Crombie

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Digital of Domestic Data Streamers

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a research and design studio partnering up with organisations to build change through data, community, and arts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crombie to accomplish?

• Technical maintenance support

SOLUTION

How did you find Crombie?

Referral

Why did you select Crombie over others?

Great culture fit

How many teammates from Crombie were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

The project involved an interactive installation with a back-end system developed in Node.js, which managed the data of the installation. The key requirement was to have someone to maintain the system during the week the installation will be active.

The person we were searching for needed strong Node.js skills and basic knowledge of Azure to monitor logs, restart services, etc. He needed to be able to work independently, solve problems, and handle any potential back-end issues during the installation’s active period.

Key deliverables: Standby support to ensure smooth operation during the installation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Whenever the system had a problem, Crombie resolved the issues in a short time and very proactively. They always asked the right questions, making clear the importance they gave to the project. 

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

Yes, they delivered items on time and they responded perfectly to our needs. Once we propose them the tasks, they found the best approaches to tackle them.

What was your primary form of communication with Crombie?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their closeness and attitude. I think they are very good searching for the correct profiles for the task as well.

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

Everything amazing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of WeGotCode. We do custom business software and system integrations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crombie?

We needed subcontractors to work on some client projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crombie provides software development services. We typically contact our advisor at Crombie and let them know what we’re looking for. We usually need to bring in somebody to a project. They submit resumes for us to review, and we take the ones we want to interview.

After the interview process, we choose the candidate and sign an agreement with their schedule. When the developer comes on board, we go through an orientation process with them to explain the project. From there, we go through two-week sprint cycles with the developers. We just give them a list of tasks to perform, and they update us about the progress on a daily basis.

The developers work remotely. We typically ask for Microsoft development and web development experience. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve had four people working with us through Crombie. They’ve all been senior developers.

How did you come to work with Crombie?

They reached out to us. I met their client representative in Atlanta a few years ago; she was doing a US tour.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had a couple of successful implementations using Crombie’s developers. Moreover, we’ve never had any problems with any teammates; they’ve been able to execute as needed. They consistently deliver high-quality work.

Overall, Crombie has a good team, and we’ve been happy with them.

How did Crombie perform from a project management standpoint?

We do the project management internally, but they primarily oversee the developers. Teammates are deeply integrated with the projects and timelines. Although they’re not on-site, the developers keep us in the feedback loop. Crombie checks in on them frequently and ensures they have what they need. 

We mainly communicate through emails. Additionally, we sometimes have online meetings.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review? 

We’ve worked with Pavel (FullStack .Net Consultant) for quite a while.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their developers is impressive. Crombie does a good job of screening people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our biggest issue is that they send invoices in Spanish, and they're hard to interpret.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend doing thorough interviews before moving forward with anybody and keeping a constant feedback loop with Crombie’s management about developer performance.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a boutique digital product design company, that deals with all the development components needed to achieve a great functional product, that drives excellent user experiences. Design Engineering, product management, implementation and post production support.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Special software implementation, mostly on Frontend side and Restful API integration. Our goals are to develop functional and well structured code, that can be scaled in the near future. Applying the latest stack technologies into our developments, in order to delivery up to date products that engage the user and builds up product loyalty.

SOLUTION

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

We knew about Crombie from our extend work network. At one point, we get in touch with them, get internalised about their special process in relation to resource skill tracking and caring. All that lead us towards to trust and work with them.

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

They develop entirely the implementation and integration of the frontend. Working with Restful API. React library. Node js. CSS. Stripe and Crypto payment integration. Python scripts. Formic.

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

2 Frontend resources 1 Backend resource 1 Qa resource

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After working with them for more than a year, we can say that they always deal in a proactive approach to any time constraint, doing their best to achieve the delivery time. Nothing else to say, just Crombie team is the one you can count on when you need to deliver on time.

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

Fluid communication, clean and transparent management.

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

Organisational and true service.

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

Don't think so at the moment. We can all always improve, for sure.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of Innovation at Phiquest, an innovation company. We help early-stage entrepreneurs develop their idea, business policies, and procedures and bring them to an MVP stage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crombie?

