Andersen Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Mikhail Yumatov, work on the position of Head of Development in Cian company. Cian.ru is one of the biggest internet services in Russia for people who buy, sell or rent real estate. There are more than 10.5 million unique users per month who use the portal.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

We work with Andersen company on an outstaff model. So, Andersen's developers work together with our inside teams on the main platform of cian.ru site.

What were your goals for this project?

To create the best platform for users who buy, sell or rent real estate.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have found landing promotion of Andersen on the Internet, contacted the company and after some conversation with the representatives we made an agreement and started cooperation that continues to these days.

Describe the project in detail.

Cian.ru - it's a high load portal with microservice architecture. We have over 200 microservices on frontend and backend, written in C#, Python and JavaScript.

What was the team composition?

On the present-day, we hired one BackEnd (Python) and 6 FrontEnd (React) developers to work in a few inside teams.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With Andersen, we have been creating a well-working product that will be improved even more as we are planning to scale the team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everything is fine. Currently, we are working on the SCRUM methodology. All team members work as one body. Every month we exchange feedbacks with Andersen’s side.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Everything is fine. Currently, we are working on the SCRUM methodology. All team members work as one body. Every month we exchange feedbacks with Andersen’s side.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At the moment we are satisfied with our cooperation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Engineering for PropertyGuru Limited. The company operates with a Real Estate portal in five countries of Southeast Asia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

To provide our users with the best experience, we need to enhance the product continually. Andersen helps us to build the functionality of our web and mobile applications.

What were your goals for this project?

Different product enhancements.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We tried many vendors. Andersen proved to be very adaptive in finding the right people suitable for the work. Not only skillset was taken into account, but the excellent team fit.

Describe the project in detail.

Don't want to disclose the project details publicly

What was the team composition?

Currently, we are operating with one mobile and two frontend developers from Andersen. Initially, there was a project manager assigned to help to smooth the team integration. It went very well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Attracted people helping us in delivering planned projects on time and with good quality.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It wasn't the smoothest start; it never can be taking distance and difference in timezones into account. However, eventually, we managed to resolve the majority of the issues and currently operating with decent efficiency.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive is the ability to receive feedback and adapt according to it. In other words, the flexibility which makes Andersen stand out.

Are there any areas for improvement?

It is always "could have been better" when you are looking back. The flexibility with which Andersen operates greatly reduces the chances of failure.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a professional services firm offering advisory and investment services to our clients throughout their life-cycle. I work within the Technology Team as the Project and Product Manager for the business, with a Product Ownership role on this software development project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

With only one Developer on staff, we hired a small team at Andersen to help us design and develop a product that we envision will further extend our capabilities in our market and deliver an innovative product that will streamline a very manual process.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals shifted over time since the Andersen Team was originally engaged to develop a different type of product - however after recognising that that opportunity was no longer as viable, we pivoted and refocused on a new direction.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Following research of the market both here and overseas, we selected Andersen based on skills, experience and cost.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed, developed and configured the product, collated all business requirements and managed the team using an agile methodology.

What was the team composition?

We had a BA, Project Manager, Front and Back End Developers, QA Team and a Designer for most of the project. Resources would shift with our requirements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're currently in UAT so it's too early to identify this at the moment.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Project Management was very effective and helped keep the Team on track whilst allowing the Product Owner to focus on other areas. Since we are located in another country, video conferencing was most effective for our regular bi-weekly meetings. We also utilised Skype, Jira and Confluence.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Very diligent and conscientious. They were passionate about the project and their work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes things could get 'lost in translation' and there were times when communication perhaps wasn't seamless, but this is understandable given language differences. Both our team and the vendor perhaps didn't articulate ourselves adequately and this is when I preferred confirmation emails or meeting follow-up's to be written. Sometimes I wasn't sure if my feedback had been addressed or points in emails addressed and I would need to follow-up to check that the Team had been notified.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the Lead Link of Business and Loyalty at Space Neo Bank. At Space, we focus on improving daily Business Banking experience.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

The need of collaboration raised after we decided to launch a brand new project for our potential customers. As we are still in the process of product implementing, we can’t name the project yet. The heart of our digital-based business is customer experience and that’s why it was crucially important to find a development company that had strong background both in mobile application development and UI/UX design.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal is to launch brand-new services and products for our potential customers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We are in the process of the development of MVP. The MVP includes variety of products and features, needed for a successful launch.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The team is involved in each process that is crucial for the launch: Project Management, Business Analysis, Backend development, Frontend Development (iOS, Android), UX/UI Design.

