SpiderPlus & Co. offers “SPIDER+,” an app driving DX on construction sites. We spoke with Mr. Junpei Suzuki, Product Manager in the Product Planning Division, about their offshore development with SY Partners (SYP).
First, could you tell us about your area of responsibility?
I'm the Product Manager for SPIDER+ in the Product Planning Division, responsible for planning the development of several features, including the inspection-management feature.
Among many options, what was the deciding factor in choosing SYP?
The depth of understanding shown in their proposal, and their Japanese-language communication setup. They respond flexibly to our requests, and they point out concerns I hadn't even noticed — in fine detail, from a developer's perspective. That was a major factor.
What stands out is how quickly things move “from request to action.”
What changes did you notice in terms of response and release speed, and what is your honest impression?
Lead time to kickoff is short, and short-cycle releases became possible. What I feel most is the speed “from request to getting started.” We can move what we hear from our users smoothly through to release, which builds our customers' trust.
How do you evaluate being able to flexibly scale the team up or down as the project requires?
It's what helps us most. The headcount needed changes by phase. Just before a release we need a strong team to ensure quality, but in the post-release bug-fixing phase we need to scale the team down. In fact, we adjusted the development headcount month by month around one product's release. Being able to arrange this with such a short lead time is something we couldn't achieve with in-house resources alone.
How would you rate the quality of the deliverables, compared with a Japanese development team?
The quality is as expected, and we can entrust work with confidence. For S+Collabo in particular, inquiries about defects are few, and both we and our users can use it with peace of mind. SYP also takes a test-focused stance, investing proper man-hours in quality during the development phase. When bug-fixing drags on endlessly in later phases, schedules become unpredictable; investing in testing during development is ultimately more efficient and makes schedule control much easier. As a product manager, I consider this extremely important.
Securing the right development capacity, at the right scale, exactly when needed.
Offshore often raises concerns about language and distance — how was the actual communication?
Before starting we were concerned about language, but in practice it has hardly been an issue. Having a bridge SE involved, and holding short daily meetings, makes a big difference. Even between Japanese colleagues misunderstandings occur, but through detailed explanations and careful confirmation we keep misalignment to a minimum.
What outcomes has the collaboration produced so far?
Beyond the high quality, we really feel the speed of development. Deadlines are strictly met, and high quality is maintained.
What do you hope for from SYP going forward?
They already do this to an extent, but I hope we can keep deepening our exchange of views from both a development and a customer perspective — I expect that will make things move even more smoothly.
Verified by client. This interview was reviewed and approved by the customer before publication.