Gravelsoft

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Glusko works with organizations to ensure their IT services and applications are always on. As the player in Software-Defined IT Operations, Glusko develops software that builds comprehensive real-time models of hybrid IT environments, providing unparalleled holistic health and performance insights. I'm leading the tech plan and playing the Head of Technology role.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Gravelsoft, and what were your goals?

Our back-end integration module to AWS and GCP required an extension for the Banking segment. We were looking for a company that could help us with the Google AI framework and building a hybrid cloud module.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Before, we used to work with a couple of companies from India, but a friend of mine, Adrian, recommended we talk to Gravelsoft as there were working for a few years on a similar tech stack.

Decision criteria were focused on two main things: European location as with Asia too long-time distance and representation skills and knowledge of how to develop hybrid modules using GCP and AWS services simultaneously. After a couple of meetings with folks from Gravelsoft, we decided to start scope definition and onboarding their engineers.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

As I mentioned earlier, our company started approaching the Banking segment of potential clients, and there was a clear need to extend our monitoring module for banking-type-of-environments. We defined the exact scope of development together with Anna (BA from Gravel), and after three weeks, the scope was split into three milestones and put to Trello.

Overall from their side, they were allocated 3-5 engineers depending on the project phase, and I was leading their work every week. The leading tech we use is Python, including AWS S2 and GCP AI. There was bash scripting for autoscaling scripts. Guys developed a full extension of our platform from Gravelsoft.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

In the initial phase, I worked with BA and Architect (3-4 weeks). After there was dedicated PM Piotr, who led the development, and on average five people, including Python Devs, DS engineer, and Cloud DevOps. The majority of engineers were senior level, and it was a pleasure to work without any annoying guidance to junior staff.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was delivered as expected; the main challenge was that the exact tech scope and solution were not defined initially due to our approach innovating at every stage. Deliverables were reasonable except for the autoscaling part, which was implemented through a workaround using bash scripts vs. originally planned AWS autoscaling service. The whole solution worked as expected.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Piotr, our PM, is an amiable and intelligent guy. The benefit is that he is based in the European Union (Netherlands). It was an unusual experience having outsourced PM in my location, but it helped us a lot as he became the leader person at Glusko company. We used Trello as our corporate tracking system, including Slack channels for communication. The project uses an agile development process with 2-weeks sprints.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Our PM is based in our location and has met us f2f so often, and he became part of the leadership of our company. As a result, vendor engineers became kind-of full-time employees of our company. I never saw such an option with our previous vendors.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

During the development process, there were some ups and downs, but I cannot remember some significant failures. Due to covid, they sent all their people to work from home due to their corporate policy when we believe that keep team co-located stimulate more innovation culture.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software company which provides intelligent commerce platform for B2B companies. We were founded in Poland and Finland, and our main focus is on those locations as EU at the current stage. I play a CTO role with a key focus on ML and Data Expertise.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Gravelsoft, and what were your goals?

I had initially engaged with Gravelsoft back in Oct-Nov 2020. We were looking for a nearshore company that can help us to build MVP for our core calculation engine, which is able to process the sale-historical data and provide the demand forecasting based on few scenarios. This MVP was intended to engage new enterprise customers this year.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We had investment for the MVP development and were looking for someone nearshore to outsource it. We have considered two other companies in Poland and Gravelsoft who was referenced by a friend of mine. After several conversations and interviews for the data science role, we have decided to go with Gravelsoft due to their in-house expertise which was available at that moment as well as pricing was way more attractive.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

By that time, my partners and I have distilled the product requirements via a series of workshops with customers. The whole MVP was estimated in a range of 5-6 months which aligned with my expectations. In due course of the development, Gravelsoft has delivered three major releases every two months. First, they produced an ETL layer to onboard customer’s data and transformed it in a way that algorithms can use it.

