Sutunam

Please describe your company and your position there.

I hold the position of e-Commerce manager at Carré Blanc, a French company that specializes in household linens and is recognized for the quality of its goods, as well as their innovative colors and designs. To commemorate our 35th anniversary, Carré Blanc wanted a fresh new image. We requested that they integrate our new charter into their work.

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

Until recently, Carré Blanc's website had been a functional but visually outdated site. The new design provides a significantly better user experience than the previous one. Rejecting the traditional approach of targeting only desktop computers, the redesign allows for closer interaction with customers' internet behavior to support the brand's strong growth on digital platforms.

We also added several features to the existing Magento platform, such as categories management and product management, as well as static content administration.

How did you select Sutunam and what were the deciding factors?

We selected this vendor based on a number of factors. First, we ere looking for Magento developers with extensive experience in developing high-quality ecommerce platforms. Sutunam stood out to us right away because they had an excellent reputation among professionals in the Magento community, and they had also been named one of the top Magento developers by various industry publications.

In addition, we were impressed by the Sutunam's focus on UX (user experience) and UI design. The team clearly understood the importance of creating an intuitive and engaging user interface, which is crucial for driving sales in today's market. Overall, Sutunam offers exactly what our business needs in terms of software development expertise and commitment to creating an exceptional user experience. We have been working with them for several years now !

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

Their Magento team did handle the ecommerce development project, from simple API integrations to complex customizations. Here are some of the key steps theytook to complete our project: Discuss our requirements in detail and come up with a plan of action. Start working on the design, making sure it's user-friendly and in line with our branding. Once the design is approved, Sutunam has started coding the frontend and backend of our site.

And also integrated our third-party APIs required, such as payment processors, shipping providers and store locators. Finally, we've tested everything thoroughly to make sure everything was perfectly working. And of course, they provide support and maintenance after launch.

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

As previously said, we had a Project Manager in charge of communicating with the rest of the team. However, there was also a Project Director, two certified Magento/ PHP back-end developers, two front-end developers, and an Artist UX/UI director to work with through the whole project period.

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

Indeed, to date, we have achieved a +125% increase in turnover for the launching year and we got closer to the Sales revenue that we had planned in the BP for 2 years. In particular, we have beaten record after record in the following launching weeks from a daily turnover point of view with an important rise on the BlackFriday day.

Never seen before and the site has stretched the load. A special mention for Thomas C. a golden project manager with whom it is a pleasure to work every day.

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

We had daily meetings with their project manager, who spoke to the rest of their team and acted as one main contact. We haven't experienced any significant delays, and they have always warned us ahead of time if there are any issues so that we may prepare. We used their collaborative technologies to exchange information, and we had a fantastic collaboration with the project manager.

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

They've previously built complex e-commerce websites. It's a real plus for us to have Sutunam collaborate on our project as if they were part of our own team. Their human-sized business is also advantageous, especially since they're one of our key development partners. We also received a lot of valuable advise throughout the collaboration, which we appreciate.

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

We had to enhance the testings in order to ensure that everything is as it should be and that we are following proper procedures. They responded by providing a front-end testing environment, tools, and service.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of ActivCorner. Our mission is to help companies with their initiatives when it comes to wellness of their employees. We do that by proposing solutions to be made available to the employees in their offices, whether they be coaching, team building, challenges, and other things of that nature. Outside of the work environment, we offer them a marketplace. It’s the backbone for our service. The marketplace references all sport and wellness avenues in France. We have about 3,000 partners today. We’ve been open for four years now and we have about 80 clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sutunam?

I needed help with full-stack web development. At the very beginning, I was a young entrepreneur and I wanted to build the Facebook of sports. There were millions of people trying to accomplish that. Not many have prevailed. They first developed for me a social network around sports in 2013.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I outsource 100% of our tech to them including frontend, backend, and APIs. They built the marketplace and helped us with all the tooling of the CRM it involved. We’ve also done a mobile app together and dropped it for budget reasons. I became more focused on the web platform, making it responsive. It’s working very well on mobile and I’m quite happy with it. They use Symfony, JavaScript, and PHP; we have some SOAP integrations for the APIs.

What is the team composition?

There have been many people over the four years. For now, I have four people, all based in Vietnam. There’s one project manager, one backend developer, one frontend developer, and another developer who used to be the lead architect because he has the most knowledge when it comes to our platform.

How did you come to work with Sutunam?

In 2012, I was looking on 404Works, a marketplace where you drop projects you want to develop and the tech teams contact you. When I launched my project for the sports social network, I had about 30 different companies contacting me to assist me. I chose Sutunam because we clicked right away. Many people at Sutunam have the sports knowledge. I knew I could find a tech partner in many places but I needed to find people who knew the technology and had the sports sensitivity. The second thing was the cost. They have teams in Vietnam and they were able to propose rates to me that were lower than the market price. The third thing is I was very confident in their technical expertise. They not only knew what they were talking about but they could back it up with projects that they had worked on. They work with big brands. I looked at everything they had done and it was very convincing.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around €230,000-€270,000 euros ($270,300-$317,200 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the work is ongoing. It took us 5-6 months to build the marketplace and get an MVP. They continue to be our primary developers.

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

They’re very competent when it comes to Symfony platforms. I’m extremely satisfied. The sports network product was good. I have people coming at me seven years later saying they’re thinking about doing a social network with ideas and features that we did seven years ago. I was quite happy with the product. I think we were just too early in the French market. It had nothing to do with Sutunam’s work.

I was a failing entrepreneur trying to build a new product. They helped me at every step. Even when the money and energy were slow, they were always there to pick me up. They weren’t just an outsourcing company but were partners. They’re extremely honest and direct. Many times, they wouldn’t agree with me and would tell me why they didn’t. They saved me from many bad decisions. I’m really thankful to them for that.

They’re very curious about the technologies. Every time I benchmark what we do and what’s happening in the market, my contact is telling me to open an email he sent me two years ago when he was already telling me about it. They’re very aware of the technology and keep up to date, which is extremely reassuring for me because I don’t have to worry about looking over their back and making sure they’re keeping our platform competitive.

How did Sutunam perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a weekly Monday meeting to discuss what has been accomplished the previous week and what there is to do for the upcoming week. I’m satisfied with their reactivity. They have a ticketing system that we use. Every time I have new requests or a new project, we discuss it and submit it to the ticketing system. They’re very responsive to the tasks. Usually, when I have a request or question, I always have an answer within the day. What’s been extremely satisfying is that there are people working at night when I’m sleeping because they’re in Vietnam. I have enough time with them until 2-3 pm to discuss the tasks. Whenever they leave, I still have people in France who are able to help and assist me until I leave the office. This allows for our project to advance very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like that it’s a human-sized company with people that are passionate about what they do. They don’t sugar coat things. When we discuss projects, I feel they’re partners and not just people that execute. I feel like my team is double the size because I have all these people at Sutunam who are willing to assist and go the extra mile with us. I’m very confident in their competency in technology. I’m happy with what they’ve done for me over the years.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I originally mentioned Sutunam was quite good when it came to UX/UI but could improve somehow. I realize that's not fair to them because most of the projects we've worked on, the decisions were often taken on our side when it came to UX/UI, and I realize the best experience our platform provides when it comes to that, has been built and provided by Sutunam.