Jaffa.Net Inside: Software Development Outsourcing
In 2010, after almost 10 years since the company was establishment, I received an email from a major chip manufacturing company, perhaps the largest worldwide, suggesting a meeting after I actually managed to meet a VP and a General Manager in the region. I thought it will be a general meeting whereby I will be asked to present i-Jaffa.Net. I decided to do it the Silicon Valley way where I acquired my hi-tech experience before starting i-Jaffa.Net as a software development and outsourcing company. Being over prepared is better than less prepared. Hence, I prepared around a 20 minutes’ presentation, covering our history, the staff, previous projects, our quality focus and orientation and our humane culture at the company. Luckily, we had finished at that time a check clearing system for banks where around 75% of the checks circulating in the country is managed by our software with almost no downtime, finished a major project automating the courts system in Jordan and in Palestine, worked on a project for Fujitsu, and developed a software for a research center at Oxford University to show case the complexity of software we had developed. I was hailed by so many detailed questions, and I found myself presenting my company in front of the site manager, the software validation director, the outsourcing expert, and few software development managers. I think I aced it. Thanks to my training and experience being a professor as part of my career and led many projects while working for Sun Microsystems in California. At the end of the two hours meeting, I asked, if possible, to give us a chance to compete in any of the upcoming outsourcing projects and the answer was why not.
Three weeks later, I received an invitation to bid for a validation project that was granted to an international outsourcing destination and was about to be terminated due to lack of quality and high turnover among the project staff. A week later from submitting i-jaffa.net proposal, I was asked if willing to prove that we can do what we promised in our proposal and to work on testing the software for a week. I, of course, agreed and provided the test plan, the project plan and the expected deliverables. Oh my God, I received a phone call this time from the project engineering manager asking me when can we start the testing per the suggested plan. We both agreed to start three days after due to a weekend. I marshalled all the needed resources and I myself helped throughout the testing process which we finished one day ahead of schedule, and, yes, we found critical bugs. We were granted the project that involved five validation engineers and a project manager.
Six months later, the number of validation engineers was increased to eight and more software development engineers were added to the team. The project lasted for almost three years during which another completely development project was also granted to us and still on going as we speak with additional validation engineers and project management as well. After the first project was about to end, I was asked to retain the same staff and not to assign them to any other projects as another project was about to start. I did and a third project was also granted to us.
As of today, and for the past thirteen years continuously, we are providing the software development, validation, project management, and also support for the same client. The first project manager from the client side once said: “Outsourcing is always a challenge, but in my work with i-Jaffa.Net, I have found an eager and willing partner who is easy to work with, delivers on their commitments, and is eager to grow and improve”, and another team lead of another project said: “When we started with i-Jaffa.Net, Code Quality is improved, went from 120 bugs to 50 in less than 3 months which we did not see in the past year and a half. All Sprints were delivered on time. Our releases to customers were all on time. Our customers are happy. I recommend and would hire i-Jaffa.net again and again”. I could not have asked for any better recommendations!
In addition to outsourcing, i-jaffa.net also developed multiple products such as MobilePay (as a mobile wallet) that empowers users to pay bills, send and receive payments in fiat currencies as well as crypto currencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum), MobilePay is used by a major investment bank; a Carpool application (Rafiq Carpool); an eKYC (Know Your Customer) and Digital ID solution for financial sector (FinID) using blockchain for secure ID storage and biometric for identification; and SigmaHealth for Electronic Health Record and management of clinics, labs, and hospitals. Yes, we are working on NFT-based health record whereby the patient owns his/her data and be able to grant access to health providers and physicians as needed.
Finally, I often been asked about staffing and how we find the right skilled employees. So let me just briefly say that we are actually lucky when it comes to resource pool. Our pool of talents consists of universities’ graduates in the field, which mounts to around 3,000 per year that is an order of magnitude more than what the market needs to employee. That allows us to cherry pick the best. I addition, and as of social responsibility, i-jaffa.net staff including myself teach some courses at the closest universities and consequently we hire the best in class as well. Last but not least, often many expats who returns to home from Europe or USA find i-jaffa.net culture as close to the same culture they are used to as we invest in our staff and infrastructure (from fiber Internet connectivity from two different providers, to flexible working hours, and continuous training and encourage innovation). I think building quality solutions and maintaining a good reputation throughout the 23 years of experience plays a factor here. We aim to have a pleasant place to work, to grow, and to innovate. We measure our success by our customers’ successes. We are ready to innovate, together.
i- Jaffa.Net is registered company with VAT number 562520890 and Dun Bradstreet Registered company under DUNS 600006302 with excellent and stable status.
For more info, please contact i- Jaffa.Net via: info@i-jaffa.net, Tel: +972-2-241-2020/+972-599-296106, Dr. Yahya Al-Salqan, CEO