SoftElegance

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

When I engaged SoftElegance, I was the CEO of a fraud detection company that focused on e-commerce. That company was recently acquired by another cybersecurity services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

We needed high-quality developers in areas we didn’t cover in-house, specifically related to certain specialized techniques and machine learning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They translated our business requirements for the architecture of a fraud detection platform, which was based on the concept of threat intelligence. Part of our business was oriented toward the recovery of stolen credentials, the monitoring of infected IP addresses, and various other intelligence types that enrich fraud detection.

The system needed functionality that allowed it to produce technological models that we could evaluate. The aim was to enhance the fraud detection capabilities of larger companies that already had their own software, and to offer baseline defenses to smaller companies that had no such measures in place.

Our needs were quite prescriptive, and their task was to propose specific technologies that would underpin what we wanted. The proactive part for them was to describe the different technologies and educate us on the pros and cons of each. Once we honed in on the tools we wanted, they moved forward and built the system.

What is the team composition?

My main interaction was with two people, namely the account manager and the lead developer. There were probably three or four other people assigned to the project in different capacities.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

A colleague of mine met them at a conference and heard good things about them. He had a positive impression of their work and recommended them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in 2017 and concluded around the beginning of summer 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were very diligent and lived up to their commitments. If ever there was a task that needed to be sped up, they either added the resources or found other ways to complete it. All of their deadlines were met, and they had a positive overall approach to the relationship. Their willingness to invest conceptually in the project made the engagement feel like a strategic partnership and a long-term opportunity. Overall, we had a very positive experience.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

We spoke either weekly or fortnightly and had periodic update calls. My colleague traveled to Ukraine on multiple occasions to meet with them and do some onsite work. By and large, the bulk of our interaction was in our regular calls. In those, we discussed all the challenges that arose, made necessary decisions, and maintained an ongoing review process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were committed to the project and had a clear desire to meet or exceed our expectations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their written documentation left something to be desired, at least from a business perspective. They usually made good decisions regarding the technology they used, but their ability to explain why those technologies would benefit us most as a business was somewhat lacking.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a good idea of what you want to accomplish. In my experience, they did best with concrete guidelines to work toward. It also helps to have a member of your team who is able to communicate in Ukrainian. Some of their team members have good levels of English, but having someone who is able to translate complex concepts on your side would help a lot.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the former COO of WellEZ Information Management, a software design company for the oil and gas industry. We're in the business of what's called well life cycle reporting and our application is used by operators who are drilling and completing wells.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

Around 2006, we had a need to build a more scalable application based on enterprise models like SQL as opposed to an Access database. We needed help with the vision, scoping, and execution of building the application, which would require additional support over the long-term. However, we did not have engineering development expertise in-house.

For some background, we capture data through an input forms engine. The user logs in and is presented with a form full of data. Our schema was designed for a certain set of requirements initially, but as the business continued to grow, we saw that there needed to be a major change, so we started not just asking how we could change one or two forms to a different schema, but also whether we should rewrite the underlying engine and create a new engine. Since our business involves customers accessing data around the clock, we could never take one down. The strategy needed to support the legacy system and introduce a new system, supporting both for a certain amount of time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftElegance replaced an existing system that replicated previous features and they've been enhancing the platform on an ongoing basis through multiple iterations.

A customer expressed a need to digitize the workflow of the data captured by the SQL database to streamline the process and provide some real cost savings. Before Dropbox or file sharing became ubiquitous, we built an internal file management system that was associated to wells that could be emailed out along with daily reports. SoftElegance provided involved initial requirements, vision, scoping and scalability. Document storage can become a big headache for load balancing without a similar system in place. It took over three years and multiple iterations between the initial vision, implementation, crossover and the releasing of forms piece by piece.

SoftElegance also consulted us in many ways, helping us change our processes from a Waterfall to more of an Agile approach. We were relying on them entirely until our business matured to the point that we had some development leadership on our side.

What is the team composition?

When I first started with them in 2009, I worked with two or three people, and closer to 20 in more recent years.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

SoftElegance had already been working with our company when I started in 2009. They showed proof of concept around year 2000, and there was enough of an appetite in the market to invest with them around 2005. I know that part of the decision process also involved outsourcing the project overseas.

