B-works

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at a healthcare company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

As a hospital, we provide medical care to the surrounding regions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire B-works to accomplish?

• Setup a new website
• website maintenance

SOLUTION

How did you find B-works?

Online Search

Why did you select B-works over others?

• Pricing fits our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from B-works were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The goal was to implement a new website for an existing company based on a given design. The website was developed within a short time and the go-live is imminent. After the go-live the cooperation will be continued as part of the regular website maintenance.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The website is not live yet, so no numbers can be measured yet. However, we have already received a lot of positive feedback on the website and are convinced that it performs much better than the previous one.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The most important milestones were achieved at the agreed time. If a task took longer than expected, this was always communicated.

What was your primary form of communication with B-works?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

B-Works has found a suitable solution for every problem and has always been transparent with us. We have the feeling that there has always been open communication.

Are there any areas for improvement or something B-works could have done differently?

A project update meeting every few weeks could have been useful. In the end, however, it worked without and we were able to solve many things via Slack or e-mail.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of a software development company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with B-works?

We reached out to B-works to develop software for marketing agencies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

This is the first project that I'm working on with them. We’ve divided it into two parts; we started with validation and have moved on to development. I worked with them through the whole discovery process. Based on research, we formulated different problem statements and validated them with different methods like creating mock-ups or asking questions to potential customers. I believe they are using PHP for development.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a project manager and a designer in the first phase. For the second phase, I'm working with a team of four people. 

How did you come to work with B-works?

I was looking for a software engineering team here in Switzerland, and I found them on Google. I sent them a request, and our energy matched. I didn’t choose them based on the price, it was more about the security and feeling they could take on this project. 

How much have you invested in them?

I have spent close to $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We decided to work together in December 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have been able to achieve all the business goals. 

How did B-works perform from a project management standpoint?

I've pushed a lot to progress quickly, but everything has been possible because the B-works team matches my energy and work style and adapts to it. They do many things on short notice, and with very good planning from both sides, we’ve been successful. 

There haven’t been any complications, but the cost of software development is just a rough estimation, and projects can end up being more expensive. B-works does a good job of managing and working within the budget that we’ve defined. If there is anything that costs more, they inform me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The main difference I've seen between them and other companies is that they don’t just see me as a customer and time they can bill for, they really put their minds into my product as well. They think with me and challenge me, and ultimately want to develop the best possible product with me instead of just developing a product.

I appreciate that B-works never says no, and tries to work with me as a client. I always have the last word in deciding which way I want the project to go, but B-works tries their best to consult with me based on their previous experiences and knowledge. After they show me different options, they always leave the decision up to me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I am pretty happy with the way they did their work, so from my perspective, I don’t think they could have done anything differently. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t think this is specific to B-works, but keep an eye on the deadlines and do the work that has been scheduled so the B-works team can do their best work. Even if you are a customer, it is in your best interest to develop the software, so you need to be focused and deliver from your side as well. When B-works sees that you deliver on time and keep up with everything on your end, they match the effort. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the owner of Chalet Grumer

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

hospitality

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire B-works to accomplish?

• create website

SOLUTION

How did you find B-works?

• Online Search
• Other

Why did you select B-works over others?

Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The scope of work was a new concept, user validation, web design and web development of our new Hotel website, including connection with Booking engine, Property Management System and review widgets. The project lasted 6 months. The key deliverables consisted of: 

• Customer Journey Map
• Designs in Figma 
• Website development

The technologies used were:

• Drupal 
• Laravel (backend)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After we went live with the new website we saw a more than 50% increase in direct bookings and requests. We have received very positive feedback from the guests as well, as the new website is more intuitive and gives them a preview of what to expect at our property.

One deliverable was user-friendliness: the website allows us to make any changes ourselves, without having to ask for a developer to do it.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project was managed by a B-works product owner, who gave us an update about the project’s progress every 2 weeks and would get back to us with open questions. The communication was very open and straightforward, also with the developers or designers on the project. As we had progress reports every 2 weeks, the timeline was adhered to, and it was easy to track deadlines. We used Slack and e-mail for communication.

