SISU Technologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there

I am the CEO of a consulting and software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

SISU Technologies provides design and development services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team helps us with our design needs. They also help with our two different development projects for two clients. The tech stack they use includes JavaScript, HTML, SharePoint, .Net Portal, and more.

What is the team composition?

I am currently working with at least 3 people from SISU Technologies on each project.

How did you come to work with  SISU Technologies?

One of our clients referred them so I contacted them for their services. Once we had a meeting and after checking their proposal, we decided to start working with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with SISU Technologies for almost 5 years and our engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

By collaborating with them we've been able to improve the image of the products we offer our clients. Our company focuses on development skills so adding their design talent has brought an added value to the services we offer and a greater visual quality overall. SISU Technologies is a very good company to work with. 

How did  SISU Technologies  perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very well-organized and meets all of their commitments timely. We have great communication since they are always clear and straightforward.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design skills are outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Maybe if SISU Technologies have more personnel it would be great as they would have more services and availability.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a photography platform. We create photo books, print them, and send them directly to our customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

We hired them for development services. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They created an e-commerce app for us. This included all of the coding for both the front- and backend. They also developed an admin section where we can see orders and upload new inventory and content. They developed the iOS app first, and after that was launched they developed our web and Android platforms. 

What is the team composition?

There was a project manager, three developers, and a designer. 

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies?

My husband studied with the founders in college, and he had hired them for projects for his office.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018, and it's ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have gotten great reviews on the App Store. We get good feedback that the app is user friendly and fast. If there are ever bugs, they resolve them quickly. 

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t meet our initial deadlines or budget. It took about 30% more time then they initially told us it would. We communicated in person, and we spoke over the phone. We also used Jira for project management. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s my first time working with developers, so I don’t have anything to compare them to. However, overall, they’re professional and do good work. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their cost and deadline estimations. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to get an overall estimate for the project and be prepared to budget additional resources on top of that. Work out fallback scenarios in case you go over the original estimate.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there

I am the CEO at Cirugia Veterinaria, a veterinary continuing education platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

We started our platform seven years ago, so it was time for a refresh. The goal was to update the platform, make it more user-friendly, and maintain it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired SISU Technologies to analyze our website first. Based on those results, they’ve updated our platform and have worked with us since.

What is the team composition?
 
We worked with five people: three developers, a marketer, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies

I’ve known them personally from years ago, so I was already familiar with their work. They’re professional and reliable people.

What is the status of this engagement?
 
We started with talks in December 2018, and development began in February 2019. The process lasted about 6 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had great results. The platform has grown a lot, and they continue to support us each month to make sure we keep up with progress.

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We were in constant communication through digital channels. They were always on point and delivered everything on time. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m very satisfied with their work. They have a very precise and timely methodology. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could recruit more marketing experts in the company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager for a pharmaceutical company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

We have a product for strokes. There are a lot of hospitals here in Mexico that don’t have the infrastructure to treat strokes. We wanted to develop a geolocation app so that referrals could be made to hospitals that have the needed capabilities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our geolocation web app from scratch.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from their team.

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies?

They had a good proposal and won the project out of a pool of applicants.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2019 and launched in April 2019. Their work is still ongoing with maintaining the app. We’re also planning to expand the app to central America soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We liked their personalities and their delivery time was very good. The application is running smoothly, and the team's overall communication is great. 

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They established timelines since the beginning. They were straightforward in terms of the time they’d need. We communicated in phone calls and conference calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They made a brainstorming exercise with a project management focus at the very beginning, which we liked. The team met our market needs, which is a true highlight.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very straightforward, which works for us, but it might not work for everyone. My advice is to be clear with expectations and deadlines from the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Credijusto is a fintech company doing asset-backed lending to SMEs that are excluded from the traditional financial system. I lead the sales operations part of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

We wanted to test a new partnership program. However, we didn’t want to invest internal resources, given that it was an experimental run. We were looking for a vendor that could run a lean and skeletal MVP to quickly test whether we had potential.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SISU helped us build an MVP to test the potential of our idea. We had an approximate idea of what we were looking for. We wanted to be lean and to the point. We provided some wireframes, and they turned those into actual designs, after which SISU started the actual development. They created an operational version, and we made some changes based on that. We had 2–3 rounds of iterations, after which we made it available to a pilot group of customers.

