Grape Up

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Vice President of Technology for a large Financial Services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had very serious process issues where tasks were taking too long, or not being done correctly, with little to no redundancy. A lot of manual processes were in play. Our goal was to streamline the process, increase throughput, decrease errors, and have an actionable disaster recovery plan.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up and what were the deciding factors?

I had prior experience with Grape Up, and knew they were up for the challenge. I was engaging two other firms in other areas at the same time, so it was beneficial to spread the load across my trusted partners.

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

I cannot go into great detail here, but the project was scoped and outlined by operations, in collaboration with internal Tech and Grape Up. From there, we started development and framework creation. JavaScript, Python, and AWS were the major tech areas.

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

Overall, there were about 12-15 people from Grape Up working with us. Project Manager/Scrum Master, Tech Lead, Designers, Developers, Testers, and Architects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The overall business process increased in speed by about 30% but decreased in error rate by nearly 70%. And now we had a disaster recovery plan in case a key team member was not in the office.

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

Agile. Very collaborative, and partnership-heavy. We were informed and part of the process every step of the way.

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

I enjoy the collaborative nature of working with Grape Up. Although, in this case, they were working on a fenced project, it was still very collaborative, almost to the point of feeling like staff augmentation.

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

My only complaint is the time zone differences from PST to CET which is 9 hours. It is workable, but sometimes a nuisance.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Product Owner at one of the most renowned Sports Car Manufacturing companies having over 10.000 employees. In regards to that project I was responsible for developing a central e-payment service for multiple e-commerce stores.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were working on integrating modern, global payment solutions for 3 e-commerce stores. In regards to payments, our goals were to increase our global reach, decrease time to market for new payment functionalities, increase security and reduce operation costs.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up and what were the deciding factors?

Grape Up was recommended to me by colleagues from other departments within our company. Grape Up agreed to our working conditions of working close together with the business, offered the tech skills we needed and that, combined with a competitive price was the most important factor.

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

We were working in 2 week Sprints continuously delivering our features and solutions to production in a dev ops approach. Infra is based on fargate, services are implemented via spring, FE via angular. Deliverables was increased functionality e.g. split payments as well as increased service reach such as county rollouts.

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

3 engineers, one of them being in the role of Technical Leader.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They highly contributed to what is described here: https://medium.com/next-level-german-engineering/adyen-porsche-digital-…

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

We were working in scrum manner. We worked in a very fast pace having daily stand-up and planning as well as retro meetings every second week. It was easy to communicate and track progress.

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

The match of my requirements and the provided skills was 100%. They are likable people but at the same time very professional and dedicated. Working in an international team stuffed by multiple suppliers was never an issue. They completely supported the agile working approach without implementing any project management overhead.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nobody is perfect but at the moment there is nothing I would like to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the engineering manager for mobile apps at a 3D technology company in Silicon Valley.....California, USA.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Grape Up?

We have hired Grape Up to develop three different iOS Apps, a iOS SDK and a web app that has much of the functionality of one of the iOS apps.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were different for each project. The first iOS app was to primarily demonstrate the 3D technology innovations we created so that we could find markets that wanted to integrate our technology into their solutions.

This worked out very well as we had many companies find us by using our app and then figuring new ways the can personalize their digital experiences, or create new experiences. The other app was a complete solution for the dental market.

The dental market is in the process of transitioning to more of a digital workflow and we were able to further encourage that by using 3D technologies that had not been tried in Dental, at an affordable price.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up?

Our CEO has used Grape Up and previous companies he has started. He has always been impress with their people, the skills, the commitment to quality, the consistency of delivery and their ability to deliver in the time frames agreed to.

Describe the project in detail.

We provided the wireframes and overall requirements. Grape Up had a designer, project manager and developers dedicated to us to deliver the products. We set up processes and communications channels. We evolved, changed and improved this as we went along.

There was constant communication in order to stay in sync and iterate into delivering a great product. There is quite a bit of back and forth discussion to iterate and what is desired vs. what can be done given a time line.

Generally is was very collaborative. We try not to be too specific in every detail so we have freedom to take ideas and changes that anyone on the project brings up.

What was the team composition?

Generally, at Grape Up, we have had a project manager, designer, developers and QA. That adjusts and changes over time. Not all are full time. iOS developers were full time as the apps require quite a bit of accumulated knowledge.

On our side, I do the project management by working with our team to determine requirements, create wireframes, get feedback, manage the process, contribute to coding and QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've had many big businesses come to us over the years to license our technology based on their viewing in our apps. This has helped to grow our business and reduced our go-to-market marketing costs and time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It is only as effective as you make it. It requires almost daily effort by both sides. If one sides stops communicating, things can go off the tracks quickly. You have to want to make it work and have to want to take the time to make it work.

Further, you have to treat it as a partnership and not treat the Grape Up team as a service organization that should do what ever you say. That approach is not motivating and won't keep great people on working with you.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are able to hire great talent that is willing, able and interested in working remotely. The people aren't in it just for the job. They want to make a good to a great product. This is very important. Hiring a team that is just trying to book the hours to get the revenue shows through in many, many ways...and ultimately shows through in a sub par product in the market.

