Five Systems Development

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Product Management. Bidshake is a SaaS platform that helps marketers run User Acquisition Campaigns at scale across all platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

At the time we needed to expand and scale our R&D department. Since it was very hard to recruit in Israel we started to look abroad, this is how to relationship started. Five helped us to grow our R&D and thus the company fast, stable and convenient to support the business goals.

SOLUTION

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

A friend referred me. Professionality of the team, trust, transparency, prices , responsiveness.

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

It was an ongoing project, we first started by screening the people we wanted to hire, then they joined to be an integral part of the team.

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

I would say around 10. FE and BE devs, QA, product designers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of the outcomes was not different from any other engineer in the company.

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

In full-time positions, the guys have worked solely on the Bidshake platform. Full agile scrum processes.

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

Sergey and Nadia are very responsive and help you grow your project. The people they hire are good, both professionally and personally.

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

From time to time we couldn't find the right profiles for new required engineers and we needed to search with other companies.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Just One Chesed is a Non-Profit Organization that promotes and facilities acts of kindness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

We required a bespoke volunteer management solution for a niche community that wasn't available on the market. 5Systems was hired to build this solution from the ground up.

SOLUTION

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

5Systems was referred to us by one of the initial project architects. From the first meeting, they understood our requirements, could deliver the product within the required time parameters, and were affordable.

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

They developed our volunteer management software which included both front-end and back-end work. The system was designed to be accessible on the web as well as through mobile apps. A robust and secure database was required to be created in order to handle all the data. Key focus on UI was expected as we have a wide array of age groups that the software needs to be accessible to.

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

The number of people that were working at any given time changed based on the requirements but we always at least had 3 developers working on the project. Front End, Back end, and Design

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While the project is still in development, all tasks have been delivered on time, scope creep is well explained and the outcomes have been as expected

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

We worked primarily on Trello, adding and ordering tasks with a meeting every week either for demo or update.

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

We are most impressed with their ability to work remotely. Everything was treated with the highest importance and simple WhatsApps were immediately added to the task board.

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

We were overall impressed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Engineering Director in Software Development company and lead several projects and departments

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

We had sevrral projects where Mobile, Web and Cloud experience was requested. Five System people and company in general assisted us in those areas.

SOLUTION

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

We found Five Systems thru recommendation from one of our managers, he had positive experience with them in the past.

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

They developed set of mobile applications some of them were partially done, some were built from scratch. In web domain Five engineers created set of web applications and web sites for our needs. Also Five team built set of cloud based services in AWS and Azure.

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

We worked with 30+ people from Developers to Project Managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the assistance of Five Systems Development we were able to complete set of projects for our clients and delivered much more than we expected before.

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

Five Systems people are very agile as well as their company in general. We worked with several tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello and others and it was amazing experience. Team members from Five are very active Agile teams players and know perfectly all the ceremonies.

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

I'm impressed by their agility and willingness to find solutions for every specific aspect. They never give up.

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

Not something I can suggest.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of a creative agency. Our focus is business analysis and brand strategy as well as creative design solutions for startups and existing business .

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

We were out of in-house developers for the project in the mediacontent sector (online cinema solution). The Five Systems helps us to get the project done in great quality in time, also I can highlight the flexibility and great communication on all distance of the project.

SOLUTION

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

Five Systems CEO shows great expertise in the mediacontent sector, as well as really good price.

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

We had a start call and discuss the technical documentation for the project with our backend developer and dev team from the Five Systems side. Agreed on milestones and terms. In the process of the development, team of Five Systems gave us a chain of additional consultation regarding streaming and media storage aspects. Tech stack - Flutter for the mobile and Angular.js for the web.

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

Project manager Mobile developer Web developer Back and architeckture consultant

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We delivered a project to the end customer in time and good quality.

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

We had statuses every day and weekly calls for detailed statuses. The team was always in touch and all questions were solver in 12-24 hours.

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

Great communication, flexibility, good quality of the dev, good price.

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

After the first launch, all small and minor bugs were fixed, also Five Systems gave us great warranty for 3 months for the post production deriod

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm VP R&D at Vimmi Communications LTD. The company develop Video OTT Platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

The company hire Five Systems Development for developing feature and maintain application for the platform: iOS and Android mobile and tablet, AppleTV, STB, Android TV, Web. The goals to extend capacity of the team and implement a faster new feature for production.

SOLUTION

How did you select Five Systems Development and what were the deciding factors?

