Abto Software

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a managed service provider delivering network systems which often involve cellular technology. I'm the Head of Product Development

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

We needed a geofence system which would allow mobile devices to trigger alerts when the device user entered an area. The system would have to take geofence data in KML format and must want the user with minimal interaction.

How did you select Abto Software and what were the deciding factors?

We found Abto because other businesses in our Group use them. They gave us a good rate for developers and our colleagues assured us they provide good work.

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

Android app, with .Net based backend providing a web interface.

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

There were originally four engineers and a Project Manager

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

The project was delivered on time with no fuss.

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

We insisted on running the project by email rather than phone calls and they adapted to this.

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

We had to make a change to our backend hosting, causing comms issues within the system.

I emailed the Project Manager while I was at our Customer's site and had a new app version emailed to me in 20 minutes. I have never seen service like this.

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

We worked with them to improve their QA and are now happy with this.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software development company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abto Software?

We hired them to do software development for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Abto Software works on a number of projects for us. They do web development, front- and backend development, and mobile development. They joined our team and work in tandem with our team members. We have software products that we’re developing across a number of clients, and they augment our team

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 10–15 of their software developers. I also deal with an account manager directly. 

How did you come to work with Abto Software?

We had a client that had used them on a project, so we got to know Abto Software’s development team. We tried them on different projects, and they did very well.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $300,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2019, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

Abto Software is a fantastic organization. They do a good job of screening their technical candidates, and they have a diverse set of skillsets to pull from on different projects.

How did Abto Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform incredibly well. They’re very responsive and easy to get a gold of, and they communicate well. The team is also flexible in how they work with us. Abto Software has been able to meet the deadlines we give them, and they complete their work on time and within budget. 

We talk with their team on a regular basis through daily standups, and we also communicate through a Slack channel. I correspond with their account manager at least once or twice a week and have a meeting with him every two weeks. We talk about how everything is going across the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Abto Software has outstanding professionalism, and they’re highly skilled in what they do. They are also very proactive in their communication.

If they see something on their side, they’ll reach out to us before it becomes an issue. The team is very good at staying on top and being aware of what’s going on with the project from their side.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you work with Abto Software to interview the candidates. Also set expectations about the development process, and make sure the team is aware of how you expect to communicate. Be clear, and they will do a good job of aligning themselves with your expectations. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a tech company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abto Software?

We needed an accounting solution for an inventory management problem we were having.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We told them the main scope of the problem, sent them videos and pictures, and in less than 72 hours they sent us a proof of concept (POC) and budget. 

After we tweaked and approved their work, Abto Software developed our inventory management system from scratch using Java and Python. The team continues to make improvements to the solution.

What is the team composition?

We had one main point of contact and worked with their CEO as well. Behind the scenes, they also had designers working on the project.

How did you come to work with Abto Software?

After finding them on Google, the CEO and I became friends. I looked at three other companies as well but stuck with Abto Software.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $25,000-$50,000, so far. The price is the best in the market as far as I know.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2019 and our engagement is ongoing.

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

The solution is complete and it’s an awesome product. Everything was 97% accurate and their work saved us about $12 million per year. 

How did Abto Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent and they’re very reliable. Working efficiently, the team always delivers on time or early—there are never any delays. When we email the point person, we get feedback in less than an hour. We also communicate via text.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They mean what they say and they’re honest. Whenever we have emergencies, Abto Software is quick to address them. Overall, they are a team of good, kind professionals. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement but I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t be afraid of being honest. Express your needs and they’ll do what they can to make it happen.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product management for a startup tech company that builds logistics solutions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abto Software?

We needed a contractor who was skilled in computer vision and optical character recognition (OCR).

What was the scope of their involvement?

Abto Software helped engineer a product that was 1/10 the cost of what we were spending before. They built an Android app and used lots of computer vision and OCR-based technologies. They used Git for version control and did quite a bit of coding in Python. The product scans a text or barcode and then the OCR technology captures the image, pulls out the data, and sends it over to an API. It’s a complex product, having to work around issues related to light, object movement, the environment, and cameras.

What is the team composition?

They provided a project manager, and we could contact the owner whenever we wanted.

How did you come to work with Abto Software?

We did a Google search and interviewed over 100 firms. Abto Software had well-thought-out answers and a good price; plus, they even provided a sample for free, so we decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2017–September 2018.

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

The product works great. We’ll definitely be working with Abto Software again in the future.

How did Abto Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We iterated on numerous tasks together, and their team was highly collaborative. They have excellent project management. We had meetings twice a week and were in contact daily. We used Jira to track progress and communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They exceeded our expectations. The team is professional, trustworthy, and extremely competent in their domain.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Define your project well and have regular meetings with them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software development company that provides a complete ERP system for specialized industries. I am the project manager of software development.

