Solbeg

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Senior Product Manager responsible for a headless e-commerce web app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired SolbegSoft for full stack management of our headless web app and provide technical guidance.

SOLUTION

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

We were looking for an agency with a wide range of skills that could work in a dynamic environment with continuously changing priorities. We identified SolbegSoft as a team that met our requirements and since onboarding they continue to exceed expectations.

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

Scope included a technical audit of our pre-existing infrastructure and identifying key weaknesses and inefficiencies. Optimizing all technical inefficiencies. Continuous development of UI/UX functionality. Tech: JS Node App, JS Nuxt Framework, Sanity CMS, Heroku, Shopify

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

I continue to work with a project manager, QA, and 2-3 developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SolbegSoft continues to exceed expectations. They increased bandwidth efficiency of our app by 25X. They deliver projects four times faster than the other development agencies. Their attention to detail is unparalleled. We could not be more pleased with the quality of their work and the team is an absolute pleasure to work with.

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

We utilize Jira, Slack, and weekly calls to communicate.

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

Their commitment to excellence and attention detail are a breath of fresh air. The passion and care that SolbegSoft puts in their work exceeds any agency experience I have ever had.

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

Nothing that comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and head of engineering for Luma Touch, developers of LumaFusion. LumaFusion is a professional video editing app for iPhone and iPad that has garnered rave reviews, and has held the #1 spot for Photo & Video on iPad for over two years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolbegSoft?

We hired SolbegSoft to develop a specific technical demo to determine the feasibility of bringing LumaFusion to Android and ChromeOS.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to determine whether this development was feasible (Android does not have the same breadth of audio-video frameworks readily available that iOS does), and to determine hardware requirements and capabilities that would be required to bring our full editor to the platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We met SolbegSoft team members at IBC (a trade show for broadcast video), and approached them as well as others to provide a technical proposal for the demo. We were impressed by SolbegSoft's response, and chose them to work on the demo.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a specification document for the demo that provided complete details on what was required. We met with SolbegSoft for initial team organization, and had follow ups every two weeks to review status.

What was the team composition?

SolbegSoft had a low-level technical engineer to handle the specific technical and performance needs of the project, as well as an Android engineer to handle UI and business logic. Additionally we had a project manager, and the head of mobile development sitting in on progress meetings.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SolbegSoft worked through many challenges in making the demo work on a variety of devices and the two operating systems. They made adjustments as technical requirements changed due to operating system limitations, and additions to the demo to make it more useful for testing a variety of different situations. Additionally the setup automated testing for a wide variety of devices.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was very smooth. For this demo, the communication requirements were limited, but SolbegSoft did a great job of communicating progress and any issues that needed to be resolved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SolbegSoft did a great job of finding the right engineering talent for a very specific software need, rather than trying to fit anyone to the position. They were very good at communicating progress and took all the time necessary to make sure we were "on the same page".

Are there any areas for improvement?

For this demo I felt that they performed exactly as I hoped, and if we go forward with a larger project, we will definitely use their services again.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a technology firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolbegSoft?

We needed help with front- and backend iOS development. It fell outside our core area of competency.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a typical project initiation process. We chose the methodology we were going to use today. Then, there was a typical quotation, project acceptance, and kick-off. We waterfalled some things and used Scrum for others.

They coordinated with other teams around the world that I have too. A lot of their work was around APIs, web, content management, and PHP. I’m also doing system administration and AWS.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with up to 8–10 people, but there is a single point of contact.

How did you come to work with SolbegSoft?

It was a trusted referral from two long-time colleagues. We also considered other companies and, frankly, they were nowhere near as good.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent under $200,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their quality was absolutely excellent. This is a team that you would love to have as resources in a company.

How did SolbegSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

It was the best I’ve seen. They changed their work based upon the different types of projects. They didn’t stick us into an inflexible project management tool either. They were personable, timely, and proactive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They did what they said they were going to do exactly when they said they were going to do it. And there was never a surprise, even in the billing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I know of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to them and their suggestions. They’ll be your business partner if you give them a chance, not just your vendor. It won’t cost you anything extra and you’ll get more out of it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a small startup in the energy services space. We provide analytic services for wells that are being completed. My role is the VP of engineering for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolbegSoft?