We needed to augment our staff for mobile app development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crombie provided us with a developer to support a blockchain-related mobile app development project we were working on. Before engaging with them, we were working with a different development team, but our engagement didn’t go well. Thus, when they joined, we explained our end goal and what we had thus far, and they essentially brought the project across the finish line for us. To develop this product, we used Laravel as the main technology stack, and we built it for iOS and Android.

What is the team composition?

We worked mainly with a project manager and a developer. Still, at one point, we had two people from Crombie working on the app.

How did you come to work with Crombie?

We found them through a mutual contact.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around April 2021, and the project ended in June 2022. However, we plan to use them again in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to the app built by Crombie, our client is now moving into a pilot stage. The app currently has 30 users using it, but those numbers aren’t a reflection of its success yet because the app is still unpublished. As for the quality of the app, it is very stable, and those users seem to be enjoying it. So far, the reviews have been very positive.

How did Crombie perform from a project management standpoint?

Crombie’s project management was excellent; I can’t say enough good things about that. We used ShareTable and Google Drive to collaborate, as well as email, Slack, and Google Meet for daily communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Crombie’s communication and responsiveness are excellent, and they have really knowledgeable staff working for them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we were very pleased with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to set expectations very clearly upfront, set deadlines, and ensure you follow up frequently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO/Founder of a software development and web development company that works with clients around the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We partnered with Crombie for web development, including Wordpress, PHP, React and front-end development. Our goals were to develop projects on-time and on-schedule with our clients.

SOLUTION

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

We searched for potential partners through clutch and identified Crombie as a possible partner. After evaluating our options and talking with the team at Crombie we felt comfortable to start working on projects with them based on our common approach to developing software.

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

We usually have kickoff meetings to discuss the project objectives with the team. We then break the tasks down into tickets with detailed information and then we use our standard tools for collaboration and communication, i.e. Slack, Bitbucket and Jira primarily.

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

We have worked with five of the people at Crombie. An account manager, a project manager and three of their developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Crombie helps us deliver projects at scale and fits seamlessly into our process. They have been responsive and a good partner for us.

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

They request feedback on their team regularly and are very responsive to our needs, whether that is over email, zoom, slack or google chat.

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

They understand what resources we need from a skills and expertise perspective and get what makes us successful as a partnership.

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

There really aren't any areas for improvement at the moment.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

BLCK® Creative Intelligence Studio. A world-class, award winner - over the top - Creative Intelligence Studio based in Monterrey, Mexico. Specialized in Branding, User experience, and Social Media. I'm the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

The development of a brand new WordPress-based blog platform and connecting the services to the past blog also developed in WordPress. Basically the integration of a new template with new features, new look, with all the past articles from the old blog.

SOLUTION

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

The WordPress theme. Crombie was the only vendor that accepted the challenge of working with WordPress.

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

Develop a WordPress theme based on our UI/UX design and our frontend development and connect with the prior blog for our client. Visualizing all past content in the new theme and a brand new set of features.

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

Two people: Lucas (Head of Production) and Laura (Project Manager).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The overall result was satisfactory. We had some communications issues in some parts of the project, but the Crombie team was always very professional and on point. Very satisfied with the outcome.

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

In this aspect it was very old school, communication only by email, there was no project management platform to be in control. Sometimes we got lost in communication because of the number of emails.

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

They always find the way to resolve complex situations. No matter what. They worked very well and very respectful with my in-house team.

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

Communication.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Technical Director of an agency that does work for a number of clients from small to large.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Crombie to help us create a front-end heavy website in a tight timeline. This project made use of advanced scroll effect features on top of WordPress and ACF.

SOLUTION

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

We had reached out to Crombie before as a potential partner after finding them on Clutch, and had identified this project as a good chance for us to work together.

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

We had a kick-off meeting to show off the comps and animation details. We made use Slack for communication, Bitbucket for the code repo, Invision and Sketch for the designs, and WordPress, Wow.js, and Scroll Magic for the codebase.

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

We worked with an account manager and a developer directly on Slack and in Zoom calls.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to drive the project to a succesful completion. We had struggles due to the complexity of the front-end experience which caused us to have to revisit our designs and make major changes. Crombie was responsive and supportive through all of our requests.

