ELEKS

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an entertainment platform. It’s a social networking mobile app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

I needed a development agency to bring the concept of my app to life. I understood how to create a product but wanted help to fully validate the details and turn it into a real user experience and design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ELEKS walked me through a product design process that validated the business proposition of my app, then created designs, tested them with my future users, continuously iterated, and created a full engineering scope create the app. I shared my target audience and design inspirations to help them understand my style. We even looked at my desires for granular details as specific as button style, progress bars, and more. This allowed them to refine the design inspirations just to my taste. After sharing designs for the app’s main screens, they did user research and produced a usability report. Finally, we landed with a full work breakdown structure outlining every single feature of the app and how it will be built.

What is the team composition?

I regularly interacted with about six people. The team included two business development teammates, two designers, a business analyst, and a tech lead.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I found them on Clutch. I reached out to them in addition to a number of other development companies. I realized that ELEKS was the right choice because our meeting went over the scheduled 30 minutes. Their team asked a bunch of intriguing questions and engaged with the concept. I could tell from our first call that ELEKS was excited to bring my app to life. It was a natural fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in March 2020, and it wrapped up in June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Coming into the engagement, I had a clear product vision. ELEKS clarified my ideas, making the product more solid. Their team also gained validation from users. During the tests, users said ELEKS’ designs were clear, intuitive, and natural. Without them, those tests wouldn’t have been possible. Their team delivered a clear and coherent UX, which was incredible. The designs make communicating the app’s value much easier.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

ELEKS had the best project management I’ve experienced throughout my whole career. I worked in a lot of different development environments. They were by far the best organizational team. This was hugely important to me and made for a strong, stress-free partnership.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I felt that their team was 1000% on my side. I trusted their ability to perform and never questioned whether or not they’d deliver on time. They consistently produced high-quality work on time. Their team 100% delivered on everything they promised, which was incredible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would have loved if ELEKS helped even more with the business aspects of creating an app. However, they did put me in touch with advanced technology experts and was willing to connect me with potential investors, which was great!

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet with them and see if they’re excited about their work because that drives them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a principal scientist at Siemens Corporate Technology. We do all of the pre-research for Siemens Corporation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We did software development on a research-level in-house. This meant that all of the mathematic equations were solved and also programmed, but it wasn’t in the state that it needed to be for beta testing.

In a certain type of additive manufacturing, a core challenge is ridding the object of powder. The more complicated the object gets, the more difficult it is to get the powder out of these internal channels. Therefore, we needed an algorithm that would analyze the object’s geometry and generate the notion that is required to drain all of the internal channels.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ELEKS transformed existing Equipment Load Management (ELM) data into a proper and good-looking frontend system. They developed software that is used in ELM product lifecycle management close to the shop floor.

What is the team composition?

Our team worked with three people, but we had one main point of contact.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

A former colleague of ours recently left the company and started a new position at ELEKS. Another colleague of mine knew that and made contact with them.

How much have you invested in them?

I think we spent around €11,000 (approximately $12,200 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project in principal is finished and lasted from May–October 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They fulfilled the requirements, and we were extremely satisfied. It was too short for a milestone plan, but they knew everything that was required. The software they developed will help a lot in the industrialization of additive manufacturing.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

We made the requirements list together. We were in contact with one person in the beginning, and, after attending a public event with ELEKS, another person took over. We structured the project during this event dinner together. We had a very good relationship, and they responded to any inquiry we had very quickly. I am very satisfied, and I would recommend them to everyone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were very close to the product lifecycle management, software topics, and computer-aided design. I was really impressed with how fast and how well they implemented these different requirements of file handling, but also with their capabilities in 3D object graphical presentation and graphical data handling. I would say that the broad scope of work they handled impressed me the most. They also quickly understood the different requirements we had, which came from completely different fields.

Are there any areas they could improve?

For this project, there weren't.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can trust them; they do good work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a platform does operations production tracking and manufacturing environments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We internally used spreadsheets to track detailed and large-scale operational metrics across manufacturing sites on a machine by machine basis. We effectively overwhelmed the abilities of spreadsheets and needed to create our own tool. Our team created a prototype but needed an outside organization to manage and improve the system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our initial prototype had visualizations based on Power BI, which was a bit limiting. We wanted to branch beyond that. We needed ELEKS to create new charts and UX/UI designs and then implement them. Their team supports the database, visuals, and charting.

What is the team composition?

