Avenga

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at QPharma.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CoreValue Services?

We do a lot of software development and we couldn’t find enough people with the right skill set, particularly engineers who knew React Native. Hiring costs in the States were also prohibitive, so we wanted to outsource.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

For their initial project, we asked them to build an app for Android and iOS using React Native. We use their developers to create the apps and our in-house team handles maintenance and support after the apps are completed.

In addition to mobile app development, they also do a fair amount of web development and a lot of Oracle development and support, including integration with other applications. One of the biggest projects that they’ve worked on recently involved migrating our data to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Not only were we moving the data, we also needed to implement a disaster recovery setup that would allow us to keep our data in two regions simultaneously in the event of server failure.

What is the team composition?

Our in-house tech lead oversees their developers and QA testers as if they’re part of our team. The number varies depending on the project, but it’s gone as high as 35 people before.

How did you come to work with CoreValue Services?

I knew of them through a colleague at a previous job. Some of their representatives had also approached our CEO about doing work for us. One of the major reasons we decided to hire them, aside from their expertise, was that they had a deep bench in terms of how many developers they could dedicate to a project.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost varies month to month, but the total is probably close to $2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2016 and our collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their assistance with our data migration and database replication helped us meet client disaster recovery requirements. Without it, we would have lost business.

How did CoreValue Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Since we integrate their staff with ours, they’re part of our daily status meetings and we touch base with them throughout the day. We’ve also given them access to Jira so they can track tickets directly, much like our regular employees.

It’s fortunate that the time difference in Ukraine is reasonable and we can incorporate their staff into our workday smoothly. The workers are reliable and pretty flexible with scheduling.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve never been able to find so many developers of this caliber so quickly in the States.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While they’re very good working from Ukraine, it would be good if they had local employees available that we could bring in. I’d rather work with their developers for everything, but we sometimes have to use local consultants for things CoreValue can’t do remotely.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you find the right balance between in-house staff and the remote team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Olo is a software as a service (SaaS) company that offers a digital-ordering technology product line for the North American restaurant industry. More than 50% percent of public restaurant brands in the U.S. use our platform. We enable digital ordering capabilities for their guests. I am senior VP of engineering, responsible for product development.

SOLUTION

What challenge were you trying to address with Corevalue Services?

We engaged them when we were still a small engineering team. At the time, we wanted to tap the outsourced market as a source of skilled developers to help us accelerate the development of new product features and third-party integrations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What was the scope of their involvement?

We assign their developers to a diverse array of projects. Their team supports us from a development or QA capacity using .NET, C#, F#, and our Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.

Specifically, their developers are instrumental in helping us build out point of sales integrations for client’s third-party systems. They work with our US-based managers and developers to scope out the specific requirements for any given integration.

What is the team composition?

We work with 10 developers and 6 to 7 testers.

How did you come to work with Corevalue Services?

Our COO had a prior relationship with this vendor. I met with them to get a sense of what they could bring to the table. We brought a couple of developers on board and a good initial experience led us to grow the team.

How much have you invested with them?

Over time we've increased our investment, and have spent over $2 million over the course of our engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in January 2014 and the work is ongoing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager for an international company that develops robotics, electrical equipment, and automation processes. I specifically work in the department that delivers mobile solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We needed to improve the company’s user experience for booking rooms and all our offices around the world. The system needed to display room attributes such as Skype and video call compatibility, or flip chart and whiteboard access. Our current Outlook system didn’t have an inbuilt solution. Our business team approached us to build a solution to this problem and make our internal booking system better, which was a challenge for us because it wouldn't be a mobile system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our main goal was to develop a web and desktop Outlook application for a new room booking system. First, we introduced our business requirements and challenges during the project’s discovery phase. We had concept meetings with the stakeholders, who were introduced to them from the initial phase of the project. In addition to programming, they helped bring the concept to life. Our user interface designers cooperated with their team, and they helped us with development capabilities. They helped us design, develop, and implement the software as a plug-in for Outlook.

