Saviant Consulting

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a contracting and services company. We supply air conditioning, elevators, aluminum—complete home solutions—and we also provide servicing for whatever we’re supplying or installing. I’m an IT business solutions manager, responsible for providing the business with all necessary hardware and software solutions, and maintaining the solutions we currently have.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Saviant Consulting?

We wanted to move forward in terms of technology to keep up with our competitors. We decided to build an app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Saviant is developing our customer service application. It enables our customers to make orders and review contracts online. In the future, the team will also integrate functionalities like online chat, complaint management, and the ability to track the technicians going on site to the customers.

The admin segment is a web application. It allows us to dynamically control our master data, such as by adding new services and offers, pushing notifications, viewing reports, and checking problems with customer registration, if any.

Through the mobile application, customers can register, create service orders, view their contracts and equipment, and make requests to renew, upgrade, or create new contracts. The app is integrated with SAP, and anything done on it is replicated within SAP, where it’s managed by our team. Likewise, whatever is done in SAP is reflected back to the application.

What is the team composition?

We typically work with three people: a project manager, who participates in meetings with us, a systems analyst, and at least one technical lead.

How did you come to work with Saviant Consulting?

We did a vendor comparison between them and others, and eventually landed on Saviant.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent 13,000–14,000 Kuwaiti dinars (approximately $41,530–$44,720 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Saviant in November 2018, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We just launched the app to our customers a month and a half ago. We’re going step by step in the launching process, to make sure there are no issues with the application and that our customers understand it. We don’t have real feedback from customers yet, but we’re confident.

Internally, we’re pleased with the end result. We got exactly what we were asking for.

How did Saviant Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Saviant’s technical people understand the nature of our business. Usually, a system analyst will gather requirements and take them to the developers, but Saviant involves the whole team, which we admire.

We’ve mainly used Azure project management tools, and we also have phone calls and use email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have really capable project management, and they have business understanding. Saviant is always prepared to tell us when one of our requirements would contradict another one. We appreciated that the team brought that level of engagement, rather than just doing exactly what we asked of them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They should check their requirements and make sure they’re valid before getting to Saviant. We had a lot of issues with the project, but they usually came from the business side. We weren’t fully ready, and we had to do a lot of work to clean our database and everything else.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the owners of Industrial Power Products, an industrial battery charger service provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Saviant Consulting?

We wanted to switch away from a paper-based operation to more of a mobile and web platform. Our staff was having a lot of issues with lost work orders, which would result in unbilled service, missing inventory, and more. Having a digital solution would help our technicians, salespeople, and customer support team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

In the beginning, we tried to work with different platforms like Salesforce Field Service Lightning but found that they were too customized. The functions weren't right for our business. Based on that experience, we wrote out a wish list of what we needed and how things should work. 

Saviant Consulting took that document and came back with a proposal for our project. They studied how we operated and came up with a technical roadmap for a solution that could help accomplish our goals. That included an iOS/Android mobile app for our technicians, a customer-facing mobile app, and a website.

The website serves as our dispatching center. It gives us access to all of our customers’ information (i.e., contact information, equipment list, billing address), which helps us manage our work orders and quotes. The site also automatically creates work orders for recurring or planned maintenance.

What is the team composition? 

They have a mobile team and web team, both working with a project manager.

How did you come to work with Saviant Consulting?

We found them through Google and thought that their approach was more impressive than the other companies we’d interviewed. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2018, and the engagement is ongoing. We’ve just been following the roadmap that they’d proposed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

No other company in my industry has got anything like what they’ve created. Before, we were writing off upwards of $50,000-worth of inventory each year. But now we’re relying more on the solution to operate.

How did Saviant Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been a great experience so far. They have a perfect process where they map out the work in two-week sprints. We then check in each week to suggest any changes we’d like. At the end of each sprint, they do a demonstration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their process that stands out. They give me a schedule and keep with it. Now, we’re heading into our fourth and final phase of the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m a huge fan of theirs, and I’m more than willing to talk to their customers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?
 
