Brainvire Infotech Inc

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Zafco is a car parts distributor across 85 countries. Our main business is based in Jebel Ali, Dubai, and we have offices in the US, China, the UK, Germany, and India. We have more than 300 white-collar employees across the world, and around 200 blue-collar employees. Our main focus is on tire distribution.

We have a B2C vertical, catering to customers’ needs at their homes. We have mobile vans which go to customers who want to change their tires, but don’t want to go out to have it done. This service is unique in the UAE market.

I am the head of operations and IT, and have been with the company for the past 15 years. I am a certified SAP Material Management consultant, as well as a Cisco consultant. I handle infrastructures and SAP, and have 12 years of experience in supply chains.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We tried multiple vendors in various regions of the world for sustainable B2B services for our 22 separate portals. We wanted to have a B2B solution with integration to SAP, but didn’t have success with vendors in the past.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainvire developed a proof-of-concept for us, which was fantastic. It was done fast and at high standards. The team was very proactive, and allowed us to deploy 11 B2B portals in three months’ time. We have brought all 22 websites under one unified platform with the help of Brainvire, making our e-commerce centralized.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

They were referred to us.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

We have spent $7,000 per portal, which is a very good cost for the UAE market. We plan to build another B2B portal, and have additional B2C revamps in the works. The total cost has been approximately $50,000 so far, and plan to spend another 1,000,000 AED [$270,000] in the next three years. Marketing will consume most of that budget, and the rest will go to maintenance and other small enhancements.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire in November 2016. We have extended our contract for the next three years. We have also signed up for their SEO services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before our B2C business was fully online, we used to have four orders per day. We have gone up to 27 orders per day, which was a huge improvement for us. We deal in high-range tires like Pirelli, Bridgestone and so on.

Our German portal went from two orders per day to 80. This was all because of organic search, and Brainvire’s design for the portal. They have maintained the site, and continue to improve its performance on organic searches. This number is huge for a B2B service. Similarly, for Spain, we are getting 40-50 orders per day. UK is a slower market, and has 10-12 orders per day. In the last three months, there have been more than 18,000 who have searched for tires, and were routed to our portals. We are the number one result in Dubai and Abu Dhabi for “tires Dubai” with our B2C site.

In 2016, the total number of visitors to the site was 6,000. After Brainvire started the work, the number went up to [an annualized rate of] 18,000. Our conversion ratio is about 10%, and we’re happy with that. We have earnings of 50,000 AED per day, or between $15,000 and $20,000, only for the B2C part.

The B2C site works in three simple steps: searching for tires, booking orders and scheduling a delivery. It integrates seamlessly with our SAP, and everything is automated.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

They are fantastic. The reason we chose Brainvire was their precise reporting on timelines and progress. Other Indian vendors will typically make hourly estimates at the beginning, and double that number along the way. We lost money with other companies, but Brainvire has been very precise in estimates, and they didn’t bill us for any additional time spent on the work.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

They deliver what they say, which is what we like about Brainvire. They don’t focus on the sales pitch, and are very business-minded. From the first day, Brainvire told us clearly what was and wasn’t possible, and expressed their thoughts in a straightforward way. Secondly, I appreciate their time management and commitment. Deadlines are important for Brainvire, and, if a task is set for 10 days, it has to be completed within that time. I’ve seen many vendors in UAE who promised to complete projects within one month, only to drag them to six months. This doesn’t make for a good relationship. Brainvire’s team is perfectly managed, and they deliver what they say.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

For any B2C portal, blogs are very important. I’ve told their team that content writing has to improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a media company publishing print newspapers and other formats. We are a 170-year-old organization, and are one of the most respected publishers in India. We have one of the largest-selling newspapers in the world. I have been working for the company for three and a half years, and serve as the VP of architecture and delivery. I lead all projects in this area, and report to the CIO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We outsource projects on the web, in the mobility and technology space. Brainvire is one of our vendors for mobile.

We’ve partnered with them on multiple digital initiatives, primarily for business-process automation applications and mobility-based innovations. We wanted to get a reliable, long-term partner who had specific experience in the digital and mobile space, is agile with our requirements, and can scale up and down as needed to stay cost-effective.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainvire initially worked on a project for automating our e-paper content. They’re also running a managed-services project for our newsprint and scheduling web application.

