Covent IT

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Manager of Spendbase

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We cut software expenses for companies by securing discount

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Covent IT to accomplish?

• Covent IT increased our development capacity and rapidly scaled our team to meet the demands of both short and long-term projects. Their expertise has been instrumental in helping us to successfully manage our growing project requirements. We aimed to speed up product delivery without compromising on quality.

SOLUTION

How did you find Covent IT?

Referral

Why did you select Covent IT over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Covent IT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Covent IT’s involvement was crucial in realizing Spendbase’s dreams of becoming one of the leading SaaS subscription management platforms. They outstaffed skilled professionals on the Backend, Frontend, Full-stack, SFCC, Manual/Automated QA, and DevOps for development. They provided:

• Acceleration of the speed of building the project.
• Easy onboarding of new team members into Soendbase’s workflow.
• Work on critical areas like the backend and frontend, which was done to deliver good functionality of the SaaS platform.
• Communication between teams and skillful project management, as well as achieving the goals within the project on time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Covent IT’s team helped expand our development team and still deliver quality in time for product releases. Experts increased the efficiency of the development line by helping us accelerate the development of key features much earlier. Therefore, some of the key quantifiable deliverables included a 30% reduction in development time, improved system performance, and proper management of our SaaS subscriptions for customers.

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

Covent IT's project management has been excellent. They are proactive, accurate, and take complexity in stride, always meeting deadlines. Their agility in anticipating challenges and offering solutions kept the project on track. Transparency in communication and commitment made the relationship easy to work with and added great value to the success of the project.

What was your primary form of communication with Covent IT?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We really liked how easily our teams integrated into the development processes. Covent IT’s team didn't just get the job done; they provided ideas and insights to improve the way of working. Their commitment to understanding the objectives and trying to exceed expectations made them essential.

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

Covent IT’s project management is really good, and we generally liked other parts of their development processes as well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder & CEO of Trueli

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A memory sharing app for groups who want an effortless way to exchange their best moments captured at social events in real life.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Covent IT to accomplish?

• To develop Trueli mobile app from scratch

SOLUTION

How did you find Covent IT?

Prior personal experience

Why did you select Covent IT over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Prior personal experience

How many teammates from Covent IT were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The project required the development of Trueli mobile app from scratch, including: 

• Implementation of a cross-platform (iOS and Android) mobile application using Flutter 
• Creation of UI/UX design to ensure a convenient and attractive user interface 
• Implementation of an on-device AI/ML algorithm 
• End-to-end data encryption for ensure the full user privacy 
• Tight integration with native storage services for both iOS and Android devices 
• iCloud and Google Drive respectively 
• Custom backend API integration

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The application was successfully developed from scratch and is now available to users on Apple App Store and Google Play Market.

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

The collaboration is highly effective. The workflow between teams is facilitated by Covent's project manager and flows smoothly and productively. Communication is clear, informative, and prompt. The interaction is highly professional, which is reflected in the quality of our joint product. Convent's team is fully integrated in our larger development and product team which is a key factor in achieving success in the app development.

What was your primary form of communication with Covent IT?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We're impressed with their full transparency, honesty, and dedication.

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

While the collaboration with the Covent IT team is generally positive, there are a few areas that could be considered for improvement. Clearer documentation of project milestones and more regular retrospectives / lessons learned could improve overall efficiency. Additionally, refining the response time for certain queries would contribute to a more seamless workflow. These suggestions are offered with the aim of further optimizing our collaborative efforts.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re large offline and online retailer with up to 50 shops across Ukraine an online shop. I’m the head of our IT’s project management office, responsible for all deliveries in the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Civenty?

They’ve developed our main site, which is one of the crucial elements of our sales efforts. It had been developed by another company for a long time, but their services were not good, which created a lot of problems for us; the site wasn’t good from a technical perspective. The quality of the code was low, there were a lot of bugs, and the performance was not good. We needed to alleviate the situation, which meant changing partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve provided a dedicated team for website development, initially continuing with the existing site. However, there were many problems with it, which meant they had to do a lot of refactoring. This was complicated by the fact that many of the technologies were old and difficult to support. Civenty helped with all this and also built new functionalities. They used PHP on the backend, with the Onsen UI 2 framework. We used jQuery on the frontend and have started to implement React.

We have a mobile application, but it isn’t functional. Civenty had been supporting this, but they decided to remove it from the store because there were numerous broken functionalities. We need to refactor it, which Civenty will be doing.

I would like to develop a few other mobile products with them, for our in-house needs in the back office. We’re going to develop the application in-house as well, with one team on Civenty’s side.

What is the team composition?

We have 10 people in our team, including four backend and three frontend developers, QA engineers, and a tactical lead. We have developers and specialists on our side as well, who are involved in the project, but most of our resources are in the Civenty team when it comes to the site project.