We work with about four people. There was one project coordinator, and then there was a team underneath him.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I needed an offshore firm that was capable and inexpensive. I’m Ukrainian myself and heard that firms in Ukraine had an excellent reputation. I quoted a few different agencies, engaged with a few people, and ended up choosing ELEKS.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re approaching $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with ELEKS started in November 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re about to shift entirely to the system ELEKS built. They’ve effectively become our development team. We’re continually tweaking, asking custom feedback, and making adjustments to improve the platform.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

I was skeptical at first because of past experiences, but I appreciate having a project coordinator on board. They’re reliable and communicative. We use Jira to keep an eye on tasks and manage backlogs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their efficient communication. I assumed that there would be a challenge working with a remote team, but it’s all been quite seamless. There’s no language barrier.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they improve on flagging hurdles early before it consumes too much development time. We all have to maintain a balance of feedback and features. Some features are less important, and others are crucial to the system. At the same time, all of the elements have different amounts of development and implementation time. Having a solid handle on if a low priority feature will consume a lot of time is important to understand the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients need to be proactive and stay engaged. This makes the outside team stay more engaged, as well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a market research consulting firm. We track engines and engine-driven equipment, as well as parts and components, batteries and electric motors. We have databases to track all that information that we then sell to a variety of clients. We also run project-based market studies. I'm the head of our global data products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We've worked together for several years. They rebuilt our internal database around 15 years ago and have worked on our databases since then.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The biggest project we've worked on together is related to the databases we sell. We track a lot of information for these databases, and they built our internal database where we do all our work and make most of our changes. The tool they built allows us to forecast production volumes with an algorithm they built for us.

There is a lot of technology involved in this database, and we've added a lot of nuance over the years. The main information started with companies, their relationships with other companies, and the larger products we track. About ten years ago, we started breaking the information down to track components through new modules.

They built everything from scratch with our guidance. The entire product is built with SQL. We also have a customer-facing database that goes out quarterly to our users. We built that portion ourselves, but it's populated with information from our internal database.

What is the team composition?

We consistently have a team of three or four. There is a project manager, an account representative, and two developers that we interface with directly.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

We had an employee who had a connection with them and recommended them. They offered good pricing and a competitive level of expertise.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent roughly $750,000 over our long collaboration.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started working together in 2004 and have had a relationship ever since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has a huge impact on our business. The technology is so much better than our previous system, and our productivity and efficiency are greatly improved. All of the effects are internal. The ability to forecast is huge for us, and customers are becoming more interested in that kind of information.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

They're quite good. We have an eight-hour time difference with them, but they're very responsive. They answer our emails quickly, and we've always been satisfied with their response times. We may be one of their smaller clients, but they never make us feel that way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They keep up with technology, and their developers are quite skilled. They always find cutting-edge solutions, and they help bring our ideas to life.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They communicate well. The team does change, but we get warnings whenever that happens, so transitions are usually pretty seamless.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you know who your point person is. We have that set up clearly and have never had an issue. They don't feel like an offshore asset, and it helps to have that strong level of communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of CyberProof, an IT service company. CyberProof is the cybersecurity arm of UST Global. Most of our customers are some of the biggest enterprises in the world, most of which are located in North America. I joined the company six months ago after UST acquired my startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We were looking for a partnership to establish a core team that could help us with development and reduce cost.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We are cloud-based, and we had Node.js developers for the frontend and backend, as well as MongoDB. On the frontend, they used Angular as well.

What is the team composition?

At the peak of the work, we have had 10 people from their team including developers, QA engineers, and UI designers.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I spent a few weeks in Ukraine and met with a few big companies, interviewed dozens of people, and established a team with the right people. At the end of the day, it was worth it to do all of that. One reason I chose them was the time zone; I can take a two-hour flight from Israel to Ukraine to meet with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent between $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in late 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of their ability to help me scale, ELEKS helped us get to a point where my startup was acquired by a huge company. I have been truly happy with their work and how they integrated into my team.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

We work as a unified team that is led by our R&D manager in Israel. We have a team here and a team there and work in a Scrum methodology. We close the cycle very easily by leveraging chat operating platforms such as Slack. They are not native English speakers, but we understand each other. Everything is well documented, and they follow the process. Sometimes, they do more than I expect from them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The person who acts as an account manager has been flexible and not too pushy and is looking for long-term relationships. We can look to the future together as partners, not as a vendor. There can be some tough months when you have a startup, but having a partner makes it easier if I need to postpone things for a couple of months.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Today, based on the technology and the ability to manage requirements through Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, outsourced development can work extraordinarily well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a B2B platform that helps larger companies find clients across the world. We use the latest technologies such as AI.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We needed to quickly hire talented tech people to help supplement our development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In general, they provided infrastructure and data science expertise. ELEKS built a data pipeline to aggregate company information from across the world for very specific types of companies. They also helped us build classifiers to identify if a website is a company website or a blog, and assisted with a lot of natural language processing in terms of extracting features and keywords from written texts.

What is the team composition?

We had one dedicated project manager who only worked for us. At peak times, we had up to 10 people involved in the work.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I contacted the top-10 companies from the countries I looked at. I chose ELEKS because they had an extremely good data science team.