We had several factors for making decisions. We have delivered a small project as the test project to the several companies. We have got the best solution from the Five Systems Development in terms of quality, time frame and cost.

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

The Five Systems Development company participate in different stage of the product life, design, developing, QA. The company use the next stack technology for our project: - Java/Kotlin for Mobile and AndroidTV - VueJS, ReactJS for Web - Swift and Object-C for iOS and AppleTV The company use different efficient frameworks for implementation of any new feature.

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

The team was different on a different stage. The team was flexible from 1 person up to 10 persons according to feature request for mentioned products in previous answer. The team contains a person with different level according to task: Junior to Senior.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The delivered product was used in more than 3 millions persons. The features were with great quality.

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

Collaboration is organized by scrum methodology. The communication is organized by slack and Jira for task management.

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

The team is very flexible and adapt to company methodology to provide great result. The team is focused on result for providing business value. The team has wide experience for needed technology stack for us.

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

Our team like to collaborate with such professional team with handling our task.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm VP RnD of a company. We're providing B2B solution for streaming

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

Our platform was created several years ago and had become outdated. Since we didn't have in-house developers to invest in platform refactoring, we hired this company to redesign and refactor platform for us. By doing this, we're expecting to increase performance and implement new features by the end of this year

SOLUTION

How did you select Five Systems Development and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for high skilled professionals in our area. We chose Five Systems Development based on their past projects, development skills and cost estimate

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

We had a kick-off meeting to discuss our goals and objectives. From there, Five Systems Development team delivered roadmap for refactoring of our platform. After a few iterations, Five Systems Development team refactored our platform. They has implemented new features as well.

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

A project manager was our main point of contact throughout the process. There were also 4 back-end, 3 client side, 1 front-end engineers and 2 designers working behind the scenes

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After launching our platform, we saw 80% increase in performance and our platform can handle growing traffic.

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

We had standups twice a week with their project manager, who communicated with the rest of the team. If there were any delays, they let us know ahead of time so that we could prepare. We used Slack, Jira and BitBucket to coordinate, and they worked well with our team.

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

They gave us a stable and powerful streaming platform that's easy to update with new features.

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

When we first launched, there were some minor bugs on the registration flow. We let them know, and they were quick to fix the issues

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Olive Systems. We provide IT services internationally. This includes custom software, mobile app, and web development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five Systems Development?

We hired them for mobile app development services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with them on several projects. Most notably, they developed a mobile application for Android and iOS. They were responsible for everything, including technical specifications, design, and mockups. They also helped us with architecture. The app uses GPS and location services. There are a lot of native features.

What is the team composition?

The team varies according to the project. For the mobile app, there are two engineers per platform, a QA person, and a team lead. 

How did you come to work with Five Systems Development?

I was looking for a reliable partner. I’m not sure how I found them, but we worked on smaller projects to start. Those were done to my satisfaction, so we continue to work together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything is good. I’m very satisfied with their work and communication. They speak Russian, which is my native language, and that aids in good communication. They are professional, with strong engineers. Any problems faced were solved together in a professional manner.

How did Five Systems Development perform from a project management standpoint?

They met most deadlines. They communicated well, informing me of any problems they encountered during development.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re an exceptional team. Everyone in the company, including management, understands the technical aspect of things. I never feel like I’m speaking to someone who doesn’t understand my needs. This collaboration is better than what I’ve had with previous vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes I felt we needed more engineers to speed things up, but they were unable to provide that. It would be nice if they could work on expanding their team. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any special advice.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The compny name is Nexstep Solutions LLC (trademark EWA) . More than a decade ago, our team set a goal - to create an outstanding front-end system for insurance companies and intermediaries.

EWA is an insurance SaaS platform. From one side, insurers are connected to EWA configuring their insurance products with the help of wizards. From the other side, thousands of intermediaries are connected to EWA as well: banks, agents, brokers, comparison sites, networks of terminal, etc.

I work as a Product manager, responsible for conducting new EWA Mobile App from scratch.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five Systems Development, and what were your goals?

Originaly our clients work with web application. We made the research of user needs and got feedback from users that our agents want to be mobile and use our products not only from computers and laptops.

So we decided to make a mobile aplication for them. We needed a professional to help us to pick the right technology and design and to develop mobile aplication quickly as we dont have any inhouse mobile developers for now.

SOLUTION

How did you select Five Systems Development and what were the deciding factors?

We held a tender in which 6 companies participated.