For what projects/services did your company hire Abto Software?

We wanted to move our existing VB6 Project to a web-based ERP system and integrated our mobile app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a smooth transition from our existing classic system to a more modern web system that can be securely accessed from any device with internet access.

How did you select this vendor?

We reviewed several vendors and held meetings with the leaders of each potential vendor. Abto Software was a highly knowledgeable and effective team, so we chose them for our project.

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

Our ERP system is comprised of numerous modules that needed to be systematically moved to the web. The entire process needed to be completed without causing issues to the existing system, while adding enhancements that would create a user buy-in. Abto worked with POS, Payment Integration, Google Calendar interfacing, PO/AR/GL - Accounting, and mobile app integration.

What was the team composition?

We had three main development teams that comprised of both mid-level and senior developers. Each team included QA, project manager, and tech writers.

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

Abto is a key member in the continued success of our business goals and initiative to move to a SaaS web-based platform. They worked closely with us to ensure a smooth integration with the existing system, no downtime for existing clients during the migration and selling to new clients.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project was arranged by a primary project manager on Abto's side. We had a second project manager who managed a particularly large module that integrated across the system. Both project managers met with me on a regular basis to provide updates on their portions of the project. This set-up worked spectacularly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They displayed a commitment to excellence. The team's hard work, integrity, and attention to detail were impeccable. They were readily available to help with any issues and promptly responded to any requests.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a software vendor located in Switzerland, with an international reach. We offer our product to companies from Germany and the rest of Europe, which are using SharePoint in their operations. We work exclusively with Microsoft solutions. I am the head of product development.

What challenge were you trying to address with ABTO Software?

We had a hard time finding Microsoft SharePoint engineers in Switzerland. There is a general lack in resources, and we also looked to reduce costs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a 5-person design team in Switzerland. The engineering work is done by ABTO Software. We have a scrum process, with all of the story writing being done on our side.

Our work with ABTO Software was project-based initially, with 1-2 of their resources working on smaller tasks. After around 3 years, we decided to engage a dedicated team from ABTO Software, which has grown to 11 people at present. The team is composed mainly of software engineers, but we also have quality assurance specialists. ABTO Software runs automated tests for us.

We have worked exclusively using the Microsoft stack. While expanding our team, we also had to ramp-up knowledge. I have visited ABTO Software 5-6 times and have provided training to our team members. ABTO Software has provided well-educated people, so it was easy to introduce them to our technology.

How did you come to work with ABTO Software?

We were working with another company who used ABTO Software for mobile projects, and [they] had a good experience. I had a talk with the chief executive officer of that company and decided to try ABTO Software. The collaboration worked quite well, compared to previous experiences. Ukraine has a similar culture and way of thinking to Switzerland, so it was a good advantage.

How much have you invested with ABTO Software?

We have been using a dedicated team for 3 and a half years, which is indicative of our expenditure with ABTO Software, but I cannot provide an exact figure.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with ABTO Software for 6-7 years.

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

Because we're a software vendor and handle our own product engineering, we don't measure ABTO Software's impact on a project or sprint basis. There is a constant workload for ABTO Software, and our product is continuously evolving. ABTO Software has had an impact for our company in terms of work power, so we've been able to develop faster because of their services.

How did ABTO Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything in terms of project management is handled by us. We don't have a project-based engagement with ABTO Software, so there are no timelines. If ABTO Software can finish the work within a 2-week sprint, then everything is okay. We have gone through 30 stories with ABTO Software so far.

We use Microsoft Team Foundation Server for project tracking. ABTO Software also uses a tool for time logging. I don't use it myself because we simply work through 2-week sprints, so I only care if the work is done or not.

What did you find most impressive about ABTO Software?

ABTO Software has very good resources. I was especially impressed with one of our engineers, who was committed to our project. We always wanted to have a level of trust, and that trust is present with ABTO Software, from their team to the principals.

Are there any areas ABTO Software could improve?

Quality can always be improved, but this comes with knowledge and good resources.

Please describe your organization.

We're an e-commerce business providing a connection between customers who have problems to solve and experts in 300 different categories.

What is your position?

I am the senior director of engineering.

What business challenge were you trying to address with ABTO Software?

When I took this job, my company was already working with developers in Ukraine. The company that we'd contracted at the time was not performing well. As a result, management wanted us to replace them with someone more capable. 

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We already had a well-developed platform, so there wasn't much flexibility in this regard. ABTO Software provided development in .NET and other Microsoft technologies. We developed an iOS app using ABTO Software as well as other mobile software.

Given that we engage with a captive team, if a new resource joins, they will work with us until we decide that we don't want to work with that person anymore. We've continually grown the team in time, coming close to 70 people – predominantly full-stack developers. We also have manual and automated QA [quality assurance] resources, as well as three project managers. We also employ managers for the team, two of which are also developers.

