One Beyond

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of IT at Marshall Fleet Solutions. We provide service and maintenance for refrigerated transport companies, along with fleet management and lift support. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond?

We had an old customer portal we wanted to bring into the 21st century. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One Beyond has created a portal that our customers can use to get updates on the jobs they’ve booked. The portal also houses legal and service paperwork and invoices; the invoices include all pending transactions. One Beyond now provides us with a support team. 

We utilized some of One Beyond’s UX/UI expertise for the portal design. Our marketing department met with One Beyond’s team to discuss how our branding would fit into the portal’s design. I’m not sure what technologies One Beyond used for the development, but they did include several connection points, including one built around our ability to export but not import via SFP ports. 

How did you come to work with One Beyond?

We found One Beyond through a Google search; we were looking for a portal developer, and they had some good reviews. So, we invited them to a tender. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around £375,000 (approximately $424,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in February 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Since we have a viable solution, we’ve been able to shutter our old customer service solution. Since the portal is for customer service, there aren’t any hard metrics. However, customer feedback has been very good, and we’re onboarding new customers. 

How did One Beyond perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a good relationship with One Beyond — they quickly implement any amendments or tweaks we want to make and fix bugs. Typically, we communicate through emails or Microsoft Teams meetings. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated that One Beyond took the time to understand our business since we were building something for our customers. They went in-depth to understand our data and how they could better present that information to our customers. It was great to have that collaboration. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had a really good team to work with; I have nothing for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest with One Beyond from the start of the partnership and utilize their experience. Then, you can use One Beyond’s suggestions to improve your plans. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

A government entity within the Healthcare sector based in London. I am the Technical Delivery Manager, who led the project from conceptualisation to implementation and post-delivery activities

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire One Beyond, and what were your goals?

The application was engineered by a third party, then iterations were done by both internal and third-party developers over a period of 10 years. The problem was even though the organisation owned the application, core parts of the information system were built and owned by the third-party organisation/competitor.

One-Beyond was initially recruited to develop and enhance the UI/UX elements of the application working in parallel with another development team. The goal for One-Beyond (then DCSL) was to ensure applications' UI and UX were aligned with GDS standards and to reskin the UI for the newly developed modules in the application.

Phase two of the project was for them to work on the application to decouple core modules of the application from third-party-owned systems and frameworks, with the goal of having the application operating without any third-party codes and platforms. This was achieved by One-Beyond within time and right on budget.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The selections were done using the government procurement frameworks such as the G-Cloud for the initial phase and the second phase using the DOS framework through the public tendering process.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Sprint zero was conducted once they were assigned to the task. They worked with internal and third-party developers to grasp the requirements. Two-week sprints were in place with SCRUM ceremonies from daily scrums, sprint planning and retrospectives for development, backlog grooming, planning and demos.

Jira was used to manage user epics and user story management, including bug allocation and testing. They would develop the features, and following QA, they would push it to the UAT environment for our team to test it from a user perspective before pushing it to live to staging and live upon signing off from our end.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The team was made up of nine members, working in an agile fashion. They were technical architect, solution architect, project manager, scrum master/agile coordinator, two developers, QA analyst, front-end developers (UI/UK), a graphic designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was completed on time and within budget. The application was aligned with GDS standards and requirements. We decoupled from a system which was intertwined with third-party modules and frameworks to a system wholly owned and managed by the organisation owned and managed system. Eventually saving the organisation £500,000 (approximately $544,377 USD) per annum on the systems operational cost.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They maintained the Agile SCRUM methodology throughout the project. Having two-week sprints, with other SCRUM ceremonies. Jira and Teams were used for user story and bug reporting and management tools in the initial phase. Then we moved to DevOps to manage backlog, bug reporting and management. Gitlab was used for code repos and version controlling, and CI/CD pipeline

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were transparent and available to answer any questions when needed. They were experts in trending technology and professionals, and most importantly, they were a friendly bunch! They also went out of their way to work with our internal engineers when it came to knowledge sharing about trending technology and industry standards etc.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We did manage to ensure the project was delivered on time and within budget with tight governance. Perhaps, need guidance around sprint time periods. Where we thought two weeks wasn't appropriate at certain times. Hence, some guidance to us on that would have been good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a holiday park operator that owns 40 large sites in mostly coastal locations of the UK. Sites have somewhere between 500–2,000 static caravans, and they’re more like large villages, which include restaurants, bars, activity centres, and swimming pools. We also sell caravans.