The decision was made on the basis of factors: development time, good roadmap, mobile development experience, programming language that feets our need for mvp of mobile app, price, quality of other participant projects, reviews of colleagues who previously worked with the participant

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

scope of work in detail:

1. UX/UI concept approval
2. UI development (we got ui in figma)
3. Mobile app architecture development
4. Development of all flows (Flutter)
5. Firebase analytics connection
6. Assistance in organizing beta testing of the application by users through firebase and testflight
7. Preparation of promotional materials for App and Play markets

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

Fwom Fove team we worked with 3 persons: Project manager UX Ui Designer Сross-platform mobile developer (on Flutter)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a pleasure to work with Five team. They were attentive to details and really got into the essence of our business.

Everything was delivered according to plan and schedule. Great thing that their PM has strong technical skills, that helped a lot to run project smoothly.

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

Their project manager held meetings with people from our team and Five team. Than he made the detailed Roadmap for our project.

Also he was checking constantly that everything is delivered according to schedule and Roadmap.

Also he organized demo presentations in the end of each stage of the project.

Also he conducted the bugfix process and he were communicating with our project team.

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

They were very communicative from the start. We had a srtong feeling that they were interested in geting this project and dug deep into our needs and pains and really got into the essence of our business

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

Application had some bugs via beta testing but they fixed them quickly

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a custom software development company headquartered in Naples, Florida. We have R&D and engineering departments in Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland. We employ around 800 people for custom software development and different engineering services. I’m the CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five Systems Development?

They’re our subcontracting partner on multiple projects. We’ve been working with them for several years, and they’ve done a lot of work for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We use FIVE mainly for mobile development projects. They cover almost all the mobile projects we have in the company. They’re strong in C++ and technologies in the Microsoft stack. We’ve worked with them on many .NET Core and cloud-based projects, and we’ve also used them for frontend engineering.

They’re currently developing a C++ desktop application for healthcare. It’s a very complicated project related to brain surgery. Their team has also done web development for us, working mainly on the backends of complex enterprise applications.

FIVE is also our design vendor. We use their design department to cover a lot of questions in the area. 

What is the team composition?

We’re working with 10–20 people, including management and engineers.

How did you come to work with Five Systems Development?

We use engineering social media groups where members can post requests for help. FIVE applied for one of our projects, and we started with a small task. They gave us good results so we decided to do more and more. We have a very intensive collaboration now.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent up to $1 million on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with FIVE in June 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

FIVE has closed gaps in our organization. They’ve helped with employee profiles that we don’t have or plan to have. We have a very good collaboration with them, and I’d definitely recommend them to others. They’re very responsive. They always try to find a solution instead of saying no and always deliver on time. We’ve never had a price increase; it was always negotiated. I like working with them.

How did Five Systems Development perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed very well. We have an agile organization, and our requirement for partners is to be familiar with basic agile processes. We haven’t found any gaps in their processes. They’ve managed projects according to our expectations since the beginning, and they’re flexible in adjusting to our processes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First of all, they have major experience in mobile development, and they direct us as a client. We don’t need to think about everything. FIVE thinks of things on our behalf, and they always bring several options. Secondly, they work proactively to help us make the right decisions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re smaller than us, and they don’t always have the needed capacity. They’re growing, and bringing more engineering power would be an improvement. We sometimes want to work with specific individuals, but they’re busy with other activities. Aside from that, I don’t remember any specific cases where we were unhappy or wanted to do something differently. Engineering is a standard field, and it’s either good or bad. With FIVE, it’s really good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

In order to be successful with a partner like FIVE, clients need to be very clear with their expectations and requirements. If they have requirements that aren’t strictly defined, clients may be a bit unsatisfied with the level at which people work with them. The provider will try to guess what the client means by their request, and that can be a problem. With all the rest, we can just go to FIVE and they will manage everything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder/CEO of iBench.net

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software development, selecting developers for clients needs

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Five Systems Development to accomplish?

• Development SAAS
• Development mobile app

SOLUTION

How did you find Five Systems Development?

Personal network

Why did you select Five Systems Development over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Five Systems Development were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The team is developing a mobile application with a back office for us. It is a social network. The application is being developed from scratch.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We meet with the team every week to review the progress of the developed features. 

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

Additionally, the team takes our feedback into account.

What was your primary form of communication with Five Systems Development?

Virtual Meeting

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

I enjoy working with professionals who have no unsolvable problems. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Five Systems Development could have done differently?

Alright, everything is good.