In terms of technology stack, we use Java, HTML and MySQL. We have APIs which convert XML and PDF files into web-based text and images. Our newsprint tool has similar functionality, but is aimed at the 100-odd newspaper vendors we have globally. We are using it for procuring more than 1,500 crore rupees annually ($232 million). It is used for scheduling, forecasting, and inventory management of the print.

We’ve also worked with Brainvire on BI and reports for both of our applications. We have standard reporting using .NET algorithms, and we publish on SharePoint. We use Highcharts on the visualization side. The SAP integration required that the scheduling application be done in-house by our team.

Brainvire had a total of around 15 people working at different points, and 8-9 on a constant basis. We also had a business analysis team from Brainvire working on our scheduling application for a month and a half, documenting processes and improving them along with our own team. There was a six-to-eight-person team on that project, and there are two developers who continue to support the application on a month-by-month basis, providing enhancements, changes and bug fixes.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

We have a standard process for technical evaluation and commercial evaluation besides the basic criteria like minimum size of the vendor, their experience and their expertise. One critical criterion has been response time and adaptability to our changing business landscape.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

The cost of Brainvire’s work has been around $500,000 over the last three years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire about three years ago. They continue to make enhancements and provide support, and new projects keep coming up.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had good feedback and renewed contracts from the business community. The e-paper platform converts approximately 105 editions and 2,500 pages per day. It’s being accessed by two million unique visitors on a daily basis.

We have around 60 users using our scheduling application internally, and 125 vendors using it globally, mostly in Southeast Asia, as well as in Europe and the US.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been on time. The scope creep is limited to 5-15%. From a development standpoint, Brainvire has helped us implement application lifecycle management using Microsoft Team Foundation Server. They follow our own program management processes in terms of managing resources. We’ve not had issues with this, but there were escalations typical for this type of project. Brainvire’s CEO engages with us for monthly reviews, ensuring that our work is going well.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

From a technology standpoint, I think that Brainvire is working on standard issues. There isn’t anything special about them, in particular. Our e-paper conversion application has taken some time to complete, but it was delivered well. On the reporting side, they have managed some complex algorithms well. They’re very flexible and responsive, which is crucial.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

Brainvire has potential to scale as an organization and get larger, more complex projects. Implementing large-scale Agile development, integrated UX design, business analysis services and more subject-matter expertise for the industries they’re working with will take them to the next level of maturity.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a large diversified financial services institution in India. We are headquartered in Mumbai and are a listed company. I’m the vice president in charge of application delivery across the organization, and I’ve been working here for the last 10 years. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We have gone to Brainvire for resource augmentation. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainvire has been tasked with maintaining a retail site specializing in coins, which had been delivered by another business partner. This was our biggest engagement in terms of maintenance services. Brainvire also developed a small website for us for a business that eventually closed. They have also undertaken a task-manager project with mobility components, which took 3 months to complete. That project was scrapped after we adopted WorkApps within the organization. It has all the collaboration tools and mobility components we require.

Brainvire has a varied pool of talent, but we’ve used them primarily for their PhoneGap knowledge, which is a platform for developing the same application on multiple mobile operating systems. We didn’t build native versions for our task-management project.

We have also leveraged Brainvire’s Microsoft technology knowledge, namely .NET and SQL Server. We have not used them for Java or other languages.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

We made inquiries with a number of vendors. Our company has a risk-mitigation plan, so we don’t assign any particular vendor more than 10% of the total IT development spend. We heard about Brainvire from an existing vendor and made reference checks for the group.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

The cost of Brainvire’s work has been around 25 Indian Lakhs or around $39,000 over a period of 3 years, across different projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire around 2012. Our last project, the mobility task-management solution, wrapped up 2 years ago. The website Brainvire built for us was delivered at the end of 2015. Currently, we are not using their services. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We didn’t assign Brainvire very complicated tasks, outside of our commodities portal. They delivered well.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

When it came to the maintenance work, Brainvire took over and handled everything well, but we definitely had a challenge with ground-up development. The team sometimes overestimated delivery times. The delivery date for our PhoneGap project was delayed by almost a month, which was not acceptable to us, especially since we gave them the flexibility to come up with a timeline. I kept the entire management on our end in touch with our date for going live, so it was a very bad experience for me.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

Their support and maintenance services were very good.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

Outside of what I’ve mentioned, no. But, I would suggest that any prospective clients have interviews with Brainvire’s team.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Brainvire?

