BrightMarbles

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Bandit Coffee is a company bringing innovation to the way we enjoy our beverage. With the mindset of a technology company, Bandit developed an app that helps its consumers personalize, order, and pay for high-quality coffee and other products. This cuts out waiting in line and offers fast service; customers simply collect their coffee in Bandit's nearest coffee shop. Jeff H. Founding Engineer at Bandit

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We hired a team from BrightMarbles to help us develop the Bandit Coffee app, together with superior visual identity and flawless user experience. Since we are a technology company and given that it is the heart of our business, the app had to be fast, intuitive, easily navigated, bugless. On the other hand, the whole brand's visual design has to be on par with its superior reputation.

What were your goals for this project?

As stated in the answer above, we wanted everything to be impeccable and in the highest quality, from our app, and its user experience, to the whole visual identity of the brand.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Through Digital Knights, an elite software engineering network. We wanted a reliable partner.

Describe the project in detail.

We want our company to disrupt the coffee market. We want a new, improved, digitalized experience for true coffee lovers. We want our service to be personalized for every customer and delivered in no time. Our go-to way to achieve this is an app.

Splendid user experience, basic filtering, and sorting options, the possibility to personalize the product and the order, and contactless payment were required. The other part of the project was to help us elevate our general visual identity and make it more consistent.

What was the team composition?

Senior iOS developer, senior backend developer, and senior UI/UX designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are more than happy with both the results of their work and the quality of their written code. We’re still working with BrightMarbles, satisfied with the team and their initiative. In the future, we’re planning to scale up the current team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our workflow has been effective. As a client, at the start of our collaboration, we had the possibility to see our team’s CVs and portfolios and we had a word when our team was formed. Our day-to-day communication with a team is productive. We hold daily meetings and by-weekly release cycles.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

BrightMarbles has a skilled team. Guys are very expert and knowledgeable about the technology we use on the project and best practices. Next to the fact that they are quite strong in both UI/UX and coding, they have also become critical advisors in helping us make the best decisions related to architecture, development process, plan, etc.

Guys in our team and the management members we communicated with are real professionals.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. We’re satisfied with everything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of an IT outsourcing company in Serbia. We provide IT services to our clients. A majority of our clients are based in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BrightMarbles?

We were looking to hire developers for staff augmentation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their developers extended our own team. They developed a software solution for a client in Switzerland.

We were looking for developers with Java experience. The most important thing for us was that the developers had great technical skills, but we also wanted developers who are engaged and proactive because we didn’t know all the answers.

We wanted developers who are ready to propose solutions and discuss various things together with us, and not just execute what we told them to do.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from BrightMarbles.

How did you come to work with BrightMarbles?

They were recommended to us by an associate.

How much have you invested with them?

It was around $70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted six months, and we started working with them in May 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solution we built for our client, together with BrightMarbles, is now used in major banks in Switzerland for tracking their IT equipment. They have their own data centers, and they had a lot of equipment, but they didn’t have a good management system for all that equipment. The client was very happy.

How did BrightMarbles perform from a project management standpoint?

We were so happy with the project. We had a milestone every couple of weeks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

With two of the milestones, we literally had to work day and night, including weekends, to accomplish the milestone and deliver this on time. It was because of last-minute changes on the client-side, so things got a little more complicated, but it was important that we still delivered everything on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are doing great, and I wouldn’t know what to add. We are going to work on some projects in the future.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be completely transparent about what you’re looking for. Speak with their CEO. He’s a very nice guy. He’s also very transparent about what they can and cannot do. If you start with an honest conversation, you’ll get the most out of it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founded 25 years ago, Comtrade is a group of technology companies. With their impressive track record of innovation, they contributed to developing some of the world's most advanced software.

The company was founded as a software engineering and services company, but today Comtrade has evolved into a software product business, a services company, and a systems integrator.