They helped us develop specific features for the system as well. We wanted a search feature that would allow any user to search for a room based on its attributes, name, and description. We also wanted users to be able to see the room’s characteristics such as its video conferencing capabilities, size, and space. We wanted a feature that allowed users to easily forward a meeting to another attendee and allow them to propose a room invitation. They integrated everything with Microsoft Exchange to store meeting and room details. They also added images to the system, so users could see a room before booking. They helped us speed up the system through a caching solution, making communication, UX, and results display faster on screen.  

What is the team composition?

We primarily interfaced with the team leader, who served as our point of contact and represented their team. However, we also worked with a user interface designer, a developer, and a QA specialist.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

Before I joined the company two years ago, the company already had a history of collaborations with them. They were one of the teams selected for this project because they are our preferred vendor. They provided the estimates, and we decided working with them was a good choice.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started collaborating on concept designs for this project in July 2017, and we finished the system in January 2018. However, we have worked with them on a number of past projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s still early to gauge the impact of the new system. It has been launched for a limited group of users in our Polish office, and if it proves to be a success, we will use it globally. Currently, I don't have any results from the initial pilot release. Throughout development, we encountered some bugs, but they were always discussed and tracked during our weekly check-ups. The final product was bug-free, and they were extremely efficient in tracking and eliminating system issues.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

I had a communication rule; we had a meeting each Friday to review what was accomplished that week, and we also planned the work for the next week. I had one or two short calls weekly with their team leader to ensure they were on track and see if they needed anything from us. We didn't need to micromanage them or communicate with them all the time because they were organized.

I really enjoyed working with them because they had a lot of initiative. In the past, I have worked with developers that waited for tasks and specific commands. In contrast, Solidbrain provided those weekly demos and presented their results before I asked. We simply moved on to other iterations, so I really appreciated their energy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They didn’t treat this as simply another project. They were truly engaged in the work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everything progressed smoothly, so I don't have any specific areas that could be improved. If I could start the project from the beginning, I would pretty much do it the same way.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a startup software as a service [SaaS] company for prescription management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perfectial?

I needed a firm that could bring my software idea to life. They needed to be familiar with developing SaaS that's secure, cloud-based, and able to be used by numerous stakeholders. Also, a lot of healthcare platforms are boring, and I wanted a company that could design a consumerism feel that was user-friendly for patients, healthcare professionals, pharmacy fulfillment companies, etc.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before hiring Perfectial, I had wireframes build for the various pages and components of the software. I shared those with Perfectial to clearly explain the functionality of our software and how it will modernize and update prescription management in the U.S. Four stakeholders will have their own portal into the software, so we had to build out the components for each one of them and figure out how to interlink them all together.

Everyone will be able to log in and have access to manage a prescription, all the way to delivery. Patients and physicians will have profiles that are interoperable with an electronic health record and they’ll be able to communicate and process the entire prescription through our software system.

Besides the software, Perfectial also built our website. Perfectial was also instrumental in helping me develop the appropriate documents and diagrams for my patent.

What is the team composition?

We had a consistent team of seven people: a project manager, two backend and two frontend engineers, a UX/UI designer, and a quality assurance engineer.

How did you come to work with Perfectial?

I did a lot of research into SaaS development and found five different firms, but Perfectial rose to the top. I actually switched to a different company, and they met my needs, but I eventually returned to Perfectial because they were proactive and kept me informed on what stage the project was in.

The process we went through before even signing a contract was what really convinced me they’d be a great partner. They brought all the right people to our interviews, so they were able to clearly articulate what they could do for me and back it up with examples of their past work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $40,000–$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in January and built the prototype by August. We’re still in the early stages of development, and now we’re testing the product with customers to get their feedback. We’ll continue to work with Perfectial to make iterative changes before we go live.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everyone who’s tested the software loves it. We still need to change some of the functions, but Perfectial has done a great job. The prescription process is highly fragmented and complex, and Perfectial has been instrumental in making sure we have a product that streamlines the process and is developed for specific stakeholders in mind.

How did Perfectial perform from a project management standpoint?

I worked with them on a weekly basis for about five months to get the product to where it is today.

We use JIRA and a couple of other software systems to manage communication, but we mainly use email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m not very knowledgeable in the technology field, and Perfectial was great at helping me understand some of the more intricate aspects of this work. They can help someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience in software to understand the process and how things will be developed and accomplished.