We were looking to augment our internal software development team and needed some additional manpower with specific expertise in oil and gas and fracking. They had engineers that were qualified in that, as well as some QA folks who had experience building oil and gas applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It's a staff augmentation project. I don't consider it outsourcing because we have an internal software development team and were adding additional members to that team to drive 24-hour development. The integration was quite seamless. We invited them and they visited with us, along with one of their business analysts. They came up to speed in our space. Over the first few months, we trained them on the frameworks we were using, and they started making material progress in the first six months. It will be almost a full year in February.

The software development project is the primary project, and the one we spend the most on, but we have three other smaller projects including managing our website, doing Salesforce administration, and some graphic design work.

How did you come to work with SolbegSoft?

We'd done some work with them several years ago, so I knew several of the principals there. We'd been very, very satisfied with that work, so when we came to a larger project we knew they were capable of managing that effectively and delivering the services. I also knew some of the engineers we'd been working with. They also provided new folks, though, including a .NET development engineer and a QA person. Both have been excellent.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re approaching $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together on this project since February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We track lead time, which is the days from the time an issue is created by our operations teams until the time it's fully implemented and released to production. That's about 25 days, and that includes both bugs and user stories. When we look at user stories cycle time, which is the number of days, on average, that it takes from the product owner in operations declares a story finished until it's ready for user acceptance testing. That’s 11 days. Finally, our bug cycle time, which is the number of days, on average, between the time a bug is filed by operations and time it's fixed in production, is about four days right now.

How did SolbegSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They integrated very smoothly, and we’ve been on a really excellent path ever since we got everyone up to speed. I have a weekly update call with the project manager assigned to our work.

The product management component has really been excellent. I get a weekly update report that tells me exactly what folks have worked on and how many issues were resolved in their system. I'm very satisfied with that. We use their Jira for the three non-software development projects, but our Azure DevOps for the software development.

There's the transactional, day-to-day writing of code, but I think they've actually added a lot more value as consultants. They're good listeners and try to be good stewards of our projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What really sets these people apart from a number of other outsourcing or staff augmentation or consultant firms is that they do a much better job of matching the client's requirements with their own capabilities. They provide candid feedback about what architectural directions might be best suited to that.

We're probably the smallest company they work with, so they have a huge body of software architecture knowledge about what it takes to deploy systems at scale. We've very much come to appreciate their input as we're designing systems. They think about what will work both right this minute and many years down the road. I feel like we've headed off a number of potential bottlenecks because of their expertise.

They also bring in resources from different elements of their company to solve problems. When we were trying to do some integration with Salesforce, they brought in a Salesforce administrator at no cost to listen to the project. He had some recommendations, and we ended up kicking off a small Salesforce project. That probably saved us several months of work.

We've also relied heavily on their web authentication team and the teams that do identities as service. We really didn’t have very much expertise and were going down a path that probably wasn't very scalable. They listened to what we were trying to accomplish and made suggestions that will be much better in the long run than what we had come up with.

In a lot of software projects, your requirements aren’t fixed in stone. We often find that there are outsourcing companies that will implement precisely the requirements you send them, nothing more and nothing less. It's pretty inflexible. Thankfully, we've been able to give these folks open-ended problems. They're very good about operating in an ambiguous environment. A lot of outsourcing companies will say they can't do anything until you tell them more, or they'll do something incorrectly, charge you for it, and then charge you for a change fee. These people get it right the first time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s really not on their side. It's more on our side; we need more bandwidth. It would be helpful if they were closer to us, but they're 6,000 miles away. We also need more budget to accelerate the projects, but, other than that, I don't think there's anything I can complain about.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO Of a botique U.S.-based digital agency that designs and develops web and mobile applications for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolbegSoft?

For this project we hired SolbegSoft to perform: business analysis, project management, UI/UX design, graphic design, web development, quality assurance, ongoing support and maintenance, machine learning, and research and development.

What were your goals for this project?

The solution needed to drastically improve the client workflow and drive more revenue. Within one month of launching they had nearly doubled their revenue due to efficiency gains, among other things.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They came through a trusted referral.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They design and built an extremely robust web platform to allow a multi-million dollar business service their clients in an extremely efficient and high volume manner. They provided the full suite of services necessary to do this.

What was the team composition?

The team had roughly eleven people. There was a business analyst, project manager, UI/UX designer, graphic designer, system architect, 2 frontend developers, 2 backend developers, quality assurance specialist, and machine learning specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

My client has nearly doubled their revenue within 1 month of the new application being online - and it is a direct result of the new application and its scalable capabilities.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was extremely effective, regular demos, weekly sprints, weekly releases, regular ongoing communication via chat, phone calls, and in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attention to detail is phenomenal. The speed and cost were really great considering the high quality of the product that was ultimately delivered.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of SkedgeMe Holdings LLC. We provide appointment-making services software for retailers that helps them to get customers into their stores.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolbegSoft?

