ClickIT

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wicket is the world's first Member Data Platform. We are revolutionizing member management and engagement for associations by giving them access to world class software and integrating it with their member data. Wicket is a SaaS-based software. I am the Co-Founder and COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies, and what were your goals?

We hired a software developer through ClickIT Smart Technologies to work with our internal team of developers and help move the product along.

SOLUTION

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies and what were the deciding factors?

We had come across ClickIT as a referral. Their reputation was good and the process we went through to find the right fit for our team was thorough.

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

Key Responsibilities: Lead development of features, improvements and bug fixes across the full stack of development (database, back-end and front-end) and according to specifications delivered by the UX team.

Analysis of requirements to recommend solutions based on technical expertise and in collaboration with members of the UX team and product management. Works closely with the CTO to make strategic recommendations to the technical architecture and undelying tools and systems that allow the product to operate as a SaaS platform.

Maintains a healthy hosting infrastructure through DevOps. Technologies involved: Object oriented programming MVC Pattern and related frameworks Ruby on Rails Framework React and/or Redux

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

There were a few different contacts but the one we work with closely is a Project Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The software developer we are working with is a great addition to our team. He actively participates in daily standups and contributes to the development and support of our software product on a daily basis.

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

Project management has been on top of things with regular check-ins and communication.

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

They are always on top of things in terms of the quality of the work they have given us.

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

Nothing to add here.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CFO of BUUZ, the first AI driven cloud based data collecting platform (app and web based) to connect the hospitality industry (bars & brands) in a full targeted way with consumers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Server maintenance, structural setup, development environment server setup & admin and access and security services.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a reliable development environment for a fast growing platform with the ability to provide a secure server setup for all involved parties. Developers for web and app, consumers using the apps and businesses benefiting from the platform around dating in- and output.

SOLUTION

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

ClickIT ST provided the knowledge, expertise, ability to adapt and investigate and to solve issues that every server faces sooner than later. We were also provided recommendation as an effort to pro-actively setup the system to prevent issues from happened in the future.

Describe the project in detail.

ClickIT was able to setup a sophisticated and complex while stable development environment known as Sandbox, Staging, Production to enable companies with a secure and controlled line of production. Examples include the developers to provide a code on web and app that then can be tested by beta testers and finally approved and pushed to a live server or the app stores to avoid consumers and customer facing issues.

What was the team composition?

The communication was primarily with Alfonso Valdes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We successfully launched the development environment in 2016, the website updates in 2017 and 2018 along with security updates and just launched the BUUZ app as well as BUUZ Connect app for both iOS and Android that communicate with our server through more than 60 custom APIs. All that was and is only possible because ClickIT provided and still provides their service when needed to assure flow, security and performance control.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very responsive, pro-active and professional.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

There was no issue that couldn't be resolved within a few hours or a day, that's rare in the IT world.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not in regards to our project or anything we were able to identify.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am currently the Project Manager for a fintech company that has been in operation for around 20 years. We offer world-class technology to the masses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We’ve had various projects with them over the last five years. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Running mission-critical workloads means that we need to provide 24-hour support. We have teams in multiple time zones now, so we can offer true 24-hour support for our platforms, regardless of what’s going on. Specifically, we like to do a lot of our infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, and deployments at times of low utilization, and that works out well with the time zone difference between us and ClickIT Smart Technologies.

We started small and gathered a bit of momentum and trust. ClickIT Smart Technologies has been working on a select few projects since then, handling them from start to finish. There’s no end date for our relationship. ClickIT Smart Technologies is now a full-time resource within our company.

What is the team composition?

We currently have one full-time engineer from ClickIT Smart Technologies, who’s basically embedded into our organization remotely. We’ve been working with him for the last eight months.

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

The relationship really kicked off, not just because of my trust in ClickIT Smart Technologies but also because of their ability to provide services outside of working hours and always going above and beyond.

We’ve identified trust as one of the most critical aspects of working with third parties, and we can't overstate how much we trust ClickIT Smart Technologies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent at least $50,000 with them to date, and this will increase substantially over the coming years as we tie in more and more services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship started at the end of 2015 and is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything’s working well, and we love what they’re doing. We want to give them more work to get more value out of the relationship. They handle security and customer compliance, and we’ve never failed third-party compliance test.