I also appreciate that I’ve had the same team throughout this entire process. They’ve all helped me translate my ideas and feedback into meaningful output as it relates to the software. Perfectial has a comprehensive and effective workflow, which makes them a great partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any issues with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive producer for a production company that specializes in websites, applications, experiential, project design, and all things digital. We usually work with marketing agencies or directly with clients. Aside from our U.K. office, we also have a branch in Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We were a bit short on backend developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us build a content management system and a registration form for the website. Solidbrain used the Django framework.

What is the team dynamic?

There was just one developer, Max. I dealt with him and his boss, John [Managing Director, Solidbrain]. We had one person reviewing the code, and it was all good. Max was a junior level staff, but he performed very well. A backend tech lead also supervised his work.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

Our technical director is always looking for backend developers since they’re difficult to find these days. He knew about them and went to see them. We thought it would be good to try them out. Our resource in Poland asked them to perform a little backend task to help us evaluate what they could do. They seemed to have good standards, which is something we check when we interview people. We also prefer to work with a company that has more infrastructure.

How much have you invested with them?

We paid $5,000–$10,000 for their work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in August 2017, and we launched it in September 2017. We trust them, and we will use them again on different projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have access to the analytics, so we don’t know how well it’s performing. There isn’t really anything to see visually, so I can’t judge that. I know in the end that it worked.

Max was working in the background, so we couldn’t see how much he contributed to the project. He was managed by a more senior person and just did what he was asked to do. He didn’t have the opportunity to be proactive.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

It was excellent. Communication was good. Compared to a lot of other companies, they were flexible.

John has been really easy to work with. As the project was coming to an end, we didn’t need Max as much. At the same time, I didn’t want to take any risk in releasing him too early. I asked John about it, and he told me they could put him on standby. During this period, we knew we could have him work on the project at any time. For the five days that Max was on standby, they only charged two days. That was the first time I had such a flexible team.

On top of that, they only charged for the hours they actually work. We agreed on 20 days for the project. In the end, they just used 12 because he was very efficient. They didn’t charge for the eight days left over.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility is impressive. They actually care. It wasn’t just another job. They make sure they deliver. They’re new, young, and flexible—they don’t mind going the extra mile.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. It was very short, so it’s difficult to have an idea of any issues. When Max was on standby, he was checking emails after hours. I sent him an email after 6:00 and an hour later, he replied.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

Just try them out. We don’t enroll people based on what they say in interviews.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the technical lead for a company’s Master Data development team. I led the teams doing the delivery using different technologies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We wanted to deliver a mobile application that would allow us to maintain our user data in a convenient way. Previously, we’d delivered the first two releases of the mobile application with our internal team, but we needed more resources to prepare the next releases. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their only contribution was in the development area. Our company had specific requirements, and Solidbrain delivered. They also proposed some changes based on their experience with mobile applications. We put some of those into our scope, and it was finally developed.

It took 2–3 weeks from the time we began discussing their involvement to actually starting the work. We implemented using Scrum and assigned new tasks to Solidbrain’s team member. It was screen to screen delivery.

What is the team dynamic?

We were assigned one mobile developer to support our internal team. We also had the support of his manager, but this was outside of the contract. This wasn’t a standard arrangement for them, as they would usually develop a mobile application from start to finish on their end, but Solidbrain was really flexible.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

Solidbrain was our development partner on previous projects.

How much have you invested in them?

It was comparable to what was available in the market.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017 for this project, and it was completed in June 2017 for one of our releases. Our cooperation is still pending.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ultimately, they helped us deliver the app on time. Because it is an internal application, we don’t have measures for the external market. However, we have crossed 1,000 downloads shortly, which is a good start to meet our ambitious agreed key performance indicator in this area. 

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

Most of the testing and project management was done by our team. Solidbrain introduced us to HockeyApp, which was nice. I could see as they uploaded the test version every day. As we worked in Scrum, the requirements were not specified fully at the beginning. We were specifying from screen to screen, and they delivered what we asked on time and within budget.

