What was the scope of their involvement?
Procurement systems have become very popular over the last three or four years. They allow large companies to make secure purchases for their employees (e.g., office supplies) and manage their spend more effectively. They can monitor who is ordering what, how much, how frequently, etc. Employees can use the punchout system to view approved websites and their most updated catalogs to order products.
Synsoft has developed this very effective mechanism to control spend on an individual basis. We are a vendor to some of the largest companies in the U.S., so our punchout system allows us to quickly integrate with some of the procurement systems that are leading players in the marketplace. Companies can use this tool to access the products we supply without having to adapt their existing procurement systems to our system.
Synsoft provides software development, testing, QA, and deployment services. They’ve mostly worked on taking the product from start to finish. We provided them with a description of our requirements, market demands, and customer needs. They provided a requirements document for us to approve and then moved on to development. After we approve the app from a QA standpoint, they then moved on to maintenance mode. They upgrade and customize the products based on changes and requirements from new customers.
We’ve used two tools during development and maintenance. We have a common hosted service that we use for upgrades and bug reports where our users create tickets. After Synsoft receives the ticket with the problem, they’ll communicate directly with the user to ask questions before resolving it. They provide a release date and time and upgrade the product once QA is complete. They work on a project basis, so they give us a different schedule every time we have a new one. We don’t always use a hosted system, but we have started using one for project management.
What is the team composition?
They have dedicated individuals for different project aspects: development, project management, and account management. The project manager is responsible for understanding what customer needs are outstanding.
How did you come to work with Synsoft Global?
I’ve known and worked with them for the past 20 years. I worked with them at my two previous companies and they did an excellent job with both development and data entry. They’re good at adapting to new technology.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent as little as $10,000 and as high as $150,000 depending on the service.
What is the status of the engagement?
We’ve been working with them for 18–24 months. We continue to work with them so they can update our products based on the needs of different procurement systems. They continue to support our expanding requirements on a monthly basis.
The number of customers and the revenue have increased substantially. Synsoft Global went above and beyond to meet all needs, while their ability to become a true partner and effectively manage the process contributed to the ongoing relationship.