Argusoft

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a software development manager from Fresh Concepts Inc. We are a produce procurement company. We manage and ensure produce purchases for large restaurant chains nationwide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Argusoft?

We hired them to address our need to ramp up development, speed up deployment, and reduce costs. We were exploring several different offshore companies to replace our onshore, independent contracting company. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with Argusoft to develop requirements and specifications based on our business needs. We rely on them to give input and suggestions for the best approaches. They follow our established best practices, and we have frequent meetings to make sure that we're communicating well.

They work on software development by creating new features, modules, and managing and maintaining our existing codebase. In addition, they work on front- and backend development using Java, Angular, and the Spring framework.

What is the team composition?

We work with three full-time developers, one full-time QA person, and one part-time project manager. My main point of contact is the project manager, but I have at least one meeting every two weeks with the entire development team.

How did you come to work with Argusoft?

I wasn't part of the company when they made the decision to hire Argusoft, but I know that they interviewed several offshore companies and then decided on Argusoft. I appreciate the internal organizational structure and training program that Argusoft has for their developers. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started working together in January 2016, and we continue our collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In the beginning, Argusoft’s team needed to learn our current system and come up to speed. However, after a year of working together with Argusoft, the development output increased significantly.

Over the years, we've been able to rely on them for suggestions and creative options, which I appreciate very much. The trust level is such that Argusoft’s team feels comfortable pushing back and offering better ideas, and that is that it's very valuable to me. 

How did Argusoft perform from a project management standpoint?

For project management, we use Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don't have a benchmark for other outsourcing companies. Still, from what I've seen, their internal organization, training, team building, and company culture are different from other offshore companies — that makes them stand out. Also, I was able to visit them to see and experience their corporate culture firsthand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

On both sides, we could always improve on communication and clarity.

Any advice for potential customers?

Our quality improved significantly when I began providing content from our business perspective. Instead of giving Argusoft a specific direction, allow them to understand your goal and purpose from a business perspective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Emnicon Campus Gmbh, the smaller of two companies within our organization. My role is the product owner of big data projects. We usually work on processes for banks and insurance companies, and with the smaller company, we had started to build some software around data and big data.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Argusoft?

We were trying to maximize our capacity for products in .NET core and Angular for the frontend of our software. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The purpose of the software was to analyze customer information from small regional banks within a smart data project. There were four key reports and also a lot of end reports about the customer data.

We mainly worked with the frontend developer from Argusoft, who built the whole frontend. She had to start from scratch — we started with three issues a week and we finished with nine. In my special project, we spent the most time developing the frontend.

The developer created all of the formulas and reports, which were sometimes dynamic reports. She had to create processes and was also working with APIs, which brought more complicated information from an identity server to our software and it also delivered some facts to the backend.

What is the team composition?

When we started working together, we worked with the head of development who organized the whole backend, the database, and the communication with the team. We also had a product owner who coordinated the whole project. There was also a full-stack developer — he gave some basics to the frontend developer and to my head of development. 

Throughout the project, we often had changes in staff, so overall there were 4–5 developers working on the .NET core. 

How did you come to work with Argusoft?

It was really easy for me to find them. The manager of the company that I work with had some contracts with Argusoft long before I started working with Emnicon, so we just took them on as well.

How much have you invested in them?

We invested around €90,000 (approximately $107,000 USD) with Argusoft.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2018 and our project with them ended in March 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Though the project itself was a disaster, it wasn’t because of Argusoft — the work with their team was successful. The project was a disaster because of our customer’s permanently moving target that we couldn’t catch. 

They created the work from scratch very well. The software work that Argusoft did was great, and we had a lot of fun working with them. We had a very great experience working with them.

They gave us nearly everything to make the project successful, and to me, that was very impressive. The quality of the work, especially on the frontend, was absolutely fair and okay. With Argusoft, we had 6.6 tickets per week on average and that was really great.

How did Argusoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well. We had a high commitment from them on every ticket and everything was stable. We could give them 3–5 tickets, they’d promise to handle them, and we were sure that they would deliver on time — it was absolutely great.