We had direct contact with the developer through Slack. We also communicated via Skype, email, and phone when needed. As the tech lead, I spoke to him when a decision needed to be made, which was every couple of days. The developers from our team were in constant contact with him to align their activities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Solidbrain’s flexibility was impressive. The process of getting additional resources can be challenging and can take a long time, but their cooperation started really fast. The other part was that they provided us with daily delivery, which was quite important because I was able to see our progress.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing to share at this point.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a manager in a department working on mobile applications. We do a lot of work using vendors, partners, and contractors. We work on internal applications for multiple industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We were addressing a Xamarin mobile app which would assist the service people and customers of a big global company. First and foremost, we wanted to deliver an application which would be nice and easy to use by the people working in the service. We wanted to wow customers, showing them that it was an up-to-date technology. This had to be done on a tight schedule, with the deadline being an industry event where it would be presented.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had previously worked with Solidbrain. We have known each other for some time. For this project, the customer came to us with a tight deadline, and we were looking for external help. We involved Solidbrain from the beginning. They were in on discussions with the end-customer; they took some of the functional analysis to them. They employed an agile and flexible way of working, both with us and with the customer, in order to deliver a high-quality product.The graphic design was done by my team, while the whole feature implementation and programming work was done by Solidbrain.

What is the team dynamic?

We had a single point of contact, the team leader, who handled the project well. I believe there were 2 developers engaged, there were some direct interactions between them and my design team. Everything went well in terms of communication, and I didn’t have to be engaged. I only looked at results and reviews; there was positive feedback from both the customer and my team about the implementation. Our agreement properly estimated the amount of work neccessary.

We were able to manage the budget well, and Solidbrain managed the workload from beginning to end. They were certainly able to deliver all requested features inside of this budget. I didn’t interact with Solidbrain very often, but they had regular demos with my architect, design team, and stakeholder, either weekly or biweekly, depending on the size of the project. I would say this was a classic iterative development.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

The beginning was basically a time-and-materials-based. We couldn’t get the headcount on our own. This was years ago, so I wasn’t part of the selection process. When I joined the department, there was already a working relationship in place between my company and Solidbrain.

We refined it for my specific department needs. Initially, we had a chance to discuss our needs and how they could help us. On a consistent basis, we’ve been liaising people from them in order to broaden our teams. We have also asked them to deliver whole projects, assigning more responsibility to them, as in this case. We have a good relationship right now, and our long-term collaboration gave us a head start. It allowed us to be agile without having to cut our hands with legal written agreements. This project showed that Solidbrain was flexible and willing to meet our expectations. They were eager to deliver a project up to our standards.

How much have you invested with them?

The budget for this project was around $30,000. It’s medium-sized, relative to the mobile apps we’ve developed.

What is the status of this engagement?

The whole delivery process lasted for 2 months. It started with an initial conversation, and we had some small change requests after the delivery. A fast delivery was quite important in this case, given that the deadline was set by an industry event. The conversation started in April 2017, and the project was completed at the beginning of June.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This question would best be answered by our customer, the owner of the app. We create mobile apps for customers, who then promote and use them. We received very positive feedback after the event from the stakeholder, who was very happy about the app. They also came to us with a consideration for the next level of the product. This app was specifically targeted at the Asian market, and they might consider a global rollout in the next month, based on the feedback.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

They were able to highlight any risks, and gave us a heads-up if there were any problems on the horizon. Fortunately, none of those risks materialized, but I had full trust in the management, in the event anything could go wrong. Everything was delivered on time and within budget, which is a big recommendation in IT.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were able to manage small things and general communication well, so that I didn’t have to be engaged at all. Usually, there are some discussions, decisions or escalations for the projects being done in my department. There may not be anything specifically bad, but there is a need for management and attention. In this case, the project was managed at a level which didn’t involve me almost at all. We could see the kudos coming from the customer afterwards, so I was happy that the collaboration was so smooth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had discussions about how we could improve our collaboration, but this is more on my department’s side. At the beginning of the project, there was a single point of contact on their team, but there wasn’t one on mine. We had 2-3 people interacting with Solidbrain for the first sprints. When it came to the rollout, we had this position filled, and one of the lessons learned was that it would be even easier for them if we’d have this person in place from the beginning. Solidbrain was willing to participate in feedback-gathering sessions, to check if everything was fine. I was keen on doing that.

