ERP Management for Give Back Wireless Leads to 98% Fewer Errors

Summary

ScienceSoft has provided ERP maintenance, optimization, and problem management for Give Back Wireless. In just one year, we reduced application runtime errors by 98%, automated deployments, and completed a strategic migration to Amazon ECS with no system downtime.

About Give Back Wireless

Give Back Wireless (GBW), based in San Diego, California, is a leading provider of wireless management solutions dedicated to reducing wireless service costs and simplifying network operations. Partnering with industry giants like Samsung, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, GBW helps businesses optimize wireless plans and streamline device lifecycle management. It is also the largest phone recycler in San Diego, helping companies maximize the value of used devices.

Need for Long-Term Stability and Scalability of ERP Platform

As Give Back Wireless expanded, so did the complexity of its proprietary ERP system — a multi-faceted solution for managing the mobile device lifecycle, wireless service administration, and direct service ordering. Managing and evolving this system with a small team of in-house developers became unsustainable for GBW, creating risks related to stability, scalability, and security.

Give Back Wireless sought a dedicated technology partner to take full ownership of its ERP operations, management, and evolution. GBW’s goal was to shift all technical responsibilities to an outsourced vendor and focus solely on its business growth and innovation. To achieve this, Give Back Wireless turned to ScienceSoft, trusting its experience in application management and modernization.

Planning ERP Management Scope and Process

ScienceSoft began by exploring the infrastructure, core functionality, and development processes of Give Back Wireless’ ERP. The system had three main modules with the following functions:

• Device recycling and resale: managing device inventory, generating quotes, handling purchase and sales orders, and issuing invoices.
• Wireless service management: ordering new services, upgrading existing ones, and managing accounts through an online dashboard.
• Direct wireless service ordering: integration with carrier networks (e.g., AT&T) for account management, network functions, and billing.

Beyond these modules, the system included multiple administrative portals for account management, reporting, and order processing, which enabled collaboration between sales representatives, service desk teams, and workflow managers.

ScienceSoft’s initial audit revealed the following key areas for improvement:

• The ERP documentation was sparse.
• The security controls were outdated.
• The development and deployment processes for ERP updates were too slow and unreliable.
• The architectural decisions required revision to keep up with business growth.

End-to-End ERP Management and Evolution

ScienceSoft assembled a team of senior AWS and Python engineers, a project manager who also acted as a business analyst, a solution architect, and a senior test engineer. The team setup reflected leading standards from PMBOK, ISTQB, and Scrum, combining clear responsibilities, quality control, and iterative delivery into one cohesive process. The team assumed complete technical responsibility for the ERP system. During the year of our collaboration, the team’s efforts spanned:

Documentation and knowledge transfer

Early on, ScienceSoft addressed the lack of comprehensive system documentation. The team worked closely with Give Back Wireless’ team to gain deeper insights into the ERP and establish a structured knowledge base. Within a short time, the team documented all functional requirements, system architecture, workflows, and development procedures, allowing ScienceSoft to fully manage system changes independently. ScienceSoft continued to maintain and expand this documentation throughout the cooperation, ensuring that Give Back Wireless could easily transition ERP support to another team or onboard new developers without disruption.

Freeing business stakeholders

Before ScienceSoft’s involvement, Give Back Wireless’ business stakeholders were heavily involved in day-to-day ERP evolution planning, testing, and troubleshooting, which diverted their attention from high-value strategic initiatives.

To address this, ScienceSoft restructured communication workflows and assumed responsibility for managing technical discussions and project planning. The team ensured that every modification and enhancement was clearly defined at the start. The project manager estimated and prioritized updates based on the most urgent needs of the business users and the system. The solution architect acted as a third-party reviewer, validating and approving critical technical decisions before implementation. To ensure alignment with the stakeholders’ evolving priorities, the team introduced sync-up meetings every two weeks, supplemented by ad hoc sessions when urgent or strategic matters arose. ScienceSoft presented implementation options with pros and cons in an easy-to-compare format to support informed decision-making.

This consistent and structured communication allowed Give Back Wireless’ leadership to remain informed about and in control of ERP evolution without being overloaded by day-to-day technical discussions.