How much have you invested with them?

Over $200,000 and less than $750,000 annually

What is the status of this engagement?

We've had an ongoing relationship with them since 2006.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The advantage that we've found with SoftElegance was the investment that they had in the projects beyond just fulfilling the requirements and the billable hours. They would challenge us to look at the greater scope of what we were trying to accomplish. Compared to other offshore teams, SoftElegance was able to adapt to our workflow and help us adopt or improve on those approaches.

They've gone out of their way to bring additional value. Nearly 10 years later, we're still adding and scaling with their team, and we don't feel that we've outgrown their expertise.

As we develop the new form engine, we've been able to standardize data models and streamline the onboarding process. The reusability of that got us to the point that we could basically create an environment that we felt was 90 percent of what any new customer would want.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

SoftElegance adapted to our workflows. Initially we had no methodology; our developments were ad hoc and similar to a Waterfall approach. We're now getting closer to an agile sprint.

We use a software called Gemini for all of our ticketing and workspaces between project and our product management ideas. It's used for capturing rather than a strict down-to-the-hour task marks for each development.

They work independently, but they have a liaison for almost every project with our team. They communicate well with tools like Slack and Skype. We've also made the investment in the last couple years to visit them in Kyiv, Ukraine. However, if we didn't have the budget to go visit them, I think we'd be just as successful.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really establish themselves as a partnership. Every single person that I've worked with is invested in the success of the project. That kind of partnership is why we continue to do business with them are successful at this stage.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't look at code, so I can't comment on that specifically, but it's worked well for us.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Channeliser is a network for the IT industry where we enable companies to find each other to do partnering. Jacqui and I started the business because we were both channel consultants and one of the things we discovered is that it’s really difficult for IT companies, especially if you’re a vendor looking for downstream channel partners, to actually find who these companies are, locate them and engage with them. Users can do an advanced search and engage and promote your business to the industry. You can post content and put up blogs, documents, and videos. Users are also able to form groups to invite potential partners to that group. I’m co-founder and one of the directors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

We had a lot of difficulty with a company we were using in the UK who massively overpromised and underdelivered. The company had all the software sitting on their servers and we needed to get it off that server and onto a new server.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftElegance helped us do the migration from the previous company’s server to Microsoft Azure. The platform was still in the beta phase and SoftElegance has helped us evolve it further. They did that on a fixed price delivery and they certainly earned their money, as the project proved to be more complex than we thought.

The product is reasonably complicated because we’ve actually used a third-party product within Channeliser as well. One of the first things that we had to do was take our original platform and attach it to this third-party platform and get the signing process to be completely seamless. SoftElegance did a fantastic job of understanding how somebody would have to sign up through the initial platform and then end up in this other platform.

We started with two resources from SoftElegance and we reduced it down to one because of funding. When we started, there was a lot of UI that needed doing and the requirements for all that became less. We still needed the backend functionality, which has continued to evolve. When we’ve had performance issues on the site, they’ve gone way beyond the existing team and gone to their lead developers and had them working on it trying to sort out where things have gone wrong and how they can help. When they needed other resources, they’ve gone out and used people in their wider team to help. Tamara does most of the work for us at the moment. She understands the product fully and loves working on it. When we’ve had deadlines, she’s worked weekends to get things done. It’s been like having our own team when you look at the commitment they give to the project.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

We were at an event and we were asking people for recommendations and somebody recommended SoftElegance to us. We looked at a couple other companies but, through word of mouth, we learned SoftElegance was a good firm.

How much have you invested with SoftElegance?

We spend £2,500 ($3,229.25) a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2015, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were responsive and kept us informed. They were very patient with us, since we weren’t developers ourselves. They’ve been really good at taking what we’ve said we wanted and interpreting it and delivering it back to us. They had meetings with us and they did a good job which is why we were happy to continue.

We have over 2,500 members now which we’re very pleased with. In terms of the functionality, it has grown from a beta product to being something that’s fully launched and it’s significantly greater than when we started.

We spent £30,000 ($38,751) with the previous company and they delivered very little which is why we needed to look for someone else. They were even using Turkish developers to keep the cost down. The work they produced was riddled with bugs and problems and we spent most of the money trying to fix things.