Advice for prospective customers?

I can recommend them in every respect. Solidbrain is reliable, engaged and willing to go the extra mile, if necessary.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a technical lead for a digital production company, working mostly with advertising agencies on digital campaigns. I’m also responsible for recruitment and finding outsourcing partners in Poland specifically, but also elsewhere in Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We needed a backend developer and had been looking for people, but the lead time for finding someone was 1–2 workdays. We initially got in touch with Solidbrain on a Thursday, and they promised to find someone for us that could start the next Monday. We really appreciated it, as it was our biggest challenge.

Besides the short timeline, the project itself was quite easy. We definitely wanted a senior profile to avoid any issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The developer Solidbrain assigned was responsible for the entire backend of the project, which is a mobile-based endless runner game. The frontend mechanics are quite simple, but we needed a leaderboard mechanism on the backend, social sign-in (with Facebook specifically), and some custom sharing options. There is a functionality for checking whether the user is signed in or not, and Solidbrain also came up with a way of submitting a score to the leaderboard in case users are signed in, or otherwise throw an error.

In terms of score submission, since it’s easy to fake API calls from a browser, Solidbrain implemented an extra layer of security involving cryptography and providing a checksum hash in the request, which was then validated on the backend. Rather than ensuring that the app would not be hacked, this ensured that there was no real chance of requests being faked.

They devised different ways to retrieve the leaderboard, including sorting and returning the top results. There is an extra functionality for always including the user’s score in the top 20 positions of the leaderboard, no matter where they were actually positioned.

Solidbrain also created an internal script for exploiting the database’s CSV files. There will be a prize draw after the campaign, and for this, we needed to download the leaderboard and export it into a CSV file so that it could be handed over to the client for the actual draw to happen.

As I mentioned, there is also a bit of custom sharing. Everyone who submits a score to the leaderboard is given an ID for that score, and they can share a unique link to Facebook from which metadata is created and displayed on the platform. Facebook can display some custom copy for the user, showcasing their completion time. Solidbrain took care of all of this.

They developed in the Python Flask framework, specifically for the Google Cloud environment. Solidbrain didn’t truly design anything, but rather followed guidelines and handled implementation.

They joined the project when it was starting, and we didn’t use any other partners for it.

What is the team dynamic?

The overall team size was quite big, at least for our standards in working with freelancers and outsourced vendors. There are 23 members on our Slack channel, all of whom are involved.

In terms of development, we had one backend coder from Solidbrain, as well as a tech lead and 2 frontend developers on our side. We have another backend developer from Solidbrain for another project, but I’m not personally part of it.

We’ve also been in touch with a client manager from Solidbrain’s side, who organized all the paperwork and confirmed whether they could commit to it.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

We got to know one of Solidbrain’s developers during a conference in Poland. It was an informal contact, but that person saw one of our advertisements on Facebook saying that we were looking for a backend developer. He proposed that his bosses get in touch with us to see if they could potentially help.

We had the first conversation with him on a Thursday, and the second one was with his bosses the next day. The lead-in time was crazy since we had to start ASAP. Solidbrain seemed professional, and we knew that one developer, which gave us some reassurance. It was a leap of faith as well, but I’m happy we made the choice.

We tried to get in touch with individual freelancers, and there was one other provider based in Romania that we tried to contact. They agreed to take on the project even before we’d gotten in touch with Solidbrain, but they were quite slow to respond. The communication with Solidbrain was really smooth, so we decided to choose them to avoid any potential issues, keeping in mind that we really needed to start the following week.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was around £50,000 [US $64,757].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Solidbrain in July 2017. One of the projects is almost complete, while another is ongoing. It was a very short project, running for 3 weeks including QA [quality assurance].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is not live, so I don’t have any metrics yet. We’re finishing QA this week and it’s supposed to go live next week. We're still in discussions with the client, not based on the work, but rather on strategic elements around the campaign being launched. We’re debating whether it will be postponed for a few days.

​​​​​​How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

Their developer became a part of our team. We did all of the project management, but the client representative from Solidbrain was very responsive. He’s been great in terms of organizing all the paperwork and getting the developer even before the paperwork was finished, given our crazy timelines. The way they’ve handled us as a client has been perfect.