Strategic ERP migration and optimization

Among all the areas of ERP transformation, technical modernization was the top priority and the most impactful focus of ScienceSoft’s work. From the outset, the team built a comprehensive backlog of improvements aimed at boosting system performance and reducing manual effort in development and deployment processes.

One of the most transformative initiatives the team implemented was the migration from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate. This move eliminated manual infrastructure maintenance, enhanced system performance, and laid the groundwork for CI/CD automation. ScienceSoft planned the migration, conducted end-to-end testing, implemented rollback contingencies, and executed the migration over a single weekend. The result was a smooth deployment with zero critical errors and no disruptions to daily operations.

Another major improvement was the introduction of an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline that further streamlined ERP deployments, accelerating release cycles and ensuring greater reliability in software updates.

Security enhancements

Security was another priority throughout the engagement. ScienceSoft reinforced ERP security configurations and conducted regular vulnerability assessments of the system. The team replaced the unprotected standby server with secure in-app Celery task execution. The transition to Amazon ECS also improved the overall system security.

Proactive problem management

Instead of just troubleshooting errors and other disruptions as they occurred in the ERP, ScienceSoft implemented proactive measures to identify and resolve problems early. For example, the team proposed and implemented linters to ensure code quality, consistency, and early detection of issues before they could escalate.

Additionally, the team established AWS monitoring dashboards to track key performance metrics, which enabled quick identification of bottlenecks and resource usage optimization. To further enhance response times, the AWS engineers set up automated notifications in Microsoft Teams to alert the support teams when thresholds (e.g., CPU utilization, memory usage, or API response times) were exceeded.

Ensuring business continuity with backup and recovery

To protect critical data, the team set up AWS services to create a daily snapshot of the entire ERP database, which contains key data related to tasks, issues, and requests. The snapshots are taken every weekday at midnight Pacific Time, and only back-end engineers have access to the backups to ensure security. Furthermore, if the backup process fails, ScienceSoft has set up automated notifications to alert back-end engineers, enabling them to resolve the issue promptly.

Implementing new features

Among the new features built and released by ScienceSoft were:

• Support tickets for GBW’s customers on wireless plans, letting them log issues and follow their progress alongside account, network, and billing details.
• New automated workflows, such as generating purchase orders from quotes.
• Extra filters, columns, and calculation logic for commission profile reporting.
• Device‑type filters for inventory reporting, using radio buttons to immediately update downstream filter options.
• Dashboards for system performance monitoring.

Ongoing ERP maintenance & support

Continuous monitoring and close collaboration with Give Back Wireless’ user support teams allowed ScienceSoft to swiftly perform minor enhancements and bug fixes. These included resolving server errors, correcting data export issues, and fixing system settings. As a result, Give Back Wireless’ end users had a smooth, uninterrupted experience.

Key Outcomes for Give Back Wireless

• Enhanced ERP stability and reliability. With structured software maintenance and proactive issue resolution, Give Back Wireless’ ERP platform operates smoothly despite its rapid growth and increasing complexity. The number of runtime application-level issues detected by Sentry has decreased from 800–1,000 errors per week in August 2024 to just 18 per week in March 2025, which is about 98% error reduction.
• Efficient scaling and faster, safer deployments. The migration to Amazon ECS and CI/CD implementation enabled rapid scaling with a 100% deployment success rate. The ERP system now serves as a stable and scalable foundation that can support Give Back Wireless’ continued business expansion.
• Reduced manual effort. Automated deployments significantly minimized the development and support team’s time spent on troubleshooting and system changes.
• Comprehensive documentation. A fully documented ERP system streamlined onboarding for new team members and reduced the dependence on individual developers for ERP support.
• Better data protection. New backup mechanisms, regular security audits, vulnerability assessments, and security updates safeguarded business-critical data stored in the ERP.

Give Back Wireless continues to partner with ScienceSoft, confident in the team’s ability to evolve the ERP system in lockstep with the company’s growth.

Technologies and Tools

Django, JavaScript, Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate, Amazon Elastic File System, Amazon S3, Docker, Amazon Application Load Balancer, Sentry, GitHub.