Trackmatic is a niche software development company that specialises in creating solutions for the supply chain and logistics industry. It helps businesses perfect their business flow so they can deliver better.
Trackmatic has always been ahead of the demand-curve, seeing trends before others realise the opportunities. One of many examples of this is when it gave truck drivers cell phones and what they trademarked as “Driver-led Visibility®” in 2015. Clients told them they were “crazy”. Today, this is commonplace.
Synthesis is a software development and consulting company with an eye for innovation and high-impact technology. The company pioneered cloud in South Africa and launched the first tap to phone technology in Africa.
Trackmatic’s CEO, David Slotow’s description of the business could easily be a description of Synthesis: “We have a proven track record of being able to solve problems that longstanding players in the market haven’t been able to do. We follow a very strong culture of continuous improvement and perpetual innovation.”
Both companies have always asked: How do we build software for the future?
Challenge
Trackmatic approached Synthesis to not merely go to cloud, while maintaining a hybrid model, but to create a safe, scalable and affordable production environment that provisioned for the future.
“Our clients need to keep paying the same amounts and just get more value as we evolve the product. As always, it’s been a big part of our way of work to capacitate our infrastructure, our systems, and our business long ahead of the need for it,” explains Slotow.
Solution
Trackmatic wanted to create a hybrid environment. Synthesis worked with the company to do so using AWS Cloud. “We chose AWS because of Synthesis more than Synthesis because of AWS,” says Slotow.
Everything put in place was designed for speed, agility and innovation at pace.
The companies worked together to build a landing zone – the fastest way to go to cloud. A landing zone helps customers quickly create an automated, secure, multi-account AWS environment with best practices.
Together, the companies automate pipelines and they are currently implementing infrastructure as code (IaC).
A best practise cloud platform, IaC and DevOps practices combine to provide up to 208 times more frequent code deployments, according to the State of DevOps Report. The faster a company can deploy code, the faster it can innovate, release new functionality and build for the future.
Results
By going to cloud, Trackmatic overcame the constraints of on-prem and “had the best of both worlds,” says Slotow.
“In the 18 months since we worked with Synthesis, we’ve got a well-architected environment in terms of our infrastructure. We’ve got high availability. We’ve got trusted custody that the AWS accounts management provisioning security is taken care of by people that have competence, and we haven’t had to hire in those resources. I think for us the largest benefit is only to come.”
Together, the software companies have achieved scale while managing costs. “Synthesis were able to accommodate our spend. They managed the cost constraints without compromising excellence with the understanding that if something was built well, it wouldn’t break and if something went wrong, there was a partner ready to jump in.
“Synthesis didn’t solve a problem we had. They galvanised, supported and empowered us to go on this AWS journey with confidence knowing we had the best minds looking at the solutioning for us. It’s the proven way of Synthesis working and its experience, that’s what we’ve bought, and that’s what we’re empowered with into the future.”
The partnership was also about ensuring Trackmatic, as an SME, could excel just as much as an enterprise company with a larger budget. “Synthesis understood the strategic opportunity and looked to advance Trackmatic’s technical learning and opportunity.”
“What makes Trackmatic unique is its approach. They build their technology around learning about what an industry-leading customer needs and solving for their problems with the belief that if they solve for them, then they will be solving for others as well. This is a long-term partnership and we are excited to see what we will achieve together,” says Synthesis Naseem Ahmed, Cloud Enablement Practice Lead.