How did you come to work with ABTO Software?

Since we already had an investment in the Ukraine area, we decided to look for alternative organizations there. We found ABTO Software to be the best fit for us.

I had some well-established ideas about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I needed a partner that would contract with us on that basis. We were the ones who determined who worked on our projects and decided what their salaries would be.

Originally, we paid ABTO Software a fixed amount on top of which there were their profits. We've become large enough as not to work on a per-person basis. There is a fixed profit and fixed cost per year. We work on more of an ongoing basis with ABTO Software than on a project-to-project model.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We've spent around $100,000 per month on ABTO Software's services for the first three years of our collaboration. Within the last year, we've spent $200,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship with ABTO Software.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our model is not a typical one. Our company is directing the projects, and we decided which resources to hire. We also manage and train people directly. ABTO Software has always supported our need to hire good-quality people, and they were flexible enough to allow us to optimize for productivity, leaving this area under our control.

Many providers have wanted a level of opaqueness about what costs go into, in order for them to maximize profits. We know exactly what ABTO Software's profit is, so nothing is hidden. They have no incentive to obscure anything. Other companies may not run their businesses as well, so they need to have more flexibility, keeping key players working on several different teams. It's much more profitable to hire low-quality people than it is to hire high-quality ones, so most companies will not have a high-quality staff. We've required that all of our staff be high quality. ABTO Software has been open, honest, and very flexible, supporting our business model and not getting in the way of it. We've been able to do business with them as a result.

Early on, we needed ABTO Software's services much more than we need them now. We needed to set up an office in another city within a couple of weeks, which ABTO Software did with excellent performance. I've always been able to count on ABTO Software for anything that we needed, even if it was outside of what they usually do.

How did ABTO Software perform from a project management standpoint?

A strength for ABTO Software is the fact that they were always focused on having high-quality developers managing the work. This allowed us to have a common understanding of how we wanted things to work, which isn't always true for other companies. We used Rally for project management, which was the tool that we had in place when we started working with ABTO Software.

What distinguishes ABTO Software from other providers?

Working with ABTO Software works. I've had a lot of experience in this industry, and there are many ways in which things cannot work. Coming from an engineering background, I've appreciated being able to work with a company that understands our actual needs and has made an effort to support them.

ABTO Software has been investing in growing their business in a very moderate way. They don't try to grow too fast, but they also don't try to stay small, either. There is a practical approach, less entrepreneurial, compared to a United States company, but very stable.

Is there anything ABTO Software could have improved or done differently?

There is nothing that would be significant to anyone else. The standard of development in Ukraine is different to the U.S. one. I don't think that ABTO Software is better or worse than anyone else, but we've often asked for things that other customers may not have necessarily cared about, like higher escape plans.

Please describe your organization and what you do there.

We are a software company developing our own products aimed at collecting data from mobile workforces, using tablets and phones. We collect data from electricity, gas, and water meters, doing analysis on those data. We also have a bespoke development service for creating new products and enhancing existing ones for our clients. I am the chief executive officer of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with ABTO Software?

We didn't have enough internal resources for doing the development ourselves, so I decided to outsource it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We've used ABTO Software as a long-term development resource, working with them on several projects. The technologies used by ABTO Software are .NET, native mobile languages, and various databases.

At peak capacity, we've worked with around 25 developers from ABTO Software. We use an internal project manager, as well as one assigned by ABTO Software, depending on the project.

How did you come to work with ABTO Software?

They were referred to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ABTO Software in 2012.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

For a number of reasons, the development cannot be expected to go according to plan on occasion, and that's true whether it is outsourced or not. That said, ABTO Software has done a good job on several projects, both for our clients and for us. We've been very happy, for the most part. We get a lot of repeat business, which is due to the quality deliverables that we can produce. Our long-term success has been supported by ABTO Software.

How did ABTO Software perform from a project management standpoint?

ABTO Software has always delivered on time and within budget. We work on a time-and-materials basis. ABTO Software has an internal project tracking system, which we also use to keep us up-to-date on progress.

What did you find most impressive about ABTO Software?

ABTO Software's team is very diligent. They work hard and put in the required hours. If they need to work longer for a task that has to be delivered quickly, ABTO Software will have no problem in doing that.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

We've worked with project managers who didn't deliver on time but, for the most part, the resources from ABTO Software have been very good and very timely. Whenever we do have an issue, we bring it up with ABTO Software, and it gets resolved. We have had to replace one particular project manager, but ABTO Software managed it internally before it became too difficult for us. In general, I can say that there hasn't been any unexpected staff turnover with ABTO Software.

Any clients looking to hire ABTO Software should start with a small project and watch it carefully. They should learn how the company operates during the course of two to three months. Once they've become accustomed to how their project managers work, things become much easier.