The backend developer working with us was proactive, telling us we could contact him for any issues no matter what time it was, including weekends.

We contracted them for 3 weeks of work initially, but Solidbrain finished everything after 2 weeks. In the 3rd week, they remained available for potential bug fixes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are professional, and it’s clear that Solidbrain has done lots of projects. Different companies define seniority levels in different ways, but there’s no question that our developer is senior.

Also, they were very responsive and flexible. They allowed us to start working with the developer even before the paperwork was finished.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The work they did went smoothly, but they are quite expensive compared to others in the Polish market, even though their rates are lower than they are in the UK or US. If we had more time to choose from other suppliers, I’m sure we would’ve found at least a few providers of the same services at a much lower price. It’s difficult to say whether they would have been equally successful, however.

The rate was still acceptable because our company is UK-based, as are our clients. We had a bit of budget to allocate to this for this particular project, but it would normally be a problem.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of information technology for Milrose Consultants, an expediting firm in New York City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CoreValue Services?

Our goal was to transform our entire business and project management functionality from an outdated application to something new and cloud-based that would relieve our reliance on old equipment and software, constant upgrades, etc. We had a previous vendor that worked on a whole other project, which turned out to be a total failure. Actually, before my time, this company spent about $1 million with another company trying to develop this application in something called Catalyst, which ended up failing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We migrated an old proprietary software we were using for project management and project accounting to a Salesforce platform. We needed CoreValue Services to do all of the background programming and development for us.

CoreValue Services started by doing a full business analysis in which their team met with the different departments on our team. They had almost daily meetings with each department to determine what the actual workflow was, how they used the old application, and how they could migrate some of the processes to the new application. In some cases, if there were things that couldn’t be migrated, they could instead be improved, duplicated, or eliminated totally if they weren’t necessary. They basically helped us not only improve the workflow but also redo parts of the workflow in a better way.

In our proposal process, a bunch of people create proposals for our clients. They designed and built what we’ve called the Proposal Wizard. (This is within Salesforce Now, and Salesforce does not work this way.) It functons like a wizard that the user can go through step-by-step to build a proposal. It works kind of like TurboTax, where you go from screen to screen and it asks you questions. As you answer those questions, it creates the proposal for you. At the end, it sends the document to the client to be signed. With our input, they developed that to our specification.

What is the team dynamic?

The numbers vary. At one point, we started out with three developers and a couple of QA people. There were also some project managers who were working on documentation because during the whole process, we also had to document everything so that we even  had user manuals for the employees. We started out with a fairly large team plus the teams of people from our side. We even had to meet in person. At one point, they came here. A couple of our people actually went over to their place, which is in the Ukraine. The teams were pretty big. We are still continuing some things at this point with a much smaller team. I would say at one point, we had probably 8–10 people on their side. Now we’re probably down to maybe 2–3 actually. We interacted with multiple resources, but there was one point of contact that we dealt with. For instance, on our end, our project manager dealt with a project manager on their side. Then, in my role as the director of IT, I dealt with one of their lead developers. Each group probably had a point of contact. We spoke daily.

How did you come to work with CoreValue Services?

We selected them through a bid process. They provided not only the best price, but also the best plan/project term. They were able to do it the cheapest and the fastest, and they also seemed to have the best knowledge of Salesforce at that time. There were two other vendors at least that were competing against them. It seemed like some of the more local vendors that we spoke to at the time weren’t as familiar with Salesforce as we thought they would be or should be, considering how big Salesforce is.

How much have you invested with them?

Over $1.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January or February 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Based on what they were able to help us accomplish, we have totally transformed our business for greater success because we are able to conduct it from a fully cloud-based perspective. We no longer have to rely on old equipment, old software, and things like that. Ransomware and other current security issues don’t really affect us at all, because our employees have the ability to work fully in the cloud from anywhere. Instead of having to sit at a computer and log in and then connect to an old database server and get documents, our employees can work from the office, from home, from an iPad, from vacation. That’s all due to our transformation and the work we did with CoreValue Services.