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

We had Zoom calls twice a week or as needed, and communicated on Slack as well. We had an initial deadline, which Crombie helped us hit, and we maintained ongoing work beyond that initial launch for further tweaks and work on the site.

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

They had existing knowledge of scroll-based experiences using Scroll Magic, and they were incredibly flexible with our variety of changes throughout the execution.

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

We could've used more help in the scroll effects / motion / animation - getting the 'feel' just right. This was expertise that we were missing ourselves, and could have helped us out on the project. I don't believe this was a shortcoming of Crombie as much as our own lack of experience in creating such involved/advanced experiences previously.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Technology at a Digital Agency. We offer a full suite of services including Software Development, Branding and Marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had a significant project that had been started. Since we didn't have any in-house developers that can work on this full time we hired Crombie. By doing this we were hoping to meet our milestones and get this launched on time.

SOLUTION

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

We contacted our partners for web developers with the VueJS skillset and were able to shortlist 3. After interviewing them, we chose Crombie based on past projects, english communication and time zone.

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

We had a meeting where we onboarded the new hire and walked him through the application. We looked at all outstanding tasks and what needed to be done to ensure the application met its milestones.

After completing some of the milestones our team reviewed the code. The code met all our standards and we were pleased.

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

At the beginning we were given a Project Manager and Web Developer. After a week or so the Project Manager started to fade away and we were able to communicate directly with the developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very pleased with our web developer. He takes part in our meetings and completes all the features. We consider him part of the team.

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

We had stand ups three times a week with the developer where we'd identify the next deliverables and any roadblocks. We used Slack to communicate on a daily basis, Git as versions control and Gitlab where our repositories and feedback lie.

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

They gave us a developer who was able to communicate, use our tools and workflow to meet key milestones on time.

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a Digital Production Agency servicing Brands and Creative Agencies across North America.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 4r Soluciones?

Ability to flex up and down with staff as dictated by our pipeline.

What were your goals for this project?

Deliver an outstanding website for our agency client.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Building on our on going relationship with 4R we partners on the WordPress theme development portion of the project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

WordPress, HTML5, Javascript & CSS Development.

What was the team composition?

Account, Tech Lead, QA from the WAV end and PM, Dev and QA from the 4R team. Highly collaborative.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On time delivery. Cutting edge CMS implementation which enabled structured and manage content publishing.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Very communicative. Clearly understood requirements and managed our local team effectively.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The ability to develop with quality with very little instruction was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Lessons learned and advancements to our best practices is core to our business. Our study in delivery on this project has enabled us to refine our approach to web development at scale with a tighter focus on collaboration between teams, specifically in planning development at the component level versus the page level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at an international pharma marketing and digital innovation agency. Our main focus is on the development of 3D technology, augmented virtual reality, mobile apps, among other projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with 4R Soluciones

We just finished a project with them in which they developed the front end and back end of a platform for one of our clients.

SOLUTION

What challenges were you trying to address with 4R Soluciones?

We just finished a project with them in which they developed the front end and back end of a platform for one of our clients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our platform.

What is the team composition?

I’m not completely sure as work directly with the project manager but it should be around five people.

How did you come to work with 4R Soluciones?

They contacted us, I honestly don’t know how they found us, but they were prospecting us for about a year. When a project came up I contacted them and they send a proposal and a budget, we found the price quite accessible. More than anything we really liked how professional their proposal. That made me realize how professional they are and to decide to work with them. 

How much have you invested in them?

We invested $3,000 USD

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2019 and we have continued working with them in other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I can´t say anything but good things about them. They’re great, very professional, very fast, and their work is flawless. We’ve had great results and it is just great for us to count on suppliers we can trust. Also, they’re based in Argentina, so we are far from each other but despite that, we have been able to work very closely, we don’t even feel the distance.

How did 4R soluciones perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven´t used any specific tools but they are always on time; they sometimes even deliver the projects early. Their project management has been great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are great at everything. If I had to pick something, it would be that they are super fast and they know what they are doing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I couldn’t say anything.