I can’t write out the specs because I’m not a technical person, but SoftElegance was able to take our vision and turn it into a reality. The previous company couldn’t do that.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

Andy is our project manager. He’s great at solving problems we bring to him. One of the challenges of working with a company in Ukraine is that English is not their first language. Andy’s English is extremely good and he can explain something if Tamara doesn’t understand. Tamara is also good at written English so we communicate on IM. We use Team View to keep track of tasks. We use the IM chat on Skype for questions and conversation.

What did you find most impressive about SoftElegance?

To be fair, I don’t have a huge amount of experience with using other providers. I think the thing that has surprised me is that we don’t pay any extra for Andy’s time which has been great because it’s always great to have that person who understands our business. They’ve given really good suggestions after hearing our ideas. They’ve been quite proactive in terms of suggesting functionality that could improve the site as well.

Are there any areas SoftElegance could improve?

From our point of view, having better information on when timelines would be met. Sometimes that gets a bit blurred and that’s partly our fault because we do throw a lot of things at them. We’ve gotten better at setting priorities but it would be good to know whether it’s a week-long task, a month-long task or an hour’s task. That would help in our decision-making.

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

I wish I had known your site existed when we were looking because having other people’s thoughts and being able to take up references with other people would have saved us a lot of angst the first time around. Our big lesson was the fact that we didn’t get any references about our first provider. We took them at face value and that was a huge mistake. We’ve learned other people have had problems with them. If we’d taken up those references, I don’t think we’d ever gone with them and we’d have saved ourselves a lot of money and a lot of angst. We were nervous about committing to someone else but SoftElegance has proved to be brilliant. They gave us references and we called those people up and they gave good reviews.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-founder of our company. We have developed an e-recruitment solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

Initially, we worked with another development company in Kiev, but they didn't deliver what we were looking for. We decided to change vendors because that company was not performing well. However, we needed to get to a certain point in the development phase before doing so.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to make an on-the-fly transition between our previous development partner and SoftElegance, so we went through a period of working with them as well as with our initial software vendor. We still needed to deliver new versions every 14 days and have everything up and running. Since we do not have a local development team in Denmark, everything was handled by SoftElegance. They were responsible for fixing what our previous company had done wrong. They've also developed new functionalities and optimized our application. SoftElegance was in charge of load-balancing and making sure that our security is second to none. We host our application on Amazon Web Services.

SoftElegance assigned up to 8 people at a time to work on our application. We've had daily Scrum calls. We also traveled to Ukraine every 2 or so months, working with SoftElegance locally for 1 to 2 weeks. We have only worked with SoftElegance on our recruitment software project.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

During the summer of 2012, my partner and I went to Kiev in search of a company. We looked at 5 options, compared their prices, and decided to sign up with SoftElegance. They were a boutique software developer at the time. Plus, their management team actually understood how cloud computing and software-as-a-service applications should work.

How much have you invested with SoftElegance?

Including the work with our previous partner, we've put in 35,000 development hours for the project in total. There was an average of 6 developers from SoftElegance working on our project, at a cost of around $3,000 per month per resource.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoftElegance in August 2012. The project was completed in the summer of 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a very complex application. Getting up to speed with it has required a lot of work on SoftElegance's end and they've managed the transition period well. We stayed with SoftElegance for 3 years and were all very happy with the services they provided. SoftElegance made the transition on the fly, and none of our customers knew that we were changing partners. There were no breakdowns and no service unavailable periods during the transition. Afterward, we remained focused on catching up with the results that our previous partner was not able to deliver.

We've hired another company in the US in order to run security tests, both from a user and from an applicant point of view. They hire hackers around the world for the tests. They found no security risks in our product.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

SoftElegance's management, including their founder, supervised the team on a daily basis. We were given a direct link to management and could call anytime—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We changed some resources on the team according to our needs or when their skill sets proved insufficient. This happens within every team, even internal ones. It didn't cause any problems in our collaboration with SoftElegance.