How did you come to work with Civenty?

When our management decided to change partners, they reviewed a lot of options, including developing the site personally, but they didn’t have resources. As a result, they decided to choose Civenty. When I came to the company, I decided to continue the collaboration because I was satisfied with their services. We will be working on a lot of products in the future, beyond the site.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost has been about $300,000 so far. We plan to add developers to the team and invest more in their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them at the end of 2017 before I came to the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Civenty has done a lot for us. We used to have a very bad infrastructure, and the site was hosted by a local cloud provider. Their developers migrated our side from that provider to AWS. It was a successful migration because we didn’t see a lot of bugs after it.

They hired a dedicated team with a satisfactory quality level—I like their resources who have done a lot of refactoring on our site. The results are good for now, and we have a lot of plans on how to further improve in the next year. The features we plan to implement will increase our company’s revenue, which is important for us. Civenty’s developers will be creating these features and functionalities.

How did Civenty perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m satisfied with their services and the level of their developers. We have good communication with their CIO, management, and recruiters; I have no complaints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is open-minded, and they’re ready to adopt changes if we think they’re needed. It’s very easy to communicate and collaborate with them. They’re ready to move forward if we make the decision to change a technology or process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

People looking to collaborate with them should build a good and friendly relationship. If the communication is easy—like in our case—everything will be great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive for an e-commerce company. We’ve created a platform for online retailers and brands to substantially expand their international business. We integrate an existing online retailer, and their local website becomes optimized for cross-border e-commerce. For example, a customer from Russia would see all the prices on a site in Russian Rubles. They’d also be able to use the payment methods appropriate for Russia. We currently support about 50 alternative payment methods in addition to the standard credit cards.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Civenty?

We weren’t able to expand our team at an appropriate pace here in Israel and concluded it would be much easier and more affordable to find talent in Ukraine.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Civenty manages everything we do from an HR perspective, pointing out any issues the team may have and helping negotiate the appropriate salaries for new hires (.NET and PHP developers and QA resources). We consider the people they bring on board to be part of our team, and we interview and select them just like we’d do if they were in Israel. Civenty has taken over all the overhead for these processes.

What is the team composition?

We work with 5–7 people from Civenty.

How did you come to work with Civenty?

We interviewed a number of companies in Ukraine and chose Civenty. I’m very familiar with their owner, as I'd worked with him about 10 years ago. I have a great respect for him, so when we decided to open a center in Ukraine, I contacted him as a possible provider.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since Spring 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Even though we don’t work on Fridays, they’re able to respond to our clients and essentially let us work six days every week. This flexibility is a big advantage for us. Also, their ability to search for talent in another location expands our ability to hire the people we want to hire.

How did Civenty perform from a project management standpoint?

It took some time for them to understand our requirements, but they filled our last open PHP position in less than two weeks. They have strong English skills and are able to serve as both highly skilled developers and client-facing global representatives. They’re all experienced professionals.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They always adjust their requirements based on what we’re looking for. It took them a few months to understand what we were looking for, but since then, we’ve been extremely pleased.

Although Civenty officially employs the developers they hire, they make sure the developers feel like part of our company. Civenty takes part in our daily meetings and has email addresses with our company. We don’t consider them an external provider.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to plan exactly what you’re looking for. Having those internal conversations beforehand helps everything move faster.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and owner of an outsourcing agency called 1 XHub. We work at a global level, connecting customers to our partners across nine countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Civenty?

Our goal is simple: to find good, qualified resources for our customers. At the time, our clients needed developers and QA specialists, so we reached out to Civenty to acquire team members.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve completed three projects so far and are preparing for a fourth. We work with big software companies across varying industries, so Civenty provides developers based on the customers’ needs. Rather than using a project-based model, our clients want a dedicated team that can commit to a long-term engagement. To date, they’ve assigned resources specializing in Java, .NET, QA, automation, Python, and PHP. The upcoming project will center around blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

What is the team composition?

When requesting candidates, I exclusively interface with the site manager at each office instead of the developers. The managers, in turn, will assign junior and senior level resources. So far, they’ve provided about 15 people.

How did you come to work with Civenty?

After meeting one of their owners, I was impressed by how service-oriented they were. They promised strong and speedy results, so we connected them with a customer to test their skills. In the end, they produced quality work and were highly responsive to the customer’s needs, so we moved forward with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work began in 2016 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I often check in with our customers to see if they’re pleased with Civenty’s team. The clients have been pleased with their performance so far, so everything seems to be in order.

How did Civenty perform from a project management standpoint?