Our company was in transition from an in-house development team to outsourced services. We needed a partner that understood the software to continue to support its uptime for customers. The company had chosen a software infrastructure that included a functional design language called Haskell. This was a particular design choice at the time but limited the ability of potential partners to take over maintenance and continue development of the code. We needed to both develop features and functionality for our core software and fix bugs, with a significant amount of time spent interfacing the client-facing functionality with our clients’ websites for a seamless user experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Solbeg helped us with the transition the business overall by taking over both the development tasks and the support and maintenance that we provide to clients. They were able to identify experts in Haskell for the backend development that was unique to us, as well as take on the frontend with Javascript and other SAS tools.

Their initial goal was maintaining the software. Eventually they were able to take over development tasks. We have a number of custom programming tasks and other items that needed to be taken care of for clients. They moved from maintaining the existing code to continuing to improve and further extend the functionality of it.

They’ve now taken on a more general set of tasks from the team that I had in place before. We started small but I didn't put any particular boundaries around what they were tasked with. They began with a research period to understand our service. Then we transitioned to where we are now with a more stable team. We work out together how everything gets done, both maintenance and development. They’ve been flexible in being able to provide a very broad set of services.

What is the team dynamic?

They have provided a dedicated project manager as well as backend and frontend developers. They make other services available as needed. There are around 5 people assigned to us, not all of them full time.

How did you come to work with SolbegSoft?

I was looking for partners to work with. The company had outsourced in the past so I tried those vendors first. Then I was referred to Solbeg.

They know SAS very well and they were able to find a Haskell developer for us. I felt that they understood retail based on some of their other clients. I felt comfortable giving them a try.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together a year ago and its ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have enabled us to implement required customer features that customers have paid for. They have improved and streamlined as well as debugged areas of the application where problems preexisted their involvement. We've also added new general features that make the product more marketable.

How did SolbegSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything has been delivered on time and within our budget. We use a number of tools for communication and tracking, including Jira, GitHub and Slack. Any project management situation just requires a lot of communication. They've earned my trust and I know that if there are any issues that come up, we’ll be on the same side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think they have a lot of resources that help a small company like us to make better decisions based on what their other clients are doing in their previous experience. That’s important to us given our size.

It’s been a good working relationship. I think with services you need to be careful and stay on top of it and communicate. I don't have any complaints. They've been the ideal partner so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The critical element is the project manager that you have. I have one of their best guys and I think that it's made all the difference. I think if you choose the right guy at Solbeg then you are in a great place.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We specialize in doing media advertising especially pay-per-click, social media, and advertising for dentists. The company owner is from the UK. He started the business there and then came here to the States. We’ve been in business for ten years, and we partner with Google for PPC specifically for dentistry. Currently, we have over 300 clients in the UK and the US. Our goal is to generate leads for clients and educate them on what it takes to be successful in the digital advertising world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolbegSoft?

We needed help with a custom customer relationship management system that shows the return on investment for dentists. When we launch sites for our clients, we do so using WordPress. Right now, so we have two different WordPress sites, one for search engine optimization part and the other for PPC. SolbegSoft takes care of all the development for that. Our challenge is getting all the information and making it easy to consume.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SolbegSoft provides a full team—project managers, frontend developers, designers, backend developers, release managers, business analysts, and QA. They cater to our day-to-day needs in terms of development. We’ve already done a couple projects with SolbegSoft. One of the projects was an appointment solution system. It was an aggregation of data that gives a report and dashboard for the client. That project took three months, and we were able to deliver on time. The product has been launched, and we wanted to see if they could provide custom development for a solution for us. Now, we’re developing on top of that product and moving into some custom developments that we’re doing on our own. We’re adding features that the clients are requesting. We’re also doing a new template for dentists. That has been released and we’re launching a new client in the next couple of weeks. We’re also implementing a free service for the client to be able to access their data and see their performance in real time.

As part of our services, we train their front desk so that they can be successful. We track things through calls, chats, emails, and SMS, and we’re able to show what the return on investment is for that in full circle. We have a system that does the scoring for the calls. A team in the Philippines listens to each call and gives it a grade. Once that’s done, we get a report that allows the dentist to know this lead came through and was successful. They also know how many calls are hang-ups. The system displays which search engine and social media accounts they’re doing better on. It also shows which campaign is more successful, depending on the procedure that we’re targeting.

