Accedia

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President of the Bulgarian Organization of Voluntary Blood Donation (FB: БОДК / BOVBD) - a Nonprofit Organization, devoted to promoting voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation in Bulgaria and raising awareness about the issues of lack of blood and blood products, which are needed every day in Bulgaria

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Accedia?

We didn’t hire Accedia – they offered us their voluntary help. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, the number of blood donors in Bulgaria plummeted by more than 30%, which caused significant problems.

From 2013 until the end of 2019 our organization was using a mobile application, available only for iOS devices, which was a part of our Donate blood project for providing help and encouraging voluntary blood donation.

Accedia contacted us in April 2020, offered their help and we began to work jointly on the entirely new mobile app that we needed.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of the project was to create a completely new application, covering both iOS and Android devices, with a modern design and adequate functionalities, which would allow people in need of blood (for themselves or others) to register a call for help, and also for volunteers to register as potential donors that could be contacted by us in case of need.

An important part was that it would have an administrative section for our team, allowing us to obtain immediately all the necessary information for each and every call for help and efficiently search for, find and notify potential donors, send them relevant information and finally communicate the donation to the person in need.

SOLUTION

How did you select Accedia?

In fact, we were approached by Accedia at the beginning of April, following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Bulgaria. They have found out about our old app and noticed the problems we were having and offered to develop a new one as a part of their pro-bono efforts to help.

The partnership started from there and developed throughout the project.

Describe the project in detail.

Through several meetings with team members from Accedia, we were able to explain and convey to the team what the necessities of the Organization with regards to the app were, what functions were essential, which of them could be automated and which - not and how the system needed to perform.

A basic timeline for the project was established, and work proceeded, with scheduled meetings with various team members on a regular basis, in order to complete separate stages of development.

Accedia team members sent inquiries about certain issues and functionalities, which our team had to review and complete, in order to best explain the necessities of the app and how it should function.

Several meetings were held so that stages of the project could be presented and commented, and various adaptations and amendments resulting from those were also completed.

The final version was also presented interactively so that functionalities could be tested and the app was uploaded and launched in the end of June 2020.

What was the team composition?

Accedia devoted a team lead and several developers, plus a design specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Within 5 months after our new app was launched, it has been downloaded over 1200 times. We have over 400 new registered voluntary blood donors. We have also received over 150 calls for urgent help through the app and managed to successfully assist in over 90% of them.

This is even more important and impressive, given the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely reduced the number of voluntary blood donors and has significantly increased the need for blood donation in Bulgaria.

The new app was presented by us in different TV, radio and online broadcasts and was rated highly by both the media and the people.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was effective. The team at Accedia quickly realized that the project was different from what they anticipated, but did not back down, listened to our requirements and our feedback and tried to comply with our needs as best as they could. Meetings were held regularly and our remarks and feedback were taken promptly into account.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

First of all, it was the willingness to commit resources and effort to help out a Nonprofit organization, especially at a time when many companies were encountering difficulties in their own work.

Further, they showed a good understanding of our needs and did not back out of the project when obstacles were encountered or when they found out that it was different from their expectations and predictions, unlike other companies we have worked with before.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is always room for improvement. Communication can be even more efficient, a planning stage might be more detailed in order to make sure that fewer issues appear further into the project, especially given the fact that a professional team is communicating with a Nonprofit team which lacks knowledge in the tech field.

From a design standpoint, it is also possible to be better. We believe that Accedia would keep their ongoing technical support and updating of the app, fixing issues that turn out during its use and adding new features that would become necessary in our day-to-day work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the global IT business intelligence manager for a luxury brand operating in the leisure and tourism sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

We were interested in finding a partner that could help our larger company achieve a full digital transformation by focusing on the data warehousing and business intelligence side.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our company had an existing environment that we worked with at the time of the project, but very quickly realized that we needed to upgrade the whole environment in order to have better reporting and more integration of services through the cloud. Their team helped us to build that new data warehouse and the corresponding reporting tool in the cloud using Microsoft.

What is the team composition?

Initially, there were three people from their team working with us, including two seniors and one junior developer. We have scaled up and down depending on our requirements since then, with the most being six and at the moment closer to four.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

We had a previous partner that we had been working with but wanted to raise the standard of quality in the work and reporting that we were getting. We wanted a group in Eastern Europe that that had not only expertise in data and BI reporting, but that had a can-do attitude and a mentality geared towards automation, and we also wanted a company that was big enough to handle our needs but small enough that we were an important client to them. We saw a lot of that in Accedia, so we decided to move forward with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started around May 2017 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The success of their work is primarily measured by our users receiving their products, and by the deliverables we ask them for getting delivered both on time and on budget. The reports that they’ve given us as a result of the work have been critical in guiding our company on this journey, so we’re very pleased with their work.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a daily standup call with their team, and I have a longer weekly call with their project manager, so we are always on the same page about what progress we’ve made and what we’re focusing on going forward.

