Evinent GmbH

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the BRM of Foxtrot

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Foxtrot is a Ukrainian chain of electronics and home appliances stores, as well as an online store that operates both online and offline. Foxtrot is one of the largest retail chains in Ukraine.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Evinent GmbH to accomplish?

• E-commerce
• Seller Mobile Application

SOLUTION

How did you find Evinent GmbH?

Other

Why did you select Evinent GmbH over others?

• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Evinent GmbH were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Project for implementing the Foxtrot website: requirements analysis, design, development, integration with systems, online payment, testing, and launch. The result is a modern, user-friendly website that boosts sales and automates processes.

Project for implementing a seller mobile application: requirements analysis, functionality development, system integration, testing, and launch. The result is a user-friendly tool for efficient sales management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Foxtrot website launch increased buyers, sped up order processing, improved user interaction, and boosted repeat purchases; seller app sped up orders, reduced errors, increased seller satisfaction, and grew mobile sales.

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

The team managed the projects effectively, adhering to agreed timelines and schedules. All materials were delivered on time without delays. They demonstrated high flexibility and responded promptly to our needs, taking into account all comments and suggestions, which greatly contributed to the successful implementation of the projects.

What was your primary form of communication with Evinent GmbH?

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

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

What impressed us the most was the team's professionalism and responsibility, as well as their individualized approach to each task. What was unique for us was how quickly they adapted to changes and addressed all our needs, making the collaboration as effective and comfortable as possible.

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

Our collaboration with Evinent GmbH has been and continues to be very productive and pleasant. The team has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate openness to new ideas and constantly strives to improve processes. We appreciate their proactive approach and willingness to adapt to our needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and founder of Rencore GmbH, a B2B software vendor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Evinent GmbH?

We needed additional development resources to build our project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Evinent GmbH worked on several different products for us. We are in the Microsoft SharePoint 365 space and our products are all built on .NET core. We have multiple developers from them that do both frontend and backend, and UI implementation based on the graphic designs that we provide. On the backend, we have infrastructure components that we need to be developed. We are deploying it and maintaining it, but they build new features, fix bugs, and so on.

For the last year, we have been mostly developing with Blazor web components in Microsoft Azure. We had also used them previously for one of our products where they were doing AngularJS and ASP.NET development.

What is the team composition?

Over time, in total, we have six or seven people from their team working for us. Our main point of contact at Evinent GmbH is the CEO. I've had a relationship with him for many years, and he is basically managing everything in regard to the contract and resources.

If we need additional resources or need to scale down for whatever reason, he handles everything. The developers themselves are managed by our own project manager. We are using them as development and testing resources primarily.

How did you come to work with Evinent GmbH?

One of their employees was previously an employee of ours. He then moved to Evinent GmbH and we continued working with him. We have used additional resources from Evinent because we were happy with the results.

How much have you invested in them?

Since 2017, we have spent approximately €280,000 (approximately $340,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2017 and we are still working with them.

Evinent GmbH was founded last year or the year before, but we worked with the predecessor of Evinent GmbH in Ukraine, also called Evinent. They basically moved everything to the German company. We kept the developers and they just bill us now from the German entity and not from the Ukrainian one anymore.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We like working with them, they have a great work ethic. They are very reliable, and the quality of their work is always good. It makes sense for us considering the rates that they go with compared to contractors that are based in Germany. For us, they are a good mix between quality and cost, as well as flexibility.

How did Evinent GmbH perform from a project management standpoint?

In general, they have a very granular work item tracking. Whenever something needs to be done, it is broken down into work items and then handed to individual developers. We have been involving them as if they were our own developers. We assign tasks based on each developer's strengths.

In the beginning, there was a bit of a language barrier. It was challenging for a short period of time but has improved. We conduct calls in English and don't have any issues. Most of our communication is in writing anyways. We rarely have any misunderstandings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their work ethic stands out, they get things done. It is also easy in a way. They are precise in delivering results, that is what I like about them. We have had not so good experiences with other contractors so that is why we are happy that we have stuck with them so far.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything has been good. We always look for additional development resources and of course at some point, they ran out of available resources that meet the same level as the ones that we already have. They have juniors to seniors of course, and we only have seniors from them now. For us to expand working with them is mostly limited to the availability of senior developers. On the other hand, it is also beneficial to us to have multiple contractors in place just to have a little bit of flexibility as well if we need to scale up and down. It is all good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The clearer you specify what you want, the better the results that you get will be. That applies to anyone. We realized that the better we architect and design everything and write our specifications, the easier it becomes for the developers to meet those expectations without additional iterations. As we have been working so long with each other, we also know how to work with each other and that, of course, makes it easier as well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Web Epoch Interactive Inc. We’re a web and mobile development company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Evinent GmbH?