The collaboration has been a resounding success; they're able to deliver quality work in a professional and ethical way. Their work is high-quality, and our services to end customers reflect that.

What we value the most about our partnership with ClickIT Smart Technologies is that they don’t necessarily work to industry norms in terms of relationships. They absolutely go above and beyond. ClickIT Smart Technologies always keep the bigger picture in mind.

We've taken on 100% of their recommendations to date because they're aligned with our goals and understand the importance of compliance to industry standards at all times.

ClickIT Smart Technologies is hitting all the metrics we need them to hit!

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We have very good project management tools, and we communicate with them effectively. They haven’t failed to deliver on any deadline or task.

We communicate effectively over voice and other messaging services. They’ve consistently impressed me with their service delivery and project management ethos. They work within our timelines, and they give us feedback that we then integrate into our platform pipeline.

I don’t need to micromanage any of their team members. They give me detailed plans for the work, and they’re extremely strong in terms of internal processes and client communication.

ClickIT Smart Technologies is extremely transparent about what they can and can’t do, and they won’t take on anything they feel won’t be delivered up to the security and time-frame requirements.

They’re a bit smaller as an organization, so they’re extremely flexible and agile. Like ourselves, they’re willing to go the extra mile for their customers, and they’re extremely flexible. If we need support at certain times or ask them for support on things that aren't their specific expertise, they’ll work it into their pipeline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

So far, everything ClickIT Smart Technologies has done in terms of management and interactions with us has shown that they have the interests of our company integrated into their ethos.

Their team is professional, and they communicate really well. They’re fluent English speakers, and there are absolutely zero language barriers.

They’re extremely knowledgeable on their services, and they’re always looking at integrating the latest and greatest features of AWS and general cloud infrastructures. They’re always looking at new certifications and actively pushing different products.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We face some challenges due to the time difference, but I can’t think of a single scenario where I was let down or there was something disconcerting about how they were operating.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO and founder of a fintech startup. We're developing technologies for two main areas: remittances from Europe and the US mainly to Latin America, and a digital marketing tool that allows us to market to the recipients of the remittances in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

They’ve mainly been providing DevOps services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ClickIT Smart Technologies is managing our AWS infrastructure, making sure that it's secure and that it meets different international financial compliance requirements.

For example, know your customer (KYC) is a market standard that applies to anyone facilitating money transfers abroad. We have to know who our senders and recipients are, and whether or not they’re on any blacklist.

They’re managing our VPNs, ensuring that our data is kept in a safe environment. We have employees across different countries, and ClickIT Smart Technologies makes sure that their computers have anti-malware software installed and updated.

They’ve also helped us with architecture.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with two DevOps specialists from ClickIT Smart Technologies, including Alfonso (CEO).

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

I don’t like to hire people I don’t know, so ClickIT Smart Technologies came as a reference from an outsourcing house in Peru that had worked with them before. I talked with Alfonso and found that he had what we needed, so I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ClickIT Smart Technologies around July 2018, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

ClickIT Smart Technologies is a knowledgeable team. I had a third party review ClickIT Smart Technologies' work to secure my infrastructure, for the purpose of getting certified under payment card industry and ISO/IEC 27001 compliance.

I was told that we could probably get the first certification in about a month, and the second would take about half the time it usually does. Getting the product certified was a major milestone, and reaching it was due to their work.

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

I communicate with them via Slack, and they respond very quickly. They're based in Mexico, while I’m in Japan, my partner lives in Boston, and our main office is in Madrid. We’re working across three different time zones, but ClickIT Smart Technologies is able to deliver anything we ask from them within a 24-hour period.

I’ve just requested them to send me an architectural background of the IT services for our two products, and they did it very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge base truly impressed me. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They didn’t respond to some of my requests in a timely manner at one point, but I discussed it with them, and they were proactive in addressing the situation.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should make sure they have written down their specs. It's important that both parties agree on the scope of the project from day one so that there are no misunderstandings.

I’m able to communicate with them in Spanish, and Alfonso also speaks English very well, but the other team member doesn’t. Clients should make sure that the communication is done in written form and that it’s clear.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of CRiskCo. We provide credit analysis for small and medium-sized businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We needed support for cloud services with Azure and AWS. We also needed to make sure that we were compliant in the financing world.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reviewed what gaps we had in our current infrastructure of our cloud services in order to comply with industry standards. We needed to be able to meet the challenges our clients need from a security perspective. After reviewing our platform, they planned how to roll out the changes. The plan included a  timeline, schedule, and steps to complete everything.