Because we have two different teams working in different time zones, there can occasionally be communication issues, but they have done an excellent job of working together with us to resolve anything that comes up before it causes us any problems.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been very impressed by the attitude that they bring to every challenge we face as a part of the project. They’re not a huge company, but they are always willing to take on whatever we give them, and to bring in any extra hands that they might need from the rest of their company as necessary. Their actions consistently demonstrate the proactivity and empathy that they possess.

Another huge bonus I’ve noticed that is frequently overlooked is that they’re willing to train replacements for employees who leave their team on the rare occasion when that occurs. Oftentimes, the prospect of training a new person is left to the client, but they will actually go out of their way to find a replacement a month or two beforehand and put them in the project to make sure they’re up to speed before they need to be doing the work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything negative that I have to say at all.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re in the telecommunications and broadcasting industry, and I’m the head of digital in one of the business units here. I look after all the integration of all our digital platforms, like our websites and mobile apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

We were trying to address our lack of skilled resources, particularly pertaining to specific technologies. We wanted to augment our existing teams for a number of complex projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Two cloud engineers are helping us with the cloud mediation program. Using AWS, they’re implementing standards, policies, and processes to make sure that we can best manage our projects in the future. '

Some other developers are assisting us in rolling out new capabilities for the platforms that we’re currently working in. They use Node.js and .NET, and we follow an agile methodology and adhere to the Kanban approach.

What is the team composition?

We have four resources at the moment: two cloud engineers and two developers.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

I had engaged with them before at a previous company. They demonstrated a wide range of expertise and had showcased expansive experience working in the European market.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend somewhere around $8,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in November 2019, and it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, they’ve done great work. We hold weekly meetings with their team, but they’re on track to deliver what’s required, from a cloud component.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Microsoft Teams and Azure DevOps to manage and monitor their work. They’ve done well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have an impressive range of skills. They’re senior developers who have excellent capabilities. They’re also eager to come in and fill any technical gaps to ensure that we don’t fall through with any of our project deliverables.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They cover a wide spread of technologies, which has been a highlight of working with them. Their work ethic is also great, as they conduct themselves professionally and work at the highest level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is a parent company of a number of local newspaper entities in the US and UK. I am the head of media engineering, so I drive the construction of digital products for our organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

We were going through some tremendous changes as we transitioned our organization from Print to digital. The specific challenge I was facing is that we have a team in India that we outsource some of our work to, and the offshore model requires a lot of time put into the communication and management of the work. I wanted to transition that engagement to a team that could operate a little bit more autonomously.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

What Accedia did for us was twofold: one is to provide specialized Java expertise to help us build enterprise backend services for our organization, and the other is to work as a full-stack engineering team that handles the development of entire products that we manage.

Their involvement with us has scaled over time to the point where we can give them projects to tackle and just handle the management of timelines and clarifications while they break down and tackle on the work within their own team.

What was the team composition?

At the height of our demand, we had nine of their engineers working with us, but we’ve scaled that back during the pandemic and are between 4–8 active resources for the most part.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

One of my peers was working with them and was very much enjoying the relationship, so he recommended that I explore the possibility of working with them. We have them a test project to begin with and have been working together ever since.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of the engagement has between $1 million – $2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around February 2018 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The way we measure our success is against the roadmap that we build with our business partners, and we can see how each project moves us further down that roadmap and whether or not we fully delivered against our goals for that scope of work. We continue to work with them largely because of the significant benefit that they are able to deliver to our team in meeting those goals.

The other main metric we track is our revenue stream, which my general manager and I are constantly monitoring to see the impact of our various products and services. There are a number of smaller processes going on underneath that and we always hold retrospectives to make sure we are turning around individual tickets and things like that, but at a higher level we have seen more than the revenue growth we are targeting, so we’re very pleased with the results.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

The model they follow is that they assign a technical lead who acts as the project manager. They liaise with the technical lead on our side of the business, and they work together to coordinate the flow of the work.

That management is part and parcel with their services and that level of proactivity has been reflected in the questions and clarifications they have for the context of our business problems, and the out-of-the-box solutions that they deliver.