I have a long list of vendors that I periodically update, blacklisting certain companies. I have not yet blacklisted Brainvire, and they continue to be a group that we can use, but I would not call them our top choice. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We specialize in buying and selling other companies, particularly ones with an e-commerce focus. I’m the owner of the company, and I’m effectively responsible for a whole lot of everything.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We were looking for a good developer who wasn't insanely expensive and could manage our day-to-day work. We wanted a company that had Magento expertise but could also expand into other areas as needed. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The work has been fairly varied. At a high level, our requirement was to make everything work, but Brainvire has been involved with UI/UX development, adding new features, integrating third-party work through APIs, implementing security patches, and everything in between. The team required a management understanding of marketing, light SEO, PPC, and so on in order to interface with our other resources, both internally and externally.

Our initial project involved integrating a skin and a couple of plug-ins for a site. There was an organic growth from that.

Our larger projects involve site management, so Brainvire's team needs to handle whatever I throw in their direction. We have at least one full-time resource for the LAMP Stack, specifically Magento, from Brainvire; they juggle people in and out as needed. Our project manager has stayed the same, except when he is on vacation. We've also tapped people for API and plug-in work, as well as custom coding which fell outside of UI/UX. This usually happens seamlessly in the background, so I don't worry about these issues very much. I mainly deal with the project manager. From this perspective, the relationship is more white-gloved on my end.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

We were put in contact with Brainvire by our server company. They don't normally give recommendations, but their salesperson had other clients who used Brainvire in the past. One hugely different thing about them, compared to other companies we'd used around the world, is that we've met Brainvire's owners numerous times, around once per quarter. We’ve sat down for multiple meetings and met the project managers and everyone else on the team, without actually traveling on site. I've worked with companies based 10 minutes from my house and didn't see the same approach. This makes it feel a lot less like an outsourced relationship. Beyond this, Brainvire's owner met with our operations person on-site, even though we were thousands of miles away at the time. I don't think that most other companies are like this.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

The cost of Brainvire's work has been between $30,000 and $40,000 overall during our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire 2.5 years ago. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don't review lines of code or anything like this, but one metric I've liked is Brainvire's ability to take care of problems. If something seems off, they will either refund or not charge us.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

If I have a problem with the project manager, I can reach out to the owner of the company and have a meeting about it.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

I’ve recommended Brainvire to a friend, and he was able to sit down and have lunch with the team two weeks later. This doesn't happen with most outsourced firms. Brainvire is an expensive developer relative to Indian prices, but we're getting experts in their field, which is unlike any other outsourced firm I've ever used. I’ve spent a lot of time and money around the world, and I know how groups will typically approach most projects. I've been happy with Brainvire to the point of telling friends that they can approach the company without the reservations associated with most Indian developers. This is not something nice to say, but I have had problems and wasted money in the past. I've also had the same issues with developers in California. Brainvire has given us a great mix of price, quality, and speed. We plan to work with them in the future for Magento or other projects.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

This is true for all outsourced companies: I wish that everyone stuck to a tighter timetable and estimated correctly every time. This is not a reasonable expectation, though. I've been on both sides of the table.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

InfoGain is a consulting company. We have offices in Mumbai, India, and the UK. I am a part of the creative team and work out of Las Vegas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We needed additional resources for our projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainvire has provided developers for AngularJS, ReactJS and other libraries. They were able to provide resources on short notice, and we are happy with them. We haven't outsourced entire projects to their team, due to security issues. We do plan to do this, though.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

I was looking for a local agency in Mumbai, which is where one of our development centers is located. I found Brainvire through a Google search and we started working together.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

The cost of Brainvire's work has been between $40,000 and $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire almost three years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Brainvire's resources are working with our own, and the deliverables are good in terms of quality. We make sure to review the work periodically, provide feedback and give necessary corrections. We've found the approach to be comfortable, and we're happy with Brainvire.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

They have very good project managers and a proactive approach. They follow up with us quite well. For more complex projects, we will keep Brainvire's resources focused on a single piece of work, but we also assign them different smaller projects.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

Brainvire's resources are trained in the newest technologies and are proactive in terms of communication. Even though they're a vendor, Brainvire feels like a part of our company.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve??

