Coherent Solutions blends seamlessly into ASA Automotive’s software development team
It’s one thing to find an offshore development supplier. But, as Scott Hopkins, Vice President of Operations and Technical Services of ASA Automotive knows, it is quite another to find a software development partner.
“I wasn’t new to offshore development when I started looking for someone to rewrite our system in 2010,” he explained. “I had my share of nightmare stories. I knew we needed more than just a supplier who could remove bugs and take assignments. We needed a partner.”
ASA Automotive had gone through several growth spurts over the years, including acquisitions of other companies that led to variances in their software product offerings. The company sells point-of-sale software on the low end, as well as enterprise wide (supply chain/enterprise resource planning) software to the vertical tire industry, including tire retailers, wholesalers, retreaders and online sellers. By 2010 ASA began modernizing their offerings to provide web-based, software as a service (SaaS), enhancing features and functions while making changes and upgrades much easier for their customers.
“We wanted to leap frog over our competition with technology and features like mobility and simplified, customizable work flow,” said Scott Hopkins.
Meeting the definition of partner
Scott and his team had already worked with some firms they found unsatisfactory. Besides over-promising and under-performing, they found poor English language skills and twelve-hour time differences to be barriers. Eventually they found Coherent Solutions – an American company headquartered in Minneapolis with a large development center in Minsk, Belarus.
Coherent Solutions offered ASA Automotive a high level of skill and experience in the technical stack they needed, good language skills, a seven-hour time difference and most of all, the drive to partner w/ASA. According to Scott that means a commitment to ASA’s success, including investment in Coherent’s own people and processes to understand ASA’s business as well as technical needs.