Then we released an AI/ML part that actually is able to process the historical and sales-related data and build the demand forecasting. Eventually, we released the API that wraps up while logic and is ready to use by end customers.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I mostly worked with Yurii, data science and big data dev, and Oleg, who was leading the project on a daily basis. However, there was also a QA and java dev on the back stage, and we interact once a week with them. After the main project ended, I continued my cooperation with Gravelsoft to get maintenance support when needed. Currently one senior dev is dedicated to the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

At the end of the day we delivered together full MVP to production, which consists of: ETL layer, ML Engine and API Integration layer. I was positively surprised that there were no integration issues to both first clients, which proved Multipepers reputation to our clients. Overall project was delivered as expected.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

There was a bit of a challenge with timelines. I was hoping that I could show the real MVP to an investor by March, but the release was ready in Apr. This was not a critical delay, and it aligned with initial estimates, but overall, project management was stick to the initial plan vs. flexible client need. In terms of tools, we were using their Jira, Zoom, Teams, and it was a surprise for me that we could sit on vendors' communication tools.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

As I mentioned before, we were impressed that they have had in-house ML and ETL building expertise as well as guys who were not afraid to commit to delivering solutions. They had outstanding skills and were class A engineers for such tech complex projects.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I would like to have full-cycle service: Product Development and further Maintenance and Support. Initial two Development and Maintenance they covered, but for client support, we will need to find another vendor. If Gravelsoft can cover support services, it would be great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an insurance company that’s currently prospecting clients. Our platform is similar to traditional corporate insurance companies, but we’re more of an extension insurance brokerage. The employees of the companies that use insurance products can benefit from us by getting extra bonuses and benefits. I currently lead the engineering process in the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gravelsoft?

Gravelsoft developed the core module of our backend integration aggregator for a US brokerage system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we provided a high-level scope of what we should integrate with the system, keeping in mind the differences between the German and the US insurance systems. Around 99% of the base development was done for the backend. We didn’t require any interface development; the system simply would gather data and put them in one database. 

The first stage of the project took around three weeks. During this process, Gravelsoft also investigated third-party brokerage systems and APIs to learn how they collected data. From there, they built a proof of concept (POC). After proving that the platform would be valuable for our company, they started to truly design and integrate it with our US brokerage system. 

What is the team composition?

We interacted with 5–6 people on a regular basis. My main point of contact was the senior manager for business development, and there were five people behind him. 

The team composition depended on the scope of our work; some of them worked in the team full-time, while others were partially rolled into other projects. In other words, the composition was more needs-based. We also didn’t have architects to properly manage the outsourcing of teammates.

How did you come to work with Gravelsoft?

My managing partner was friends with one person from Gravelsoft, and that was how we engaged with them. We chose them among the other companies we vetted because their POC was the best, and their team worked quickly. Our team also wanted to work with eastern European companies because it would be easier for us to comply with EU regulations. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from August 2020–June 2021. We planned to launch in May 2021, but we couldn’t match the schedule of our prospect client. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

No defects were seen during the production, and this was our number success measure. We wouldn’t get the chance to work with our prospects again; we could only get them once, so it was critical that no defects were seen on our platform. Overall, Gravelsoft’s work was great. 

We faced some scheduling challenges, but they handled them properly. Moreover, the scheduling problems weren’t an issue on our side or their team; they were issues on our ERP systems. On top of that, I was satisfied with the team’s dedication. They pushed hard to complete according to schedule and meet requirements on time.

When I get back to Europe, I hope to meet them face to face because of their work quality and expertise. 

How did Gravelsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked using a mix of scrum and Kanban methodologies; I was a big fan of working in an agile manner. Our teams started collaborating using the scrum methodology, but after a couple of months, we switched to Kanban. We were reliant on third-party systems, and if those providers couldn’t give us what we needed, we needed to rebalance sheets. As a result, the Kanban method was more efficient for us.

Meanwhile, one person from their team acted as the project manager and handled our communications. We had morning touchpoint meetings 2–3 times a week. Given that, there weren’t any communication issues; they were even available even during the weekend.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gravelsoft was committed and hardworking. They were so passionate about their job that they even worked during the weekends; they truly wanted to deliver on their commitments. If we had a process to finish, they did their best to finish it. On top of that, they had expertise that wasn’t so easy to find outside of big companies.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be more flexible in terms of working with bigger companies and changing deadlines. When we engaged, we had hard deadline changes that our prospects wanted to meet. When we told Gravelsoft about these changes, they said they had some issues about it. It would have been nice if they could be more flexible about these contractual timelines.

I knew that being on time with them was highly important, but in projects like ours, changes and challenges happened. That being said, they may have had their engineers committed to other projects that they wanted to complete on time, so they couldn’t accommodate these changes easily. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work with Gravelsoft as an integrated team. For example, if you have a team of five engineers, take another five engineers from their side. In such a setup, they’ll get a feel of your culture, clients, and problems. They’ll also be kept in the loop for every level of communication. This setup is more beneficial for your long-term goals.