The biggest thing is that you need to have a good vision for what you want and be able to express it. We would lay out our ideas through screenshots and mock-ups, and they’d respond with a summary of what they understood to make sure we were on the same page.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Joule Group is a leading producer of smart energy solutions, with manufacturing facilities in Ireland & the UK and distribution in Poland. As Group IT Project Manager, I am responsible for delivering a portfolio of enterprise-level technology projects across business units. This includes the development of roadmaps, features and compliance for new products

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Saviant Consulting?

We engaged Saviant to help us develop an MVP using our Azure IoT backend and devices from several suppliers. The project included the development of a mobile platform in iOS and Android for end users to manage all devices

What were your goals for this project?

1.Develop and implement end-to-end IoT connectivity for several devices under a single platform 2.Integrate devices manufactured by Joule and third parties 3.Setup the backend connectivity under Azure, including IoT Hub, API, App Services, Virtual Servers, SQL & non-SQL, etc

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We screened several vendors based on market reputation and experience with similar projects

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

1.Implementation of IoT backend -Device registration, management, provisioning & validation -IoT data processing -IoT database -User database -Web API -Email notifications -Voice integration with Alexa 2.Development of mobile app -Settings: Signup, signin, my profile, degrees, C/F, reset, frost -Program: schedules room temperature & hot water -zones -holidays -manual -ventilation 3.Off 4.Boost 5.Statistics 6-Home/away 7.Pairing devices 8-Help & tutorials 9-About

What was the team composition?

Technical Project Manager Azure Solution Architect Azure IoT & Xamarin Developers Business Analyst Quality Assurance/Testing

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project allowed Joule to implement its own IoT architecture and end-to-end connectivity for users to control devices from a mobile app

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Agile and MVP methodologies were used for the project. They provided much needed flexibility since firmware for devices were controlled by external manufacturers. Communications were crucial to the successful completion of the project

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were always focused on delivering the product in spite of technical difficulties.

Are there any areas for improvement?

User stories could be streamlined and simplified to facilitate documentation of requirements Testing and QA could be improved by replicating the client's infrastructure. Features that worked well in testing scenarios did not work in client sites

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Vice President of Operations at a tech utility company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Saviant Consulting?

We wanted to find a contractor with expertise to do software development and technical consulting for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed a cloud-based data collection system for us. We wanted to communicate with a cellular-connected device, which is linked to a water meter;  and use a wireless carrier to communicate to the cloud. This would enable us to collect consumption data on the water meter. 

First, they used the Microsoft Azure solution to do the design and to architecture the system for us. Then, their software development team worked with our own tech group to develop the application. 

With the Azure cloud, we have the front end that communicates directly with our endpoint devices in the field. Eventually, the data is parsed out into the tables, goes through our backend, and is displayed on our web portals.

They also help us write support software to automate production processes and put data in the cloud (as opposed to local databases.)

What is the team dynamic? 

The team was 2–6 developers. We also had a project manager.

How did you come to work with them?

I brought the Saviant owner over on site to discuss some of the problems our company was experiencing. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $50,000–$1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working with them in 2013 and it's an ongoing collaboration. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was the first agile project for us. We did 2 pilot projects to see how everything goes; then we developed a project methodology. We started doing our weekly sprints and the planning went really well.

They submit a test plan to us, we let customers try it, and then do a final release of the product. All of this usually takes 1-3 months.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They're almost always on time. We had a project manager, who frequently visited us to get a good understanding of our products.

