Softlabs Group

Please describe your company and your position there.

I manage IT Applications in one of India's largest Asset Management Company

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

We were looking for a long term partner for development and support of our KIOSK application and we were looking for a mid range technically versatile organization to manage a little off the path development in WCF framework. Also we were looking at continued support of the application over the next couple of years. Hence required a partner who is stable and can provide us with adequate support and someone with whom we can continue to grow with.

How did you select Softlabs Group and what were the deciding factors?

We found Softlab through a reference to my CTO by a senior member of their organization. We were under some cost pressure during that time and were also looking for some niche skills and this organization was ready to support us at the price point that we had budgeted for. Hence we took their resources on a T&M basis with no commitments.

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

• Project: Development of a touch screen Kiosk for Mutual Fund servicing and transactions Steps:

1. Project was already developed by another organization and in production with the first phase delivery
2. The second phase development and enhancements were to be done by Softlabs Enhancements and optimization of the code Support and servicing and customer support post-go-live Technologies: WCF, .NET, SQL Server and Windows Webservices

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

No of team members: 1 Developer 1 Technical Manager (Part-time) 1 Support executive

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

Following were the major milestones:

• Launch of phase II of the project with no issues
• Transfer of footfalls at branch to the Kiosk
• CS executives had more time for optimization and planning
• Significant incremental number of financial transactions through the Kiosk

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

For us the interactions were very simple:

• Resourcing model
• Backend technical support for the resource whenever required
• Monthly connect with the technical managers for discussion
• Periodic discussions with relationship managers on progress

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

• Nimble organization
• Very close knit team
• Experience in multiple technology stack
• Strong cultural roots

They had the willingness to work in cross-platform.

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

Rather than diversifying themselves into multiple areas, look at focusing and becoming great in one or two niche areas and then look at expansion.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm with the ABE, the Association of Business Executives. It's a UK professional guiding body. Education is one side of our business while the other is IT. In addition to that, we work a general government supplier. I'm currently a Managing Director for SKYGOLD Limited.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softlabs?

Previously, the Zambian government did not have a system to track students who have received loans after they graduate and start working. In addition, we currently have an inefficient credit management system in Zambia. Some people who borrowed from financial institutions had paid off their loans months or years ago. However, when they check their credit, or when they try to borrow from another financial institution, the system shows that they still owe money. We've been designing these systems and we engaged Softlabs to help us out. We had several technical issues to deal with. It was quite challenging because we have had bad Internet connectivity in Zambia.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Softlabs developed a system that would track the students who received loans from the Zambian government. Second, SKYGOLD asked Softlabs to develop a credit management information system that would compete favorably on the market. We called this platform the Zambia Credit Reference Information System, ZCRIS for short. It has 2 sides, a credit reference management system and a loan recovery system. All the stakeholders and financial institutions would interact with the system so it needed to be user-friendly. Softlabs brought in ideas to make that happen. I got the idea for a third project from Malaysia. There was an app I used for taxis there, which was also in London. We thought that we also needed to develop a taxi app in Zambia so we discussed it with Softlabs. They started working on it almost immediately. Softlabs just gave us a demo to show how the maps work between drivers and riders.

How did you come to work with Softlabs?

I spent quite some time in Malaysia where I used a similar system to the one we developed for Zambia. I talked with some developers in Malaysia and the prices they gave us were about 3 or 4 times what Softlabs offered. We had to look to India. I contacted the top 20 IT companies there and Softlabs was one of them. I called all the others and I wasn't getting immediate feedback. Sometimes the phones would ring and no one would answer. When I called Softlabs for the first time, somebody picked up and we had a discussion. We chose Softlabs because of their background, portfolio and business plans. They seemed the best option to develop what we needed.

How much have you invested with Softlabs?

We have spent $15,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in February 2015 and this engagement is ongoing. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I'm very confident because we have finished the platform and we have tested both sides of the system. That's why we were able to confidently present it to ministry responsible for higher education. The Zambian government officials were delighted with the demonstration. The only thing holding us back was that the government needed to pass legislation for this system to be implemented. I'm glad to say that 3 months ago, the President approved the bill and the law has been passed. As we are speaking, I’m looking at the platform. We also presented to the [Kremlin] secretary and the Loans Board, who are the actual end users of the system. We've achieved about 80% to 90% of what the ministry has been looking for. For us, that’s a success story.