What really impressed me, being from Germany, was their availability. We could get in touch with them on weekends if there were some stressors, which is absolutely not possible in Germany. Also, their commitment to the employees was very high.

We sometimes had communication issues from German to English because not everyone spoke English in Germany. This sometimes led to some lost information between India and Germany, too, but it was fine. Sometimes the customer would be mad that words were written incorrectly, but it wasn’t a problem for Argusoft. We communicated through DevOps teammates and Microsoft Teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing was that they were able to deal with very complex features, especially on the frontend. The report was very difficult because we had a lot of different filter types and so much dependency between the different filters. It was hard work, but they dealt with it. Especially considering the difficult communication between German and English, it was absolutely great that they did the job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the moment, from their side, there isn’t anything they should do differently because their work was great. We learned a lot about writing tickets correctly for people in India, and we learned a lot about them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Put your tickets into very small tasks and communicate clearly. Don’t communicate how we do in German where we all communicate like engineers which doesn’t even work between us Germans. Do smaller tasks, communicate clearly, and they will deal with everything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an afterschool program management platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Argusoft?

We needed development support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an in-house development team, but we were scaling up very quickly so we needed some additional support. We’re doing the project in C# and we keep all of the code in an Azure GitHub repository. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Ravi (Technical Group Lead) and two other developers. 

How did you come to work with Argusoft?

I found them on Upwork. I contacted some of their referrals which gave me the confidence to work with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000 so far. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in December 2019, and the work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still working to get the beta version of our platform completed. However, they took a platform that was about 40% complete and got it to 80% completion in a matter of six months. They were great from the beginning and been a huge asset to us. 

How did Argusoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily standups and communicate through Slack and email. We took so time to establish a strong workflow, but after that, they completed tasks faster than expected. They were great. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to be consistent and communicative is the most impressive thing to me. The fact that they were willing to do daily standups says a lot about them and their work ethic. They always stay on task. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the capacity that I’ve worked with them, no. There was a bit of a learning curve, but after the first three sprints, they got the hang of everything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be patient and take your time at first. It’s hard to pick up something instantaneously, but if you bear with them, they’ll be well worth your investment. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Mortgauge. We are a digital real estate platform helping customers buy homes and maximize their wealth through existing real estate portfolios.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Argusoft?

We needed developers to create our UI, and then to help us with the full-stack development of the product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle the entire development process and DevOps for our mobile and desktop application. We work in sprints for the most part, so I will give product and technical direction and have frequent touchpoint meetings with the developers, and they execute on those to build that component of the code.

From the DevOps side, they set us up using AWS. On the frontend, they used Angular and Javascript, and on the backend it was NodeJS.

What is the team composition?

We have a project manager who I am primarily in touch with as the main liaison for the project, and then we usually have 1–2 developers involved at a time that we shuffle around depending on what we are working on at the time.

How did you come to work with Argusoft?

I found them through Upwork and was impressed with their team the most out of about 20 different options I initially selected, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost is around $190,000 in total so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2018 and are continuing to partner together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product is up and running and we are now just working to expand the product, but people really like it so far. We’re gaining users and are very satisfied with everything that we’ve been able to establish so far. I don’t have a lot of exact metrics to cite, but without them, the platform wouldn’t exist, so we’re very grateful to all of the work they’ve delivered for us.

How did Argusoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They are always flexible in accommodating your schedule, which we really appreciated. Especially when you’re a startup and have to cut costs, there can sometimes be continuity issues, but they make sure that knowledge is always transferred between their teammates so that they are never the source of any holdups on the project. We use Slack and Jira to communicate, and they are always right in line with their estimates on both timelines and budgets for the work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The main reason I continue to work with them is that they are incredibly dedicated to the project. They understand that they are there to execute, not to rack up billable hours, and they follow through on that promise every single time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really don’t have any critical feedback for them, to be honest.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have as detailed a roadmap as you can before you get started. Know what the features you want are, and have a wireframe of what you want them to look like so that they can hit the ground running for you as soon as possible.