SovTech

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of an online financial marketplace that compares different banks, lenders, and insurers across the South African market.  

What challenge were you trying to address with SovTech?

We brought them on at the beginning of the business three years. They developed our initial technology, as well as performed maintenance and built features and technology we’ve done since.

Our main issue was the misallocation of people to products. Individuals were applying for the wrong type of banking product, creating a whole heap of applications going to banks and lenders that didn’t represent quality leads. With SovTech, we created a risk-scoring algorithm that sits in between the applicants and the institutions and matches the correct person to the correct product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s a web-based platform, and they designed the first iteration as well, though another company designed the second iteration. SovTech did all the engineering on the backend as well.

We started off with a very surface level marketplace, which used a good UX to get individuals in South Africa to apply through our system. They go through a simple application form and enter a comparison page with basic pricing information for the product and company. We provide real-time scoring, so the applicant gets a live score for our partners that is the actual quote they’d get based on the information they provided. We have a lot of APIs—71 banks, lenders, and insurers have API integrations with our risk-scoring engine—and feedback loops built-in, as well as data analytics and data science.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager and two developers and communicated will three regularly. Each developer handled a different aspect of the business. We had tech standups three times a week and open communication, which helped us gauge how far along the developers had progressed.

How did you come to work with SovTech?

They’d done one previous project for us: an online delivery service for an international retail company. We enjoyed working with them, so we used them again. They were accommodating and executed well.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent 600,000 South African Rand ($39,600 USD) to build the platform.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016, and the platform launched at the end of 2016.

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

Feedback from partners has been positive; the risk-scoring engine works well according to them. We’ve become one of the bigger lead-providers to banks in the country.

How did SovTech perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated over Slack, and they were very responsive. I can give them a phone call anytime. The channel to our team was open and easy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is our second project with them, and we’re happy with both of them. All systems work well, from execution and timelines to communication. If we were unhappy or only marginally happy, we would have left.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Foreseeing and sticking to timelines, perhaps, which is really hard in technology. That’s small, but if there’s anything to pick on, it’s that.

What challenge were you trying to address with SovTech?

We needed to build a platform that would connect customers with third-party partners in order to help them conduct business.

What challenge were you trying to address with SovTech?

We needed to build a platform that would connect customers with third-party partners in order to help them conduct business.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked together on the initial low-resolution wireframes, and we used the company’s corporate identity for a final design.

They designed and developed an MVP for our platform in a short amount of time. It needed to be cloud-hosted with a static frontend, and incorporate the basic technologies used. Their work is ongoing with supporting the platform.

What is the team composition?

It’s changed over time, but we primarily had a project manager, a developer, and a lead designer.

How did you come to work with SovTech?

One of my colleagues had worked with them previously.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in May 2018, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

We piloted the product that was built and were able to get good feedback on the product idea. Their team was always accessible.

How did SovTech perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was very hands-on. If we had issues or things that needed to be resolved quickly, she was able to pull the right resources together. We communicated via Slack.

Unfortunately, we did have missed timelines at times, which weren’t communicated beforehand, to our frustration. There was, however, always acknowledgment that things could be done better and a willingness to improve for the next interaction.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked that they keep the same personnel assigned to our project to keep our relationship strong.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Yes, I think that their approach to winning clients or winning work needs to be less templated. They tend to come with their own ideal solution before fully understanding what the project needs might be. To have flexibility before proposing any solutions would be appreciated.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be very clear on what your scope calls for. It’s important to agree on the timelines beforehand and communicate what’s a flexible timeline, and what isn't. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

Versofy.com is an online marketplace for professional services. I am the founder

For what projects/services did your company hire SovTech?

SovTech have been briefed with taking our fully custom product built in PHP Laravel and spinning off the front end to a wordpress front end in order to give our team more ability to add content for SEO purposes, make quick fire changes to the UI and generally have more control over our platform without the need for engineers. They have also been tasked with migrating our site to an elastic cloud server as well as implementing bitbucket for better development practice and control and integration into 3rd party apps and products.

What were your goals for this project?

1) Spinoff the front end to Wordpress with all relevant database linking 2) Migrate site to elastic cloud server 3) Enable easy integration and development control through best practice structures

How did you select this vendor?

SovTech understood our requirements and offered a solution that will enable our business to rapidly scale by laying a solid tech foundation.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

SovTech have been briefed with taking our fully custom product built in PHP Laravel and spinning off the front end to a wordpress front end in order to give our team more ability to add content for SEO purposes, make quick fire changes to the UI and generally have more control over our platform without the need for engineers. They have also been tasked with migrating our site to an elastic cloud server as well as implementing bitbucket for better development practice and control and integration into 3rd party apps and products.

What was the team composition?

Lead Developer Project Manager Team Lead CEO

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

The project is still ongoing but should be complete in the coming weeks. Communication has been great throughout and the team has been flexible to accommodate our priorities from a development perspective. We eagerly await the final product.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The process has been good from start to present, we had a couple of sessions for the sovtech team to understand our product and requirements. They then put together a roadmap and rollout plan to get to our desired destination. Once work commenced, they have effectively made use of both Trello and Slack to keep us informed and up to date of the project progress.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SovTech has a young, dynamic team that is knowledgeable in their processes and skill set.

Are there any areas for improvement?

As with most development projects, things always seem to take longer than first anticipated, often due to unforeseen circumstances. My recommendation for any development company is to rather estimate longer time periods and deliver quicker than the other way around. That being said, Sovtech have kept us in the loop from day one as to the progress so any delays have not necessarily come as a surprise so I thank them for that.