SaM Solutions

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am one of the Founders of Sun E Mates L.L.C., fulfilling the role of Director of Operations and product design. Our company is based on home security, specifically utilizing IoT and other technologies.

For what projects/services did your company hire SaM Solutions?

My company was developing an IoT Delivery Receptacle and was having difficulty in the process. Despite all our attempts, we could not get our product to connect properly to a mobile app, or properly activate the SBC's GPIO to activate relays, and access the attached camera off-network.

After weeks of trying, we understood it was beyond our capacity and looked to find experts in the field and SaM Solutions were the experts for us.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a prototype ASAP so that we can get closer to bringing our product to market. We had a tight deadline of 2.5 months and wanted to get ahead of our projections for how our market was going to change due to recent global events.

We understood that our device needed to have a cross-platform mobile application to provide the graphical user interface for interaction with the delivery receptacle, push notifications, initiating API requests to manage the state of a relay for particular actions, speaker and microphone integration along with VoIP capability for two-way communication, and cloud-based service configuration.

This project was built to launch our prototype so that we can begin marketing our product and gain funding. We feel SaM Solutions delivered beyond our expectations and anticipate only working with them for our future technological needs.

How did you select this vendor?

They were featured on a website (99firms) listing the top 99 software development companies in 2019, and out of all the companies listed they impressed us the most. The services they offered were exactly what we needed and they had an impressive portfolio of case-studies.

When we reached out to them for a quote they were responsive, professional, friendly, and detailed which we definitely appreciated. My business partner and I had spoken to their team and were blown away at how interested they were in our project. They were very attentive to the needs of the task, providing useful feedback along the way.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We started in January and in 5 weeks had an Alpha version of our prototype. They had worked on the SBC's API first, configuring the connections from the SBC to the different modules i.e. camera, microphone, speaker, relays, etc. In the process, they also developed a mobile application to connect to the SBC.

Once completed, in the next 5 weeks they established the cloud-based service and made a connection to the mobile application. This enabled motion capture video storage and mobile notifications. Effectively establishing VoIP capability and turning our SBC into an IoT device.

During the whole process, they provided us with detailed documentation of every step that was being taken and what was completed. We had weekly meetings with specific tasks and deadlines, all of which they executed seamlessly. They also would provide critical feedback that essentially sharpened our vision for the product.

What was the team composition?

Besides my business partner and I, we had a team of 4-5 people from SaM Solutions. They provided us with a project manager who was totally on top of our project and the details concerning our deadlines.

There was an app developer who worked with the team as well as cloud configuration. Our programmer was always available to answer questions for us and was readily available. The SaM Solutions team was the most professional team we've worked with so far with impeccable work ethics.

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

The project has allowed us to achieve what would have taken 12 months, into 2.5 months. With that acceleration, we were then able to move on to our next phase.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was well organized and very effective. We utilized Jira, Slack, Confluence, Zoom, Team Viewer, and Google Drive. SaM Solutions were experts in all of these platforms. Though there was a time difference due to our locations, we were always able to synchronize and meet weekly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were most impressed by their dedication to understanding the fundamental components of the project, before making efforts toward the deliverables. A major strength demonstrated by the team was found in the thoughtful suggestions they offered, seemingly rooted in the vested personal interest they had, in the success of our product.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall, the experience was very positive and enjoyable. However, there were times when we experienced difficulty in understanding the jargon used by the SaM Solutions team, as their technological savvy was beyond our familiarity.

Despite these occasional challenges, the team was always able to clarify in a more comprehensible manner. We've learned a lot from the team, and we look forward to working with them again.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder of a pair of companies. Direct Value Solutions is a cloud based software provider to mortgage bankers, banks, and credit unions that allows lenders to engage real estate appraisers for mortgage transactions in a compliant and automated fashion. Our second company is DVS-AMC, which is a service entity that utilizes our software to engage the appraiser on the lender's behalf and do some other intelligent functions prior to releasing the real estate appraisal to the lender.

What challenges were you trying to address with SaM Solutions?

