Systems-X

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Repremar Group

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Repremar Group is a group of companies dedicated to maritime, trucking, air and bonded warehouse services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• improve process productivity
• improving time and freeing staff to add value from other tasks
• help us to include artificial intelligence tools for the first time in the organization

SOLUTION

How did you find Systems-X?

Referral

Why did you select Systems-X over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Systems-X were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• To have a tool that improves the time to create customs documents based on BL's in pdf from Hapag Lloyd shipping company and avoids human errors in the process.
• To have the online tool in testing stage to start interacting and teaching the AI.
• Improve the AI to the point that human intervention in the process is no longer necessary.
• Move to production and improve document generation time to the point of replacing a resource. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are able to reduce processing times by optimizing the processing of documents.

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

We worked together excellently. With weekly deliveries and analysis of the steps achieved and the steps to be implemented weekly until the project was completed, also while the implementation stage lasted we communicated directly from testing indicating where to improve the AI.

What was your primary form of communication with Systems-X?

Virtual Meeting

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

• The orderly way of working with clear objectives.
• The deadlines promised before starting the project and the fulfillment of them.
• The experience they have with our industry
• The experience of working with Artificial Intelligence
• The excellent communication with all involved

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

Systems-X does everything very well, we hope they continue like this, we will continue working with them for sure.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a Financial analyst at Aqua Wealth Management

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Wealth management

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• We hired Systems-X to customize the monthly report that we present to our clients, improving the presentation and adding specific information that we are interested in showing. All of this being generated directly from our system.

SOLUTION

How did you find Systems-X?

Referral

Why did you select Systems-X over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Systems-X were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Create reports using Microsoft Reporting Services to be ge automaticaly generated directly from our system, where we keep financial information:

• Report 1: improved design, addition of information that is not calculated by current system: return by asset class and additional level of grouping, historical monthly return graph, other performance statistics. 
• Report 2: improved design, additional information of return decomposition, segregation of portfolio value by bank account. These are all requirements that our system default reports do not consider. 
• Report 3: improved design. detailed performance information by security, decomposing between unrealized gains, realized gains, interests/dividends and total return.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

the outcomes were the three reports requested by us. we mesured grogress or success by testing the new reports and cheking that all the requeriements where done, without errors and in the time originaly proposed.

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

First, they defined a plan with the different deliverables and a deadline for each step. Once a week they gave us an update of the plan showing the progress and making the reports available for testing. 

In addition, we had virtual meetings to answer questions and analyze difficulties that arose. All reports were completed within the previously defined time. During the development, improvements requested by us arose that we managed to adapt within the stipulated time frame. Also, during development period, other details arose that we requested to improve. They always responded immediately and the next day they were corrected.

What was your primary form of communication with Systems-X?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They managed to understand the financial concepts and express them in the definition of the requirement. They executed the project in a very orderly manner and in a much shorter time than we estimated. We had already tried to make these reports with another developer, but we had not been successful. They managed to do it correctly and in a short time.

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

I can't think of anything

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of BambooPayment. Bamboo is an international payment enabler facilitating the acceptance of PAYINS and initiation of PAYOUTS across Latin America.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Systems-X, and what were your goals?

The project refers to the hiring of human resources to design and build a billing system for the transactions and products that Bamboo sells. The system should consider different configurable business plans considering different attributes of the traffic processed

SOLUTION

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

The hiring decision factors were based on the level of professionalism, responsibility and knowledge of the contracted company regarding the software to be built.

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

2 consecutive MVPs are considered, both oriented to PayFac Settlement for the Payin CrossBorder business. MVP 1- With higher priority functionality oriented to PayFac Zona Franca, which includes CrossBorder operations. MVP 2- Second stage of MVP PayFac, including payment orders and checking accounts, plus PayOut functionality.

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

The previous year on average there were 5 pax's. Some comments the resources increased to 7 pax's. We are currently in maintenance with the dedication of 1 resource

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Both phases have been delivered on time considering the different scope changes that were managed opportunely. Although the product is currently in production and maintenance, not all its functionalities are being exploited due to the evolution of Bamboo's business.

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

Bi-weekly follow-up meetings were held. Bamboo periodically requested a general status of the project. Jira was used to track tasks and slack as a communication channel

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

The most remarkable thing is that the supplier, in the absence of a product manager, gathered the requirements of the different areas and developed a solution that meets the defined needs.

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

perhaps do a little closer monitoring in order to have better budget control

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the IT manager for an international entertainment company. We operate five racehorse tracks and eight casinos, as well as one five-star hotel in Uruguay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Systems-X?

We needed to develop a system that would help us manage all of the operations at the race tracks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on a series of projects to develop a program that supports our racing operations.

What is the team composition?

There were five or six people in total for the different projects.

How did you come to work with Systems-X?

We called a few different vendors who submitted their proposals. We evaluated them based on the proposals, tools, capabilities, and price. We chose Systems-X to do the first project. In time, more systems were needed to complement the original one and as we were satisfied with their work, we kept working with them.

How much have you invested in them?

So far, we have spent $250,000–$500,000. We spend around $16,000 per month for maintenance and updates.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2004, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In the racing industry, the new application made us pioneers. Many other companies called us to congratulate us and ask for advice. When the COVID-19 pandemic came, it allowed us to open the racetrack during the quarantine. It was a very important move that we did with them and it worked perfectly. The number of users has grown tenfold, and it held up very well so we were very proud of that solution.

How did Systems-X perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a lot of means of communication and we worked in more of an agile way. We had our requirements which were in a shared dialogue on the web. I think we used Google Sheets to share the backlog. We also had another sheet where they reported issues monthly as well as the time spent so we could track that and pay them. 

For the work itself, we had phone calls, onsite visits, emails, and WhatsApp communication. Like any other software project, we did have some miscommunications, but we were able to solve any issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One thing I always appreciated was that they were always one step ahead. You ask them for something, and you get the task as well as advice. They also helped me decide what the best option or if there was a better way to do something. They knew the business and they helped us with that. They were not just developers; they added value to the proposal, and I liked that very much.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is always room for improvement. Sometimes we would have liked them to give us results a little faster but that is something that happens all the time. In general, I think we were very satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Involve them in the business as well. Let them be part of it so that they can become a partner and not just a provider.