What was the team composition?

The team composition is the following.

• Scrum Master
• Frontend Developers
• Backend Developer
• UX/UI Designer
• Business Analyst
• Quality Assurance Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As the project is still ongoing I can't provide any information regarding the impact.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team is very flexible and easily adaptive to changing business needs and requirements. Project is managed with Agile Scrum methodology and we have meetings on a regular basis to discuss and solve all the open questions and help each other. Project management is impressive - The team is super organized, always meets deadlines and ის never late on standups or other meetings. We communicate through Jira, Skype, WhatsApp, and Mail.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team is super positive and friendly that makes all the complications easy to solve. Also, one of the most impressive things about Andersen Lab is that the entire team has full dedication to work they are doing. In the Agile process, where decisions are changed rapidly in the process, Andersen Lab team used to react patiently to every single change.

Although the team’s task is mostly implementation of our requirements, they often do the extra mile and involve in the ideation process as well. I can outline several cases in which the team offered a better solution for a certain task, that we took into consideration. As a product owner, I have a feeling that the team is fully motivated to satisfy the customer. Our partnership is collaborative, transparent, and honest, which is not something you usually get.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Every single obstacle or dissatisfaction is being stated out during the bi-weekly retrospective meetings. This kind of attitude helps us to solve every problem from the very beginning. So, for now, we have nothing to improve in either the process or the working relationship.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're one of the world's leading specialists in the field of data-driven business technologies. We're trusted by global market leaders across a wide variety of industries, including automotive, consumer goods, and ICT. We also offer a growing portfolio of AI-powered business intelligence solutions.

At our locations in Berlin, Beijing, and Munich, around a hundred data scientists, creative strategists, futurologists, consultants and designers share a common vision: to explore the unexplored in our data-driven world. In my role as CTO I supervise all product- and development-related work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

We hired Andersen to extend our development capabilities for two of our products. As our internal capacities were already fully committed, we required additional development skills for web frontend and backend work.

What were your goals for this project?

Develop, extend and maintain a scalable, userfriendly and performant data-driven platform. New developers had to be onboarded into the existing code (ReactJS, Angular, Ruby, MongoDB), architecture, and agile Scrum processes.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Selection process included quality and cost considerations. Each developer from Andersen underwent interviews and a code challenge, before being accepted into the project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The product was already past MVP stage and needed further feature development, maintenance, and support. Extensive documentation and onboarding was provided as part of the process.

Development followed Scrum methodology, and developers participated actively in all ceremonies. Management of development was handled inhouse (Product Owner, Scrum Master, UX), and developers aligned as part of development teams on technical details.

Generally, developers were also involved in technical feedback and evaluation of new feature suggestions in a very early state, and were able (and encouraged) to propose their own ideas. Typical tasks included coding, code reviews, architecture alignments, Scrum ceremony participation.

What was the team composition?

Product development consisted of 3 teams, with about 6 developers (3x web frontend, 3x backend) and 1 QA engineer. There were 1 dedicated PO and SCM for all 3 teams. Teams were nearshoring located primarily in Central Europe. Chat and video conferencing was used for alignment.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The products that were developed are now the cornerstones extending our service portfolio. We extended work orders over years to keep development velocity and quality. Results exceeded our expectations, and feedback from our clients on the solutions is very positive.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was handled inhouse, not by development partner.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

From a development standpoint, the code quality was high, and they were involved and highly motivated to contribute to our products. They are very acute and aware of any impact a proposed implementation approach could have. We received valuable insights and suggestions from them.

On an account management level, we received fast and reliable feedback on any of our queries, and our (spontaneous) requests were met to our full satisfaction.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is very little to improve. Approval procedure as legally required by their government is a bit cumbersome but out of their control.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Andrey Vikulin, head of custom software development department. I work at GMCS Verex Ltd., which operates as general contractor for this project. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

We were needing for qualified resources on front-end development (Angular 6.x) at that time. Andren have provided it for our project with needed competences (Angular 6.x/TypeScript, rxJS, DevExtreme, HTML5/CSS) and needed amount of man-hours.

What were your goals for this project?

