WorkXpress - Custom Software Solutions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a licensed medical cannabis dispensary and delivery service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire WorkXpress - Custom Software Solutions?

I hired WX to develop a custom web application to manage inventory, online ordering, CRM, and delivery routing.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a robust system to streamline operations and improve the customer experience throughout ordering and delivery. Responsive design, e-commerce capabilities, and real-time inventory tracking were key requirements.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They submitted a competitive price and attractive proposal through Elance. They seemed more thorough and organized than the other bids we received.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

We held multiple phone calls to discuss the scope of the project. Both parties signed off on a lengthy document that detailed the requirements. They gave me a 12-week timeline.

What was the team composition?

The sales team was very experienced and confident. However, once we started development, we were very disappointed by the changing team composition. We were promised professional, trained programmers, but we got new hires asking us what we meant by "responsive design."

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We lost $35,000 and didn't even have a prototype application to show for it. Because of their poor management of our project and poor understanding of its user roles and needs, I lost significant time and money on a valuable business opportunity that I will never get back. After 38 weeks of trying to make progress and implement a workable application, we canceled the agreement.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our project manager was reassigned to another project without warning less than halfway through our project, and was never replaced. It seemed effective until it wasn't. Then the project completely fell apart.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They could refund the money back to the small business owners who trusted that they knew what you were doing, even though they didn't. They didn't deliver anything, so they should give the customer a refund.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Our company has three parts to the business. It has a sales and insulation of automotive electronics, which we do after market. We carry anything from car stereos to remote starts.

The second part of the business is a home electronics repair – basically TVs and home audio – in-home and in-shop.

The third part of our business is an automotive electronic service department, which is primarily repairing the instrument clusters and gauges from automobiles. We also repair some of the multimedia video screens, and audio, and things like that. That's done both in-shop and nationally.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I'm the operations manager, so I get to see all three facets of it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with WorkXpress?

We had a legacy IBM system. The programmer that we had on staff was retiring, so we were trying to get in something a little more modern and versatile and, at the same time, something that we could handle. We kind of looked around, but we didn't like any of the boxed software that we could get.

What WorkXpress offered was a lot of flexibility. For us, it was somewhat database-driven, so we had some people in-house that could work with it. It was the ability to change on the fly as well as the versatility of the product.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They did two of the three business units for us. The first one was a TV one, and that one was really just development. They did a little bit of training. They actually built some of it here, and I had a guy who sat with them and worked his way through it, who has now taken it over. I guess there was a little bit of training involved in that.

The second part of it was with a contract with Ford Motor Company. They took that project on in-house, so they didn't do that here. That was strictly a development thing, with no training involved.

What was your process for selecting WorkXpress?

I had an IT [information technology] guy here that reached out to different resources he had in the area. I'm not sure how he stumbled upon these guys, but it was kind of early on in their lifecycle. We had three or four different vendors present us with different things that were offered. 

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative?

This was a long time ago. One project was somewhere around $60,000 total, all said and done.

When was the project completed?

The first project was probably five or more years ago now [2010]. The projects are completed, but since we have someone in-house that does building and our own programming, there is interaction with them if we run into a bind. We've been through a couple of times for training, just some new features that came out, and they walked us through it and see how it would work for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

The Ford one was probably the biggest one and, because of the times constraints, the most impressive one. It was literally within three months. It was millions of dollars' worth of contract, shipping a hundred pieces a day and getting a hundred pieces in. We were able to do that and reduce our staff by half. In that regard, it was a considerable labor savings, just because of the efficiency of the software.

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project?

I would say that $60,000 we spent was made up probably within a half a year.

What differentiates WorkXpress from others?

For us, it's definitely their flexibility. WorkXpress is constantly innovating different parts of their product. I guess it's meeting the demand that's out there, whether it be hooking up with FedEx in shipping, or credit card processing, or whatever. They're constantly building different things into their product that make it versatile. Again, that's a big thing for us. We make changes to the product every day, and we release nightly.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Again, this is so long ago, and I know they've changed because I've been through a presentation of how they handle their projects now, and they're much better than they were.

Back in the day when we did it, the communications weren't great. There was a pseudo-timeline, and it wasn't laid out there, "You're going to pay $5,000 and you're going to have this by the 10th." It wasn't set up like that.

Now, they have weekly meetings, and they're a lot more open with the clients, establish goals, and so on. That was one thing they were weak at when we were going through it, but I think it's improved now.

What advice would you give a future client of theirs?

Just make sure you nail it down. It's probably that way with anybody in software. Make sure you've got your scope pretty well defined and hold them to it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a capital equipment supplier. We sell material handling and process equipment to the pharmaceutical industry. We're about 37 people.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the general manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with WorkXpress?

This was a long time ago, in 2006. We were growing up as a company – we were probably only 12 people back then. I recognized that we needed a companywide software system that would manage everything we do, from content management to inventory to project management, quoting, shipping, and receiving. We were trying different things. We were working a lot with paper books back then. Everybody had his or her own database for contacts, and I was doing some inventory stuff with Access, and it wasn't working as efficiently as we needed it to work. I went out looking for a kind of canned package, that I presumed existed at the time, but it did not. We chose to go ahead with WorkXpress and build our own system.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They trained me on how to use their tools, and I did all the development myself.

What was your process for selecting WorkXpress?

Personally, I have a friend who went to college with one of the guys at WorkXpress. I found them through that connection.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative?

Back then, we were hosting it in-house. We bought a server system from them, and I think we spent $50,000 in the first year, but that included one year of using it, server training, user fees, and things like that.

When was the project completed?

The collaboration started in 2006. We went live in 2007 with the first version, and then I rebuilt the system in 2011 on the current platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

It's completely successful. It runs the whole business here. You can look at any little facet of what it does and it's worth the cost in one little thing. We have a very simple and automated way of quoting and processing spare parts orders, and that alone pays for the cost of the annual user fee 50 times over, then you have everything else it does for the company. This includes full contact management, shipping, receiving, field work order schedule, and shop schedule. It does everything for us.

What makes WorkXpress unique compared to others?

The WorkXpress system allows somebody who understands the business process to develop software without actually being a programmer because that's my situation. I managed the company, so I defined all the processes and how the company works. I had a good base of knowledge with Microsoft Access, so I knew what a relational database was and what it could do, but I'm not a programmer, I don't hand code thing, so the software allowed someone like me to develop very powerful software that runs the whole business.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

I know a lot more about how their tools work and some different tricks and strategies. If I were to rebuild it, it might be slightly different, or it might be cleaner. But, as far as technical functionality and working with me, they were very helpful, and they were great. I don't think I would have ever found them if my friend didn't know them personally. I don't know if I would have ever found them and if I would have ever got them in the door here. I don't own this company, so it was kind of a tough task to bring a software company in here that we were going to have to drop a lot of money on.

What advice would you give a future client of theirs?

I would say you need to understand and define your business. How everything needs to work, forgetting about the programming end of it, just what are all the things you business needs to do, how exactly does that need to happen, what information needs to be put in, and what information needs to come out in the form of reports. Once you define that, if you have an in-house guy that's going to do the development, he needs to have some sort of relational database background. If you're going to have WorkXpress do the work, they're going to walk you through it; they're going to guide you through the process.