What was your primary form of communication with B-works?

In-Person Meeting

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

• The young spirit
• professional
• great communication

Are there any areas for improvement or something B-works could have done differently?

no

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a research associate and project leader at a research and consulting company for sustainable agriculture within the food sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with B-works?

We’re currently developing a sustainability assessment for agricultural farmers. We had an initial version and wanted to make it more accessible via an online application, which involved translating a highly complex form and regulation method into an easier format.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

B-works is developing an online application for our sustainability assessment for agricultural farmers. They’ve translated an existing UI/UX design into the application. We have an Excel file that they’ve recreated in a Laravel and PHP environment. The tool maps the files and automatically pulls and translates the information. 

Our specific requirements for the tool were that it had to recreate our calculation methods one-to-one. The application also needed to be easily modifiable; if we change our Excel file, the modifications must reflect on the online version quickly and easily. 

What is the team composition?

We’re mostly in contact with a project manager. If needed, we also have contact with the development team. 

How did you come to work with B-works?

We found them through a Google search. The first contact with B-works happened before my time, but I believe my team got a good feeling from them, and that’s why we chose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around 200,000 Swiss francs (approximately $210,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have metrics because there wasn’t a comparable application before. However, thanks to B-works’ work, we have a working application that has solved our problems and is scalable for our needs. 

How did B-works perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is good. They deliver everything on time and respond quickly — we have no complaints. We mostly communicate through emails, video calls, and sometimes Slack. The team manages the project through Atlassian tools: Jira and Confluence. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

B-works is very solution-oriented. They don’t dwell on problems; instead, they apply creative and interesting ways to solve them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints about them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

B-works moves quickly, so you’ll have to make decisions fast. Therefore, you shouldn’t sit on your thumbs waiting for things to happen. If you want good results, you should allocate time to the tasks you have to complete.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a department head and a member of the executive board at a luxury goods company. We have subsidiaries all over the world, mainly in Europe. I’m responsible for the digital strategy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with B-works?

Like many companies did in the last 2–3 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that digitalizing our business would be a core element of our future success. Therefore, we hired many new roles and functions in our digital departments. We brought B-works on board as an external consultant to help us in our transformation and to better understand our current situation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

B-works started with an analysis and strategy phase that lasted 1–2 months. They helped us analyze a digital landscape to identify open pain points, gaps, and missing opportunities. The team started by analyzing what we already had; they reviewed all existing documents to understand our general business strategy.

The team interviewed internal stakeholders, including members of our management team, to understand our current situation. They also did an external analysis to identify best practices in the luxury goods market segment. From there, B-works helped us set up a strategy, vision, and landscape. 

After a small break, we started the technical consulting phase, where they helped us with our web development landscape. This phase lasted 3–4 months, and the team helped us identify opportunities and determine where we should invest our money and energy. For this stage, B-works rebuilt our technology stack by helping us identify and select the right tools, set up frameworks, and implement the Agile methodology to manage our workload better. 

Our internal development team learned how to apply better practices and state-of-the-art workflows from B-works’ web developers. They helped us set up a new infrastructure that we’ll use in the future and also implemented the Scrum methodology in our team. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with five teammates from B-works: an engagement manager, a product owner, and three web developers. 

How did you come to work with B-works?

I was looking for specific support; we wanted an external partner to help with the strategy and implementation levels. Therefore, we needed a consultancy that could also bring technical skills. I found B-works through research, and their offering was very good, so we chose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around 250,000 Swiss francs (approximately $263,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March–July 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

B-works helped us structure our business better due to their very structured way of thinking. They brought in frameworks and templates they had used in other projects, which was very good for our current maturity level. Before working with them, our strategy was chaotic. The team worked with scaling-up templates and tools such as Confluence and Jira, and they understood the Agile methodology well. These successfully-applied templates helped us better understand our situation in the analysis phase. 