Creating the universal web-portal for managing the production activities, such as:

• working with plans and gathering the actual information on capital construction projects, as well as projects of technical renovation and maintenance on the oil-refinery objects.
• managing and monitoring of the business-distributed workflow among the customer, investor, project institute, general contractor, 2-nd order contractors and their sub-contractors.
• automation of the management reporting for customers and investors, as well as for TOP-management of the company.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have previous success stories with Andersen on other mutual projects.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Out-staffing the developers with needed qualification:

• Angular 6.x/TypeScript, rxJS, DevExtreme, HTML5/CSS
• Experience in working in Agile/Kanban paradigm
• Experience in gitflow release process model
• Experience in MS TeamFoundation
• Server build and realease processes

What was the team composition?

Andersen was on of our 3 out-staff sub-contractors and was responsible for sourcing the project with Frond-End development resources and expertise.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project contains the unique functionality: combining the end-user portal, the e-documents for construction-specific operations, the management accounting transactions, the customizable work-flow and the storage for tons of electronic documents. The project was completed on time with all the extra-features, required by the business-customer. The system is ready for simultaneous access ~1000 users from 12 regional locations.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was on the party of GMCS. We use Team Foundation Server to manage the development process and Skype for team communications between Moscow, Minsk, Ulyanovsk and Salavat. Andersen provides a project with development resources.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their team has the best expertise in Angular I've ever seen. Ability to share expertise with other team members. Readiness for overtime during the pre-release periods.

Are there any areas for improvement?

To be at Moscow

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Kickico, a community-based, blockchain fundraising ecosystem for FinTech products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Andersen?

We needed some help and advice on our QA process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Andersen provides manual QA engineers for regression, smoke, and current-task testing. We’re planning to implement automatic testing, as well.

What is the team composition?

We have three QA engineers from Andersen.

How did you come to work with Andersen?

They’re a popular QA testing company, and I knew of them from other projects.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Andersen around November 2018, and it’s ongoing. We plan to involve more engineers from their side as we expand our scope.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve helped us build up our QA process, and we’ve gotten some good advice from them.

How did Andersen perform from a project management standpoint?

Our projects are very dynamic, and we have an ideal tempo. The communication with the Andersen team is also great. We’re using management systems like Jira and TestRails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because they’re organized and responsive, they’re able to solve our problems and address our questions quickly.

 Are there any areas they could improve?

There isn’t much to improve, but it would be interesting if they took part in generating requirements for our projects. However, that’s not possible for now, since they have a lot of work.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They provide good-quality services and a wide breadth of specialists. Clients can feel confident that they’ll succeed if they work with Andersen.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering and product manager at Greenwald Industries, a division of The Eastern Company. We’re in the commercial laundry market, although we target other markets as well. We began in the coin-operated laundry space and then moved into card-based systems. We’re currently shifting to phone apps and IoT. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Andersen?

We hired Andersen to help us with app development. We had phone apps from a previous product that needed some refreshing, and we also needed assistance with new development efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Generally, my team puts together marketing requirements, documents, and system architecture specs, and Andersen runs with the design using those materials as a reference. We have a couple of working models with them. The first is ongoing maintenance, where Andersen works with our iOS and Android apps to do minor bug fixes or enhance features. We have an old iOS app written in Objective-C, and Andersen is in the process of redesigning that and porting it to Swift. They develop our Android apps using Java. This is a slow-rolled approach and keeps costs down. 

The second working model covers new development that we need to move on quickly. They’ve helped us create a whole new approach to doing a render lists module on a machine and having the phone be the UI and network connection to the outside world. They also created different app designs for customers and administrative users. The app takes different forms based on login credentials. For instance, it gives administrators the ability to set up machines, load firmware, or do physical collections of money from the machine.

Andersen does testing to ensure that the devices they’re developing work with our products. We had them purchase reference systems and then provided them with firmware to run on those systems that would emulate the actual devices. In this regard, they’re doing more than just app development; their work is somewhat specialized because they need to understand how to communicate with the Bluetooth stack. They’ve been able to get us past the hurdles we’ve found along the way. 

What is the team composition?

They assign teams to our projects. We work with a project manager, an architect, developers, and QA people. For the newer development projects that we do with Andersen, they generally provide bigger teams. 

How did you come to work with Andersen?

I did an internet search and came across many different phone app development companies, and Andersen’s name was at the top of the list. We’d been using some local phone app development firms but found that Andersen had a better team and quality approach, so we decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

Our monthly invoices vary.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for a couple of years now, and we’re engaging them with new stuff right now. We’re constantly reinventing ourselves, and Andersen is there to help us out along the way. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Things come out pretty much as expected, so we’ve been happy with them. We’ve had very good commentary from our customers about everything. 