Connecting to the Azure servers, AWS cloud services.

What is the team composition?

We work with one person doing dev-ops for us.

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We connected at a conference last year.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $20,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve delivered one milestone after another with minimal interference with my tech team. They’re still working on the infrastructure. They delivered everything as requested. They’ve been a tremendous help.

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve met their deadlines. They came very organized. With the first week of planning, they quickly understood the challenges ahead. They followed a schedule for work and divided everything into milestones. Six months later, they continue to deliver based on those milestones. They anticipate everything going forward and are very professional.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re professionals and they know what they’re doing. They communicated with me and my CTO on a regular basis. They ensured that the project was advancing based on our expectations and actually cared about our success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They met my expectations very well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key. Set expectations, talk about the challenges, and let them learn about what challenges you're facing. Then work together to mitigate risk and solve those problems.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of web development company specializing in open source platforms. We are a small company but being 100% virtual, it means that we rely heavily on our servers and services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We hired ClickIT to help with a server migration after our previous IT contractor vanished mid-way through the process.

What were your goals for this project?

To transparently move all our servers and services without impacting our client base. Also, we took this opportunity to upgrade various software and generally improve reliability.

SOLUTION

How did you select ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We narrowed down our picks to several providers. We then conducted online interviews, and Alfonso, just came out on top. Working remotely and with a geographically diverse team is important, it seemed that ClickIT was the best fit for us.

Describe the project in detail.

This project involved moving and consolidating multiple managed servers to more flexible cloud-based VPS servers. These servers hosted a variety of platforms and services and the migration had to be done in such a manner to limit downtime to our client base.

What was the team composition?

We have a small team, and at the time, there were perhaps 4 internal people involved as well as Alfonso from ClickIT.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was completed successfully. It took a bit longer than expected, but this was primarily due to the complexity involved with the variety of services and software involved and is not a reflection on the competence of ClickIT.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We use Slack extensively for the vast majority of our team communication. Combined with the occasional text message for out-of-hours communication, it has never been a problem to reach ClickIT.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

In general Alfonso at ClickIT just slotted right into our team. They are always diligent when replying to questions and always seems to find a solution to problems that arise.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall there is very few areas of improvement I would suggest. The only minor thing is that with any shared resources such as ClickIT, it is sometimes not easy to get a response as quickly as required for critical issues that need attention ASAP. This is expected as Alfonso is not a full-time employee of ours, so I don't judge him harshly for this.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CTO at an EdTech/Careers Media Startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

To develop a scalable, failsafe infrastructure for our platform in AWS, with complete CI/CD pipelines.

What were your goals for this project?

Having a more reliable, scalable and available infrastructure, with reduced costs compared to our previous managed hosting.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found ClickIT through a round of interviews, including candidates from several channels.

Describe the project in detail.

We wanted to move away from our previous infrastructure, which was incredible costly and lacked some scaling features, but at the same time we wanted to maintain the incredible CI/CD pipeline it had.

What was the team composition?

On our side we assigned application developers familiar with the various microservices that needed to be ported in assisting ClickIT with implementation details. ClickIT assigned an engineer to architect and implement the solution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to reduce costs to a fifth of what we had while maintaining complete control of the infrastructure and at the same time enhancing it with autoscaling and redudancy features we were previously lacking. A complete success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The collaboration was seamless. It really felt that they were part of our team, communicating with us via Slack, using our tools (JIRA, Confluence etc).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

ClickIT really embedded themselves into our process and culture and was true to the way we like to do things, in complete collaboration. It felt like we designed this system together, in an agile and iterative way.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are things that could have gone better, the project took considerably longer than we predicted, but ClickIT had our backs and ensured everything ended up working to our business requirements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of BeepQuest Supervise and Perfect your operational Standards. Build a tailor made end to end mobile APP for deploying your supervision and internal communication processes. Design in real time your workflows and create as many Checklists as you want to ensure the fulfillment on your field operational units.

BeepQuest is a completely flexible and self manageable solution that allows companies to create a complete strategy for operational supervision via Checklists, Audits, Inspections and more!

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

Google Cloud microservices optimization and cloud architecture. We had a Mess

What were your goals for this project?