How much have you invested with them?

The amount is definitely in the six digits.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2017 and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re happy with the functionality of their deliverables. They’re a remote team, which has different challenges, but they’re definitely professional. Within two months, we had the full project ready and deployed. Compared to our normal hiring process, it would’ve taken three months.

We also had a sub-project in our company and ELEKS immediately provided three people for it.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is outstanding and state of the art. They use Jira, Confluence, and Trello.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It takes a very short time to get access to their resources. We had new data scientists on board within one to two weeks.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could add to the context of the project management. It would help the overall delivery to identify the value drivers within the tasks instead of concentrating on the wrong ones.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of engineering and desktop products at a software firm. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Eleks?

We needed a company to provide us with an outsourced Quality Assurance capability.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide QA services for two of our products: a desktop product (which I'm in charge of) and a cloud-based product. They perform manual and ad hoc QA testing for the desktop product and supply some developers who're automating the vast majority of our tests. We use TestLink for manual testing – it allows us to coordinate various tests in terms of the language. For automation, we use Java and third-party libraries.

What is the team composition? 

We mostly work with a customer relations person, an operations expert, four testers who do manual QA, and about 10 automation engineers.

How did you come to work with them?

That happened before I joined the company. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

I started working with them in January 2016 and the relationship is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We began automating our system, which was primarily manual, about six months ago. By now, we hit roughly 90% of our automation targets, which is a great progress.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

I give them our objectives and they manage the project themselves. I trust them to do what is necessary within the required timeframe.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very responsive and have great work ethic. They anticipate what our needs might be and are always ready to meet them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're very engaged and seek to build positive relationships from the get-go.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are one of the largest computer-aided design software companies in the industry. We have around 7,000 employees worldwide. I am the senior manager of a technology team responsible for localized versions of our products. We handle translations into the multiple languages, which are supported by our products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We were looking for contracted software development resources in order to augment our internal staff.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ELEKS has provided additional programmers for specific software projects. We require .NET, C#, and general web development expertise, including Node.js.

A recent project involved developing a web-based vendor account management portal with a database back-end. Since we are in the business of localizing our content, we engage with many outside vendors who can provide expertise in any language, from Vietnamese to Japanese and Chinese. ELEKS developed the management portal that is used by these vendors. Managing what systems they need access to, what sort of access they're granted, their periods of activity, and so on, is a complicated process.

At peak capacity, we've used around a dozen resources from ELEKS. We interacted with them primarily through a product manager. We've also had meetings that included our other team members.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I wasn't involved in the selection process. ELEKS was already working on projects for our company when I was onboarded.

How much have you invested with ELEKS?

The cost of ELEKS' services is between $200,000 and $250,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ELEKS around 2004.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We've had a successful engagement with ELEKS. Our feedback has been positive, no matter where it comes from. Everyone on our side has been impressed with ELEKS's thoroughness, professionalism, and attention to detail. They're smart, careful, and precise, and the quality delivered was great.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

We have an exclusively remote relationship with ELEKS. We use JIRA for defect and user story tracking and GitHub as a source code repository.

What did you find most impressive about ELEKS?

Nothing comes to mind as being unique about ELEKS, but I've appreciated the quality of their personnel, responsiveness, and attention to detail.

Are there any areas ELEKS could improve?

No – not particularly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We operate in the reinsurance industry across many business sectors. Our group uses over 50 applications  specific to the insurance and reinsurance industries. There are many analytics involved, as well as a lot of collaboration with some very smart people. I am the global head of product development and applied research. We're a small, innovative, fast-acting group.  Our group handles many of the analytics-solving applications within my company. I work on internal productivity tools as well as client-facing ones. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Eleks?

I was building a team in Minneapolis and couldn't find the talent that could solve our problems. The problem was that our 140 users needed to become SQL [database] experts and organize data year by year. There were numerous SQL scripts throughout our servers and people had varying levels of talent in creating them.

Some of them didn't know exactly what they were doing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Eleks has been involved in some innovative and high-profile application development for my group. We've worked together on mobile solutions, advanced websites, desktop tools, GPU technologies, and so on.

Eleks has developed an internal productivity tool for us. We use this tool as a central repository for analytics on client data. It’s a centralized product that allowed a team of SQL experts to generate scripts. These scripts would be run through a nice, unified desktop application by users. This tool allowed analysts to focus on results instead of figuring out what scripts needed to be run for which company. While we were at it, we extended the SQL language to add more functionalities. This solution has become the central platform for many of our applications. Because it's working so well, I'm migrating other disconnected desktop applications into this platform.

Eleks performed 90% of the work involved. I would classify our project as a large, multiyear application. It required a team of 3 to 6 developers from Eleks at any given time. I try not to get in their way, given that I'm more of a visionary for the product. I let the smart guys do the work. 