Underneath the project lead, they have a number of engineers, QA, and operational resources who figure out how to break down and complete each of the tasks. Those team members attend all of our standups, which helps us to make sure that all of us are consistently on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The process that they follow in bringing on resources is incredibly rigorous and lasts beyond the initial stages of your engagement, so we haven’t had any issues with the people they’ve put onto our teams. The level of trust we’ve developed with them because of that consistency and performance is a huge asset to the work. They have built a partnership with us that goes beyond just the terms of a contract, and that has worked incredibly well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We constantly discuss what they can be doing better or differently, and they are always incredibly willing to learn and improve no matter who’s fault the issue may have been. Given that attitude, I really don’t have anything I wish they were doing differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You have to approach it as a partnership. Do your due diligence, and really take the time to figure out how you’re going to communicate your goals and walk through the process with them so that they understand what you are looking for and have a chance to deliver that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the systems support manager at a financial institution that provides administration for pension and provident funds. This includes good healthcare, insurance, and investments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

We needed them to build a fund accounting system that could generate and audit working papers and financial statements. Then these papers and statements are submitted to a financial services regulator.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re a big company, and I’m only speaking from my experience and on behalf of my specific division’s project with Accedia. Essentially, we had an existing system that was developed in-house, and Accedia had to build on top of it. They added several new features and increased functionality so users can navigate and utilize the solution. These additional functionalities relay important information that wasn’t there before.

This has been an evolving project. Many things have been deployed, and we’re continuing to build the system. The more we use it, the more requirements are needed and developed.

What is the team composition?

There have been several different people over the years.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

I can’t speak to my company as a whole because I’m just one small cog in the wheel. Our group, the IT department, was looking for developers to come and assist because we couldn’t find the right resources.

How much have you invested with them?

I’m not the one who makes the payments. We’ve probably invested around $5 million so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in May 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My role is on the support team for business users who use the system we developed. Since its deployment, we've seen an increase in efficiency. What’s more, the turnaround time for producing financial statements for the board of trustees and the regulator has been optimized. Doing the submissions used to be a very manual process, and now it’s completely within their hands. Users can do it as they please, bringing flexibility and efficiency to the process.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

Accedia is always clear, precise, and reliable. They consistently deliver what they say they will. There has never been a time when they’ve said something can’t be done. When I ask if something is possible, they come back and give me the solution or an alternative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ll reiterate that their efficiency is excellent. What’s more, they’re up-to-date with technology and everything new in their industry. If they come across a problem, they research it and find a solution for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear and concise in explaining what your requirements are. If you’re transparent about your objectives, Accedia will achieve them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior manager of application development with a dairy product company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

They serve as our professional service provider for our website, progress.com, and we originally brought them on to enhance and modernize the site as well as build an inventory management and customer ordering app for our stores.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by providing them with a walkthrough of the existing website so that they could get a good picture of the state that everything was in at that point. We shared access to our environment and the business requirements document that laid out what we were looking to accomplish with the project.

Their team did some preliminary research and then came back to us with guidance on how they wanted to approach the work. They used Azure DevOps for the whole build cycle and worked through the project using sprint methodology.

The site itself is a hybrid based on the .NET platform. It utilizes the bootstrap framework for the architecture of the site itself. The app is built for both Android and iOS using our website's native script presentation platform combined with Angular and bytescript.

What is the team composition?

Peter (Project Manager) was our main point of contact, but we also interacted with their lead developer and his team of about three others.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $200,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in October 2019 and we are continuing to finish up the work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, we are very happy with the way the design and development process has gone. They were able to provide all the functionality requirements we requested of them, and the project is now in the QA and user testing phase with a planned pilot in the second or third week of April.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

They have been pretty good at communicating how their time is being utilized on a weekly basis. We have daily status calls, and they always make sure they have hours overlapping with ours despite the time difference so that we can stay up to date. For smaller things in between calls, we tend to communicate mostly by email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their skillset is definitely a huge plus. They have website and device experts who have worked in all kinds of technologies and have a broad range of experiences. We are a small team, and device app development is a completely new area for us, so we have benefited significantly from being able to learn while working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could've utilized testing tools to reduce the number of defects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Thomas Concrete Group. We’re an independent and family-owned group producing and distributing high-quality, ready-mixed concrete to both commercial and private customers. We participate in building many advanced projects and operate in the US, Germany, Poland, and Sweden. We have around 2,500 employees at the moment, working internationally.

