CentLing Technologies

BACKGROUND

I work for a JV [joint venture] started by a large Canadian and a large Chinese company. I am the CEO of the joint venture, which is headquartered in Ontario, Canada.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

During our project, we needed extra resources to develop the core, innovative product, we need a vendor who has the capability to work with a Canadian company and deal with the cultural and linguistic differences. 

Our goal is to deliver the product on time with quality and want to function as one team to reach our goal.

SOLUTION

CentLing has worked with us for product development and testing. The development uses the Android Framework/app program and testing for the whole SMART devices.

Our product involves SMART television technology, this is complicated work. We have worked with CentLing for nearly two years. It is a large engagement. We usually have about four developers and 20 product testers from the CentLing team working full time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

We are very satisfied with the engagement. We wouldn't continue working with CentLing if we weren't happy. The length and size of the engagement are a testament to the strength of the relationship. 

I recommend CentLing strongly to others. It's difficult to find quality developers from China that can also communicate well in English, CentLing offers the full package.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are [a large global information technology services provider].

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the project manager, but am not responsible for the technical work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with CentLing Technologies?

My mission is to improve and manage the information system for this research and development center. I need to employ a developer from a partner company. We have some projects involving company-wide information systems. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

[It was] software development. We have one product we're trying to develop. We have our own platform. It's developed by another company but, after the project, we asked CentLing to handle support and enhancements.

What was your process for selecting CentLing with which to work?

I heard about them from another team in our corporation. They've used them for a long time. They introduced them to me. So, we used them for this project. We wanted a developer that could work well and do some function fulfillment.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It's not a very big project. If it were a bigger project, we would ask them to have more engineers working on it. We have two to three people here full time. Last month, we had four more people for function demos. If we need some new things or important function improvements, we ask them to increase the resources.

When was the work completed?

[It took about] four months. We want to work with them long term.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

For this project, it was good. I'm not the technical manager. I'm in charge of the project. My development manager told me that all the coding is fine. For me, it's no problem. I don't know details about the specific coder performance.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

Yes. The performance is good. In Qingdao, it's hard to find a very good IT company like CentLing. Maybe in bigger cities like Beijing, there are huge IT companies. We love that they are based in Qingdao because they are near us.

Is there anything unique or special about CentLing Technologies that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

They offer great training for all their employees. I know every year they hire fresh graduates from the local college that come there for training before they put them into a real project. I think that's a great way to develop talent. The other IT companies here don't do a very good job at that.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I think if they could offer more experience resources, I would be happier.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work in the Chinese office of a global telecommunications firm based in Europe.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I am the director of the R&D [research and development] center here in China.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal in working with CentLing Technologies?

We frequently get unexpected requests from our customers, so we needed an agile and flexible partner to respond to those requests. Since we are a global company, our network is very complex and requires a very high level of predictability. Because of this, we are very careful about selecting our business partners. First, of course, we need a good resource from the engineering perspective. Second, we need to be able to work with a flexible team to help us from time to time with those unexpected demands.

We started working with CentLing because we believed that they had the necessary flexibility and expertise to help us. Normally, contracting with outsourcing companies is very difficult and risky. That's particularly true for most firms here in China, but CentLing seemed to be an exception to that rule.

As I mentioned, we get unexpected customer requests periodically. This requires us to have flexible outsourced partners to pick up the slack. For those reasons, we started working with CentLing and have been working with them since 2010. They provide top-notch resources that perform on time and on budget.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They help us with both development and testing. They also provide a small amount of customer support. Our strategy with CentLing is to let their team own the project from start to finish. We allow them to develop a new product, and then manage customer support once the project is completed. 

If we didn't take this approach, these unexpected projects would require high overhead expenses on our side. CentLing does a huge amount of system and performance testing to serve our customers better and make sure what we create is functional.

What was your process in selecting CentLing Technologies with which to work?

Selecting an outsource partner is difficult here in China, so we actually rely on CentLing to make those selections for us. Normally, the first thing is we give them specific criteria for each project. After they receive our specifications, CentLing identifies candidates for us, and we then interview those potential CentLing resources.

This arrangement also gives us a certain amount of flexibility in that we are part of the decision to select people. So, we give them the qualification list, and then we find candidates based on those criteria.

Can you give a sense of the size of their work in dollar terms?

From the R&D partnership with them, we've spent more than $50,000 working with CentLing. But, that figure does not include the work they do with other divisions in our company.

What is your current relationship with CentLing Technologies?

Our relationship is ongoing. After all these years, we're very familiar with their work, and we get more benefit from working with them each year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics, metrics, or general feedback to show the success of their work?

Our work with them has been very successful, otherwise we would not have partnered with them for such a long time. On each project, we review their work together and give them any suggestions for needed improvement. They do a good job. We use a similar system of evaluation for them as we do for all our employees. 

I do not want subcontractors to be a bad model for our own people. I think so far their cooperation is good and our feedback has been well received. I think CentLing is open based on my observation. So, that's why we have had this partnership for so long.

Is there anything unique or special about CentLing Technologies that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

I think what makes them stand out is that their technical R&D communication is direct and open. I think CentLing is good with this kind of technical discussion. I think culturally they are really open and straightforward. I think they're a really good fit for our R&D technical focus.

If the culture is right from the beginning then it's easy to be a partner. If the culture is not right, then we need to take a long time to understand each other. Normally, it takes longer to be effective and efficient. It's very easy to work with CentLing.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I challenge CentLing because I do want them to keep a certain independence from us. They need to have their own technical concerns and grow their own technical expertise. So, from that perspective, they could start to be more aggressive in developing their own areas of competence.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I'm working for a consumer goods company.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I'm a project manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with CentLing Technologies?

My mission is to improve and maintain the information system for [our company]. I need to employ a developer team from a vendor since we lack in-house staff who can handle this work.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

It was software development and some Web development. We have one system we're trying to develop. We have them working on an important software platform. It's developed by another company but, after the project with the previous vendor, we asked CentLing to handle it.

What was your process for selecting CentLing Technologies with which to work?

I heard about them from another team in [our company]. They've used them for a long time. They introduced them to me and we talked. We wanted a developer that could work well and do some function fulfillment. So, we signed a contract with CentLing.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It's not a very big project. If it was a bigger project, we would ask them to have more engineers working on it. We have two to three people here full time. Last month, we had four more people for function demos. If we need some new things or important function improvements, we ask them to increase the resources on site.

When was the work completed?

The work is ongoing with no plans to stop. We began four months ago. We want to work with them long term.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

For this project, it was good. I'm not the technical manager. I'm in charge of the project execution. My development manager told me that all the code is fine. For me, it's no problem. I don't know details about the specific technical performance.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

Yes, it's good. In Qingdao, China, it's hard to find a very good IT [information technology] company like this. In bigger cities, there are huge IT companies. In Qingdao, these are probably the best developers.

Is there anything unique or special about CentLing Technologies that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

They offer great training for all their employees. I know every year they hire new people from college that come there for training before they put them into a real project. I think that's a good way to qualify employees and make sure clients receive top quality work. The other IT companies here don't perform and groom talent at the same level. 

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I think if they could offer a more experienced engineer to me, I would be happier.