I have colleagues who work for the Development Bank of Zambia as well as our reserve bank— that’s the central bank, the Bank of Zambia—who have looked at the credit management information system. They were extremely excited after seeing just the landing page. They said, “It's high time we had something like this for our country." We attribute that success to Softlabs.

How did Softlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

From a management point of view, Softlabs has been very efficient. I'm not an IT guru. My partner, Nathan, actually understands more of these things better than I do. They're very responsive about providing the information we need, even at night or after working hours. When we ask for certain things that need to be in the system, they quickly work on that without fail. I think they've provided us good project management.

They've been very consistent with communication. If there is any delay from either side, we inform. We don't rely on emails or phone calls, so they contact us via WhatsApp. If there's any disruption in the delivery of the system, we quickly know about it. They also informed us in case they finished things before the deadline. If they anticipate the need for extra resources, they let us know about it. They would say, "Well, in this area, we are having a challenge." They would bring in an expert or a technical team to help in that particular area. They have been very good with updating us about the status of the development.  

What did you find most impressive about Softlabs?

I appreciated that we built more than just a business. We are more like a team because Softlabs understands our way of doing things and we understand theirs. I think this has made us work together very well.

Are there any areas Softlabs could improve?

I must be honest. So far, there isn't one thing that I would point out that they are lagging behind. They may not be the best system developers and we do have some challenges here and there, but that is inevitable. We had a bit of a challenge in meeting certain deadlines. For example, Softlabs would tell us, "Well, with this, we should be able to have it up and running on this particular day. We'll do a demo." Sometimes the system might fail us or a few things would not meet our expectations. When they reschedule, normally we get almost everything that we're looking for.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

FP McCann is a large precast engineering and coring company which has 1,500 employees and a 180 million pound turnover annually. We engaged with Softlabs to do a number of software projects. I am the IT manager.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, I traveled and met three software providers and vendors. We used Softlabs and NoodleSoft in India. Softlabs was involved in doing mobile applications. They came and spent some time over in our head office in Ireland getting to know the team and doing some work for us. We used them to develop some applications and to pitch in with their ERP [enterprise resource planning] system. Their operatives were available to us. We set them up with an office in India and had regular meetings with them. The applications were a combination of web based and mobile. It was for both Android and iOS. The ERP system was custom developed, so they were involved in the development of that using C#, .NET, ASP.NET, jQuery. Mithilesh Bandiwdekar is the organization principal. He’s the one responsible for coming to Ireland and allocating resources to us. He allocated two resources to us. They spent some time here and then went back to India to continue their work. We’re not using them anymore, but we did use them for a number of projects. We still use NoodleSoft in India because their expertise lends itself better to our projects.

How did you come to work with Softlabs?

I did a Google search and then we met up with Mithilesh. We had an appointment in his office and we took it from there.

How much have you invested with Softlabs?

We have spent 60,000 to 70,000 GBP [USD $80-93,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started about two years ago. We’ve probably been finished with them for nine months. It wasn’t necessarily a reflection of their expertise. It’s just that the other company that we used in India was more cost effective in terms of ROI [return on investment]. We met with Softlabs in October - November 2013 and started in January 2014. We finished with them around January 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

In general, other than some of the applications in development, the mobile apps are certainly working. Some of the stuff they did on our app management system is still working, so their work is still in use.

How did Softlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They were OK. I wouldn’t put them at the highest end. I understand they’ve come through a fairly big restructure since we last engaged with them, and I was pinging them recently regarding taking them on for some new work, which means they were pretty good. They were responsive. They worked hard and long to get the project completed. We have no major complaints with them.

What did you find most impressive about Softlabs?

Other than their endeavor, which was certainly there, I wouldn’t say their expertise in a certain area was above anything else. It was just their endeavor and their willingness to work with us that impressed me the most.

Are there any areas Softlabs could improve?

I would say that there were times when they struggled with certain aspects of the delivery, but they always got it delivered. Their deadlines were sometimes missed.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is an electricity supplier and generator of renewable electricity. We’ve got about just under 800 kilowatts of generation capacity, and we’ve been managing around 45 clients so far.