The portal we developed allows any client to request a partnership, and create their own website, branded with their logos and colors. SISU recommended building a control panel where the clients could change whatever they wanted in terms of logo, design, and name, and check how many clients had applied through their portal.

I believe the portal was built on Firebase. We used Adobe for the mockups and Mailgun for email notifications. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Alejandro (Founder). He was responsible for framing the whole project. Then, we worked with a technical person and a UI/UX designer.

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies?

We came up with two potential vendors, both through recommendations. A colleague from the sales group recommended a vendor that had done similar work, and I knew SISU from the past, but I’d never worked with them before. 

We made the same pitch to both of them, in terms of our needs and what we were looking for. SISU outbid the other competitor on everything—price, approach, and estimated time for delivery—and we felt way better with them during the scoping session. They asked intelligent questions from the beginning, challenging our views. It was a pretty easy decision to make.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SISU in May 2019. We had the first version by May, and our work kept going until August of that year. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Adherence to the proposed timeline was one of our metrics, and they did it successfully. We were measuring the number of customers actually creating a portal and engaging with it. In the end, the idea of lead channels didn’t work out, but that was exactly what we were looking for: to check in a live environment whether we should keep going with the idea before we started investing in marketing.

We explored it with our internal base of customers. We invited 100 of them to the program, and a bunch of them created websites. There was lots of feedback and engagement, but we could never generate business through it. However, SISU did what we asked for and more, and we were very happy with the product.

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t require anything other than a few emails when needed and a few checkpoints when we had delivery milestones. It wasn’t a big project, so we didn’t need anything more complicated than that. SISU does have a system to bill the amount of time spent by the team. They billed by hours, and they knew exactly how much time they were putting into the project. Had we been given any sort of project management tool for this project, it would’ve been a waste. There weren’t that many things to follow up on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their ability to understand what the customer actually needs, and to challenge our initial vision, to build a product that’s closer to what we were looking for. We had one idea, and we ended up with something that was 10 miles from that, and it was better. SISU was very good in both navigating this process and in being very respectful and transparent with the cost. They told us when an option would lead to 30 hours more work, for example, and it was up to us to decide whether we did it or not. They were very transparent, and it was a very good execution overall.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything in mind. SISU performed well, and I have no complaints in terms of pricing or transparency.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a general manager at MicroSafe in Mexico City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?

We have developed different solutions for security and cash management and worked with them to help us lay out the requirements and plan for those projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first part of our work together involved workshopping and more precisely defining our roadmap for a large and complex development project. We needed to establish requirements for a payment kiosk that we were trying to provide to fast service restaurants in order to eliminate a significant amount of risk in the project both budget- and time-wise.

We sat down together and really went into detail about what needed to be done and what constraints we had on our side so that we could formalize those in the form of expectations with our client.

After that, they helped us to develop an Android application for one of our particular solutions that served as a smart locker. It allows delivery and secure pickup and uses a mobile app that they helped us develop.

What is the team composition?

There were three individuals on their team that we interacted with, including a general manager and two developers, one of whom functioned as a project manager as well.

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies?

I had a pre-existing relationship with the founder of their company, so I knew they had been working on some interesting projects and had really solid development skills. We chose to work with them because of their portfolio as well as our confidence in their work ethic and reliability.

What is the status of this engagement?

The two projects ran from February 2019–March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The biggest value that we got out of the first project with them was that we were able to deploy a working MVP with our client that didn’t overshoot the budget or timeline of the engagement.

Throughout all of our activities with them, they have been totally professional, and we’ve always gotten what we expected if not more.