How did you come to work with Eleks?

Prior to taking this position, I had my own company. I had worked with Eastern European developers in the past, Eleks specifically. I ended up taking the formula that I'd used for my own business and applied it to managing this group. The collaboration has been a success since the early 2000s.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Eleks in 2001. We have an ongoing collaboration and have expanded Eleks' involvement quite a bit. They're involved in multiple units of our company. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

For me, there are 3 layers by which I judge Eleks. The first one is scalability: they can instantly provide new technologies and resources, given that they are a large company. Second, they take personal pride in everything that they work on. Having worked with other consulting firms, I can say that Eleks cared about the work and came back with great ideas. We work together as a partnership, rather than treating Eleks simply as a contractor for hire. Lastly, the talent provided by Eleks was always top-notch. I've worked with largely the same team for the majority of our tenure. These 3 elements have driven the growth inside of my company. I rely on Eleks as a technology partner.

How did Eleks perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Team Foundation Server to collaborate. I'm working with teams from all over the world, which I sometimes integrate. We work through a technology manager and a project manager from Eleks. I work with them directly and occasionally work with developers as well.

What did you find most impressive about Eleks?

Eleks is a part of our team. My group develops very innovative, high-visibility products. We're not a typical IT department creating a simple back-office system for billing. Eleks has a personal interest in [our] innovation. The communication is also really nice, so it's a good package. Eleks is top-notch in terms of technology, but who they are is really what drives me to continue to work with them.

Are there any areas Eleks could improve?

I've often thought of what we could do to improve. My biggest challenge isn't Eleks. They've reacted to changes that needed to happen, whether in terms of budget, workflow or security. Eleks has been a part of the team, and I can't think of anything that would need improvement. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a provider of financial software to the investment industry. Our service offerings include investment and mutual fund accounting. We provide accounting, performance, and data management software for large institutions in the industry, including mutual fund companies, insurance brokers, and buy-side asset managers.

I am a Principle Asset Analyst in the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We work with many offshore developers because it's always easier to hire resources this way from a cost standpoint. In dealing with many of those firms, we found that we had the most success on a research-and-development standpoint with ELEKS. When the time came to expand our particular segment, we chose them for growing our pure engineering team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At peak capacity, we have used 7 engineers from ELEKS for my particular department. For our overall relationship, that number would go as high as 40-50 people, including quality assurance.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I work in the Research & Development division of our data management products. At the beginning of 2015, we decided that we were going to increase our investment in this space. We were working with many legacy platforms, and new products weren't exactly being delivered at break-neck speeds. It became apparent that we needed to accelerate development. The decision for hiring engineers was put in our hands. Since we had used ELEKS and received good returns from their software, it was an obvious decision to continue building our team there.

How much have you invested with ELEKS?

For my department, we spend around $350,000 per year on ELEKS' services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have a 16-year relationship with ELEKS.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Working with ELEKS allowed us to open up a parallel project, rather than being single-threaded in releasing. We were able to have separate teams for legal entity information and pricing, bringing multiple pieces of functionality to market at one time, instead of doing it piece by piece. Loosely speaking, we doubled our capacity in the same amount of time using ELEKS, for a small additional investment.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is something that we've enforced with ELEKS over the last couple of years. We pick 1-2 liaisons for the teams, namely the more senior-level people. We have asked them to become involved in making estimates and laying out tasks for our projects. ELEKS has been very reliable in that respect. If they miss any dates, they don't miss them by much.

We have bounced around between project management tools. We have an internal bug tracking system, but sometimes the process can be as simple as dumping project tasks into an Excel spreadsheet and putting dates to it. We're starting to transition towards Jira, in a more formal manner.

What did you find most impressive about ELEKS?

Given all the offshore developers that we've dealt with, we found that ELEKS tends to turn around work quicker, but not at the expense of quality. They have more expertise and provide higher-quality engineers. We've experienced several cases with other firms by which they brought along engineers with limited capabilities, which equated to less-than-ideal results. With ELEKS, there was never an instance of hiring a developer and having to replace them. ELEKS has done a good job of picking the right people for our projects, based on the criteria which we've laid out. As we go into a more rapid development mode, we have found that ELEKS is able to turn the work around in a more effective manner than some of the other firms that we've dealt with. Every piece of software will have bugs, but ELEKS did a decent job.

Are there any areas ELEKS could improve?

We've tried to figure out whether we have unrealistic expectations, but we always emphasized the fact that we want a partnership with ELEKS, rather than a contractor-client relationship. If they have ideas or have a better way of doing something, they should bring them to the table and challenge us. We haven't seen this happen as much as we'd like. The most important thing for us is to push ELEKS and have them be more of a creative partner. We want to get them out of the offshore contractor mentality. We're not entirely sure if that cultural mindset is present there, but we're flirting with the prospect.