With world-class infrastructure and campuses in 10 countries, Comtrade operates as a holding company for vibrant companies and an incubator for new and exciting technologies on the cutting edge. Jelena Ječmenić Alliances & Channel Manager at Comtrade Solutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We hired two front-end senior developers from BrightMarbles to augment our development team of the corporate self-service portal for one of the leading energy companies in Europe.

What were your goals for this project?

The project's goal was to achieve a consistent user experience throughout the whole web ecosystem in response to the management and developmental challenges (different content management systems, expensive upgrade of current eShop, cooperation with vendors, etc.)

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have outstanding and long term collaboration with them and this is just one of many projects where BrightMarbles has been our development partner.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

As stated before, the project's goal was to develop and redesign the corporate self-service portal or moreover deliver a new Digital Experience Platform.

What was the team composition?

The team is: Project Manager, Solution Architect/Development Lead, Development and Testing team. BrightMarbles provided two engineers for the development team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The developed solution produced positive outcomes for the client, which was evident when comparing results to the predetermined KPIs.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

For communication, we used different tools, such as Jira, Slack, Skype, etc. And as it is the case with most of our projects, this one also uses Scrum as a development process, so we had daily stand-up meetings and used a three-week sprint cycle.

The team members talked about the status on a daily and weekly basis and adjusted the development process accordingly. BrightMarbles's developers acted, and were treated as other team members, and were held accountable for the tasks they did.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were pleased with BrightMarbles in general and would collaborate with them again. They were approachable, willing to make changes, and responsive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing comes to mind at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CPTO of a cryptocurrency platform. We office more than 50 different cryptocurrencies. Our company is expanding in Europe. At the moment we serve 600k users a fast and secure way to buy or sell their digital assets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We hired BrightMarbles to help us develop our iOS and Android mobile app, in order to help our crypto-traders store and manage their assets.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal is to expand to the mobile market segment by developing iOS and an android app that enables our users - safe, easy, and fast trading.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After auditing a considerable number of potential partners we decided that BrightMarbles is the best choice for us.

Describe the project in detail.

Together with the BrightMarbles’ team, we set out to develop and improve our mobile app that helps crypto-traders buy, sell, and trade. Because of that, it simultaneously improved our ReactNative made iOS app that has new features.

Meanwhile, the android app was made from the ground up using Flutter.  We liked the capabilities of Flutter, giving us native performance with a single code base, so we decided to apply this benefit to replace our existing iOS app.

What was the team composition?

We started with 3 senior mobile developers for our ReactNative app, then the team grew when we started the Flutter development project and grew to a total of six developers, QA/Scrum master, and a senior UI/UX designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

BrightMarbles’ Flutter based solution significantly reduced development, maintenance, and time costs, with a cross-platform approach, giving us native app performances while keeping a single code base, allowing our users to buy, sell securely and effortlessly via their mobile device

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have regular meetings, and all team members are highly responsible, our collaboration is on point. We love our frequent visits both in BM offices and them visiting us.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They experts in their field and are forward-thinking. They are especially impressive with their speed of adopting new technology. We felt as one big team committed to the same goals and values.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They were satisfied with everything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a CEO of Netfork, a software development community that connects high-quality development teams and clients in need of software development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We needed to subcontract the project that revolved around hospital data visualizations.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of this project was to build a high-quality solution for our associates that recommended us for this project in the first place.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We had an initial contact with BrightMarbles when we were looking for development partners for some previous projects and they left a very good impression on us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed all of the complex data visualization components on the project.

What was the team composition?

The BrightMarbles team consists of 3 full-time JS developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The software is yet to be launched, but the end client is extremely satisfied with the product built so far and is considering to continue the collaboration beyond this project.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was on the client-side in this case, BrightMarbles team only had there own ScrumMaster responsibilities.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive thing was the readiness of the team to dive into the heart of the problem and really do its best to propose the optimal solution.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I am aware of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Comtrade Digital Services is accelerating software technology innovation and providing strategic software engineering services.

