Tcetra Client Review

T-Cetra is a technology company linking wireless carriers, merchants, and mass distributors together in order to support activation and prepaid solutions through indirect mobile channels. We’ve launched our VidaPay portal, which is the large brand we use for differentiating our products and services, including cell phone activation, domestic and international prepaid wireless airtime, and seamless long-distance and domestic bill-payment solutions. I am a product owner for the company. I document software requirements and work directly with developers in an iterative process to bring forth products of value to the business.

They were originally brought in to help us with our mobile application. We wanted to build a more robust app which could support payment processing on iOS and Android.

Sunflower Labs was crucial in kicking-off our payment app project. They continue to work closely with our internal team any time we have troubleshooting issues. The app is available on iOS and Android and serves the same purpose as our web portal, providing dealers with merchant locations and payment processing for prepaid cell phone activations, airtime top-ups, or any billable products we offer.

They’ve helped design our web application and have also assisted in our internal project management process. Sunflower Labs also provided assistance with our existing street terminals.

They’ve helped build the layout for our marketplace. The portal offers products to dealers, including headsets, phones, and things of this nature. Sunflower Labs created the user interface for it, and it has become a thriving product. We’re continually developing on top of the framework built by Sunflower Labs.

We work directly with Ronak [Patel], their CEO, who assigns tasks and manages the Sunflower team from the outside. If we have a project for which we decide to outsource them, Ronak will take part in our remote meetings and coordinate tasks on their side. I’m not quite sure how many resources from Sunflower Labs’ side we’ve used, but they’re never short on team members.

They’ve always been on top of everything during calls and meetings. I can’t think of a project where Sunflower Labs didn’t deliver what we needed in time. Many of our engagements have been done in combination with our developers. For example, Sunflower Labs may create the user interface, while our middleware team will be responsible for all plugins and controls.

Our CIO was responsible for sourcing Sunflower Lab.

The cost of Sunflower Labs’ work has been around $380,000–$450,000. That number is probably rising.

We started working with Sunflower Labs in March or April of 2016. We continue to outsource them for certain projects, but I haven’t been involved with Sunflower Labs as of late.

When we bring in Sunflower Labs, our projects get completed a lot faster. This is due to resource allocation, of course. Using their team on bigger projects has definitely proven to be a successful method of delivering things on time.

I couldn’t give a precise estimate of cost savings, but we would not have been outsourcing to Sunflower Labs if the savings weren’t immense. We don’t compromise good work for money internally, though, especially in this industry.

We have a number of users—anywhere from 18,000–25,000 merchants in our system. Many of those accounts can have 1–20 people using them.

We have run into an internal issue since losing a couple of project managers in a short period of time. Sunflower Labs assisted us with a couple of internal projects, having a member of their team come in for early meetings.

We’re based in Columbus, Ohio and have worked with Sunflower Labs on-site for our project management needs. When we outsource them for development, those will most likely be remote tasks.

We use Team Foundation Server internally. Ronak helps us manage the process in-house; for the projects that his team is called out on, they will have access to our system. We have continuous updates on a daily basis around what is taking place and any blockers which need to be taken care of.

Everything I’ve worked on with Sunflower Labs has met the timeline. They’ve saved us money during those processes, and I’m very happy with the quality of work.

I don’t have any suggestions, except doing research and trying to find Sunflower Labs. I don’t know if they’re well-marketed in the US.