B-works also developed a clear road map for us, with an opportunity and solutions overview and prioritization system. As a result, we understand the most important and urgent action items for us in the next 6–12 months. Moreover, they built clarity and transparency in our web development process, and we’re currently building our websites with the new tech stack. 

A KPI we used to measure their success was speed. While we could have done the whole process by ourselves, B-works built up our team’s speed, which helped us achieve more results quickly. 

How did B-works perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well in terms of project management. Since they’re highly structured and have a very clear planning process, they were always on time. We didn’t have any delays because the engagement manager and the product owner strictly managed the timeline. 

We used Confluence as our documentation platform, and Jira was our ticketing system. We also used those two platforms for communication between our internal team and B-works. Since they also helped us set up the Agile methodology, we used it for this project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

B-works has an ideal size for us — they’re not too small or too big. Although we’re an international company, we aren’t very big, so our company sizes fit well. As a result, we knew everyone we worked with. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

When implementing the Scrum methodology, they invested too much time in the planning and organization and not enough in the development part. They have a very specific process, but for a company of our maturity level, it would have been better if they didn’t follow it so strictly and supported us more in the development and technical portion. We had a project review with B-works, and I already gave them this feedback.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive for an employee experience feedback platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with B-works?

We wanted to create and develop a platform with a unique approach to employee feedback.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

B-Works built the web application from scratch using JavaScript. Users could log in and get an authentication code or an invitation to join as an employee. Then, the employees could use the platform to give feedback whenever they want and to whatever they want, whether it’s the organization, supervisor, team, workplace, work equipment, and so on. Employee feedback focuses solely on the crucial question of what they appreciate or what needs to be improved. The object-oriented approach is the key to the uniquely simple and efficient use of the platform. It gives employees the opportunity for structured feedback without limiting them thematically or in terms of time.

What was the team composition?

We worked directly with Alex (Founder & CEO). We also interacted in some cases with the project manager. In total, we had a team of 4–5 people.

How did you come to work with B-works?

We found them through Google. We were looking for a local company with experience in implementing complex projects with high requirements. B-Works met our criteria to a high degree. We reviewed their offer along with a few others, but decided to go with them based on the professional approach they proposed.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent about 500,000 Swiss francs (approximately $524,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2018 and finished by January 2020; the project lasted around a year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have tested all steps of the platform internally and with some pilot customers. The platform has been working without any problems since then. Overall, B-works has more than met our expectations.

How did B-works perform from a project management standpoint?

The project exceeded the original budget, but this was due to the complexity of the project itself. In the end, the costs for the project were nevertheless kept within an acceptable range.

They communicated with us every week and whenever it was necessary. We had a good connection and great communication. We used Jira and Slack as management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication was excellent, and the team was flexible. They asked carefully about our expectations and always included us in the project as a customer. Moreover, their coding skills were crucial to accomplish the development professionally.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From our point of view, there is nothing, or at least nothing significant, to complain about in retrospect. It was a very demanding project with some challenges, but in the end they were solved due to the very good cooperation.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Our advice is to trust the agile project management of the company B-Works. This is highly professional and ensures that you approach the desired goal step by step.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We develop and produce Computer-to-Plate and Computer-to-Screen Systems. I am responsible for administration and marketing

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire B-works, and what were your goals?

We searched for a new partner who takes care of our website and have now a contact with b-works on a service level agreement

SOLUTION

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

We searched online for a drupal website developer and found b-works on google. Their website made a professional impression and the people were very friendly and sympathetic

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

We discussed our goals and then they sent us a proposal including offer for service level agreement. Together we worked out the estimated monthly time they have to spend on our website for security, design and everything. They took over our old website and they did a lot of change regarding security and SEO

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

3, CEO, website manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

not yet

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

Communication via Slack and Jira. Works good.

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

Very familiar, they always try to put themselves into our business

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

no