We help companies across different industries reinvent their business models using innovative technology so they can successfully address business challenges, embrace digital transformation and become industry leaders in their domains.

I am in charge of the Comtrade's Smart energy program which includes all projects related to energy and utilities. Our clients are some of the world leaders in this industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We hired a few developers from BrightMarbles to reinforce our already existing development team to work on the backend services and integration layer.

What were your goals for this project?

Market Transaction System is a complex B2B hub that manages the market transactions and the flow of meter data between the national electricity authority, electricity retailers, metering service providers, meter data managers and the utilities’ own enterprise systems.

Due to legislature changes that affected the way the electricity market functions, the system had to be substantially adapted to support the new business model.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We work with BrightMarbles through our Resource Management office and have established a long and firm relationship over the years.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

BrightMarbles resources worked on some of the backend services and the data access layer of the system using mostly .NET and PL.SQL. A lot of the business logic was implemented directly on the database itself in form of stored procedures to speed up the processing.

The project started with a workshop where our architect brought BrightMarbles resources up to speed with the architecture of the solution, requirements, etc. and then the work continued in 2-week sprints.

What was the team composition?

The entire development team on our side was 11 people (mostly developers and QA engineers) and BrighMarbles supplied 3 developers/testers that were seamlessly integrated into our project team. On the client's side, there were 6 fully functional teams working on other aspects of the entire system.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solution is not used in our organization and we developed it for an external client. Successful completion of the project enabled us to reinforce our already good relationship with our client and make it even stronger and we continue working on the project to this day.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was handled by Comtrade and by the client. There were 5-7 fully functional teams working on the project around the globe (our team being one of those). We held scrum meetings every day and then the scrum master attended the scrum of scrum meetings to coordinate the work with other scrum teams.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were very quick to turnaround and respond to our request, and their resources were extremely motivated, responsive, and willing to learn and contribute.

They were very flexible with their worktime, often working overtime if needed to ensure the delivery was on time and to accomodate meetings with other teams working in different timezones.

Are there any areas for improvement?

none I can think of

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Innovative Brands is Amsterdam-based design bureau that designs digital solutions for its clients. I am the head of business-development and co-founder for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

We hired BrightMarbles to supply us with custom software development capacity for a complex 3D configuration solution.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to supply our client with a high-grade 3D configuration tool that they could incorporate into their current e-commerce system in order to streamline their entire sales process, and create more client interaction for their customers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We connected via common acquantainces and their expertise and professionalism quickly became known to us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

In short they provided us with full stack custom-software developers that could help us transform our UI/UX design for the solution into a viable and fully functional product and integrate it into the current web-solution.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team of 5 full stack developers that worked on the project full time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This was (and is) a major product for us, we have actually received an award for its impact in the business and the rate of innovation we introduced with the help of Brightmarbles.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It worked out great, we do a lot of project management as well, and communications were always smooth and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Definetely the work rate, pricing and willingness to break normal working hours to get the job done.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I suppose they can could go brigger so they can deliver an even wider array of software development capacity.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Datum Solutions is a privately held company with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was founded in 2004 by a group of senior ECM solution experts, and has been rapidly expanding their operations globally since then.

They specialize in ECM technology development, re-engineering, and technology support services to a diverse clientele throughout North America, Europe, and India. Datum Solutions also offers a wide range of services including business-IT strategy creation, project business value identification, development of business applications, optimization of systems operations and maintenance, and data and application migrations. Vladimir Rubežić VP of Operations

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

BrightMarbles was hired to develop a front-end side that was a part of a bigger system on our ongoing project.

What were your goals for this project?

The final goal was to finish the development of the ongoing project, for which we needed additional software engineers who were skilled in React.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our clients recommended BrightMarbles, and since they had the expertise to tackle our problem, we went with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

This was a project from the healthcare industry. The goal of the project was to develop an app that would show users data and the recommendations based on the parameters they input, processed using machine learning. It involved a complex visualization of a large amount of information. The front-end side of the app was developed using React and VegaJS.