Not that I can think of.

Do you have any recommendations for others considering working with Brainvire?

Brainvire is a good company, with many quality people. I would definitely recommend them to anyone with a relevant project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are one of the top-10 road transportation companies in India, with three divisions, including a door-to-door delivery side and inventory management.

What is your position?

I am the director of the company. We are a family-run business; my father is the chairman, and other family members hold executive positions. I’m directly responsible for our express division. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

Our .NET 2.0 ERP [enterprise resource planning] had been developed in 2008 and needed to be upgraded in order to match new business models and challenges. We had an initial scope for revamping the system. After an almost two-year project with another company, they proved to be unable to deliver the project to us, citing that they had incurred a significant amount of expenses compared to what they were expecting to receive for the work. The development halted. Considering the efforts undertaken by our own team, looking for another software vendor was ruled out. No one was willing to put in that much effort, but we still needed to upgrade our ERP, so we used our in-house team for work on immediate business needs.

We eventually got in touch with Brainvire for the migration from our ASP.NET 2.0 system to the 4.5 version, as well as for the migration of our Microsoft SQL database from 2008 to 2012. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

There was an equal contribution from our side for initiating the project. We brought in our corporate IT manager along with three other resources from our side. Brainvire's director, Chintan Shah, was part of the project during the initialization stage, and they also provided a project lead and three .NET programmers. They used HTML designers on an outsourced basis. We had a review meeting at our corporate office every 15 days, discussing the progress of the project.

We had Crystal reports which needed to be converted into SSRS [SQL Server Reporting Services]. Ease of use and UX features also needed to be taken care of.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

Our chairman was involved in the initial proposal meetings, and he found Brainvire through an acquaintance.

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

The proposed cost of our project was 1.1 million Indian Rupees [$16,000], but the total cost became 1.5 million Rupees [$23,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire in September or October 2015. The initial timeline was four months, but the deliverable was stretched to six months. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our ERP is being used extensively, with close to 700 users logging on concurrently for entries, especially around the afternoon. Downtime was one of our biggest challenges during the server shift. We only had a 3- to 4-hour downtime, which was scheduled on a Saturday to avoid interfering with our normal operations. Brainvire had a schedule buffer in place, and they ensured that our normal reporting process would not be affected.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

Brainvire was meticulous in terms of documentation and reconfirmed everything with us to the point of repetition. We received two months of after-development support. The knowledge transfer to the actual programmers was good, and we only experienced a few bugs post-migration. Brainvire had a support system in place and delivered a satisfactory product.

What distinguishes Brainvire from other providers?

Because our software was built on ASP.NET and required a lot of custom coding, Brainvire was required to provide a lot of expertise for our data migration. This was the main reason for expanding our milestone on two occasions. Despite this, their results worked out well for us.

Is there anything Brainvire could have improved or done differently?

Communication, in terms of keeping in touch regularly and being crystal clear, would be an improvement point, as well as estimating project delivery timelines better. We originally estimated that our migration would be completed before March 2016 since the new financial year starts on April 1 in India. Because the project went longer, we couldn't meet that timeline and ultimately delivered in May. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Provogue is an Indian fashion group. We're not as big as we used to be but are still listed.

What is your position?

I was the CEO of the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We needed help across various customer-facing IT needs, and we wanted to gain a better understanding of our retail stores’ performance. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Brainvire helped us build web portals and also implemented a number of sensible metrics into our supply chain, showing us how to manage our company and costs better. Brainvire developed systems that fit into our existing SAP backbone.

Brainvire also helped us understand customer buying patterns, allowing us to have better control of our supply chain and to predict which styles were selling fastest.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

I am friends with Brainvire's owner and have helped him quid-pro-quo when he was looking to expand his business, his business model, and development in general.

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

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

I first met Brainvire’s team six years ago, and we have been working together on-and-off since then. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don't have any numbers at hand.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

Brainvire is strong on project management. Their owner is very hands-on, but they also have a solid team. We worked with them through our head office in Mumbai, and Brainvire was able to pull resources from their operations in the UAE and the US. Even though they have global resources, it felt as if Brainvire was working from our office. I was very pleased with that.