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Since we were working for a third-party client, they were able to act as an incredible mediator, not only between the two teams but between our development team and more business-oriented teams in order to help them understand and respect the constraints that the other teams were under.

We could go back to the documents that we laid out in the project and use them to keep things under control and on track if there was ever disagreement further down the line. They were clear and precise with all of their deliverables, and everything was provided formally and professionally.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that we were able to do that on a project that involved hardware and software over the course of a year or more was absolutely incredible, and without the definitions workshop I’m not sure that we would have been able to do it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve been quite satisfied with the quality of their work so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Scope creep is a recurring problem in a lot of development projects here in Mexico, so I would recommend more people engage in the kind of workshop we had with them. It is a really different and better way of doing things from what we were used to.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Pentagono Art LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Art consulting firm specialized in crafting unique artworks for architectural projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire SISU Technologies to accomplish?

• Artwork Selector
• Budget estimator
• monday.com integration

SOLUTION

How did you find SISU Technologies?

Referral

Why did you select SISU Technologies over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from SISU Technologies were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Creating an artwork selector front end integrated to monday.com databases. The system should be able to showcase a visual catalogue of artworks with unit price and quantity selection, each selection and quantity change should reflect the total budget of the project in real time. Once the selection is submitted, the user should get a pdf file with the summary of the collection.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Correct integration with monday.com´s API

Real time budget estimator

UX/UI design aligned with branding

Interactive design and mobile compatibility

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Great kick-off meeting with all the team who will be involved. 

Assigned developer to follow up throughout the whole project with recurrent meetings.

Delivered on time and budget.

What was your primary form of communication with SISU Technologies?

Virtual Meeting

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

Being able to acomplish new challenges they haven´t worked on previously.

The design quality and efficiency of the system were impressive.

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

NA

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the COO of High Tech Group, an agricultural company that produces tomatoes in high-tech greenhouses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SISU Technologies?
In the last five years, we experienced an accelerated growth. Therefore, we needed to connect our greenhouses' different parts and processes. Before this project, all our processes were managed in Excel and other documents, which were harder to share and see in real time. Therefore, we approached SISU Technologies to get help in developing a web app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
SISU Technologies has developed a platform for us on which we can connect our company's different resources, including data about how much produce is going to be harvested in order to let our customers know how much will be available. Through this platform, we also have real-time information regarding different factors that impact our company's outcomes.

For this project, SISU Technologies' work has included UI/UX design and custom development, including feature development. Basically, they've been in charge of everything needed to develop a platform tailored to our specific needs.

Initially, we focused on building an MVP. To achieve this, we told SISU Technologies what we wanted and how we wanted it. During 10 very intense days, we worked with them to define the platform we wanted module by module, using Mural to organize our ideas. We also told them about our objectives, user personas, and metrics (including why those were important for us from a business perspective).

Once the discovery phase was over, SISU Technologies started developing the platform almost from scratch on a weekly sprint basis. We had very little work done when they joined the project, but they had to redo some of our previous work because what we had done would be insufficient for what we actually wanted. We also had a design from which they took some ideas to redesign the platform from the ground up.

As for the technology stack, our database previously used Firebase, but SISU Technologies recently migrated it to MySQL. We also use Figma for the platform's designs.

In addition to the web app, SISU Technologies has built an Android-based mobile app, which our staff can use on the field. Our platform also has offline capabilities. Input data gets loaded into an offline database, and when the user gets an internet connection, the database syncs with the platform.

What is the team composition?
We've mainly worked with a lead designer and three developers from SISU Technologies as a full-time team, but the team composition has changed over time. The lead designer has a design team behind her and has been involved in the project from the start. However, her involvement recently changed, and she's no longer in the project full-time. Her design team consists of two junior designers.

As for the developers, we started working with two developers, but we've had up to four involved in the project building this platform. Currently, the team includes Alan (Full Stack Developer), who is our lead developer, and a lead architect who isn't working on the project full-time. I've also communicated directly with Alejandro (Founder).