What was the team composition?

The team BrightMarbles provided had 5 members in total - 4 software engineers, and 1 system architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before BrightMarbles’s team stepped in, the project was already in progress, but not as planned due to lack of available man power. We were really happy when they joined the project. They were quickly able to get a solid grasp of the project and delivered results in a timely and professional manner.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We were a part of one team and communicated as such. Everything went pretty smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their level of technical expertise and meticulousness in the development process impressed us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything was fine, I don’t have any complaints.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Algotech business orientation are directed towards the communication process digitalization, business process automation, and implementation of other advanced solutions that enable a better communication and sales channel integration.

I'm in the CTO position responsible to develop, articulate, and continually develop the company’s strategic technical direction

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

For the process of digital transformation and implementation of the new features in the ticketing software in the one bank we hire BrightMarbels team.

What were your goals for this project?

To give the customer add on value of the existing solution and integrate with their backed systems

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have a very good recommendation for Brightmarbels team from our business partners

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The scope of the project was to create some specific reports from different sources for the bank internal procedures and regarding some government procedures. For this purpose it was necessary to integrate existing system with some external systems and databases.

What was the team composition?

In the project was 6 peoples all together. From Brightmarbels side was 3 team members. Mr Dragoslav Radman and his team was perfectly organised and all tasks were delivered on time

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was very important to have strict timelines and delivery period was short. Timeline from the bank perspective was very short from the beginning of the process of business analysis to delivery phase. Brightmarbels was very cooperative and give us for some tasks more resources just to finish the Milestone.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was from our side with short daily meetings and all tasks were in JIRA. Our team and Brightmarbels team has daily communication trough Skype for all topics.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're a very knowledgeable team with a lot of experience in different fields.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Just keep it like this it was very good cooperation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Innovative Brands is Amsterdam-based design bureau that designs both digital and physical products for its clients. I am an account manager for Innovative Brands that was involved with the Savills Inside project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire BrightMarbles?

For our collaboration with Savills, we needed a trusted partner that could build an online system that would integrate a large number of data regarding corporate office space; a B2B software app, with an intuitive, clean and modern UX and recognizable UI. Due to the vast real estate data app had to organize and manage, it was crucial to develop a robust and comprehensive search and filtering options while conforming to an existing API.

What were your goals for this project?

First of all, we wanted to develop an app that would be of superb quality, with a focus on a robust solution to fit the client’s needs. For this, we needed a company with a high focus on technical excellence. Secondly, we were responsible in front of our client to have the app within the timeframe and the budget we’ve set. That’s why we needed a company that would be able to pull it off, without stress, frustration, and delays.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

BrightMarbles reached us with their marketing efforts, and after a reference check, we were convinced we found the right partner to reach our goals.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The creative concept and the UI/UX of the app were built on the side of Innovative Brands. BrightMarbles’s team was in charge of developing a custom multi-level app, using React and NodeJS stacks together with Google API. The app should show pinned office locations and all relevant information directly on the map. The app should also enable advanced filtering options for a more efficient, less time-consuming search.

What was the team composition?

BrightMarbles’s team was composed of three software engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The end result of this development process is easily navigated B2B web app. Filters are integrated, and a large set of data is organized and displayed to the end-user. Altho, originally developed with the city of Utrecht in mind, the application was made to be, with just a few small tweaks, expanded to scope any city in the World.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The collaboration was as expected, and it lived up to the standards presented by the company. I was satisfied with it.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Even though the company is still young, they showed impressive maturity when it comes to collaboration with us as their clients and the understanding of our business domain.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Size. They should grow even more to be able to serve even bigger clients, but, as I see it, they’re on the right track because following their development I saw they doubled in size without any drop in the quality of their services.