C&S

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director for the Bradford Association in Argentina. It’s an association of breeders of the Bradford cow breed. We’re dedicated to maintaining a registry of animals with strong Bradford genetics, certified meat production, and all the other services that go along with the production of the Bradford breed.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with C&S?

We hired them to help us develop our record management system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As I mentioned before, we track all the details of the Bradford breed, validate pedigrees, and store animal records. With C&S, we developed our entire registry management system, which is a very complex system because it involves biology and the declarations of origin from breeders declaring their offspring.

C&S had to create an ad-hoc system to keep track of the registries of all our breeders. The system is online and has the capacity to host multiple users, allowing breeders to set up a profile and make all their declarations there. As administrators, we can oversee and manage the entire process of animal registration, including approvals, infections, births, services, and everything else related.

The system was developed under an SQL platform, and we use Microsoft Azure for our main database.

What is the team composition?

Normally, we work with five people, though they add one or two more resources when developing something specific. There’s always at least one manager leading the team. 

How did you come to work with C&S?

I didn’t participate in the selection process, but I know that we scouted development companies, and there were four or five that we shortlisted. We evaluated their references, costs, and service offering—the whole package. C&S had the best deal regarding services and price, so we chose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re continually investing in their services since we’re constantly improving the platform. Just this year, between maintenance and improvements, we’ve spent about $50,000. Over our 10-year collaboration, I’d estimate we’ve spent around $240,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The collaboration began in 2010. Right now, they’re providing maintenance and are continuously improving the platform by developing new processes. We keep adding new features, improvements and running tests. We’ve been working on these improvements for about a year now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Results have been perfect for us. On a global scale, we’re the only association that offers its breeders the option of managing all their records through an online system and the ability to make their declarations. No other association in Argentina has a systemized registration process as we do. This system allows us to facilitate the declaration process for our users, who can do it from the comfort of their homes whenever they want to.

We have a huge database, and it was a big change for our industry. Our target audience is farmers and field workers who weren’t used to this type of process. Now, they’re a step closer to technology, but the initial implementation was hard. Now, 10 years later, 99% of breeders make their declaration through our system, and we receive excellent feedback. There’s always room for improvement, but it’s truly our association’s biggest tool.

How did C&S perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve done several projects over the years. We have a basic maintenance plan that includes a monthly set of hours for development, testing, and project management. On top of that, we’re always adding more development projects. At the start of our collaboration, they probably didn’t calculate project estimates properly and needed additional hours to complete their work. Whenever this happened, they’d correct everything and wouldn’t charge us for their mistake. They adapt to the situation so that the development work is completed.

I have a great relationship with them. They have strong communication skills. We’ve always managed to resolve our timeline or financial issues. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re proactive in giving us ideas for improving the system. This year, we’ve worked really hard on developing automated testing for the entire system. We used to do this manually. Now, 80% of the system has automated testing, which reduces errors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We worked on improving how they report their monthly work. At one point, we were working with a very bulky system for tracking work, but we made changes and managed to establish a new communication system. This system tracks the status of all of our requests.

We actually implemented this new system in the last few months, and it’s all working smoothly. We really needed this improvement because we’ve had trouble in the past where I, as director, wouldn’t have important information on hand. I wanted to have better control, so we worked on it, and communication has improved.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager at MasterSoft, which is a software company headquartered in Buenos Aires.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with C&S?

We hired them to assist with a development project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team used blockchain technology to deliver a product for a health entity client. We needed a way to publish segmented documentation in a network that exists here in Argentina, which C&S was responsible for. 

We integrated them to our team to speed up the development time for our client. We collaborated in assembling the package that generates the instability in the blockchain.

What is the team composition?

I had contact with three people. I don’t know if there were others involved.

How did you come to work with C&S?

I knew one of their partners, who used to be a colleague of mine. We had the opportunity to interact several times because of our projects. We needed to work with a serious company that we could trust, plus we knew that they had experience with blockchain.

How much have you invested with them?

It was around the ballpark of $5,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project kicked-off sometime during the middle of last year, around June 2019. The project was completed around December 2019 and now we’re in the maintenance and post-production stage. We’re still in contact.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Results were as we expected. C&S kept our timelines and delivered quality. They also provided great support once the project was delivered. 

We started this project before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a very opportune moment for a digital transformation because it allowed us to speed things up for our client and give them a solution that’s much easier to access.

How did C&S perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything went perfectly. Our client did stretch things out a bit, but that wasn’t on us. They kept providing support regardless and they deserve the best scores for their work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very flexible with their value proposition for us.