We have a very small IT group consisting of six or eight people. We outsource development to other firms, Brainvire being one of them. We have a supply chain of three people, and the senior person there interfaced with Brainvire's project manager.

What distinguishes Brainvire from other providers?

I’ve known Brainvire's owners for a long time and always admired them. They had a different avatar initially, which was migrated into Brainvire in a quick and efficient manner. The company is well-connected globally, and they work very hard. I can highly recommend Brainvire’s team as human beings.

Is there anything Brainvire could have improved or done differently?

I imagine that Brainvire has 300 or 400 employees worldwide, at the moment. Brainvire's operations are at a relatively small scale, which is accurate for the company in the scheme of things. They are able to network globally well, so even though it's a modest scale compared to Accenture, for example, Brainvire does have a global perspective through an efficient, smaller team. I felt that we were getting the latest tech at our fingertips, wherever it was being developed. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are focused on the giving economy, providing ways in which people can be brought together around an e-commerce platform.

What is your position?

I am in charge of the frontend interface design, as well as company marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We were looking for help putting together the e-commerce side of our business, as well as help around custom programming for some of the pillars we're creating within the app and website.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Brainvire is building our app and website, which will allow our company to work with different organizations, including e-commerce platforms and different online business directories.

The platform has evolved into a lot more than a Magento-based e-commerce site, which was the starting point. We have combined with another company, which is building cashback and other programs. There is a lot of integration between our e-commerce site and the other company's platform. Brainvire is helping us on that front as well.

Our partner company is combining its PHP-based solutions with other systems like Magento, in order to create one backend interface. With it, we will be able to signup organizations looking to sell products on our site, and there will also be a directory portion through which they will post information and send out mobile notifications.

All of these components, including our mobile app, will be integrated into a Yelp-style site featuring reviews for products and businesses. The review portion is being developed by Brainvire, as is the app. I believe that it's using AngularJS on the frontend.

The cashback element involves building out something beyond a standard Magento plug-in. Brainvire will be developing a custom piece using PHP, Magento, and Symfony.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

Brainvire was recommended to us by a friend of the owner. He had done some work with Brainvire before, and they'd also worked with a few other decent companies in Salt Lake City. Upon that recommendation, we chose Brainvire.

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

The cost of Brainvire's work has been between $75,000 and $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Brainvire in March 2015. The development is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There's been a hold up on our end in launching the product. We were planning to do it in November 2016, but we've added a number of new components since then. We haven't fully launched anything yet.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

Brainvire has been good to work with. We've had a good experience in showing them what we want and having Brainvire execute on those directives, whenever they were given clearly and specifically. We use Teamwork for project management.

What distinguishes Brainvire from other providers?

Brainvire has been good at pushing the project forward and keeping it moving. They're proactive in the communication.

Is there anything Brainvire could have improved or done differently?

Brainvire could improve in terms of communicating back their full understanding of the system, making sure that, when a directive is given, it is fully understood before going forward. There may have been a communication difference between us and them at times, in terms of the actual understanding of what we wanted to do. Requests were usually spoken rather than written down, so things were perhaps not as clear to Brainvire as they could have been.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I run a digital interactive agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

There are big projects that I can’t do in-house, and I needed to find a partner to handle those.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed iPhone applications and advanced websites. I started working with them on a smaller scale and then ramped up the work after seeing the quality they delivered. They’re experts at iPhone and Android programming. They’re very good with Magento and WordPress. There’s nothing they can’t do.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

When I first found them, they gave me a confident feeling. It’s difficult to find a company that is accountable when outsourcing.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

We spend about $250,000 annually.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with them for over 10 years now, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They get done what I need to be done. If I ever have a problem, it’s resolved.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

I have a project manager who oversees the work. Brainvire also provides support from the team lead, supervisor, and even the owner. People get things done because there are layers of accountability, and I really like that.

