Cressoft Consultancy Limited

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of a software company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

We needed a company that could provide us with engineers, scrum masters, and architects to support our development capabilities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cressoft Consultancy Limited has provided us with around 30 React Native, DevOps, and Ruby on Rails engineers as well as scrum masters and architects. They support us on 15 different projects, including iOS, Android, wearable devices, and web app development. They have also been involved in various UI/UX design projects, where they use Sketch and Figma.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked directly with two of Cressoft Consultancy Limited’s directors.

How did you come to work with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

I had previously worked with one of Cressoft Consultancy Limited’s directors on another project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $250,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We currently work with around 400 different vendors, and Cressoft Consultancy Limited is one of the top three partners we’re working with. They are great at understanding our building blocks, and we can always reach out to them to discuss our projects. They are also constantly suggesting improvements for our products. Overall, the impact of their work has been very positive.

How did Cressoft Consultancy Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

Cressoft Consultancy Limited has performed well in terms of project management. They’re incredibly flexible, transparent, and committed. They deliver on time and communicate clearly and regularly.

We typically communicate through Slack and WhatsApp.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with Cressoft Consultancy Limited’s willingness to go above and beyond to deliver on their promises and attend to all of our needs. They immediately address all of our requests and are always eager to step up to any challenge.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they deliver solid work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure clearly communicate your requirements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former lead engineer for an insurance underwriting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

We were a startup and needed an in-house insurance underwriting system developed as soon as possible. We had a lot of time pressures.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our in-house insurance underwriting system using AWS infrastructure with a serverless approach. They did event sourcing, color, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript, React, and PODS data processing. They continue to manage the software as well.

What is the team composition?

There was a frontend developer and two full-stack developers.

How did you come to work with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

When I joined the company, they told me they wanted to delegate some of the work to remote teams. They were especially looking for a cheaper solution compared to the UK market. I know the director of Cressoft Consultancy Limited, and he told me he could provide some developers.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around £300,000 pounds (approximately $399,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They met deadlines and delivered quality coding and testing. They are quick to respond to any issues, too. The person who deployed the latest codebase looks at the problem and tries to find out the problem.

How did Cressoft Consultancy Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

I gave them tasks directly. We don’t have any communication issues; they work in the UK time zone because there’s only a two-hour difference between their time zone and ours. We also have a daily standup where they communicate everything. There are other regular meetings as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They always try to use the latest technologies compared to other companies that use old technologies. They use the newest libraries, a serverless approach, etc. They were good at that, and they took good care of the project. The quality of work is high.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re nice and approachable. I found it easy to work with them. It’s important to have good communication and engage with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director at a software company operating as an e-commerce company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

We hired them to implement the baskets and checkout area of our e-commerce application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cressoft Consultancy developed our basket, checkout, and order management platforms from scratch using newer technologies. They worked with React, Node.js, HTML 5, WebdriverIO, and Redux. In the backend, they used Java using reactive tools, like Kafka Streams. They also used Amazon DynamoDB for the database and deployed all their services on AWS. The team did continuous integration using Jenkins. 

They upgraded the tools for payment and implemented new features like VAT receipts for customers who place orders for their businesses. They worked on the checkout and order management part of the platform, including order placement, landing, and canceling. Additionally, they provided testing and brought new practices like performance and penetration testing using their production environment. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with around 8–10 consultants and an engineering manager. 

How did you come to work with Cressoft Consultancy Limited?

One of our previous colleagues in a key position referred them to us. We were looking for a supplier who had a good reference. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $200,000–$300,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2021–February 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After Cressoft Consultancy deployed their changes, our sales increased by around 2%, which equated to more than £3 million (approximately $3.5 million USD). We did A/B testing, measuring their success by looking at the original site and the variant, and the variant was much more successful. 

Before they upgraded the platform, the basket page opened in around 2 seconds, and once they deployed their changes, it opened in about 500 milliseconds — four times faster. This was also applicable to the checkout page. When it came to placing orders, our previous version had some payment issues, such as integration with PayPal. After the upgrades, we got a better success rate for customer orders, with the number of errors reduced by nearly 90%. 

Moreover, they released the new basket platform on time. Our platform takes high traffic, and therefore we wanted the team to be good at utilizing the infrastructure and running the app in a fast and scalable manner. Cressoft Consultancy was able to do that successfully. Currently, the product is up and running and working fine. 

How did Cressoft Consultancy Limited perform from a project management standpoint?

They work as a team quite well and look after each other. The team uses the Agile methodology in the best manner; the basket team applied the Scrum framework, while the checkout team applied the Kanban framework. We brought our own project manager, so we took care of that aspect of the project. 

Cressoft Consultancy was communicative and responsive. They worked fast and delivered something weekly for us, so we weren’t waiting for months to see results. Moreover, they always showcased what they implemented, so if there was anything wrong, we gave them feedback, and they fixed it immediately. The original contract was for 12 months, and they finished everything on time. We added a 13th month for testing. Overall, they met all the schedules and delivered for us regularly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would recommend Cressoft Consultancy because they delivered on time and with a limited budget through offshoring, which is quite popular nowadays. They did things like penetration testing and monitoring using the latest practices in the market, which is hard to find as a talent. We’d like to work with them again as soon as we have other projects. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They had really good engineers, but they lacked management skills. Therefore, I would advise them to focus on managing their projects and not just providing engineers. Additionally, it would be nice to work with onshore as well as offshore teammates. We always had remote connections and team meetings. Even though we didn’t have communication or timezone issues, it would have been nice to have onshore consultants.