How did CoreValue Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Their performance was excellent and still is—we’re still continuing to make improvements and meet on a weekly basis to address changes that our employees ask for. We communicated in in-person meetings, through the JIRA ticketing system, and mainly via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about CoreValue is their ability to pick up new technologies really quickly and get them working to our specifications. In addition to Salesforce, we’ve also picked up Drawloop for creating documents, Amazon Web Services for storing our files, and DocuSign for the electronic signatures required on our contracts and proposals. They have been able to pick up everything that we decide on. Like we say, “Hey, now we want to do this,” and they understand it and take care of it. Every day we decide there’s something new we want to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some constructive criticism—I would say all developers do this: At times, things are more developed than they need to be. The thing is, if my job is creating code, I’m going to create code. If you need to correct that code, I’m going to create more code that corrects it. Sometimes you can look for and use things that are already created instead of implementing your own. Things like that, but it’s not a big deal.

Do you have any advice for someone who is looking to use their services?

Be involved. Don’t just hire them and have them do it. Be part of the process and work together.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the lead developer for a company called vzaar, which is a London-based online video hosting platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We had a lack of development resources, and also, relevant skills for that specific piece of work. The desk team at Vzaar was composed of ten developers, but they were only versed in Ruby. Because we had a public API, we needed to provide multiple SDKs [Software Development Kit] for our API. Our own team could develop some, but we outsourced the ones we couldn’t build to Solidbrain. At the end of the engagement, we wanted an SDK that accurately reflected our spec, and had great, if not full test coverage, and good documentation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave them a very specific brief. While the Solidbrain developer built the PHP SDK for us, I was in parallel with him, building the Ruby SDK. The SDK was a pretty standard API wrapper. We wanted to make it much more user or developer-friendly. We also did a full re-build of our API, so when we moved to the newest version, we decided that instead of upgrading the existing SDKs we would do complete rewrites.

From the outset, we wanted a senior developer. Once they assigned the developer to us, for the second full week that he was on the project I went and worked with him in Poland for a week, where we did most of the run through of the spec. By that stage, the spec was pretty much done so that we could work through some of the more, relatively speaking, complex API endpoints. It was easier to explain things face-to-face rather than over the phone. During the project, we would speak every day.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

We found them based on a recommendation, because they’re based in Krakow, Poland. We had previously worked with a Krakow-based consultancy, and one of our remote developers was still living near Krakow.

How much have you invested with Solidbrain?

We invested about $6,500. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the collaboration ended in June.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a successful project—on time and on budget. I believe the number of support requests since the new SDKs have been generated has been very low. On all fronts, it was money well spent.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was pretty spot on. I would estimate each ticket because I would have to do the same ticket myself in the SDK that I was personally building. We made the estimates pretty much the same given that there was a senior developer from Solidbrain building the other one. Given the system in place, we didn’t really need a project manager to be involved that much. It just involved coming up with a work breakdown. We had a good spec. Daily communication was on Slack, and occasionally we would have a voice call.

What did you find most impressive about Solidbrain?

I thought they were very professional. Especially when I got to the offices in Poland, it was a much bigger operation than I expected. They had taken over the old Google offices in Krakow. I forget exactly how many people they had working in the office, but it was probably about triple the number I had expected. The way that they handled my presence for that week was really good. So, apart from the good work the developer did, they were great. I would happily work with them again.

Are there any areas Solidbrain could improve?

No, nothing immediately comes to mind. I thought the prices they gave us were good and met our expectations, so we didn’t feel any need to negotiate it down. Overall, the whole engagement was fairly easy and smooth. There were no pain points, and I don’t have any criticism or constructive feedback for them.

Do you have any advice or recommendations for someone who is looking to potentially start a project with them?

It is not necessarily specific to Solidbrain, but I’ve found from working with remote developers that it is much more important to have developers whose English is strong, as opposed to those whose English is not, and their technical skills are very strong. If the communication is difficult, the whole collaboration becomes difficult. As such, my advice is to make sure that the communication is smooth and easy, and everything else will follow nicely. With Solidbrain, we made sure that the individuals they assigned were well versed in English. However, we also had a Polish individual on our team, so communication was never really an issue.