We used Jira for sharing our development specifications, stories, and tasks. It tracked our 14-day sprints and the following bug fixes. We put a lot of pressure on SoftElegance's team, working through 14-day development cycles. We always assigned far too many tasks for each cycle, but SoftElegance was willing to work from early morning to late evening, as well as during weekends. Our deployments were made on Friday evenings at 10 o'clock, but there was no problem doing that. SoftElegance performed well and delivered what was expected 95% of the time. This is a very good margin, especially compared to our old partner.

What did you find most impressive about SoftElegance?

SoftElegance's team knew a lot about software as a service development and how to optimize AWS cloud systems. Every time we went to Kiev, we were able to improve our personal relationships with each team member as well as with SoftElegance's principal. This gave us the assurance that they'd be willing to do anything possible to help us. With our previous partner, we were just a small customer for a big company. It was very difficult to get help if we had any issues. With SoftElegance, we can send an email and have people working on our problems in 30 minutes. We almost have a family relationship with SoftElegance's team, which is what we like about working with boutique shops.

Are there any areas SoftElegance could improve?

Because we'd already had to change one development partner, we were always lagging behind what we'd promised customers. One of the things that we tried to do was put things in a more formal framework and have a strategic approach. We weren't able to get to that point, though, which was partly our fault.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We write and sell signing and labeling print solutions to retailers nationwide. We provide stock material to those same retailers. The core of our business is the software solution that we license to customers. I am the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

We used to have an in-house software development team but decided to outsource the work for stability reasons. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftElegance has worked on the main software program sold by our company. Given the changes in technology, we've had a complete rewrite of our software and we are starting that process again. We're in the middle of a software rewrite, moving it to .NET. We have worked with around 6 fulltime developers from SoftElegance. My IT manager interacts with them on a daily basis.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

I shopped around and came across SoftElegance in my search. I considered several companies overall, including stateside and overseas ones. Also, SoftElegance was recommended to me by a trusted party. I liked SoftElegance's execution plan as well as the guarantee that they offered. SoftElegance was willing to perform a certain amount of work upfront, without pay, in order to prove what they could do. I wanted to meet them beforehand so I traveled to SoftElegance's office in Ukraine. Afterward, we signed a deal.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoftElegance in 1997 and have an ongoing relationship.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SoftElegance wrote our core program and we've been successful in marketing it. We've worked together on many updates and a complete rewrite, and SoftElegance has progressed steadily in our project. We've been pleased with SoftElegance's feedback and with their ability to stay current with technology.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

I like working with SoftElegance. The team is responsive and they've acted as our technical support team when our in-house department couldn't figure something out. I also appreciate the fact that SoftElegance's team has adjusted their schedule in order to work within our 8-hour time difference.

What did you find most impressive about SoftElegance?

SoftElegance's team is extremely stable. Only 1 person has left our project since 1997 because that person immigrated to the US in order to work in Silicon Valley. We've added additional developers over the years, but almost none of them left.

Are there any areas SoftElegance could improve?

No. I've been pleased with everything that SoftElegance has done.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide outsourcing solutions for reverse logistics. For example, when clients disconnect from cable services, they need to return their cable boxes. Companies like Comcast outsource this job to us. We also work in the business-to-business area, initiating and helping companies return servers and other hardware. I am the senior director of applications development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftElegance?

We were looking for additional outsourced resources. We run a global business with developers in India and Bulgaria. We were also looking to build another team somewhere in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, Russia, Romania, or another country. We run a Microsoft shop and deal in .NET development for web applications. In addition, we do client server development that requires an understanding of database operation and architecture. We receive and process a lot of data from customers, so there is a need for developers who are good at both frontend and backend work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

My teams in the US and Calcutta are dealing mostly with production issues and day-to-day operations for our 80 customers, while SoftElegance is assigned with pilot and discovery projects. They're building the frameworks that are later used by what I call our regular, internal developers. I manage almost 50 engineers in total, but SoftElegance's people are my superstars. They're more productive than others. SoftElegance is providing 4 additional engineers who are working on a 3-month contract. I personally interviewed the developers selected by SoftElegance over Skype. We actually built the team with SoftElegance's help, which gave me confidence. I was able to select people whom I liked. In India, pretty much everyone speaks English, albeit with an accent, but I've had to reject some candidates from SoftElegance because their language skills weren't good.