I work at the mother company of all our daughter companies on the local market. I’m a business development analyst, so my role is to identify areas of improvement in ways of working, additional services, or digital solutions we can provide to our customers. I’m most often responsible for leading many of our development projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

During the last two years, we’ve been working on establishing a so-called business collaboration platform on which to provide different kinds of digital services to our clients. We had the goal of establishing a model web portal and mobile app where we could share different kinds of information with our customers. This was all in order to make our collaborations easier and more efficient.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Accedia developed our app for iOS and Android. It has push notifications and a fingerprint-signing functionality.

What is the team composition?

We’ve had a team of 3–4 people working on different services as well as a project manager. The team composition has varied, but we’ve tried to keep the same people.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

Essentially, we were looking for a partner with experience with Microsoft Azure products and native app development. We received a recommendation to consider working with Accedia. In the end, we decided to go ahead with them and utilize their services.

Our team visited them in Sofia, Bulgaria and met their management team. During this visit, we saw they had a very good spirit and company culture, which matched well with ours. We also saw that they had very good technical skills and a willingness to learn new things. Accedia wants to be at the forefront when it comes to technology and what it's used for, as do we. Overall, it was a very good match.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Accedia in April 2019, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We already have a couple of hundred users on the collaboration platform and feedback has been very good. From my perspective as the person directly working with the Accedia team, I’m very happy with their work.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

Accedia is very good at delivering on time, and they have a great project management style. We’re using Microsoft Teams as our communication channel. They always keep track of what’s been done and what’s left to do. It’s easy to have a good collaborative partnership with them. We speak the same language, and they’re always willing to help out with technical questions. It’s very important for us to have that kind of technical skill from our consultants.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Accedia delivers on time and according to our requirements. They’re living up to our expectations. Their team works toward fulfilling our business requirements, and they’re the ones with the technical understanding to do that. We do the business analysis work, and they help us realize the technical implementations needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s important for the development team we’re working with to have an understanding of the business case and how the end-user is going to use the service we’re developing. That’s something we could communicate better and Accedia could improve on.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

One thing I’ve seen as a big advantage is trying to keep the same team members. We’ve mainly worked with the same people for quite a long time now, and every new project we start is easier. Our teams know how to communicate how everything should work. It’s very easy to work and collaborate together.

Team consistency is also good because the people we’re working with know the solution, so it’s easier for them to build new services upon the platform. However, if we bring in new people, they’ll have to learn our solution and technology. It’s more efficient to keep the same team.

Another important point is to get a good project manager from their team. We’ve had a very good project manager who’s made everything successful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a salon point of sales software company and I'm the director of product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

We needed a web-based report viewer able to display business metrics in a browser for our users.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a viewer tool from the ground up for us to be able to display our own reports and provided the framework using Kendo UI. We had a design they worked from, but they offered suggestions to improve them based on their expertise with the too. They were able to tell us what was possible and give us some features we didn't know we could use. We worked closely with them to organize the work into sprint deliverables.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager and two developers.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

We reached out to the company that owns Kendo directly. They recommended Accedia directly.

How much have you invested with them?    

We've invested $25,000 – $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in December 2019, and we wrapped up in January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They met every deliverable on time, which was great. They designed to our MVP specifications. When they finished everything we asked for, they were able to recommend some add-on features to include in our overall timeline. It'll definitely enhance our product for end-users. We haven't released it into production yet, but we plan to in the next couple of weeks.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

They're outstanding. They worked with us in daily standups, were always organized and prepared, and had completed their assignments prior to the call. They communicated very well with our team and gave very good descriptions of the work they'd completed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their organization really stands out, in addition to their exceptional knowledge of the product they were working with. They were really able to take our idea, run with it, and make it better. While other outsourced companies tend to deliver what you ask,they helped us take our product to a higher level.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I really can't think of anything. They're the best outside team we've hired.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to know what you want beforehand, which is always important to do. Definitely be willing to let them guide you with their expertise.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Siili Solutions Oyj is a modern independent software integrator and developer of digital services. Siili creates next, better versions of its clients' products and services. Since its founding in 2005 Siili has grown rapidly and profitably to occupy offices in multiple cities across Europe and US.

My responsibility as a Sourcing Director is to select and manage qualified subcontractor partners to work with Siili employees in Siili's customer projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Accedia?

We have a continuous challenge of growth finding right competence at right time to serve our customers. To speed up growth we have used hand picked subcontracting partners in addition to our own personnel both onsite in Finland and from abroad successfully already over a decade.

What were your goals for this project?