How did Andersen perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings and communicate via email numerous times a day, so we always know what’s going on. They’re good about putting other project managers in place if one is on vacation so that things don’t stop.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The takeaway is whether we’re still using them, and we are.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, probably not. I’ve leveraged this company and others to have pair programming, but it’s skewed by time zones. This is helpful because we can do continuous development and testing. One of the key ways to reduce scheduling is to have development happening not just for eight hours each day, but for 24. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Have good requirements and stay in communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a startup rideshare platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Andersen?

I came up with the business concept for our web app, but don’t have a technical background. So, we brought in Andersen to complete our development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I conceptualized how the app would work, the UX, and the business concept, but they created an architecture diagram to demonstrate how it would work. Once we were happy with the design, they began developing the app, ensuring that the app was scalable and robust enough to integrate with our large partners. The platform is hosted on AWS, and they developed the backend using Java, and the frontend using React.

What is the team composition?

There are five people working on the project full-time and one person who works part-time.

How did you come to work with Andersen?

They were recommended to me by the CTO of a large company who praised their technical capabilities.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about €65,000  (approx. $75,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in June 2019 and it is ongoing.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our MVP is on track to be completed by the end of the month, ahead of schedule and under budget. They’ve gone beyond the requirements we outlined at the beginning of the project. By challenging what I asked them to do and proposing even better solutions than what I imagined, they’ve created a product we’re really happy with.

They continue to develop new pipelines and test for bugs. Although we don’t have a final product yet, all of their demos have been great. We’ve been really impressed by their work and plan to keep developing a strategic partnership with them.

How did Andersen perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked in sprints, and they’ve hit their target for almost every sprint. They’ve only allowed tasks to roll over into the next sprint twice, and it hasn’t impacted the amount of work they complete. We have daily calls, and I can always contact them on Skype. Our project manager continuously updates Jira and provides us with cost breakdowns.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a strong grasp of what we want and are really engaged in the project. Their ability to understand our challenges and deliver solutions surpasses all of the other development companies I’ve worked with.

At the beginning of our engagement, I expected to face communication challenges because English isn’t their first language. However, we haven’t had any issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they need to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start development. We’ve already recommended them to other startups.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are developing a platform for carrying out motivation and loyalty programs for our customers. The platform provides functionality for planning, organizing, conducting and monitoring the implementation of such programs, as well as customizing for each individual client. I occupy the position of a leading specialist in the development department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Andersen?

Andersen’s task was to finalize the terms of reference for the implementation of the platform, directly develop according to the terms of reference, taking into account the changes we made, test and stabilize. Since 2018, Andersen developers are involved in the form of a support, make ongoing changes, customize for new customers and eliminate detected bugs.

What were your goals for this project?

Quick start of the project, flexibility in setting up functionality, supportability, following good practices in writing code, scalability. It was also critically important for us that Andersen deliver all the required functionality within the time frames indicated by us.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Andersen's representative contacted our management through LinkedIn, and we have been communicating periodically since then. Before starting the project, we collected proposals from potential vendors, and Andersen offered the best price / quality ratio, and also committed ourselves to deadlines.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Andersen’s team developed a technical solution for the platform, we agreed on the project methodology used (SCRUM, two-week sprints), reporting, and communication.

After that, development began. The back-end part of the application (php, Symfoni, Bitrix) and the front-end part (html, css, jquery) were implemented. Implemented application integration with payment and accounting systems.

What was the team composition?

From the very beginning, a business analyst participated in the approval process and then in the current process. The development was carried out by a team of two back-end developers and two full-stack developers. Two manual testers also worked.

Andersen also highlighted project manager (PM) with a technical background, which was actively involved in the development process and carried out constant communication with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The application was made quickly enough, which allowed us to attract a wide range of customers who were waiting for the application to launch and expand our cooperation. Integration with the accounting system provided us with control over the movement of goods that we sold through the developed platform.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Andersen PM allocated from the side was technically educated, which allowed us to quickly coordinate technical solutions, as well as to keep us up to date with everything that happens during the development process.

The team was also motivated, and we are pleased with the level of formulation of the processes and skills of the PM allocated for this project. The PM quickly escalated emerging problems to bring about a quick resolution.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Competitive rates, speed of response to questions, level of developers and domain expertise in our area. Plus the fast speed of submitting the candidates we requested.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything is fine at the moment.