CMARIX

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the director of Sairam Tech Solutions, a company that provides project management consultancy services to its clients. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CMARIX?

We required end-to-end development for a customized website. 

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to develop a website that is accessible to the visually impaired and wanted to implement features that allow us to accept donations, provide event details, organize event invites, and generate membership reports and details.

SOLUTION

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The website was built on WordPress and includes back-end management. This allows users to easily update its content. It also includes a few very important plugins in order to provide different functionalities that the nonprofit required. The website is currently in the final testing phase.

What was the team composition?

We work with a project manager, a web designer, a developer, and user training/QA experts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They are testing the final stages of the app and all its features are currently functioning as required. Their work was top quality. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They initially scheduled two meetings each week to communicate clearly on deadlines and expectation. They still conduct weekly calls and their project management is excellent. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

CMARIX fully understood the requirement of the project. It was easy to coordinate with them despite their team being in a different time zone.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

I don't see any areas they can improve so far.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’ve worked as the senior technician at ABC+ for over 10 years now. I also handle technical research and project management for our customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CMARIX?

We had a very old financial management platform which we developed for a customer eight years ago. It was expensive to scale that system due to the technologies involved. We needed to redo our frontend interface using Angular, optimize our database performance, and add new features.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We came across CMARIX on Google. They had written a lot about Angular on their blog, which showed that they were experts in that area. We shortlisted three other vendors but ended up choosing CMARIX.

They gave us the best practices and coding standards that they follow, along with client references which we could speak directly to. Interestingly, they had a few clients who were exactly in the same scenario as us, which gave us more confidence in them.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

We developed a 12-week frontend revamp plan with them. Their designers created PhotoShop documents, which based on our approval got sliced into responsive HTML followed by Angular implementation. Step by step, we got our product revamped with a new Angular-based interface.

What was the team composition?

We prefer working with an agile method, so were hired three of their senior Angular developers. They provided a project lead as well as a QA specialist to help us expedite the process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We have a much better looking and faster platform now which is scalable.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We used Jira and Slack to manage and control things.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are essentially technical people and their communication is fantastic. Even their sales representatives knew a lot about technology, which I didn't find in other companies. Also, their pricing was attractive and the quality was definitely great.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

I wish they had a local presence in Switzerland. Many people here still prefer to talk with their developers in person. They did tell me that they are in process of setting up an office in Germany, so this shouldn't be much of a problem in the future.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of development of CunningPiranah. I’m in charge of hiring offshore teams for our client projects, creating quotes, splitting the work into pieces, and testing it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

We were working on a desktop and iPad application for the customer recovery system of an electricity company. We created the server landscape in-house with some artificial intelligence components.

Client emails reach a communication server that’s connected to six other servers that are running several apps. The communication server can analyze the email and provide an answer to the question without involving service people.

We also needed a dashboard for making human decisions based on how many people cancel, how long the average contract is, and so on.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our server communicates with the software which CMARIX developed in order to provide information on client activity. It has a customer map divided into thousands of possible areas all over Germany that are marked in various colors. It also provides an option for customer recovery based on a 1–10 rating system. The system decides whether the company should call and attempt to win back the customer or send a salesperson in.

Agents can log in on the field and see a list of customers to recover, as well as all the relevant information along with an optimized route. The iPad app also has different contract types. Agents can choose custom options in terms of monthly plan and bonuses. When a customer accepts a contract, they can sign it on the iPad directly and have the information sent back to customer service. This also cancels the contract with any competing electricity companies. The contract data is automatically updated on all company servers.

The app can work offline temporarily and then update when it connects to a network. This was necessary given that electric meters are often in cellars and other isolated places.

The entire process is viewable via the web app: the customer value, average contract length, cost per acquisition, and whether the customer is connected to the company’s infrastructure or not. We can sort all the data by year, branch, and customer type (e.g., private individuals or businesses).

They used JSON and PHP to build the apps. We have high security standards from our customer, which meant that we couldn’t leave any APIs open.

What is the team composition?

I work with one of their owners who is also a personal friend. He’s in charge of taking requirements, putting together  quotes, and acting as my main contact for development. We’ve created teams on our task management system.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

I’ve had a hard time finding good, offshore partners who really pay attention to detail. I’ve know CMARIX’s owner for more than 10 years. He used to work for another company and ran a 400-person team. He’s very straightforward and it reflects on the whole company. We had a good connection and I knew he was reliable, so I contacted him when I needed to develop a task quickly with no room for error.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work has been around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in the last quarter of 2017. The development and change requests from customers were finished in 12 working days. We’ve continued to work with them on other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The only relevant statistics for us are quality and speed over price. CMARIX is our main partner based on that criteria for time-sensitive projects. I know they can assign resources easily from one day to the next. They’re able to deal with customer change requests during fast-paced projects.

