Alliance Software Pty Ltd

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director at EnrolNow, an industry-specific software company that provides enrollment and whitelist software programs for childcare centers and kindergartens.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Alliance Software Pty Ltd?

We needed them to develop a custom childcare software for us. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started with Alliance Software Pty Ltd, we created a huge scoping exercise to ensure the success of our project. Their team supported us in mapping out our software development journey before we proceeded with the making of our MVP.

Alliance Software Pty Ltd developed the first software that our company launched. Our goal for that platform was to improve the supply-and-demand ratio for childcare positions so that childcare centers could effectively allocate their positions and achieve a 100% occupancy incentive. It was end-to-end development work  — their team designed the product’s UX and worked on complex algorithms and wireframes to match all the software requirements.

We continue to work with them now on different custom development projects. Our software requirements don’t end, and our customers continuously need adaptations and software modifications.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact over the years is Ben (Owner). For this specific project, I worked with an account manager and about six developers from their team.

How did you come to work with Alliance Software Pty Ltd?

They were a recommendation from someone within our special circle who was already working with Alliance Software Pty Ltd at that time. Upon our first engagement, we got the sense that we could rely on their team to help our company grow.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 AUD (approximately $388,000 USD) on all our projects with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in November 2014, and our partnership with their team is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our main metric for our software projects with their team is customer acquisition. Alliance Software Pty Ltd strives to give us high-quality results, and in return, we now have about 400 kindergarten and childcare centers using our platforms. From a UX perspective, I know we’ve also hit the mark with them because our customers find the platforms intuitive and easy to use. The fact that we rarely have customers come to us to complain about any minor software issues also greatly speaks to the quality of their team’s work. Once we acquire new customers, these customers are always able to rely on Alliance Software Pty Ltd’s services in an undemanding way.

How did Alliance Software Pty Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team has their own Kanban software that we also use to track and progress and work methodologies. Alliance Software Pty Ltd’s project managers are well ahead of their game — they communicate all their needs and queries to us, and they always collaborate smoothly with us even when we have to deal with more complex projects. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Alliance Software Pty Ltd’s collaborative work approach really stands out. Ben is very engaged and enthusiastic, and he manages his organization meaningfully. Apart from that, They also have smart developers who are always ready to take on challenging algorithm tasks — I’m always reassured that I can trust their team to do all the complex work for me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t really think of one. There are times when we give them tasks that are out of their expertise, but they manage each situation well by being up upfront and honest in telling us that it’s not something they can help us with. We appreciate how they gauge tasks to determine which of those are out of their line.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear in identifying what you want out of the engagement — this is important since you’re working on a development project. Additionally, you’ll have to be available and engaging throughout the project to get all the outcomes that you expect to achieve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the production manager and founder of BrokerEngine, a SAAS product that assists mortgage brokers automate their practices.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Alliance Software Pty Ltd, and what were your goals?

We had a legacy solution built on Microsoft Dynamics. We had achieve product market fit however the issues we found were;

1. We were at the mercy of Microsoft as far as licencing fees were concerned. No flexibility to offer freemium or cheap plans
2. We had built a custom front end but this was slow. Whilst we had the features that brokers wanted, the UX was not ideal.

SOLUTION

How did you select Alliance Software Pty Ltd and what were the deciding factors?

We were introduced to Alliance via our membership with EO. We were not actually actively exploring a rebuild. However, Alliance offered to do a full analyis and quote for the rebuild for free. Alliance spent circa 11-12 days reviewing the current app and quoting. Ultimately the quote was such that it was a no brainer to rebuild.

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

The scope of work was to;

1. Rebuild our current solution using a tech stack that has no underlying licence fees.
2. It had to be quick!
3. It had to be scaleable for us - eg, it needed to be built on a stack that we could bring in cheap resources to assist.
4. It had to be with a company that would support handover to an internal dev team.

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

I worked with;

• Kristie - Project Manager extraordinaire!
• David Coates - Tech Lead Genius
• Shannon Baker - Tech Lead Guru
• Alex Green - Project Manager
• Fang Long - Gun developer! (other developers on for periods of time).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We launched out new version of BrokerEngine and grew our userbase by 500% within 12 months.

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

Use Slack, Kanban and Zoom to communicate. Follow the agile method of development.

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

We have since migrated to use an internal team supported by Alliance on a part time basis. Alliance have been very supportive of us and now provide tech lead and devops support to our internal team.

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

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and director of accessIQ, a student administration and learning management platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Alliance Software?

We were utilizing little bits and pieces of a whole range of existing platforms, but none of them worked in their entirety.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we first collaborated with Alliance Software, we did assessments between ourselves and our students. Alliance Software built out the software we now use. It’s a comprehensive platform. Initially, the platform used a Django infrastructure and Python was the other language.

As we’ve rolled forward, we’ve gradually taken on more and more capability and gone from using nearly a dozen third-party platforms down to just using our own platform. The only third-party integration we use is with Xero Accounting Software.  

What is the team composition?

I was in contact with Kristie (Project Manager) and Richard (Tech Lead). Richard has always been our senior platform architect and technical designer. They also have a rotation of developers.

How did you come to work with Alliance Software?

Alliance Software came as a recommendation, and they built the public website for our other business.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $1.6 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2015, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From our side administratively, the platform is fantastic. It’s really hard sometimes to judge when you see something every day. When I come to work, the first thing I do is access the platform. We have close to 25,000 students with active accounts on the platform. 

The feedback we get from them is overwhelmingly positive particularly in terms of the simplicity of the way we present information to them. Our partners, who use the platform, talk about the administrative capability, particularly around reporting.

How did Alliance Software perform from a project management standpoint?

I have an operations manager on my team whose day-to-day responsibility is to work directly with Kristie. At a very local and organic level, I have acted as a referee for them on other smaller projects from time to time. 

I really like the balance that they’re able to strike between plain language and technical language. If we’re working on a new feature or a redesign of the way we house and manage a piece of data within the platform, they’re able to comfortably talk in high-end technical terms with my team. 

They also communicate in very plain language about what we’re going to achieve and how that’s going to be happening for myself, our sales and marketing team, or our admin team that is perhaps less technical. That’s something I really value. I’m not a technical person and their ability to keep me engaged throughout the process has been really critical.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The one key element is their communication. I’ve been really happy that they’re always very pragmatic with their billing. We’re constantly exploring new features within the platform. Each time we start a new feature development, we obviously start with brainstorming and drilling in until a feature is built and released. 

Whenever we do that, Alliance Software is always very upfront and transparent about the pricing structure. It makes it really easy for us to determine our pipeline. I enjoy the transparency of being able to understand the cost-driven approach to feature building.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their project management team is not highly technical but they are genuine project managers. Initially, I was put off by it but it’s proven to be a huge asset to our relationship. 

Having a direct point of contact who oversees the entire activity that’s going on and comes at it from a relationship and project management perspective has been a great opportunity for us, so I advise customers to have that as well.