Ysquare Technology

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of ShortCode Technologies, and we are in web development. We have offices in the US, Canada, and India.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ysquare Technology?

We were looking for someone to help us with website and mobile development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave them an entire project for them to build. It was a product idea for a transportation management system, and they implemented the entire project from scratch. They have also helped us build a mobile application that is on both the Play Store and App Store right now.

They have a business analyst that steps in at the beginning and listens to the requirements to know exactly what we need, the timeframe we have, and what the client’s expectations are. The business analyst documents everything.

Once we know what problem we are trying to solve, the CEO, business analyst, a couple of developers from their side, myself, and my partner sit down at a round table and we discuss the tech stack we should use, how to approach the problem, and how many resources will be needed.

It is an iterative cycle every week until we reach a particular milestone. Once we reach all the milestones, we confirm that the entire scope is done. Then we work on a maintenance cycle and decide on the next steps whether it is how to manage it further, reducing the sources on the project. It is the regular cycle of requirements, design, development, and maintenance and they have made sure that we are comfortable with that.

We have done five or six projects with Ysquare now. They have been our go-to for anything that comes up and for any of our clients. They spin their magical wand and get the issue resolved.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with them on multiple projects. They assign me a team per project and every team is different. I would say I have interacted with at least 10 to 15 people on all these projects combined. The CEO begins it and architects it all, and then he gives everything to the team. I have interacted with a lot of full-stack senior developers, the business analyst, and testers who are all really good. Their mobile app developer has helped us with the mobile app.

How did you come to work with Ysquare Technology?

When I first looked for an option in India, I literally found 30 companies in a week’s time that said they could provide the services that I was looking for.

I came across Ysquare through one of my connections. I spoke to the CEO and he is super confident, and he has a lot of experience. We thoroughly reviewed them and spoke several times, and we felt they were the ones to go with. We started with one project and with the way he architected it and the questions that he asked, we knew we were in the right hands.

What is the status of this engagement?

I first visited their office in August 2018, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We needed to make sure that projects were done according to the timeline. If we say something will be done in six months, we need to make sure that it gets done in six months. If it is going to be seven months, we have to pay for more resources and the budget will increase. If there is scope creep in between, where we want to add new features, then that will further delay the timeline. It is all about that timeline and that is where they thrive. I have worked with a lot of companies, but they have lacked experience. Without having that prior experience, they won’t be able to estimate things properly as that is what experience teaches you.

Ysquare knew exactly what kinds of technical challenges we would have, and what the elements are in a particular project. The CEO made sure there was enough time for those kinds of tasks. They are always meeting the estimated timeline. They have always been on time which is why we will always continue to do business with them.

How did Ysquare Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

We are a small company, and they are also a small company, and we always try to use an open-source tool. We have used Trello as our project management tool throughout.

They have been super flexible. When I was in Canada, we had a slight challenge with the time zone difference. Either I would have had to stay up late or wake up early in order to spend more time with the team. The resources that were on the project were so flexible and it was really a pleasure for me to work with them. I never felt like they were on the opposite side of the globe. They were always a message or a chat away. They showed me both the technical aspect and the functional aspect of their particular user story.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team they have set up is the most impressive thing. The CEO is one man running the company; it is a one-man show. There is no CTO or CMO; he is the one guy who is taking everything under his umbrella. We were really impressed. He has had dedicated teams for specific things like DevOps or application development. It has been really organized, and the way that he could set that team up and retain them, even through these COVID-19 challenging times, I would say was the most impressive aspect of theirs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We never had any issues with them. If we saw that anything was moving away from the ball, we just had a quick sync-up call, and everything would go back on track. Any time there is an issue with a client or any time someone is facing a problem, they will immediately jump in.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really sure about the end product. If we as a customer give a clear vision, it would be very easy for them to make it into reality.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I head the Product Engineering department at WEGoT Utility Solutions Pvt Ltd.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Ysquare technology to work on our product development - water monitoring platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select Ysquare Technology and what were the deciding factors?

YSquare was chosen on two fronts: For their outstanding customer centric development approach where they execute an extended team model seamlessly. Their leadership under Yaseen provides practical, cost-effective engineering solutions. This was needed at the time the entire platform re-engineering from version 2.0 to 3.0 happened. It was an immense help to put together his team along with ours to crack the ingestion techniques to handle the explosive growth of IoT devices.

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

Scope of work included IoT device management, data ingestion, and handling processed information. Technologies include Azure Cloud/AWS Serverless, Node JS, and Angular.

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

Initially, about 4 resources later scaled down to 1-2. They were mainly developers and dev-ops. Yaseen was the architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a successful cloud migration on the new 3.0 stack.

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

Tools used were JIRA &Slack.

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

Their flexibility is the core of their success and by means of both regular and ad-hoc sync-ups, they were able to mount the right resources to deliver projects on item.

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

Account in their services more automation tests and documentation.