We made a lot of changes and came up with ideas for our side of this project. Our client was completely happy with CMARIX’s work. They have an internal IT department who were all surprised by our ability to deliver the project in such a short time frame.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

We use an in-house task management system and Skype for communication. We also use Basecamp on occasion. They contact us directly when they have a question and send me emails when required.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with companies in Pakistan, Gaza, the Philippines, Singapore, and Brazil, but CMARIX is our vendor of choice when we need attention to detail and reliability in terms of time.

This was a time-intensive project given that we needed to present an minimum viable product (MVP) version at a fair. Development on a solution like this would normally take between two and three months, but we did it in 12 working days. CMARIX is our second most expensive partner, but I’m confident that they will deliver in time for cases like this one. They stand out in terms of flexibility and reliability.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could do our scopes and job descriptions a bit quicker, but this may not be possible since their documentation is so detailed.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s hard for me to provide insight on this since I already had an established relationship with CMARIX before my project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of a book rental and mentoring company. We are an intermediary for people who want to sell, buy, or rent books, especially academic books.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

We needed help with developing a platform for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, I had an idea of how it would work, but once I started talking to them, they told me about other things that I hadn’t accounted for and needed to have. Throughout the project, I thought about more features I wanted to add, and the project price went up because of that.

They developed a platform for buying, selling, and renting books. They also helped us develop a mentoring platform with mentors on one side and students that want to start a business on the other side. Students are able to upload their business plan and then work with the mentors to find investors for their businesses. The platform works on the web as well as on mobile devices. It is also an e-commerce platform and people can pay directly on the website or on the phone. They also developed features for different modalities.

What is the team composition?

We were in contact mainly with Atman (Executive Director, CMARIX). We were in touch weekly or every three days depending on the stage of the product.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

A friend had worked with them. I met Atman, and after that, I sent over projects to test how they would do. They earned my trust with the test. Everything was really clear, open, and straightforward. We began on a small piece of the project and then continued on until both platforms were finished.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from April–December 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very happy that the platform works perfectly. We are still working with them to make it look better. There is always something we can rearrange and fix, but it has been a very good experience.

Business has been going well and users are happy with it. We received a lot of feedback, which we used to make improvements.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed pretty well. They met their deadlines. Even though they are based in India and there is a time difference, they always asked for the best time to speak with us which made it easier. It has always been pretty good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know their business well, and they know what they are doing.

Price and payments were always very clear. It is a very honest relationship relative to pricing. When the cost was a little high or if I found someone that could do the work for less, it was simple to speak to them about it. They either tweaked the price or recommended we go with the other developer to get the work done if they felt it was a good price, and they offered to help the other developer.

Now that the project is complete, they still offer ongoing work. That is great. I appreciate their honesty and straightforward agenda where nothing is hidden. It didn’t feel like we were working with an external team; it felt like they were part of our company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes I find it a little difficult to understand them due to their accent, but other than that, it has been pretty good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear idea of the project. If you don’t have ideas that are down to earth, it will make it difficult for people to work on it. CMARIX helped us with that. You can give them your ideas or websites similar to what you would like, and they help make your idea happen.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an entrepreneur. As I prepared for my wedding, I came up with the idea to combine various tools and create an end-to-end marriage app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

The app helps with planning for the entire wedding process. I needed help building the app in iOS.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them a lot of the requirements I wanted. I came up with some design ideas and a list of issues I faced. I’m not very technical, but I knew what I wanted. They came up mockups and solutions to problems. I wanted the app to link to the guest list, a list of venues and wedding vendors, and a dashboard view to build all the costs per person. They met all my needs and made everything work within the app.

The guest list portion was important. I wanted to add guests via email or phone number and allow them to fill in their address and RSVP. I wanted an export function that allowed users to export the guest list to Excel or PDF.

What is the team composition?

Piyush (PHP Lead, CMARIX) worked with us on the technical side, and our project manager was great.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

A friend of mine worked with them in a similar space and recommended them. I had conversations with other companies, but I wasn’t confident with them. CMARIX gave good ideas that made me want to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The overall cost was around $43,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from September 2017 to about February 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There have been a few delays on my side, so I am in still in the testing phase. As a part of the prime target audience, I think it’s great. I’m using the app for my own wedding and will go live with it soon.