As the head of engineering, I’m responsible for our websites, which enable our customers to find out about our parks, search for holidays and make bookings. There’s also an owners portal where, if someone has brought a caravan, they can book activities, request maintenance, manage their site fees and arrange lettings.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond?

Our goal was digital transformation. As we increasingly move into the digital world, it’s become more and more critical for us to upgrade our IT systems and infrastructure with modern development tools and languages.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One Beyond has been assisting us with our digital transformation and legacy systems replacement.  We use Node.js, TypeScript, and React for our web development needs. We also leverage AWS for our webs services and hosting. On the backend, relational databases power our platform, as well as Elasticsearch and Kubernetes. Contentful serves as our content management system. Our entire web platform is custom-built, but it does rely on some pre-existing APIs that integrate with our reservation system and caravan inventory system, among others.

When visitors arrive at our homepage, they can see a series of links and enticements to drive them to different parts of our site. If you want to learn more about out parks, you can go to a specific park’s page, or if you’re looking to make a reservation, you can search for a particular park during a particular time period, as well as what distance you’re willing to travel to get there. We also have search filters for pet friendliness, caravan type, and more. Finally, at the end, there’s a registration and payment process that will allow visitors to complete the booking process. Beyond these transactional components, our site contains lots of photos. Tenants can also request maintenance through our owners portal.

When visitors arrive at our homepage, they can start learning about our products and parks. If they are looking for a holiday, they can search for using a wide range of criteria, before moving into a registration and checkout process. If instead they are interesting in buying a caravan they can search for our new and used stock. Caravan owners have their own portal where they can use to book activities, request maintenance and arrange lettings, etc.

Their work is almost exclusively focused on development, though they have expressed an interest in doing more for us.  We did have an unusual request, where we ask them to develop and host a product for managing images and videos, which they delivered on time and to a fixed cost. We tend to lean quite heavily on them to support us with production issues, especially over the holidays.

What is the team composition?

Their resources integrate directly with our internal squads, working side-by-side with our in-house engineers. It’s a very collaborative process. Right now, we have around 20 One Beyond engineers working on our teams. We typically work with mid-level engineers, but we’ve also had some squad leaders in the form of very experienced One Beyond engineers. We prefer to have our own people lead the squads, however, as they know our architecture and systems best.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost is around £3 million (approximately $3.4 million USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

For the most part, we’ve been building on top of our old stack, although migrating legacy systems where possible. Prior to working with One Beyond; our pace of delivery was much slower, whereas previously releases may have taken months, we can now roll out software on a daily basis.

How did One Beyond perform from a project management standpoint?

We tend to operate a light touch to project management, following an agile, product development methodology instead. We track work in progress using GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is a combination of three things: their technical strength with modern development technologies like Node.js and AWS; their flexibility and their drive to deliver. They also stand behind every piece of code they ship out, even if an issue arises outside of our traditional working hours. One Beyond’s engineers are often the first to respond when someone posts about an issue in our Team’s channel, including on Saturdays and Sundays.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One Beyond’s engineers love writing software, but on average they could speak up a bit more when we’re discussing product requirements and brainstorming solutions. I understand there’s something of a communication barrier, and they don’t perform badly; there’s just a noticeable difference between them and our in-house engineers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The model that works best for us is having their engineers augment our squads, but having our people lead those squads. The tools that we’re building have strategic importance for us, and so the people leading the development need to have an in-depth knowledge of our environment and business.