What they built is a SaaS based software, hosted at Rackspace. SaM has been essential in our ability to roll that out and support it using the languages that they've developed it in. They use JavaScript and ASP, marrying the database SQL Server to the application and then hosting that all through cloud servers at Rackspace. One of the most significant things that they’ve contributed to our system other than creating a user friendly and efficient interface, is making integration-ready for a lot of other business partners and activities. Rather than build everything from the ground up, we looked at best in class type of business partners that we might be able to work with. For instance, our system sends out text messages to appraisers in a very quick, automated fashion – it’s very efficient. It’s bidirectional so we can communicate with the appraisers and we engaged Message Media to do that. Essentially, there's an integration with a message reader that fits within our platform.

It also sends out automated emails to a lot of different parties associated with the transaction so they can stay abreast of it. We integrated with SendGrid. It has automated QC functions built into it, too. We integrated with a provider of quality control, so that there are rules that run against the appraisals as they are uploaded, and then delivers those results to government agencies like Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac]. It has payment processing integrated into it so it interfaces with Authorize.net through gateways that are secure and PCI compliant. Those are just some of the features that they were able to help us with. We certainly did a lot of the research as to what partners we want to have but SaM Solutions made it work.

They've created very reliable and secure interfaces with all those various parties to basically give our system a lot of functionality. Going forward, they’re working on additional integrations some. These integrations aren’t so much in support of our system like the ones I’ve mentioned, but integrations with other nationwide loan origination systems. Early on we did an integration with what would be generally perceived as the largest single loan origination system in a company called Ellie Mae Encompass. We have continued to look at those types of integration for SaM to work on. Other initiatives include custom development for a client that requires certain things within our system. At this point, it’s more project driven than full development.

How did you come to work with SaM Solutions?

We did some research - we looked onshore and a variety of places offshore and SaM Solutions went through the interview process with us. Our CTO did a fair amount of that heavy lifting but we also knew of them because they had developed a loan origination system for a fairly large and well known mortgage banker in Florida. Unfortunately, that particular mortgage lender went sideways during the mortgage crisis but SaM Solutions had done a fair amount of work for them. It seemed like they were well-suited to at least understand the American mortgage market place. So that, plus their overall structure lead us to choose them. We were intending to do something that was based upon the most current type of application languages. They were well experienced in .NET and SQL and all of the Microsoft stack so we elected to go with them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built the platform from the ground up. When we first came to them, we had a fairly loose idea of what the modules needed to be. We just knew what the various components of it were going to be. The actual details of it were developed as we went along. We had a business analyst on our side that took my ideas and wrote them into instructions for SaM to then analyze. Then they came back with their scope documentation and began the actual development of the software.

What is the team dynamic?

I’m largely responsible for coordinating with them on our side. We also have a systems architect who joined us here in the last few months who's starting to take more active role in that. Historically, we’ve had a project manager on our side and the project manager and the developers on SaM’s side who generally meet weekly just to discuss things. At our height, we probably had 16 to 18 people from SaM working on the system. Once we got it stable and rolled out into production that number has dropped down to about 5 at this point with a project manager, a developer and a half or so, QC analysts.

How have they performed from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed really well. We’ve had maybe two or three project managers. Our current project manager has been working with us for about a year and a half or two years. So there’s not a lot of turnover there given that we've been with them for five or six years. We've had pretty much the same lead developer the whole time. He has very intimate knowledge of our system. The communication style is very good, too. It's very congruous to working with a US firm. That was one of the considerations that we had when we were looking at development teams. We wanted evaluate how effectively we can communicate, especially offshore. We really haven't had too much of a language barrier or anything like that with them so that's been very positive overall.

They've modified their work schedule to coincide with us a little bit more – we’ve got a couple hours crossover. Beyond that, if we start having issues they stay available even though they're not in their office anymore, so they're highly responsive.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s probably in excess of $1.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started working with them in early 2012. We are continuing to evolve the product.