Our software development manager worked long hours to make sure everything gets resolved quickly, especially in cases of emergenices.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're honest and very diligent. They work hard to understand our business process so they can help us. We do a lot of work oversees, which often creates uncertainty re what's happening on the other side, but I can trust them to do their best and get a successful outcome.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our product mix changes, and there are some areas where they don't have the expertise. We sometimes had to look for other contractors or solutions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Focus on straightforward communication, project methodology, agile, and planning. Bringing their project manager over on site at the beginning might help avoid problems later on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of JJ Food Service. We have 11 distribution centers operating in the UK. We are in the food service business, meaning we cater for the caterers.  It’s a business-to-business model. We buy and sell food, ingredients, and non-food products for food outlets. We have got roughly 3,000 different SKUs. We are an omni-channel sales organization; we take orders via call centers, e-commerce portals, the mobile apps, and face to face. Customers can walk into our collection centers, place an order, and wait for the order to be picked and given to them. We’ve also got a fleet of multi-temperature control vehicles. We manage the entire supply chain end-to-end; from taking the order, all the way up to delivering the goods to the customers’ kitchen. We control the whole chain ourselves in-house.

We run pretty much 24/7 in the sense that we also have facilities for the customers to come and collect from the collection points, or customers can place the order and we deliver to their restaurants, cafe, office canteens, schools or football clubs. We don’t have any manufacturing operations but to provide this service, so we rely on lots of technology. We have CRM solutions, ERP solutions, our own e-commerce portal, mobile apps, and lots of other apps used by our delivery personnel, within the warehouse environment, or our pre-sales reps who are on the road, etc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Saviant Consulting?

The biggest challenge we had was that we wanted to digitally transform our delivery process. At the time, we would take the orders and then route them according to their parameters, such as delivery time window, distance, or most efficient journey. Then we would bring those out into the warehouse environment for picking, packing, and loading the vehicles. After that, we would process the orders onto printed invoices for the delivery personnel, the drivers, and the drivers’ helpers, so they had printed documents to go and deliver those goods.

The problem with that model was that once we printed the invoices, if there were mishaps in transit like damaged goods, or incorrect loading, etc., drivers had to manually adjust those documents in front of the customers and issue credits because we do collect cash payments on delivery. We wanted to get rid of these headaches for the drivers and streamline that operation. We decided to build a driver’s mobile application on handheld mobile devices so that drivers could more easily make adjustments and invoice the customer for the right goods and collect the right amount from within their kitchen or from within their restaurant premises.

Our hope was that the app would eliminate the back office duplicate work and correcting the drivers’ mistakes which were done in the paper-based environment. We engaged the Saviant team to build the application for us. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by identifying all the processes involved in a driver’s day for their developers. Their consultants each joined a driver on the road, doing deliveries themselves for a whole day, to become acquainted with the process. We threw these IT developers in the deep end, pushing trolleys and doing the deliveries in the real life restaurant scenario because we wanted to capture all the processes involving paper. They then helped us to document those processes for their UI team. They made prototypes of the workflow, step by step, from when the drivers left the distribution centers to when they came back, including payment collection, adjustment for damages, issuing credit notes, etc. 

Next, we discussed the technical specifications for the app’s architecture; what technology and platform to uses, the hardware they needed to develop. We had a wide variety of choices and IoT elements to agree on for the temperature monitoring, and GPS coordinates for vehicle tracking. When that was done, they started developing the final product. When the development was finished, we went through the phase of testing, bug fixing, retesting, and all the way to go live. They were with us from process specifications all the way to the go live cycle, the full journey.

One of the features we included was a cash management, which is a very sensitive area. If a vehicle comes back with the equivalent of $5,000 from 20 different restaurants, it’s a risk on the road, and at the same time, it’s a headache for the driver to manage that process. Cash reconciliation functionality using mobile technology was a key functionality. They also worked on stock reconciliation. We are sending goods of various values out from our distribution center. A box of lobster could be $200 versus a case of plastic forks, that’s only $2 or $3. The price range of the products within the vehicles was quite diverse, so we also had to make sure that the customers get the right products, and whatever’s not delivered is brought back to the distribution center, into the warehouse, and sent back to the stock for scrapage or reusage, quarantine, etc. We call all of that process inventory reconciliation/management, which was another crucial piece of functionality achieved.