The other model I’ve seen them work through is giving their team a detailed specification and having them go off and build the solutions themselves. We’ve. used this model once or twice for specific solutions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the software engineering manager at a global coffee vending machine company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We were looking to achieve innovation and growth.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our fundamental platform drives 12,000 coffee machines globally, and One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is helping scale up our team and rework our backend systems. It’s all bespoke software engineering, and they’re assisting us in pursuing our North Star goals and realizing the technical path for evolving our next-generation systems. 

Over the course of our engagement, we’ve also asked for their periodic, short-term support in our cloud-based developments and in the building of our CI/CD pipelines. We’ve also relied on One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') consulting services when we migrated our frontend technology towards a web-based UI framework. 

We all work with the Microsoft Stack, but we’ve also leveraged Azure Cloud Services for our deployment pipelines. DSCL works with us on-site. 

What is the team composition?

There are currently three software engineers working with our team. We’ve also sought the help of one cloud-based engineer and two frontend architects. We’re just about to engage another solutions architect from One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths).

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

My predecessor was the one who found them. I believe One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') key differentiators were the quality of their talent and their flexibility in providing resources for both mid-term and near-term projects. They were also found to be very easy to work with. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in May 2021, and our partnership is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We source talent from three channels; one is internal, another is through external providers, and the third is through One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths). Theirs has by far proved to be the easiest and most effective to work with. We have a number of hard delivery dates throughout the year, and their team has helped us be successful across all of those.

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent. We have a very strong relationship with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) that’s based on open communication, which is largely done human-to-human as opposed to going through any type of tools. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing has been our partnership, really. There has been no fluff to it. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is open and straightforward about what we need and what they can do for us. They’re flexible, able to meet our needs, and capable of growing, changing, and pivoting with us. I always talk to them about our specific needs and the specific approaches we want to take, and they’re always 100% on board with me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just keep your collaboration direct, open, and honest. Other providers will pad their plans with a lot of fluff and will not quite listen to what you need in general, One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is a partner that you can definitely work very closely with. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a real estate investment company. We operate data centers to maintain customer portals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We were re-platforming our customer portal, and we needed a team to partner up on this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is revamping our customer platform using C# and .NEY  to write the new iteration of the portal. We also use Azure to host the site and .js to develop the front end with dynamic elements.

What is the team composition?

We started working with five members of their team, but we’re now collaborating with only two of them — we’ve had a variable number of people from their side involved in our project throughout the engagement.

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

I found them through Clutch; I was looking for software developers in the US and overseas, and One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) stood out above the rest. We chose them because they had all of the core competencies I was looking for in a partner.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around £300,000 (approximately $414,000 USD) with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’ve helped us move forward with our business. In addition to that, their team has enabled us to get through the rough patches we’ve faced with our project by giving us a foundation to start off.

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

In the first couple of months, we struggled to collaborate with the development team and get involved with their management processes. Still, we overcame that together — the group that I work with is helpful and amazing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their competency in UI and architecture is outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could work on having closer collaboration with customers in terms of updates and demos.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product director at a data science intelligence SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We needed their team’s support in developing our new software products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve initially engaged One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) to help us build our MVP, a machine learning operations platform that’s part of our new product line. We’ve relayed our ideas and market goals to their team, and they’ve developed the front- and backend of our platform and generated design solutions for its UI/UX. 

The product serves as a platform for us to conduct IT operations that require machine learning models. Upon the MVP’s completion, we’ve decided to further the collaboration by developing it into a fully-developed platform with more functionalities.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') delivery manager, a chief architect, a cloud architect, a UI/UX designer, one frontend designer, and two backend developers.

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about £750,000 (approximately $1.03 million USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing collaboration with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) started in April 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We haven’t launched the product yet, so there are no quantitative results to share at this point — however, I can confirm that One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) meets our team’s expectations with their quality work. They work diligently to conduct product testings and ensure that each solution they produce is functional.