Accedia's experts have been involved mainly in our CMS and Automotive customer projects. Involved technologies have been e.g. .NET, C#, Sitefinity content management, JavaScript, React, Java and Microsoft MDS. Solutions in question include customer portal, logistics solution and an MDM solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have been working with other Sofia-based companies in certain selected technologies for several years. We were looking for possibilities to further strengthen our network in Bulgaria some years ago and found Accedia.

When meeting them we got a positive impression on their ability to execute, quality process and readiness for partnership. As soon as we had suitable customer project we hired first consultant and have been growing their Siili team since that.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Accedia's consultant participate in projects which do not require onsite presence at end customers' premises. Their roles are various agile software project member roles - just as ordinary Siili employees.

Projects include sales, development and maintenance projects. In some projects part of (Siili) team is onsite customer, in some projects all development is done remotely.

What was the team composition?

Projects have involved between total of 5 to 15 project members, typically only 1 or 2 of them at the time have been Accedia's consultants.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

All contractors are essential to Siili's success and growth. Accedia's consultants have also filled their positions very well and ensured our continuity with our key customers.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Accedia's consultants work under Siili's project management as project resources in individual customer projects. On top of that, we have a lightweight management procedure over Accedia's services to us as a whole.

Finland and Bulgaria share same time zone but are otherwise located almost furthermost from each other in whole Europe so physical meetings happen only occasionally. Main common tools are Slack, Git, Jira, Trello. Working language is English.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Accedia's strength is their apparent experience in working as a contractor with foreign customers. They seem to have right-sized management procedures; they are big enough to have quite good processes in place but small enough to be still somewhat flexible and agile.

The most important things are team competency and the quality of their work, which have generally been quite good.

Are there any areas for improvement?

In some cases more proactivity and initiative would be welcomed but generally there's little to complain. I have been quite satisfied so far with Accedia's consultants' ability and attitude.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a web developer for a technology enterprise that creates microcontrollers and other hardware. I’m part of a small team that manages our entire company’s website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Accedia?

At the time, we encountered some challenges upgrading our Sitefinity site from version eight to 10. We wanted to make sure that we were doing things with the best practice in mind, ensuring that we created the modules and widgets correctly and tackling our growing backlog. As a result, we needed a consulting firm to help us manage our tasks and provide some direction.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first process that they delivered was a roadmap that helped guide us through the site migration. The document advised us on how to set up various aspects of the site, including our servers, databases, projects, and recovery point objectives (RPOs). Afterward, they reviewed our site to ensure that we were following strong procedures and identified anything that needed to be upgraded. Not only did this help us optimize our site, it gave us a sense of direction. For example, I had implemented an image optimization module but wasn’t sure if it was the best way to approach the task. With Accedia’s plan and review, I confirmed that I was on the right path, which was good reinforcement.

Currently, they’re supporting us with tasks on our backlog. One of the projects that they’re assisting us with is a guided navigation function. We provided an initial document of requirements, which they’ve fulfilled. However, the document wasn’t completely detailed, so we didn’t think that the final outcome would be useful to our customers. As such, we’ve created an in-depth technical document with all of our requirements, and they’re working on it, now.

What is the team composition?

We work with two dedicated engineers and a project manager, who is our regional point of contact. They also have four developers on call who support the engineers if one of them is away.

How did you come to work with Accedia?

Our key account manager referred us to them along with a few other consultancies. My boss researched the firms and talked to them before deciding to go with Accedia.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work began in January 2018 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve found their first guiding document to be extremely helpful. We’re able to assess our current practices to see if we need to make adjustments or if we’re already doing what’s best for us. They also help us tackle our bigger projects, which has alleviated our workload considerably. As of recent, we’ve started to have weekly meetings with them. It’s been a slow start to set this up, but we appreciate that they’ve been patient with us.

How did Accedia perform from a project management standpoint?

They send us weekly reports about the status of their work, which has been beneficial for us. They’ve also expressed a strong desire to communicate more with us. While the time difference can be a little challenging, they’re pretty good at responding to our emails. If we have any concerns, we have a set email address where we can send questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While I can’t compare them to other consulting agencies, everything seems to be going really well. I’ve met some of the team, and it’s nice to know that they’re working to help us. They’re knowledgeable about their work, and we know that we can ask them for guidance. Rather than just doing the work, it’s important that they’re also able to teach us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would help us a lot if their engineers could visit us. That way, we could talk to them face-to-face instead of through email or over the phone. It’s a better communication tactic and would help us work with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be organized with your work so that it’s easier to communicate your needs. You’re paying for their services, after all. If you don’t have everything together, they’ll have to wait to help; it’s a waste. If there was one thing I would have changed, I would’ve probably wanted to be more organized in the beginning.