Abacus Cambridge Partners

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager enterprise integration within the digital IT department at Safaricom, a telecommunications provider with over 6,000 employees. We go over and above providing the traditional telco services.

My role involves managing the service bus, which provides system integration for all the systems in IT. We provide APIs to northbound systems and facilitate integration to southbound systems. Along with managing the service bus, we also plan for Apigee, an API gateway, and Google’s API management product.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

In 2015, we did a project to implement our mobile money system to migrate it. Previously, it was hosted in another country, and we wanted to migrate it to our local data center or premises to facilitate a lot of use cases in that migration.

As part of the migration, we needed a new version. During that time, we allowed third-party access to the mobile money system. For a third party, they had to access it via VPN. Most of the third parties were small startups that didn’t have the financial muscle to invest in enterprise-grade VPN applications.

We used to have a lot of complaints on social media that the APIs were unusable because of being an old technology and being accessible only through VPN.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did an RFP to scope for proper API gateways. That’s when we evaluated Apigee amongst other API gateways. We engaged with Abacus Cambridge Partners the following year.

They were only used as a system integrator with respect to API gateway implementation. We only engage them for API management and implementation.

What is the team composition?

There’s one API architect, one API proxy developer, and another developer who provided customization of the developer portal. We also work with a project manager.

After we went live, we only had one support engineer on the side.

How did you come to work with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

Google referred them to us. I don’t think they had any other partner who could do the customization and implementation of Apigee, according to our requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $50,000–$199,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Abacus Cambridge Partners started in February 2017. By July, we went live with the first 10 APIs.

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

We’re very grateful that Google referred them to us. We had a very long and fruitful engagement with them. The relationship is perfect.

When we implemented Apigee through Abacus Cambridge Partners, we reduced the time to market from as high as three months to one day. We reduced the complaints in social media and other feedback channels to almost zero. Third-party developers were very happy.

We increased our revenue and transaction volumes. With this new API channel, we’ve almost doubled or tripled the transaction volumes. We have more third parties and developers who have apps that offer services to the public through innovation around mobile money. The transaction volumes are good, and it’s led to increased revenue.

We also now have new revenue channels because of establishments with over-the-top providers like Facebook and Google through APIs. Right now, we’re able to expose our capabilities via APIs and give it to third parties with a wider reach.

How did Abacus Cambridge Partners perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered on time with the right quality at no additional costs. We scoped everything correctly. Their project manager kept their commitments.

They’re professional – second to none. They’re one of the best vendors I’ve ever worked with. The project was done in waterfall methodology. In other implementations, we worked in an agile methodology.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their engineers are very competent. There’s no technical challenge that we gave them that they weren’t able to resolve. They’re very skilled.

Their integrity is without question. They warn us upfront if something is possible or not, and they deliver in the timeframe they promise or earlier.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could invest in more Apigee architects. We didn’t have any delay or project delay, but I felt the Apigee architect was overrun with responsibilities. We delivered on time, but one of their engineers was overwhelmed with responsibility. I advise that in terms of resourcing for a project, depending on the project's size or grade, they should resource accordingly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend them to anyone who wants to work with them. You’re in for a fruitful engagement.

They’re skilled in API management and other technology verticals like robotic process automation. They’re a one-stop-shop for everything you need.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a technical architect for Majid Al Futtaim, a holding company. We own shopping malls, retail, and leisure establishments.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

We were looking for a partner to work on API management on an acquired Google API platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Abacus Cambridge Partners initially managed our Apigee platform. Once we saw their skill, we expanded the scope of their work.

Now, they handle our CIM (Customer Identity Management) solution, helping us build our capabilities in identity and XS management platform. They are currently working on API maturity and governance.

What is the team composition?

There are 6–7 total resources who have worked with us, including the three original API management resources.

How did you come to work with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

They were recommended by Google.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $2 million–$3 million on the current project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2019, and it’s ongoing.

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

They’re a mature team, working actively with Google. Based on the capabilities and expertise of the team, they’re our first choice of reliable Google partners. Their quality of work is on point.

How did Abacus Cambridge Partners perform from a project management standpoint?

They engage fully, taking project management and follow-up seriously. They’re flexible and willing to deliver quickly whenever we request it. They use our internal tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understand and listen to our needs. They’re able to deliver on-demand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to arrange for more on-site resources to be available for projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would definitely advise others to work with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our personal finance app offers many ways for users to track their expenses and budgets. It’s primarily available for Android and iOS, though it’s also accessible online.  My role is a senior manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

One of our services is bill negotiation where our agents negotiate bills on behalf of our users for a lower rate. We needed resources who could take on those calls for us.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Abacus has assigned agents to carry out our bill negotiation services. Each person goes through a pretty intense training schedule since we take financial information and security really seriously. Because this is such a new service, their team is helping us explore the boundaries to see how far we can take it. 

What is the team composition? 

There are four main communicators, and the extended team has about 30 people give or take.

How did you come to work with Abacus Cambridge Partners?

Our CEO had a contact who’d worked with Abacus before and recommended them. At the time, we were looking at a few other BPO companies in Pakistan but ended up landing on Abacus because we liked their policy and setup.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them since June 2020.

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

In general, we’ve been impressed with the quality of the agents Abacus suggested. Most of them are educated, forward-thinking people, which is exactly what we’re going for. As a startup, we’re trying to develop our systems as quickly as possible, so we’re constantly throwing new things at them. And, they’ve been quick to adapt — that’s probably their strong suit.

I’d also add that they’re very patient. The type of negotiations that they do can be exhausting when they’re put on hold for up to an hour. Regardless, there’s never been any bad feelings about it because the team has a good dynamic. They maintain positive energy throughout.

How did Abacus Cambridge Partners perform from a project management standpoint?

Their campaign managers are with the team throughout the day and have been receptive to feedback. They’re communicative and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The campaign managers have a solid relationship with their team and maintain a professional work environment. People enjoy coming into work, which helps mitigate turnover. Employee churn is a huge problem in the BPO industry, but we’ve been lucky enough to not experience that with Abacus.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They usually have response times of a minute or less. If there’s a rising issue, we expect them to answer within a 10-minute window. That will stretch out a little further than we’re comfortable with sometimes, but they’re working on it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. Their onboarding process to get us set up was great.