Techversant Infotech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a software development provider for the safety industry, offering solutions which help executives manage their internal programs. We have an online product which is scalable to the various clients which we service. Initially, our product was a learning management platform with courses for the safety industry. Our clients could set up a store on their websites, put up online courses for sale, and allow people to read information, watch a snippet of the video, and ultimately purchase the course. We have around 20 employees.

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Techversant?

We had a local developer in Alberta, which handled the work for the first 4 and a half years on our learning management suite. As our company started growing, they couldn't keep up with the demand. We reached a “code red” point, and months were going by without new feature releases. We decided to go on a search in order to find a solutions provider that could come in where our previous provider left us.

At the time, our learning management system was only able to deliver courses, provide reporting, generate exam questions and mark them, and so on. It provided the basics of a learning management system, but we now needed advanced search capabilities, reporting, and a few other large features which were necessary just to maintain our business. We tried suggesting that our old partner should team up with another team, and we also offered them more money, but they couldn't keep up.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Techversant handles everything development-related. They've set up test and production servers, moving us from some archaic hosting providers. This is outside of their normal scope, but Techversant put together a team that could help us. We had no experience in this area.

Techversant has installed GitHub for us to set up a production and development environment. They're overseeing project management and testing. We create cases in Basecamp, and Techversant creates design docs and codes the features. After automated testing is done, the work is moved to our local servers and tested manually.

The main technology being used is ColdFusion, but Techversant also uses HTML5, SCORM 1.2 and 2.04, MySQL, Windows Server, and a number of other technologies.

We started with hiring one full-time resource from Techversant but ended up expanding the team to six full-time developers. I was completely immersed in the selection process, acting as the judge and jury. We receive input from a few other internal members, but that decision rests with me. It's not a light matter.

How did you come to work with Techversant?

Our search for a partner lasted for about a year. We went to a couple of websites, doing a widespread cast for our project, in order to see if there was any interest for it. Around 64 sizeable organizations came back to us, after which we went through an evaluation of their feedback ratings, technologies, scope, and experience. We narrowed the option down to four or five companies which could handle our development needs, giving a test project to them. Two candidates said that it was too big for them to handle, while three actually went through with it.

Techversant was great in terms of both features and time. They completed the task four weeks sooner than anyone else, under budget. Every page they touched was improved in terms of speed and performance. The code was reduced and errors were cleaned-up. They've been working fine since then, around four years ago. We moved everything to Techversant.

How much have you invested with Techversant?

The cost of Techversant's services has been over one million dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Techversant in March 2011, and have an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In the first year, we were way behind our competition; we had backlogs that were two years old. Within three to six months, Techversant caught up with all of those. Two years later, we came so far ahead of our competition that we started taking the market by storm, becoming a serious competitive threat to all the major players. Within the last two years, we've come to dominate the industry in terms of functionalities. All of this is due to Techversant's ability to understand our needs.

Clients have been absolutely stunned with the quality of our system and its functionalities.

How did Techversant perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is extremely good on Techversant's side. We're usually the problem because we’re throwing hundreds of different tasks at Techversant each week. We try to be clear on priorities, but Techversant seems to manage them better than us. We have several hundred urgent cases at any given time, ranging from small to large tasks. We also have several hundred nice-to-have requests.

Techversant has an ability to effectively manage this. They assign three or four core people for the bigger features, making sure that all client deadlines are met, as well as one or two developers for the smaller cases. They effectively move through the queue. At no point have we experienced an urgent case of something freezing.

I fly to Techversant's location every year, and also have their team come to our side of the world. One of their members visited us in July 2016, for one week.

What did you find most impressive about Techversant?

Historically, when we were working with other development companies, they'd sometimes take things at face value and build exactly what we asked for. They weren’t thinking through the impact of those requests. Techversant is able to let us know how any change might impact other elements. They've helped sanity-check our direction and choices, as well as provide design and spec documents for us. None of the tasks we've given Techversant over the years proved overwhelming for them.

Are there any areas Techversant could improve?

If the system has an automated testing platform, there can be a conflict of data between one report and the other. There’s always a handful of errors which come up each day. If I specifically ask for one to be fixed, Techversant will jump on it, but they put more priority on customer issues. This is where we want Techversant to be, but I have a personal issue with our bug notifications. Outside of this, there isn't much. Techversant is an extraordinary team, and what they do is in the best interest of our clients and company.