How did you come to work with SolbegSoft?

One of our managers of IT was from Russia, and he had worked with them before.

How much have you invested with SolbegSoft?

We’ve spent over $200,000 on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them on this project September 2016, 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?

We’re doing the aggregation of a different system right now, but one of the end points is Google. We use Smart Chat for calls, Apex Chat for chats, and Google Applications for the email part. We’re doing the aggregation of data, and we need to explain that in a format that is easy to consume by the client. Our clients can log in and view their data on the portal. They can generate reports based on calls, emails, or chats. They’re able to see how well they’re performing or if they’re not doing well. They can see how many calls they’re getting per day, month, and year. They’re able to track the calls on a regular basis in real time. They can listen to the call and view the chats they’ve had with the lead, and they can see the emails back and forth. Last week, we just launched a feature where they can reply to the emails. Before, the lead would fill out a form and they were able to see it. Now, they can reply to that lead and keep track of what’s happening with that lead through the system. Eventually, we want to have SMS and chat as well. The clients have generally seen an improvement in lead generation, and there’s more client interaction. We’ve also reduced the amount of time their account manager needs to generate reports.

How did SolbegSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Before I got here, there were a lot of ideas about what projects could be done. We’ve been able to capture those ideas and create a road map for three different disciplines: design, development, and release management. We’re able to organize the different incoming requests into those three road maps inside Confluence. Everything gets converted into tickets in JIRA, which are actionable and executable by the team. We were able to create the whole software development cycle in the projects we’ve been working on.

What did you find most impressive about SolbegSoft?

Their documentation is extremely strong which is very hard to get in the States. With the business analyst and project manager, we’ve been able to capture what’s been going back and forth as well as documenting different questions we have on a board of Q and A. Any questions we have, we put it on the board and we answer it. We also track questions and answers that we’ve had throughout. All the communication is accessible. We can even transfer that to the technical lead seamlessly. It’s very impressive to be able to see all that.

The execution and delivery have been on time. Because we’re doing Agile, we have a demo every two weeks for our executives. That means there are no surprises at the end of the project. We’re moving towards a Software-as-a-service environment and that transition is going very well. That’s how we want to move the company forward, and it’s proven to be very successful.

I’ve worked with a lot of companies from India, China, Mexico, and Central and South America. What I’ve learned from SolbegSoft is they’re not afraid to say no, which is a good thing. They explain why they think we should do things differently. It’s helpful to have those conversations. They bring an opinion to the table.

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

It’s a good idea to communicate expectations ahead of time. Being frank and having transparency has made us successful. Give them an idea, and they’ll be able to follow through in and make that idea a reality. Also, constant communication has made our relationship successful. Having daily meetings is key to collaborating with any external or offshore company. It’s definitely worked for us.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company was founded in 1999 and provides a cloud-based service automation platform for facilities management, where participates can connect to each other and collaborate. We are primary connecting facility manager professionals with contractors and vendors.

I’m vice president of engineering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SolbegSoft?

We wanted to update the process through a mobile application for facility managers to be able to make service requests from their phone.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve done multiple projects for us including an application for iOS and Android called SC Mobile. Whenever a facility manager sees a problem in their store, they can create a service request from their phone.

How did you come to work with SolbegSoft?

I was not part of the selection team. We had been working with another outsourced company and I went to Belarus and spoke with both that company and SolbegSoft. The other company was so big that I wasn’t sure they would be able to dedicate enough time to me. I wanted a mid-size firm to help us. The technical skills were good for both firms but the process is better with SolbegSoft. I can be a part of the hiring and firing process, and the developers report to us. We wanted a firm to help us that had competitive costs and provided 24-hour coverage. We also wanted to make sure we could tap into the world of resources not only in New York but worldwide.

How much have you invested with SolbegSoft?

We’ve had projects of all sizes. We haven’t done any super large projects with them, though.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship started before I joined the company which was October 2013, 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?

We’re very pleased with the results.

How did SolbegSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We are doing the project management.

What did you find most impressive about SolbegSoft?

One of the things with software development is that sometimes you need someone in the middle of the night. They seem to be organized internally. I don’t have a problem with resources not being communicative. I have access to my team, which is very important.

Are there any areas SolbegSoft could improve?

Not really.