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack and rely on Jira for project management. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') responsive and personable nature, which makes our project flow seamlessly. They’re also a very honest team — they don’t make promises they can’t keep.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head — they’ve been a reliable partner to us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just go for it. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is a flexible team that adapts well to their client’s processes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of technology and innovations at Fine+Rare, a fine wine and spirits marketplace.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We needed their team’s custom software development support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been using our legacy application for over 10 years, so it’s obviously in need of modernization. We’ve decided to address this by moving our existing application to a new proprietary platform. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) supports our development pipeline by handling client-facing solutions. Additionally, they work with our engineering team to take on other development-related challenges.

As our current development partner, One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) has taken over our technology architecture and built a more distributed and inclusive platform that we can operate on. They’re currently working on a proprietary cataloging tool for us, which we can use for our portfolio and inventory management.

What is the team composition?

Depending on the project phase and development task, we work with around 8–10 developers from their team.

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) was referred to us by a consultant that we previously worked with. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off our engagement with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) in February 2018, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) has excellent team engagement and performance — they meet all our metrics without any issues. Each pipeline is well-managed and case-centric, so we always find it easy to track their performance, ranging from client activity to website revenue. Apart from those metrics, we also base our evaluation on the feedback of our internal staff, and we’ve heard nothing but great things about One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') performance and work quality so far.

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is always on top of their project management game — they’ve been exceptional in meeting tight deadlines and streamlining each project phase for our convenience. Their professionalism is one of the main reasons why we continue to invest more in their team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') capacity to unfailingly deliver quality solutions definitely stands out. They’re a remarkable team of engineers and developers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're already a great team to work with — my only suggestion is for them to consider expanding their services.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their team to deliver the result that your business needs. We get the best out of our engagement with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) because we’ve seen their potential to make important technology-related decisions for us from the get-go and relied on that through and through.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of software engineering at M-KOPA Solar, a fintech company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We needed their team to develop a backend receiving system for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our sales process was very mobile-driven since we work and sell our services in rural and urban Africa. Our in-house team needed One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') assistance in maintaining our Android engineering. Their team specifically built a backend system of our CRM that allowed us to manage our customer registration flow by processing the requests we received through our Android app.

The system allowed our sales team to gather customer information and integrate that data into our Android flow, which was then validated by our server. Our team was responsible for ensuring that everything was in place and consistent before we collated it to place into our CRM.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about 6–7 people from One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths), depending on the project phase being handled. Some of the team members in charge included three software engineers, an engineering lead, and a QA lead.

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We were very particular with our requirements when we started looking for a development partner — we needed a team that could conform to the way our in-house software engineers built our CRM. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) was a credible agency, and they had the right expertise and field knowledge we needed to implement our solutions accurately, so we were happy to go with their team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from September 2020–March 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We were extremely happy with everything that One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) delivered. We always reviewed their lines of code along with our engineering and project management team to ensure that these were up to our software standards. Since we had this two-layered verification system, we were confident that everything their team produced met both our expectations and standards.

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly used Microsoft Teams and phone calls to communicate with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths), while we relied on Azure DevOps for project management. Their team followed an agile methodology, so we found it easy to check on their work and put together their deliverables.

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) was a very responsive and collaborative team. Over the course of our partnership, we witnessed how hard they worked to meet our standards and pay more attention to delivering quality solutions to fit our model.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) strived to meet our particular engineering standards. While we expected their team to give us promising results, we didn’t actually anticipate that they’d provide these to us, along with an impressive sense of project management. In general, we were pleasantly surprised with that great concoction of engineering quality and a reliable engineering team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning of our engagement, it took them a while to get comfortable with our team. They could try to refine their communication skills more to bridge that gap and avoid being nervous when collaborating with a team that shares the same expertise as theirs. In our case, it was quickly settled, and we worked harmoniously together later on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) is an easy company to work with. Apart from hiring their team, all you need to do is communicate your needs well and collaborate with an open mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Originally established 125 years ago, Black&Callow is one of the leading global financial printing and communications companies. It specialises in preparing and distributing documentation for investment banks all around the world that are seeking to attract investors for public market listings of large established companies, as well as mergers or acquisitions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths), and what were your goals?