We use different tools on which I assign them a project with a priority, and they respond back. There are issues now and then with the time zone difference, but we work those out. I primarily like to do sprints, but sometimes I do have milestones to give them based on my clients’ needs. They’ve been great at hitting those milestones.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

They’re especially strong in iPhone apps. We’ve transitioned a number of e-commerce websites into custom iPhone apps.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

I wish they were in my time zone, but I couldn’t be happier with the quality of their work. They’re the only offshore team I use on a regular basis.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of Tent and Table. We manufacture and sell commercial-grade and residential products for party and event rentals. Our sales are primarily B2B but we also have business to consumer sales. We have a dedicated sales team and several online selling channels. These include 2 BigCommerce sites, 2 Magento sites, 3 eBay sites, 1 Amazon site, 2 Walmart sites, and 1 Rakuten site. We are located in Buffalo, New York.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainvire?

We needed development support for our 2 Magento sites, tentandtable.net and zoomblowers.com. Our main Magento store and main selling channel online is tentandtable.net. Our dedicated sales team works out of the administrative backend of the site to do quotes and turn those into orders. Because we’re using an open source system, we had incredible difficulty getting things installed and tested correctly. Prior to Brainvire, the site would go down continuously. We were on a Nexus shared server at the time and we were having server issues. There were a lot of functions that we wanted Magento to do but we couldn’t find the right people to install it, test it and get it working. It required a lot of customization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After we hired Brainvire, they took on the problems one by one because there were so many issues. At first, we were sending them projects as needed. Eventually, we decided to have a resource agreement where we were locked into 40 hours a week. They provided 2 resource teams for our needs. As a result, Brainvire could get work done overnight. They took things from development to production. They tested everything on the development server and used GitHub to record everything properly.

Brainvire cleaned up our site and customized it so that the extensions we needed worked properly. A lot of our work requires a tremendous amount of customization. Even though we can find extensions that work for us in Magento out of the box, they don’t work the way we need them to. They will install it and do the extra customization work necessary at a really excellent rate. If we discover that it’s not really what we need, they make changes to them.

Brainvire also helped us with some complex security issues that came up in Magento in the last 1 ½ years. They took care of installing all the patches and doing all the testing. They moved us from the Nexus shared server to a dedicated server with eBoundhost, which they have a connection with. We were able to negotiate a nice rate for that. They’ve helped us with our BigCommerce, eBay and Amazon sites as well. Brainvire handled digital marketing, email marketing, and Google AdWords. They customized a shopping cart with one-step checkout for us, which has made a huge difference for our customers.

How did you come to work with Brainvire?

We found Brainvire at the Imagine conference around 2 years ago. We ran into them at their booth. At that time, we were using a company called Blue Stingray who is in the United States, but we were unhappy with that relationship. It was expensive and we had other issues with them. I met Chintan [Shah, CEO] and Bhavesh at the conference. I primarily dealt with Chintan. I asked him to send me a proposal and he came to Buffalo and met with us. We started giving them small tasks and then we increased the work. After 3 months, they were our exclusive development support for Magento and still are today.

How much have you invested with Brainvire?

In the last year, we’ve spent close to $100,000. The investment with them is probably 1/5 of what I would have had to invest in another development company for the same work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the last year, our online sales have gone up well over 150%. I directly attribute that to the sites working well. Brainvire’s work allows us to customize the way we wanted to. I’ve been able to communicate with them without being charged for it. We are able to discuss strategy and planning with them.

How did Brainvire perform from a project management standpoint?

We had good communication through JIRA. They do things ad hoc or through a resource team. With the resource team, our contact never changes and the project can get done faster because they’re dedicated to our project. Even though they’re from India, they communicate well. We talk on the phone or Skype. We have quarterly face to face meetings with Chintan and/or Bhavesh. Even when I call during their nighttime hours, they’ve been responsive.

What did you find most impressive about Brainvire?

Brainvire does a good job with digital marketing and responded to extreme issues. If something comes up that’s extremely important and is affecting our ability make money, they respond and fix it very quickly. They communicate with the server company and other third-party vendors to make sure the fix is in place properly. Brainvire will problem-solve with you. They’re not afraid to tell you that the way you want to do something is not correct and they’ll give you a different solution.

Are there any areas Brainvire could improve?

I’ve talked to them about having a more dedicated presence in the US. They have an individual in New York that is on call during off hours. But I’ve never had an issue getting things accomplished when I need it.