I’ve shared it with a few of my colleagues, friends, and family members. They all think it’s got great potential. There’s nothing else on the market quite like it, which is part of the reason I’ve invested so much in it.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re fantastic. They were really encouraging and added value. They went beyond just delivering my product and prompted a lot of thinking on my part.

We mostly communicated by email and phone. They were really on the ball and managed most of the project on their side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re obviously focused on the development of the app, but their commercial awareness was really great. They helped my thinking from a commercial perspective and gave me business strategies and solutions I hadn’t considered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate with them. They were really forthcoming and encouraging, which was valuable. They have a lot more resources available than you think they might. Take the time to engage with them and find out how they can help you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Paymentix, a financial technology (fintech) company. We’re working on bank software for a unique insurance offering, among other things.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

Our users had issues with different templates. We were also trying to automate the software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I worked with CMARIX on projects for two large banks in India. They automated our web APIs and used technologies such as Node.js, AngularJS, MySQL, and PHP to develop our products.

What is the team composition?

There were 10 developers involved.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

We did an online search and saw that they were knowledgeable in different technologies.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $60,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from August 2017–February 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was extremely happy with the quality of their output. They’re one of the best I have seen.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated regularly. Their team had good language skills and execution.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their management is good, and they’re very transparent and responsive. They’re a good company to work with and I highly recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and managing director of a company that assists local farmers in India. We sell them seeds and then buy back the resulting crops to supply government organizations feeding area children.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

Because we work with a number of small farms, we needed software to help us manage internal logistics. The solution needed to be especially user-friendly since most of our employees don’t speak English.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CMARIX provided a top to bottom solution. They took time to understand our business, employees, and customers, and used that information to create a complicated system with an intuitive interface. It works with laptops, but also adjusts for tablets and mobile devices for easy use in the field. The system provides detailed statistic reports at the end of each day.

What is the team composition?

Sunny (Sr. Manager of Business Development, CMARIX) was our main point of contact. He was quite good and understood our organization’s needs. One of their developers frequented our office, as well.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

Because this was a large project, we wanted a local company to prevent any communication gaps. I interviewed a few area companies and ultimately decided to hire CMARIX after seeing their past work.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between January 2016–November 2017. We may hire them in the future to develop a mobile application for our farmers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The software CMARIX built allows us to stay organized while working with multiple farms. It keeps track of how many seeds we’ve sold and how many crops we’ve purchased from farmers, improving internal efficiency. My employees have installed the application and understood its functionalities within a couple of days.

The software also helps us provide better sustainability assistance to our farmers. We can now keep track of each farm’s output on a year-to-year basis and give that information to farmers so they can monitor any changes in their annual incomes. CMARIX’s solution is good for me, my employees, and my customers.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

One of the benefits of hiring a local company was that Sunny was able to visit our office frequently. He presented demos at our office every few months to highlight their progress. We also communicated over the phone and exchanged a few emails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Any company can develop software, but CMARIX really took the time to understand our company. As someone with clients of my own, I know how important this step truly is. Their cooperative team knew exactly what we wanted.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re a very professional company, so I don’t have any suggestions for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd recommend visiting their office in person if you’re local, but they're also capable of working at an international level.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the Head of Growth at a quickly growing, SaaS-based enterprise restaurant management system in South East Asia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CMARIX?

We hired them for consulting and enterprise SaaS, including web, mobile, cloud, and analytics.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals for the project were to build an end-to-end restaurant management system that encompassed supply/demand analysis, table booking, food delivery, and franchise management.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We reached out to multiple vendors across the world and shortlisted three. CMARIX astonished us with their proactivity and ability to bridge businesses through technology.

They not only helped us with development, but also gave us valuable tips for disrupting the market. 

Describe the project in detail.

We always have high-level ideas. The team at CMARIX, especially Chirag (Senior Magento Developer, CMARIX) and Atman (Director of Business, CMARIX), helped improve the scope. They differentiated wants from needs and suggested that we proceed with an MVP. That step enabled us to test, closely observe, and fully understand the market.

What was the team composition?