To create these new hosted online services – which it has branded iRoadshow+ and IPO Research Online+ - Black&Callow initially adapted a third-party virtual data room service, which it paid for on a monthly subscription basis – incurring additional costs each time it wanted to update or add new features to the system. But following demand from a significant number of clients for a newer platform that was wholly-owned by Black&Callow, the company realised it needed to create its own software which it could mould and add to over time.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Black&Callow shortlisted three potential development partners, and interviewed two, choosing One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths). “They ticked all of the boxes. The chemistry was there, the pricing was competitive, and One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') track record and client case studies were very strong,” says Stephen Pusey, Sales Consultant to Black&Callow. The company was also attracted to One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') agile, collaborative, sprint-based approach to development. “It meant we could see and be involved in what was being built, every step of the way.”

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Black&Callow wanted to add new value for banks and their relationships with investors, enabling easy interaction, and saving busy investors valuable time. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths), a Microsoft Gold Partner, built brand new platforms using the latest web development technologies, including ASP.NET WebAPI, C#, SQL Server, .NET Core, Entity Framework Core, HTML5 and Vue.js, as well as OCR using Tesseract JS and Leaflet JS, all hosted in Azure. As part of its Agile development approach, and to accelerate development, One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) also exploited the use of its in-house technology, ‘Waterloo’ - a suite of tools for developers to speed up the creation of functionality common to many software systems.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 2 main contacts in the core team, Peter our solution architect and Glen our delivery director.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The new platform is robust, which is important as thousands of people could be viewing content at any one time. Navigating and interacting with the reports -the ability to add notes and questions, and quickly return to key sections - is a powerful time-saver. Mobile access, via smartphones and tablets, is supported too. Banks can invite potential investors to the iRoadshow portal with a limited-time code, giving them quick and efficient access to highlights of a new investment opportunity.

Via the IPO Research portal, serious would-be investors can use an interactive document viewer to go through presentations in real time with the bank, with the ability to highlight and add notes to sections of interest. For the investment banks, meanwhile, there is rich feedback about what investors are doing through the portals, helping determine genuine levels of interest and engagement at a ‘roadshow’/first-look stage so that teams know which investors to follow up with and can better focus their campaigns. Strategically, being in control of its online platforms offers Black&Callow new differentiation and we’re adding functions and features that banks have been asking for.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Their project management was very organized, flexible, and proactive.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We have been struck by One Beyond's (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths') professionalism, openness and flexibility. They’ve been incredibly accommodating and responsive. Working with them has been a great experience. We genuinely feel that they care, and that we’re in safe hands.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former CEO of an organization that provides support to people with cancer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

We wanted to diversify development activity in providing our services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The product is an API management suite that connects a wide range of suppliers. It needed to handle government data structures and services. They helped us build a generic infrastructure model. We did some initial prototyping to get a feel for the direction of the product and then started an agile methodology to deliver it, which included testing and acceptance stages. 

The custom software they created manages infrastructure. We worked their deliverables through testing, acceptance, and implementation.   

What is the team composition?

We worked with about ten people, including a principal architect, two Scrum Masters, and several developers.  

How did you come to work with One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths)?

I reviewed possible vendors on Clutch and through other sources. After shortlisting five potential vendors, I interviewed three of them. One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) was easily the strongest team I interviewed.  

What is the status of this engagement?

I started the search for a provider in March 2020. We worked with them on the build of this project from August 2020–March 2021.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The build was very specific, and they met all requirements. The software enables us to do business more simply. We’ve created an infrastructure that will allow our business to scale because they established the infrastructure in a generic way. We’ll be able to adjust their work to fit various situations as we move forward. 

They had an impressive depth of skills as well as a clear development methodology and performance management model that was easy to work with.  

How did One Beyond (formerly DCSL GuideSmiths) perform from a project management standpoint?

They were a solid team that was easy to work with. We had regular meetings, where we shared problems and solved them together. We communicated and coordinated through Monday and DevOps.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to deal with complex requirements really stood out. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I struggle to find something for them to improve upon, but they could tighten up some of their administrative project management. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want from the engagement and how you want to work with them.