How did you come to work with SISU Technologies?
We found them through word of mouth. One of my best friends knew Alejandro from the university. I reached out to my friend and told him about my challenge. Then, he recommended calling Alejandro to see if he could help. We clicked right away, so we started working together.

How much have you invested with them?
We've spent around $400,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together around 2019, and the project is ongoing. We keep adding features to the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
SISU Technologies has provided us with solutions to every challenge we've faced on this project. The platform has added a lot of value to our business, so we're constantly updating it based on our user requirements. Over time, the platform has become a vital part of our company.

Thanks to the platform, we've achieved two main milestones. When we started this project, we had 17 hectares of land to harvest tomatoes. Now, our business has grown, and we now have 74 hectares. Additionally, we've been able to operate non-stop for five years. Those results speak well about SISU Technologies' work.

Although the platform isn't entirely responsible for that growth, achieving such results would have definitely been more complicated without it. This platform allows us to connect and have real-time information about our work. Hence, as our company has grown, the platform has allowed us to stabilize our data.

How did SISU Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?
SISU Technologies is a very organized team. They work as a solid technology company. Therefore, they've delivered on time and within budget if possible. As with any other development project, we've faced challenges and delays. However, every time we face a challenge, Alejandro comes to me and tells me that they won't be able to deliver within the estimated timeline.

Still, minor overages are understandable, as SISU Technologies works by the hour, not by milestones. Therefore, estimating a set amount of hours to complete a task might not be accurate. Usually, those overages are 5%–6%, but that doesn't happen often. Overall, our collaboration is very dynamic and transparent, and their estimations are accurate.

We've used Mural to manage the project, on which we've defined our requirements. Every Monday, we have a sprint check-in to discuss the week's progress and see if what they've done is what we've asked for. If something needs changes, their team also handles those changes. In those meetings, they also show us what they'll do during the current week.

SISU Technologies also sends us reports on how many hours they invest in each task and how many tasks have been completed. We compare the report to our initial agreement to see if the project is still on track. Everything is very transparent and streamlined.

SISU Technologies' upper management is also constantly involved in the project. Every three or four months, I have a meeting with Alejandro. In those meetings, I provide him with feedback, and we discuss how the project is going and how we feel about it.

Besides Mural, we've also used other tools. For example, our meetings are virtual, leveraging Google Meet. In every meeting, everyone joins with their camera on, making it feel like a very close meeting with an internal team. We also communicate via email and WhatsApp for more direct communication.

The SISU Technologies team has suffered a lot of turnover. However, all changes have been discussed beforehand and with transparency. Some developers have left the company, and others have been moved to other projects where their expertise is of more help. For every team change, SISU Technologies has come to the table with a transition and onboarding plan, so we've always been covered.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?
The lead designer is a very dedicated and talented person — I love our platform's design. Moreover, all the developers we've worked with have been very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?
Overall, their whole team works very well.

Are there any areas they could improve?
I have nothing but positive things to say about SISU Technologies. I'm very thankful to them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
Involve your company's leadership in the project. If I would have delegated this project to my staff, I don't know if it would have had the same impact. The best way to get the most out of the engagement is to involve yourself in the project and ensure that what you want is what SISU Technologies will build.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of Segmail, 3PL company giving logistics solutions to more than 1200+ clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had a very serios invoicing problem... all the process was done in Excel and because of the growth we started to see a lot of limitations.

SOLUTION

How did you select SISU Technologies and what were the deciding factors?

We needed a system that handled all the data, reporting, and invoicing. We needed a partner more than a consultant and SISU was a perfect fit.

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

They designed all the system from gown up, from clients data entry to the whole invoicing process. We need to process 1200+ reports and invoices every month.

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

We had 3 persons working in this project, from the project manager to the programmers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very happy with the outcome, today this system is the pilar of the company. They delivered on time and give us a great product.

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

We had a weekly meeting to see progress, we used emails and gsheets to onsee the project.

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

The way they handled the project was very good and professional.

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

The project ended being much more costly...rather than that everything was ok.