I’m the Operations Manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softlabs?

We’ve partnered with Softlabs since May 2015 where we were using their services for their technical expertise in producing software that’ll help us with registrations and billing management. It was a software application for managing our customers. It was not a website; it was a registration database. I was just an internal application, but it was an application that actually communicates with other entities because all the suppliers in the UK in the electricity industry have to communicate through a data transfer network, so we have to make sure that the application which is developed has the rules and the configurations required for communicating in the language that’s actually regulated by the industry.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a system that was built from scratch, but we were using a previous system they had to reengineer. We initially attempted to revamp the old software that we were using, but it wasn’t really up to the mark. We decided, and it was a joint vision along with Softlabs, to build an application using the information that we had off our previous software and build an entirely new product.

The previous software that we were working on didn’t have certain documentation. It didn’t have the required configurations that we could use to enhance the system, so we had to build the product from scratch. Initially, we started off with about three to four software developers. That was when we were going through the requirement gathering phase. Once they understood the software and before we signed contracts with them, we decided to have a six to seven-member team where they had three software developers, one project lead, a senior project manager, and a director who was actually managing the entire software development.

How did you come to work with Softlabs?

We had an in house IT team of 10 to 15 people previously, before we started to outsource technical services, that consisted of about 6 to 7 developers and project managers, and we had about 2 project managers that were working on the software. We, however, decided in late 2014 to outsource the entire IT operations, and that’s why we had Softlabs at that time. We went through our due diligence process for suppliers and selected Softlabs to review the software.

How much have you invested with Softlabs?

We have spent between $50,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project has completed phase one, so we are actually already live. We are using the software for managing our registrations currently. We have, however, commenced phase two, which is the customization and enhancement of the product, providing a more user-friendly environment, just going through the screens making sure that the software has the extra edge if you ever wanted to provide these services to additional suppliers. We just need to make sure that the product is up to the mark.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

To be honest, when the project was scoped out to be completed in 12 months, although we had anticipated that it would be complete in 12 months’ time, as a client we expected the product to be probably delayed by at least 5 to 6 months simply because it was quite a complex operation. The previous in-house team that was actually managing the project probably took about more than a year and a half to get to where we are right now. Taking that into consideration, I think Softlabs have managed to complete what we have achieved in phase one in a considerable amount of time, and I think it’s quite commendable on their part where they have been able to manage to actually achieve most of the configuration and development in this short amount of time. We are still working with them to provide the additional enhancement and functionality for phase two, but the phase one development and configurations that they have so far already produced is far more commendable considering our previous experience with our in-house IT team before.

How did Softlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management, to be honest, was a combined effort. I think I’ll be honest and say that the project management was a joint effort from us as a client and Softlabs. We needed that because Softlabs is new to the electricity industry, and so we did not want to actually take a chance by providing them with the complete control of project management. We did have a fair bit of tasks in overall project management to make sure that the milestones at every stage were achieved. However, in saying that, they did keep to most of the milestones. If there were delays, they were delays that we could easily absorb, and they did not actually hamper the overall progress of the development.

What did you find most impressive about Softlabs?

I would like to say that I think the communication overall is pretty alright because one of the major issues that we had initially, especially with the project manager, is communication. As a client, we were never kept informed with the previous IT team that we were working with, and there is always this gap in communication between the developers and us as a client. Sometimes, there is a misunderstanding of what we would like in a module or in a particular form and what the developers think that it should be, and I think it’s only until very late in the project that they are made aware of it. I think that with their approach, and the way they have managed the project, they have kept regularly in touch with us. If I’m not mistaken, they have also been using the MVC [model-view-controller] architecture, which provides us with a customer view of what the application would look like. That provided us with the end user interface that we can actually assess and review constantly, and provide them with the feedback that was required in case there were any changes. Overall, the communication was excellent, and that’s why we managed to complete phase one and commence with phase two.

Are there any areas Softlabs could improve?

Even though the communication was good, I think it can still be far better. I think the project manager probably could provide us with weekly updates more often and probably work with us to achieve the goals that were set for every two weeks. I think if that was kept a lot more up to date, it would have been far better. Overall, the communication was good; it’s just me asking for a little bit more.