that I'm trying to do in terms of data analysis. When I tried working with previous developers, it always took a long time to explain the kind of manipulations I was trying to do, and what tolerances I required.

Is there anything ScienceSoft could have improved or done differently?

Ours was a pretty well-described project. I have been working on this kind of analysis for 15 years, so I knew what I wanted to do. In that sense, there wasn't a lot of consultation and advice which I needed for scoping the project and finding the trade-offs in terms of sources of data to use. ScienceSoft understood the job and had robust processes for completing the work. The application worked as I wanted it to at the end of the day. I'm sure that ScienceSoft has other capabilities which they'd have wanted to showcase, but there wasn't an opportunity for that on our project.