The third important thing is the SLA delivery for customers. When our customers place orders, they select a delivery time window; some of the restaurants are busy at lunchtime, or they are closed at a certain period of the day. In the UK, the road network is very congested, and some areas have travel time restrictions after or before certain hours with barriers. The delivery SLA management was another key functionality which we actually got from this. We’ve other areas where drivers could receive notifications from the order messaging system. This could say “Beware of the dog,” or “Don’t deliver through the front door, go through the back door,” or “Parking restrictions apply.” All the customers’ ad hoc messages would pop up into every delivery location and so on. 

There are also features like GPS coordinates, so we can record and monitor the GPS coordinates of drivers, with the goal of enhancing our customer service. If customers were inquiring, “Where is my delivery today?” we could find out where the driver is. Another enhancement was to have the app linked with the customers’ website account, so customers could log into the website and see the estimated time of arrival for his delivery.

What is the team dynamic? 

There are various teams: there was a process specification team, a UI team, a development team, the project manager. I didn’t have full visibility of how many people were in their development center, I interacted with at least 10 different people at various phases of the project.

How did you come to work with Saviant Consulting?

I think the fact that they’re a smaller company rather than a big consulting house like IBM made them very customer focused and cooperative in terms of understanding our needs. There was a cultural difference since they are based in India and we are in the UK. They were proactive at flying out to come see us so they could understand the cultural aspect of our business. We found it very interesting that they took that initiative to come out and see us face to face, go out with the drivers, and meet all of our IT team. They also wanted to understand the backend ERP system with which they would have to make bilateral data movement. We found that very helpful and cooperative.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $200,000 and $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in September 2014, and it’s an ongoing collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We started with the drivers’ application, but since having seen their expertise, we decided to do some work with IoT on the Azure platform. We then extended our work to our warehouse and distribution center environment for inventory management with mobility. Some of those paper-based activities were then transformed with their help and several other applications. One was a picking and loading application within our 11 branches in the warehouse environment. Then the last one we did also dispatches applications to serve our collection customers, those who come to our collection points and collect goods. Some of these activities were paper-based, so we extended our projects with Saviant to develop some of those applications.

We also did work in the areas of Power BI, or business analytics. All of those drivers’ devices were collecting a huge amount of data and Saviant helped us to develop our BI analytics onto those activities of the drivers, including who is doing the longest hours, the most mileage, how many damages are incurring in some of those vehicles, and troubleshooting some of those drivers’ training because of those data insights we got from this Power BI dashboard.

The drivers’ app has streamlined a lot of our processes, decreased the back offices’ activities, and also brought efficiency, accuracy, and improved customer service as a whole.

How did Saviant Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They used the Agile methodology, and we had regular virtual stand-ups because besides from their site visit, most things were done remotely. We had regular project meetings, a regular issue reporting framework, and responsibility was very clearly laid out. They worked very closely with our team on a regular basis. We discussed a few things on daily calls, a few things on weekly calls, and a few things on milestone achievements. We were pretty comfortable with that process. Our process was Agile, regular sprints, development testing, and go live. Everything was in line with the standard project management methodology, so there were no concerns in that area. In terms of work ethic, it was very good in terms of the time zone difference. They were accommodating in terms of aligning their resources to discuss with us in our time zone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a very hands-on approach towards problem-solving. Saviant is run by a very young, dynamic group of entrepreneurs. Our biggest appreciation was how focused they are towards delivering the customer’s needs. That was definitely visible at every phase of the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are a partner with a heavy focus on Azure, Microsoft, BI, and the IoT type of environments. As a young, dynamic company, they also get involved in other open-source areas to expand their horizons and get more business. Not every customer may want to stay on a Microsoft platform. Nowadays, there are so many other open-source activities going on. If I had to give them any advice, I’d recommend that they engage in some other open-source products to expand their customer base.