Atman helped us with our strategy and business support, and Chirag directed our project execution. We held Scrum calls with individual teams to address design, development, testing, and delivery.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We tested the market with an MVP, which reduced our scope and added valuable features to the product. Our MVP was tested by around 1,500 people. CMARIX also helped us collect their responses and feedback.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We used to have a Scrum call every week, which they used to set expectations and deliverables. They also gave us a glimpse into their progress from the previous week.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed by their proactivity and accessibility. We used to disturb them during holidays, odd times, and weekends, but they were fine with it. They are not just an IT company; they are a partner in our success.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a freelance IT consultant and product owner in a digital agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

I needed to develop a mobile app for a client, which required implementing a complex algorithm for automobile-related calculations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided third-party development for my client. Their team was involved at the beginning of the project when we were setting requirements and specifications. We had to develop a Canadian-based mobile system for vehicle customization where users could make selections based on current offers. Each geographic region has its own terms, conditions, and interest rates that had to be included in the app. They helped us factor in all of these variables.

We created an app that calculates vehicle pricing for a customer on a monthly, weekly or bi-weekly basis using native technologies. They provided a completely finished product for us.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a team of seven to eight people from CMARIX. They assigned a project manager to me, one lead developer,  three secondary developers, and two QA testers. The project manager was my primary contact.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

I sent out a few RFPs, and they responded to a couple of them. They delivered a good initial presentation, but I decided to work with another vendor. When I had another opportunity, I reached out to them.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between January–September 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their coding work was high quality, and the mobile application has been doing well so far. There were a few issues, but they promptly helped fix them. The work is covered by warranty. After they developed the product, they took responsibility for their work and didn’t ask for additional money for changes.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciated their team dynamic and dedication to getting the work done. I’ve never had a reason to escalate an issue. Their organization could have been better, but overall they were good. We used Skype and Slack to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their management was fully involved towards the end of the project. From my past work experiences, management doesn’t get as involved or engaged. Instead, a project manager is assigned to me, but I wouldn’t be able to access higher management for any issues. In CMARIX’s case, the heads of the company were accessible and constantly involved. They asked for my feedback in order to ensure that I was happy with whatever was going on.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should start providing end-to-end solutions. They specialize in development work, but if they covered broader digital solutions and design they would be a complete agency. In this way, I could simply provide details, and they could come up with a solution and engage in the full scope of work.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Remain proactive and involved with the development team. It’s important to go over as many project requirements as possible. They’re a reliable team that can be trusted, and they can deliver quality products.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the dealers of a leading petroleum company in India.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CMARIX?

I wanted custom products that I could sell to other dealers who are having problems managing their operation. I saw a need for it in the industry.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first project was a custom CRM [customer relationship management] system.

The second project is a custom path management system, which is a program for the petroleum industry. Petroleum or diesel orders go to a refinery, which is where all the petroleum tankers fill up and bring the product back to us. Six different people are involved in this process, and it’s hard to keep track of in real-time because everything happens over the phone. The product CMARIX is developing has a web, iPhone, and Android interface, so almost anyone can use it to check when the tank leaves, if it’s filled up, if it’s left or coming to the outlet, how much time it will take, etc. The entire process is streamlined and automated through this product, unlike anything we have in India at the moment.

CMARIX used ASP.NET, a PHP framework. We planned to use Microsoft technologies, but they have a lot of licensing fees, so we decided an open source would be better. For phase 1, they suggested we put 80% of the product into Angular and the other 20% in HTML5.

What is the team composition?

My account manager led the mobile team, and the project manager led the web team. They both had 2–3 developers.

How did you come to work with CMARIX?

I worked with a similar company 5–6 years ago. It wasn’t a good experience, so I started looking online for better options. I met three different companies in person to see their infrastructure and whether or not they provided technology solutions or just task-oriented solutions. CMARIX understood my needs, was systematic in accomplishing tasks according to specifications, and I felt confident while talking to them, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $37,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2016, and the work is ongoing. Phase 1 was completed in December 2017, and phase 2 was created before launching the CRM.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They recommended we view the product holistically in terms of which browser we should support, what the frontend base should be, etc. This helped save time and effort in the long run, as we avoided problems with browser compatibility. We definitely made the right choice in hiring them.

How did CMARIX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were fantastic. The Scrum model was much better than our previous company, which used a waterfall model that was long and expensive. Scrum was fast and allowed us to never lose track of our work and progress. The project manager was great at keeping us on schedule and determining how long sprints should be.

We kept track of everything on paper but used Basecamp and Bitbucket for the version control. We communicated mainly via email and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The toughest parts of software development are starting and ending projects. My requirements were clear from the beginning, and CMARIX ended well by conducting rigorous and thorough tests. They provided detailed testing reports and not just a summary, helping the process go much faster.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should start selling their own products. I got what I wanted with the quality, budget, and timing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be sure to communicate the business model first and then go into the technical specifications. If you don’t communicate why there’s a need, then discussing what’s required isn’t important and only confuses people.