Balance workload, defining architecture, migrating to Google Cloud, selecting and configuring the services and then optimizing them to support our traffic and features

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

One of my developers found them on Google

Describe the project in detail.

Google Cloud services configuration and optimization in order to support a robust micro-service architecture and deploy our software for our customers una proper way.

What was the team composition?

3 consultants and our CTO where working together on the project

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Excellent!!! We migrate all our services to Google Cloud and we optimized or Infrastructure as well as our DevOps internal practices to give maintenance to all the services.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

structured meetings with good communication standards an tasks assignments

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of the technology at hand and their professionalism set them apart.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can remember

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We make industrial wearables and cloud enterprise software for a variety of industries including warehousing and military applications. I am the VP.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We needed outsourced web developers to augment our engineering team and help us build out our web platform.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal was to have more hands on deck to help get through our backlog of items so we could release new features, improvements, and bugfixes quicker. We wanted to be able to react to customer feedback quickly.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We went through a rigorous search of outsourcing companies and narrowed a majority of them down based on location alone. Being a west coast based company, we wanted devs that were close to our timezone so we could collaborate easily. We conducted interviews with ClickIT's developers they had to offer and we felt comfortable bringing one onboard, so that's how we decided to use ClickIT.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Over the course of the time we've had ClickIT developers working with us, we've been able to release a number of significant improvements and new features to our web application. We've been able to rework how our website looks and how data is presented so our customers can gain insights on their business operations.

What was the team composition?

We've worked with one project manager and two developers so far. The project manager would find new developers for us to interview when we wanted to bring on more developers. The developers that were brought on were immediately treated as if they were part of the core engineering team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been able to release new updates to our web application more frequently and respond to customer feedback much faster. This has undoubtedly benefited our customer relationships by proving that we can respond quickly. Our customers have stated they like our web application and the features it provides which wouldn't have been possible without ClickIT.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The developers from ClickIT were integrated to the team as if they were part of the core team, which means they used the same project management tools we used. That included JIRA for issue management, Bitbucket for code, and Slack for communication. We also used Google Hangouts and Zoom to conduct daily standups remotely.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The developers that we've worked with are great. They take the initiative to do things, they respond to feedback well, and they always keep the bigger picture in mind. Their code is developed with care and they work hard to deliver by deadlines. They are everything you want out of developers on your team and then some.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't think there is much areas for improvement, we like working with ClickIT so far and will continue to work with in the future.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and business development CRO of a fintech company. We’re developing a banking-as-a-service platform, and we provide technology to different banks. Although we’re based in New York, and we also have an office in Mexico City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

We needed to create a new platform infrastructure for one of the banks we’re partnered with. Our team needed to deliver this system in a quick turnaround but didn’t have the internal capabilities to do so.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There were specifications that we needed to deliver in 2–3 months, and ClickIT helped us develop that environment and its related infrastructure. The development was based on the specifications that the bank gave us. ClickIT worked on the DevOps components for the infrastructure. They implemented a very difficult hardware security module (HSM) as well as managed Azure and AWS.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people from ClickIT on this project.

How did you come to work with ClickIT Smart Technologies?

After evaluating different companies, we connected with ClickIT through a common friend.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with ClickIT from September 2019–January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, we had a great experience with them. They delivered on time, even though it was a challenging turnaround. There wasn’t that much time to figure out all the specifications of the bank. The dates were pretty rigid. We needed to deliver certain pieces every 2–3 weeks and knew the bank would kill the project if we didn’t meet those deadlines. ClickIT did a great job.

Our team is usually not a big fan of outsourcing work because we’ve had some bad experiences in the past. However, ClickIT knew what they were doing and had a great work ethic. We worked in the background, making sure they delivered the needed requirements.

How did ClickIT Smart Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They always met deadlines, and we had great communication. ClickIT shared what they were working on every day — both achievements and roadblocks. We held weekly meetings to check the progress and used common project tracking tools like Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The bank had a unique specification — which was overall really complex — more so because of the timelines. ClickIT delivered everything in a timely manner, and at the quality that a top-quality bank in the US would require. Overall, I was impressed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are no areas for improvement. I mentioned it to ClickIT that we aren’t fans of outsourcing, but we took a leap of faith and it worked out. We’ve had a great experience overall, and they showed that from the beginning. Some people on our side were fearful in the beginning, but as ClickIT started to execute, they got comfortable.