We needed support with software programming.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we partnered with Evinent, our web-based software was already built, but we needed to do some updates. Previously, the frontend was Flash, which was fading out. Evinent redid the frontend in HTML 5.

They continue to maintain our software, which is a presentation management system that allows large companies to manage their PowerPoint library.

What is the team composition?

We have one main point of contact, and I’ve also worked with their QA specialist.

How did you come to work with Evinent GmbH?

We found them on UpWork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since August 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their programming skills are very good; they’re doing a great job. Our clients love the software. We’re very happy with Evinent.

How did Evinent GmbH perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily keep in touch over Skype and email. During the initial update phase, we met routinely, but now our calls are just as needed. We use Jira to track the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with their high-quality programming. Evinent is excellent. 

They’re also very responsive. The team is available whenever I need them. They’re great to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They’re great the way they are.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for a good company to do .NET programming, Evinent is the one. Be sure to communicate your specifications to them clearly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a healthcare processing and technology company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Evinent GmbH?

We needed help with different applications we are building to automate our data warehousing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Evident GmbH helped us with a few applications. It’s for our data warehousing where we gather public data and bring that information into a repository that we can analyze and work with. They also helped us with API connections to other applications that we wanted to consolidate and link data across different systems.

They build applications for us and maintain them on a regular basis. Aggregating a lot of data from public sources is a constantly changing process. Evident GmbH is supporting us and fixing everything as it continually breaks because the data sources change. We set up different monitoring processes that notify us if the data is getting stale or if there are some issues with the API. 

What is the team composition?

Presently, we’re working with one team member from Evinent GmbH. We’re currently in the support stage.

How did you come to work with Evinent GmbH?

We’ve been working together for a while now around 4–5 years so I don’t remember exactly how we found Evinent GmbH, but I believe it was on Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Evinent GmbH in March 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Evinent GmbH automated our processes that formerly took up a lot of time. We didn’t calculate ROI, but success was measured by the elimination of manual work. Their services definitely had a positive impact on our business.

How did Evinent GmbH perform from a project management standpoint?

We meet on a weekly basis and check in on progress and different milestones that we set. We always have easy communication with Evinent GmbH, they’re always responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Evident GmbH understood us very well. We’re a small company, we don’t do well with writing project requirements and don’t have time to do so. They work with the input that we give them and they develop what is required. They did a good job and they are easy to work with. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t see anything that they could have done differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Provide clear instructions and document your requirements as best as you can to make the meetings more productive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Imaging Management Group provides healthcare applications, including solutions for medical compliance, billing, data migration, interfacing between various medical systems, and so on. I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Evinent?

The initial plan was to port and rework our Salesforce product, along with various .NET applications, to a newer technology like AngularJS or Node.js. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Evinent has mainly worked on shopping carts and other e-commerce elements so far. We've had a learning curve in teaching their team about the US medical industry, which has slowed progress down a bit. We've concentrated on smaller projects for building plug-ins, API integrations, and so on.

We are using one developer from Evinent. We scaled the number up to 2 at one point, but we've had some budget cuts. We have been using the same resource since January 2016. He's very talented and has mostly been providing .NET coding, while also utilizing AngularJS and Node.js for user interface components, as well as Microsoft SQL and Entity Framework on the backend.

How did you come to work with Evinent?

I found them on Upwork. Evinent had good written and verbal English skills, which was very important to us. Our main contact was very thorough in trying to ascertain requirements and good at communicating back what he thought we were asking of them, as well as relaying that information to the development team, most likely in Russian. He has acted as a quasi-project-manager, which has been helpful.

How much have you invested with Evinent?

The total cost of our project with Evinent has been between $10,000 and $15,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016. We have an ongoing project with Evinent. I have visited their headquarters within the last couple of weeks, providing feedback in order to further our work. We've been on hiatus within the last couple of weeks, but we'll resume the work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything delivered by Evinent has been favorable so far. There has been a learning curve and we've had to go back for revisions, but Evinent seemed to understand our goals within the first try, for the most part.

We've made our investment back through either qualitative or quantitative measures. Without some of the scheduling API code developed by Evinent, we wouldn't have been able to provide productivity data to our clients. We charge them for that data, so we've recouped the money investment in that area.