We run most of our projects in an Agile fashion, so there are no well-defined specs. Our workload doesn't have a constant flow, with periods when there's not much to do. Things are more hectic near the end of the year. SoftElegance is picking up the work on the fly. I remember asking them for a solution for a certain mockup. SoftElegance sent me 3 options the next day and brought up issues we weren't considering. They've also brought a lot of new technology to our attention which we didn't know existed. SoftElegance has helped me build consumer-facing and business-to-business portals. The latter ones are used by Comcast technicians  for scheduling appointments with clients, gathering replacement parts, and so on. We have many existing systems in place, so we expected to have a 6-month period before developers became comfortable with our technology. SoftElegance was able to do this. We are using SoftElegance as a sort of SWAT team, working on the most complicated projects. I've also used SoftElegance's team for PowerPoint presentations and mockups.

How did you come to work with SoftElegance?

Because I'm originally from Ukraine, I thought it would be easier to find developers in that area. We made a search for outsourcing companies that could provide some flexibility. We are a Microsoft shop and looked for skills in this area, namely ASP.NET, C#, and SQL server. We didn't expect to find existing knowledge for our business area, given that reverse logistics is a niche and there are no manuals for it.

I called, emailed and set up interviews with a number of companies. We explained our goals to them and created a shortlist of 3 candidates out of a total of 20. SoftElegance offered us a better price and they were also a bigger company compared to the others. This was a safer option to me, rather than relying on a company which was too small and could be taken out of business easily. We asked questions about their infrastructure, inquiring about their servers, Internet connection, and other details.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with SoftElegance since the beginning of 2014. The people on SoftElegance's team are professionals and they enjoy their work. We treat them as a part of our company, not just as paid consultants, even though we're not managing their vacations, computers, 401(k) plans, or anything of the sort. It's a pretty good deal for us, given that we're getting good quality engineers for a fraction of US prices.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I am extremely happy with the quality of SoftElegance's engineers. I've been working with outsourced resources since 2000, and know what to expect from the market, especially the Indian one. Although I'm Ukrainian myself, I hadn't worked with any teams there during all of these years. I was initially cautious about the collaboration with SoftElegance, but the results were great. The team's skillsets are stronger than those of the average resource.

SoftElegance has built some interesting products for us. For example, instead of having our SQL developers make and store procedures with changes in business roots, we can have our business analysts use one of SoftElegance's solutions in order to build products themselves. Everything is done in plain English and requires no coding knowledge, so developers are not needed for this anymore. Before, everything was created by business analysts in forms and submitted to developers for separate quotes. We'd spend the next 2 weeks pointing fingers at each other, trying to find out who missed some key element.

For this solution, 4 engineers from SoftElegance's team worked full-time for 6 months. It was a tremendous help for us and it had a great impact on our technology. The system was finished in September 2016. It is currently running around 400 different programs. Even though it will take us more than a year, we plan to convert everything in our company to the technology built by SoftElegance.

How did SoftElegance perform from a project management standpoint?

I maintain constant contact with our manager on SoftElegance's side as well as with their owner. They're constantly asking us if everything is okay and if we need something. SoftElegance has had a real concern in this sense and we're not just one of multiple customers for their company. SoftElegance treated us like a good partner. SoftElegance has worked overtime for us and never asked for additional money. We have maintained a schedule of 40-hours per week. We use Team Foundation Server as a ticketing system, bug tracker, and source code repository. SoftElegance also uses a tool called TeamCity on their end. It helps manage releases and sits on top of Team Foundation Server. 

What did you find most impressive about SoftElegance?

A person could buy all of their clothes from Walmart or Target, or they could go to a boutique-type shop. SoftElegance offers a boutique level of outsourcing. They're not a huge company, so they have much greater attention to details. For the customers that they have, SoftElegance's team is trying to provide a better, dedicated service.

I've worked in software development for many years and have collaborated with many different software engineers. SoftElegance has the best quality, by comparison. The team has good knowledge and they're very productive, working 10 times faster than my US team. SoftElegance is more expensive than average, but the cost pays off because of to the quality.

Are there any areas SoftElegance could improve?

SoftElegance could try to sell its services better, but I'm completely satisfied with how their team has worked with our company's processes.