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

It's a fairly in-depth, multitasking type of system where we've tried to create many, many layers of automation so the user interface is one that doesn't require a lot of human intervention – we want the system to know what to do - there's rules built into it. From that standpoint, I think it's fairly complicated. It has processes that happen very quickly that are automatic and seamless. The potential number of transactions nationwide that could go through our system is roughly a million and a half transactions per month. Currently, our system handles 4,000-5,000 transactions monthly. About 9,000-10,000 appraiser-users are on the system. That doesn't mean they're all working at the same time and every monthly, it just means that we have that many appraisers stored. There’s a similar number of client-users so we've got maybe twenty thousand active users on the system at any given time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're able to show us potentially more than one solution to get to where we are going, even though we know our industry better than they do. Our initial idea of how we'd want something to perform can be mitigated or changed based upon what they say and how they might look at it. They have not only an understanding of our marketplace but also an understanding of what we're trying to achieve. They were able to give us more than one possible solution. Oftentimes, the approach that we thought might be the best may not be based upon how they can solve that problem. They’re not just doing whatever we tell them to do regardless. They're actually stopping and analyzing it and seeking optimal solutions. We work very well together because they'll come back with ideas around other options. Oftentimes, they make suggestions that I think are more user-friendly and more efficient. They've clearly bought into the business model that we built and really understand it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only somewhat challenge I've had is the time to deliver what we're hoping for. It’s different not working beside the developer. I guess you could say we had a failure of one of the initiatives that we had. We finally just called it off because it was never delivered. I don't know how many hundreds of hours were spent trying to figure it out but it was never achievable. Fortunately, the client that requested it didn't seem to hold our feet to the fire on it so we just kind of let it die its own death. They estimate man-days of development time but that doesn't always require the same number of calendar days. Thirty man-days could be 90 calendar days. That's been a little bit of a challenge trying to understand time estimates. It may not be an issue with SaM specifically, as much as it is just the way development is done. When somebody is estimating how much time they think they're going to have put into on effort, that doesn't mean they're working every minute of every day of every week of every month on your project. That’s probably the only issue I've ever really had.

What recommendations would you have for someone who is considering hiring them?

I’d recommend to anyone that they understand who they’re doing business with and feel comfortable with that group. I think you should know the company as a whole, including its strength, it's longevity in the industry, their issue resolution style, their management structure, etc. With SaM, you're not just stuck with the problem if, for instance, you're not getting along with your project manager. You could ask them to do something else or intervene. I think that their management style and structure has been awesome.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of the IT solutions implementation department at Kaspersky Lab, a global security company that’s been in business for 20 years. We constantly transform our deep threat intelligence and security expertise into security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments, and consumers around the globe. I’m responsible for communication with outsourcing companies for certain solutions, internal projects, as well as some external IT projects.

What challenge were you trying to address with SaM Solutions?

SaM Solutions has been assisting us for a long time. We’ve worked with them on a lot of projects with developers, testers, system analysts, and architects. They’re involved with our internal development team. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

SaM Solutions works remotely with us, providing developers, testers, architects, etc. We plan our activities, timelines, and budget with them and provide the project management. They don’t offer anything special from other companies.

To start, we provided business requirements and prepared system requirements for the developers and testers. We also provided specifications to the solution team. We laid out a schedule with our project manager, which indicates what should be done by the solution team and our team. Then, we started building the solution. They watch the schedule to get the result on time and within budget.

We usually use Scrum methodology for our projects. We have a detailed scope for each sprint that lasts 1 or 2 weeks. At the end of each sprint, we get the results and we check the work. If it’s good, we move onto the next sprint. They've worked on projects from start to finish for us.

What is the team dynamic?

They are currently providing 15 resources. In 2014, we had more resources on board from SaM Solutions, but then we decided to bring some tasks internally and we've been consistently using around 15 resources since.

How did you come to work with SaM Solutions?

I started at Kaspersky Labs after SaM Solutions was already hired. Our company investigated outsourcing firms to find a partner for some major projects. SaM Solutions delivered good results, so the relationship expanded.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2010, and our partnership is ongoing. 

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

Their resources are well-educated and produce high-quality work. For some of the projects, we’ve had proactive people, so we don’t spend a lot of time managing them.

How did SaM Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Our internal project manager directs their resources in what they should do. Communication with the developers is very good. For some projects, we have a project manager from our side and a Scrum master from their side, and everyone communicates well. For some solutions, I communicate with management on a biweekly basis, and that’s gone well. They even provide a home phone number in case we have issues or problems. The team tries to fix any problems or replace resources if we have an issue with someone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Each person excels in their specialty. For example, it's not unique for the Scrum master to have sufficient skills for that position, but they have the right people in the right positions across the organization, which we appreciate.

During our communication about some solutions, when we asked them to make a change, they did so quickly. We understand each other. I would recommend them because they’re a good company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. The communication would be improved if they could work on-site in our offices. But, that’s not possible because we need the resources to work remotely.