How did Evinent perform from a project management standpoint?

The project started off better than it's been recently, but part of this is my own fault. I haven't been as engaged as much, but Evinent is good at scheduling weekly meetings and reviewing progress. As we've had to scale back development hours due to our budget, work has occurred more infrequently. Fifteen hours per week cannot achieve as much as 40 hours per week. We may go 3 weeks without a meeting, but this is mostly because there are no milestones to report. Overall, I've had a favorable experience with Evinent.

What did you find most impressive about Evinent?

I appreciated Evinent's adaptability. When we hired them, Evinent's background was in Shopify and other e-commerce applications, and our developer's primary language is Russian. The fact that we've been able to turn out so many projects with so little money and time has been impressive. Evinent learned about our medical industry without living in the US.

Are there any areas Evinent could improve?

Evinent could have been more proactive in continuing our weekly calls, or at least asking if we'd have a meeting. We came to a point where it was assumed that we wouldn't be having a call, but it would have been nice to confirm this.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Evinent?

Evinent took an initial test project in which they put 30-40 hours of work without billing us, just to prove that they could do what was promised. It was nice to have a proof-of-concept, so I would advise any prospecting customers to request this before going in too deep.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a 2-person startup company providing legal software. We're based in Washington DC and focus on analytics which support attorneys and e-discovery providers. I am a co-founder of the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Evinent ?

We are developing a web-based application which helps analyze social media data including text, emojis, and non-Latin Unicode data.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Evinent helped develop much of our platform using ASP.NET, an SQL server backend, and AngularJS, which was chosen at their recommendation. Evinent consulted us on the architecture for the site and provided the majority of development for it along with some graphic design. We used Bitbucket as a source code repository, and Evinent provided all deployments and configuration on our Microsoft Azure environment.

We worked with 3 resources from Evinent's team. I've worked directly with 2 of the developers as well as with a project manager from Evinent. I didn't interact much with our graphic designer besides Bitbucket tickets.

How did you come to work with Evinent ?

I put up a large project on Upwork. Out of the 50-55 respondents, Evinent was one of the top-10 in terms of reviews. Evinent's team took it upon themselves to provide a prototype version of the code provided in the specifications and came up with a detailed work plan. Evinent had realistic estimates regarding the number of hours necessary and the total cost. I haven't had any major surprises since choosing them.

How much have you invested with Evinent ?

The total cost of Evinent's development has been between $10,000 and $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Evinent 3 months ago and have an ongoing project. 

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 number of potential customers review our work so far as part of an initial validation process. We are going through an iterative process for redesign focusing on certain functionalities. We haven't identified any major issues in terms of bugs. I've been overall happy with Evinent's quality of work. There's been limited time for unit testing, but any issue identified was fixed within 24 hours.

How did Evinent perform from a project management standpoint?

Evinent has been very responsive, and the team is available through Skype and email. We talk once a day on average. Evinent is organized in terms of documenting issues and prioritizing development. I am able to view all of this information through their Bitbucket account. We have a quasi-Agile development process, mainly based on my request. I didn't want to spend a lot of time with the prototyping and validation work.

What did you find most impressive about Evinent?

Evinent brings a lot of software development processes and know-how, which would normally be accessed from a higher-priced provider. I've worked with many developers in Eastern Europe and India, but Evinent is top-notch.

Are there any areas Evinent could improve?

Not that I can think of. Evinent is very flexible and has worked within my requirements.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Evinent?

Any client should work with Evinent through a version-control repository, documenting the process and making sure that everyone is on the same page. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a cold outreach global agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Evinent with a need to develop semi-complex yet UI/UX friendly website so our inbound prospects could easily browse one and eventually be covnerted.

SOLUTION

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

Evinent was referred to me as a team of experts that can help me to build the websites I want.

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

We needed a complex website with different pages, included some animation, sliders, forms and connection to our CRM. In regards to CSM - we went with WordPress.

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

There were:

• at least one designer
• two developers
• QA,
• a customer success manager

The last one was the primary contact and the bridge between our company and Evinent.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We 100% satisfied with the result. The website is well optimized and has all features we need for our scale (an increase of inbound traffic and its handling)

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

I am not a developer, nor am I familiar with it, so I really liked that Evinent GmbH used clear terminologies so I could easily understand what they had done.

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

Probably responsiveness and willingness to give it the extra mile. Even thought something was out of scope - they developed it on the fly and at the minimum extra cost.

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

There are always are, but I can't name any in regards to Evinent.