Traust

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of IT for a semi-custom HVAC equipment manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Traust?

We needed resources for multiple projects, especially as we moved one of our businesses into the Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle EBS) system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Traust augments our team with local contractors who have Oracle EBS expertise. They’ve helped us with multiple complex projects.

What is the team composition?

We’ve had as many as 12 people from Traust on our team simultaneously, but we’re currently down to two. We’re also in touch with Mark (President & CEO).

How did you come to work with Traust?

We’ve known about Traust for more than 10 years. They’re local, so they have the proximity to put contractors in our office side-by-side with our project teams.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent as much as $3 million–$4 million per year with Traust. We’re currently spending about $500,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2008. There was a lull in our engagement when we didn’t bring anybody onsite for a number of years, but we brought in several of them in 2017 as we moved one of our businesses into the Oracle system.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Traust has provided quality contractors to help us complete half a dozen complex projects during the past three years.

How did Traust perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t typically buy project management capabilities from Traust, but the contractors they’ve provided us with have performed admirably at getting their work done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their Oracle EBS expertise is impressive, and Mark does a really good job of staying in touch with us to ensure that Traust is meeting our expectations. When they’re not, he works hard to correct it — he’s a very good business partner. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are relatively expensive. The ratio of cost to value is one of the reasons we’re not using their contractors more right now — we can get Oracle expertise much less expensively via offshore and nearshore sourcing models.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really clear that you’re sourcing a staff augmentation model, not a project delivery model.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of IT at an alcohol manufacturer. We produce and ship products to our distributors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Traust?

We had a legacy ERP system that we wanted to replace.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Traust has been assisting us in implementing a financial package and replacing the purchasing and management and all the additional aspects of an ERP. We started by going through what we needed to ensure that we were going with the right product.

In terms of technologies, we’ve been using Oracle E-Business Suite.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with around five members of their team, including a project manager, configuration specialists, and developers.

How did you come to work with Traust?

They were working with our company before I took my current position.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve invested $200,000–$1 million with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2009, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve done multiple projects together, and they’ve understood our requirements.

How did Traust perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent at sticking to our schedules and budget. In terms of communication, we use phone calls, Google Meets, Slack, Skype, and text messages.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability and flexibility to work with us in several applications are outstanding, so if I face a challenge, I can describe it to them, and they’ll guide me with a decision.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be mindful of the project’s communication, keep in touch with them, and build trust with their team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director and VP of an engineering consulting company. I’m in charge of all IT areas of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Traust?

We hired them to help us in recruiting some of the positions we had opened in the company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Traust focused on recruiting quality candidates for our company. During the course of our partnership, they presented various talents to us, and we did all the interviewing and all other processes that were related to that.

What is the team composition?

We only had one primary contact from Traust.

How did you come to work with Traust?

I knew Mark (CEO) for many years. As a result, when I had this project, I reached out to him for help. In fact, we had a technical project with them 10–12 years ago for two programming efforts, and they successfully delivered the programs to our customer.

How much have you invested with them?

On this particular project, we didn’t spend anything on their recruiting services because we didn’t hire anyone from their candidates.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration ran from January 2018–June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a tough position to fill, and they were able to help us save time by doing an initial screening for us. Overall, they were very helpful.

How did Traust perform from a project management standpoint?

They had the ability to manage and stay on top of the project. Their communication skills were also good — we never felt like they had forgotten about us. In fact, they always kept us updated about what was going on. We mostly kept in touch through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked that they were very straightforward and that they were a trustworthy partner.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d absolutely recommend working with Traust. Once you do, share all the information they need and help them understand your business.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a software development director for a major public university foundation

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have a custom built fund raising CRM. Our mission critical gift processing module were 20 years old and built on a platform that could no longer be sustained. We are an Oracle shop and wanted to stay as such. Oracle Application Express (APEX) was the right platform to develop these forms on. We have senior Oracle developers on staff, but none that specialize in APEX. Traust was brought on to provide that expertise and work with our developers to deliver a replacement module within the fiscal year.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We met Traust while at an Oracle developer conference - ODTUG-Kscope. We were looking into APEX as a potential addition to our software development platform and part of our IT strategic plan. We ran into some folks from Traust at an event there. One of their specialties was Oracle APEX and a connection was made. Traust seemed like a good mesh and we did a small pilot and training project for a test drive. That went well and we moved ahead with our major gift processing initiative.

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

Basically we went through a full software development lifecycle on the project. Traust was involved in the requirements gathering, design, build, documentation, system test, deployment and maintenance. The entire application was built in Oracle APEX. The APEX consultant worked hand-and-hand with a senior developer on our team. Traust built the APEX form (and trained our developer), our developer defined the business rules to enforce and wrote the pl/sql and sql business logic outside of APEX in pl/sql packages/procedures.

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

There were two members from Traust we worked with. One was the solutions architect/business manager. The other was the APEX developer/specialist and project manager who worked hand in hand with one of our senior oracle software developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We couldn't have been more happy with the outcome of this project. The deployment was nearly flawless. Our gift processing team was processing gifts at full capacity nearly immediately. We had very few bugs or issues. In previous iterations of these forms, this was not the case. The final product was a huge success and had a very high user satisfaction rating. It has also laid the groundwork for future APEX development within our environment.

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

The project management team was terrific. We met weekly via Zoom to discuss timelines, budget, etc. While the project did go a bit over budget and time, this was not unexpected given the complexity of this project. Traust was very transparent about everything. Project communication took place via zoom meetings and Slack.

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

They are so easy to work with and just very warm and friendly. A lot of consultants come off as cold and like they don't care. Not the case at all with Traust. And, of course, they delivered.

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

At this point, I am hard pressed to find any critiques.