Company A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a consulting company & service integrator for fortune 500 clients. I am head of product for one of our service offerings.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Company A?

We used Company A to build a seamless integration of an open source CMS to our product. Creating the first version of the integration would allow us to augment our service offering.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of this project were to seamlessly integrate our product with the CMS in order to allow clients to create easy to use custom brand portals.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Five companies were evaluated using a robust scoring method. The final deciding factor was that they came out with the best score and price.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We provided API documentation and user stories to Company A in order for them to have enough background to create a technical requirements document. Once this document was created and approved by my team Company A had the green light to commence development. Using agile methodology Company A demonstrated their work every sprint in order to confirm that the following functionality was acceptable: - SSO - Elastic Search - API Integration - Template Design UI/UX

What was the team composition?

2 - Developers 1 - Scrum Master 1 - Solution owner

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This initiative helped leapfrog the development that I tried to get accomplished but could not due to lack of resources.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Company A was extremely professional. Their team used Agile Methodologies but was forgiving when the process morphed on occasion. We collaborated via daily scrum calls, Jira, and demos every two weeks.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Company A really knows customer service. I believe that they understand that the way they interact and treat their customers is the way to repeat business.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everyone can improve. They should work on helping guide their clients teams if they feel there is a void.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a privately held health care and health insurance administration firm. My role is digital marketing director so I handle all of our digital marketing strategy and execution as well as liaison with our development teams internally and external to produce consumer facing websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Company A?

Integration of new Content Management Systems and data layers for new redesign site. Collaborate with our front end and back-end development teams for overall site architecture, security and rebuild.

What were your goals for this project?

1. Enhance site User experience
2. Increase content Engagement
3. Create end to end site experience with the entire site on one management platform
4. Enable easy content updates for ongoing site content management

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Company A was selected after RFP process with 4 vendors they won the project .

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Integration of new Content Management Systems and data layers for new redesign site. Collaborated with our front end and back-end development teams for overall site architecture, security and rebuild

What was the team composition?

Internal marketing team comprised of design and front end dev. IT team comprised of DBA team, Ops and back end architects/ engineers. Business stakeholders, marketing account team and enterprise project management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Not just yet as the project is nearing launch ,however the initial feedback from our recent demos with company executives and larger team have been positive. The site is expected to launch soon and be well received in the market.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had our internal IT project management as well as my self serving as co-PM's. I would say overall the project management was much more relaxed than usual for a product of this magnitude. That has led to some challenges with scope and product launch timing, but also has created a much more stress free environment during the project life cycle.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The willingness to collaborate and integrate as more of an extension of the team than an agency. I've worked with dev partners of all shapes and sizes over my career and Company A's approach and willingness to integrate seamlessly as part of the team has been exemplary.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Dev build time was fast. Facilitating walk troughs with the team on newly developed functionality would be a good way to reduce duplicating or the need to re-work dev efforts.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We manufacturer and distribute cannabis products in California. I am the Head of Business Operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Company A?

As a start-up, we needed to outsource our web development project and build a customized content management system tailored to our companies needs. This was an end-to-end development effort starting from scratch.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to keep development costs low and expedite our time to market

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After completing an RFP process, we selected Company A based on costs, responsiveness and quality of previous work with major automotive clients.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Company A came in and went through a brief discovery process to learn the needs of our company. They handled every aspect of the project. The team built out a REACT website for us that was integrated with a contentful CMS customized for our company. The entire project was managed in an agile fashion using Scrum.

What was the team composition?

Company A had a UX team, a business analyst, and 4 full stack developers that worked on our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Company A designed and developed a solution that now serves as the foundation for our web strategy. Our go-forward plan would not be possible without this development work in place and ready for expansion.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project Management was stellar from day one. The communication and collaboration between teams was very effective and the development tools put in place enabled full transparency and alignment throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We had direct access to project managers and developers throughout the entire project. They made themselves available at any time and put our needs first. For Company A to come in at a very aggressive cost while providing a superior partnership experience was a pleasant surprise.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2017, Toyota's corporate structure consisted of 364,445 employees worldwide and, as of December 2019, was the tenth-largest company in the world by revenue.

I am the program experience manager at Toyota overseeing all consumer facing digitla proporties.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Company A?

Company A is responsible for our tier 2 website buyatoyota.com. They provide the regions customization to better meet their local marketing needs.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal for this project was to build a flexible platform that would be used by regions and Toyota Dealer Associations throughout the country.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our creative agency recommended CompanyA as an elite technology partner. Our challenge of building one solution for multiple purposes was a complicated technology ask. Many companies have failed in the past and we didn't think anyone can provide a solution that would satisfy our unique ask.

Company A has done the impossible. The system they built has done the job for the last 5 years and it keeps getting better.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

As any large company, there are many stakeholders CompanyA have to satisfy. They have the technology skillset to be able to present solutions that need to go through our Enterprise Architecture group, security skills to pass our Info Security Group, Cloud group, SEO, Legal, and not to mention the various marketing group.

Their size and nimbleness are very unique in this market place. A company that can satisfy these many stakeholders are the large consulting companies. The only difference is I'm still able to call their CEO with any issues at a very reasonable price.

What was the team composition?

For buyatoyota we had 2 scrum teams dedicated to the maintenance backlog and enhancement backlog. We had something like 2 scum masters, 10 engineers, 2 QA, and a tech lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All of our KPIs that we are tracking have seen double digits growth. As technology continues to change CompanyA has continually brought us ideas to optimize.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We require that all of our projects are implemented using SCRUM methodology. Company A has their agile expert that was very knowledgeable and helped with our agile transformation as a company.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Company A's wide range of technology expertise was very impressive and they do it the enterprise level that has only been done by the Big 4. The only difference is they are delivery focused and they have yet to miss a deadline.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We'd like to see them go into creative and functional side of the business so we only have to deal with one company. Having this full service offering will make them unstoppable.