They have strong team managers and good developers, too. They’re responsive to our needs as well as the client’s and answer questions quickly. In terms of communication, we use Skype, WhatsApp, email, and phone. I can also easily communicate with their representative here in Israel who speaks my language.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As I’ve mentioned, their response time is exceptional. For example, last year we had a customer who wanted to visit Civenty in less than a week, so we needed them to prepare six candidates for the meeting. We checked in with the client a week later and learned that five of the six candidates successfully completed their aptitude tests. This speaks volumes to the quality of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As new technologies emerge, they could be more flexible to meet evolving marketing needs. They should invest more in blockchain technology, for example.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them a try; you'll likely enjoy working with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketer of Elit-Web

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Elit-Web is a full-service digital marketing agency, we empower businesses to achieve their growth goals through tailored marketing strategies, data-driven insights, and a strong focus on ROI.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Covent IT to accomplish?

• Protect sensitive customer information from unauthorized access and breaches, including personal details, payment data, and order history.
• Fortify Elitweb's platform against cyberattacks like DDoS attacks, malware infections, and SQL injection vulnerabilities.
• To maintain a secure and compliant operating environment, adhere to industry regulations and standards, such as PCI DSS.

SOLUTION

How did you find Covent IT?

Online Search

Why did you select Covent IT over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Covent IT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Covent IT proposed a comprehensive cyber security solution to meet our specific needs. This included work on conducting in-depth vulnerability assessment tests to find potential weaknesses, and then sophisticated penetration testing to simulate a real attack and test the effectiveness of the controls in place. To strengthen our defenses, they installed advanced firewalls and implemented robust intrusion detection systems.

Another thing we were satisfied with is that their team provided comprehensive security awareness training to help our staff learn best practices and avoid human error. Throughout the engagement, Covent IT provided continuous monitoring and threat detection services to ensure that Elit-Web's systems remained secure.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Covent IT's engagement with us resulted in significant improvements to the e-commerce platform's cybersecurity. Through the implementation of security measures and ongoing monitoring, we effectively mitigated risks and protected sensitive customer data. This not only protected sensitive info, but also ensured business development and maintained customer confidence. Such measurable results included a significant reduction in the number of security incidents, improved threat detection and response times, and improved compliance with industry regulations. We definitely experienced increased customer confidence and a stronger reputation as a trusted marketing company.

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

We loved that Covent IT demonstrated exceptional project management throughout the whole project. They had strict timelines, delivered all key deliverables on time, and effectively managed all challenges. Their responsiveness to our requirements was good as their team promptly addressed questions and provided timely updates. To my mind, the project was executed with a high level of professionalism, fostering a collaborative and productive working relationship.

What was your primary form of communication with Covent IT?

Email or Messaging App

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

Our team found Covent IT's approach to cybersecurity particularly impressive. They not only focused on technical solutions but also highlighted awareness, recognizing that the human factor plays a crucial role in preventing security breaches. Their ability to commit to ongoing monitoring and support is outstanding. That showed us a deep understanding of the evolving cybersecurity landscape.

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

They could have expanded their security awareness training to include more interactive elements or simulated scenarios to enhance employee engagement and retention. Additionally, to strengthen their threat detection, they should consider integrating emerging technologies, such as AI/ML into response processes.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of media resource for accountants Uteka.ua

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Civenty, and what were your goals?

They did everything on our website from first day till now. The main task was to create a resource for a conservative audience. To make it convenient and useful. Civenty took development and creation of the entire resource. Over time, we have created blocks with e-commerce, academy and knowledge base

SOLUTION

How did you select Civenty and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for developers in our city, in the first place were speed, quality and price. The main difference between Civenty and other it developers was communication, quickly and clearly.

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

we started from content resource^ now we have e-commerce and academy. We used

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

A project menager, was our point to contact. Also we changed team of developers from 3 person to 1. From time to time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

our main metric was time. Can we achieve goals in given time? in 90 % we were launching in time

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

we use Jira.

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

they are ready for any my idea. And the communication is on the first place

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

nothing to improve

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Diamond Discovery Software specializes in complex IT business solutions for the accountancy and regulated sector and bespoke software development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Civenty?

We needed an external resource to develop a complex mobile app exactly in line with our technical specification and within a short time frame.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted speedy development within our tight deadline that was seamless in order to satisfy an urgent internal project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We’ve worked with Civenty for some time. They are frequently engaged as an extension of our development team.

Describe the project in detail.

Civenty developed a mobile app that can monitor workflows, as well as submit and share documentation in real time between field-based teams.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a project manager and two app developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The result exceeded our expectations. The app was ready within one month and on budget, with minimum effort on our part.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The Civenty delivers superb and multilingual communication. They provided helpful suggestions and their developers were very accommodating. Nothing was ever too much trouble.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Civenty has an ability to think creatively and deliver beyond the client’s expectation every time. Their team is warm, engaging, and friendly. It was a pleasure to deal with them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. They’re an excellent, service-oriented team.