Are there any areas for improvement?

It would be great if we could meet in person every 6 months as there is always things to be gained and learned by in person interactions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Platform Engineering Director at one of the biggest sporting apparel producers in the world. My company is also heavily present on the e-commerce retail market and thus it needs a very solid foundation - Cloud Platform as the base for all the e-commerce solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Grape Up was chosen because of their DevOps Expertise. Our company needed help from expert DevOps Engineers that would be able to help us built a scalable, robust platform providing easy access to data.

Our project was built on top of AWS. Our company operates at a large, global scale and provides products and services in highly competitive markets, effective data processing is the key both to revenue growth and cost reduction. Company decided that to maximize the value of its data, we needed a system that collectes large volumes of data and enhanced decision making of the c-level management.

To fully embrace a data-driven model of operating, we wanted one solution allowing to manage proper access to chosen data for employees at every level with the organization. Such a solution demanded assembling data and logs generated by numerous apps, separating data storage for security purposes, and ensuring the unification of the permission system.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up and what were the deciding factors?

We meet Grape Up representatives at one of the conferences regarding Cloud Solutions – CNCF. After meeting their DevOps engineers and seeing their references we decided to go with Grape Up.

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

During the project, teams jointly worked out an agile, goal-oriented way of developing solutions. Members of a project used Scrum and Kanban according to their needs flexibility adapting to the tasks.

The project evolved by verifying ideas and approaches in numerous PoCs - every technology used in the final solution was tested. At the beginning of the collaboration, Grape Up has been implementing particular tools and gathering feedback from the customer team.

In the next stages, the our internal team and Grape Up jointly collaborated on the development and support of the infrastructure.

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

There was a Product Owner and Project Manager from our side. From Grape Up we had 3 Senior DevOps engineers joined by several of ours internal engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Together we have created a custom monitoring/logging solution being able to manage 1million messages per second in black Friday, SIEM integration or right now working on the landing zone project have been achieved without any kind of problem.

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

We were working in an Agile manner. We worked in a very fast pace having daily stand-up and planning as well as retro meetings every second week. It was easy to communicate and trac progress.

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

We were amazed by the team's level of expertise and flexibility in a constantly changing environment.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing to improve

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was a Cloud-Native Platform Product Owner at one of the Ministries in the Netherlands, employing approximately 10.000 people.

I was responsible for setting the strategy and choosing the right partners for our Cloud technology-related initiatives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Grape Up?

We have chosen Grape Up because of their Cloud expertise and their focus on Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes platforms. We had several of their engineers joining our team on-site and working alongside us on setting up the Kubernetes platform, customization, making it production ready as well as onboarding first customers.

At the moment they still continue their work in our team providing architectural and engineering services.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to provide our internal and 3rd party development teams with the potential of a private Kubernetes environment in order to accelerate software delivery (time to business), improve scalability, and reduce overall TCO.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up?

Grape Up is well-known in the Cloud ecosystem due to their expertise as well as their broad presence during various industry events. We have met during an event in Switzerland, after which we set up several meetings to see if we think alike and if their expertise may help us deliver our goal. Among several other competitors, Grape Up was our partner of choice.

Describe the project in detail.

Once the vendor was selected, we had a kick-off meeting during which we discussed the project goals we wanted to achieve, we have chosen the working methods as well as preferred technologies.

In the next part Grape Up provided presentations about the technologies and methodologies, and completed that 1-week session with hands-on training. After that, the first part of the main project started with the installation of the basic version of our new platform. 3rd step was the customization effort to make it perfectly fitted to our needs and making it production-ready.

After approximately 4 months, we had everything up and running. The last part continues to this day and comes to onboarding new customers to our platform.

What was the team composition?

We had our Product Owner as well as 5-6 internal engineers. Grape Up delivered a Project Manager as well as a team of 4 engineers for the first part of the collaboration. After several months when we have reached the production-grade environment, the GU team was decreased to a PM and 2 engineers that are still working within our organization

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It is pretty easy to evaluate the work provided by Grape Up. We started without the K8s platform and after several months we had it up and running.

At the moment more and more of our existing customers in moving from our previous platform to the new one based on Kubernetes as well as all new customers are being onboarded only to this new one.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were working in an Agile manner. We worked at a rapid pace having daily stand-up and planning as well as retro meetings every second week. It was easy to communicate and track progress.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I really liked their level of expertise, broad experience, and working ethos. Key ingredients that are hard to find, as a combination but are essential when setting up a new platform with new services within an organization. Let's just say they deliver and they do that at a more than fair value for money ratio.

Are there any areas for improvement?

If there were any during the course of the project, they were addressed (and resolved) immediately due to the very transparent way of communication and eagerness to continuously improve as a team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am representing one of the leading rental car companies in the world. As a product manager, I take care of our tech innovation to provide our customers with the most advanced and hassle-free rental experience.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have chosen Grape Up because of their Cloud and Mobile expertise as well as broad experience in the field of Connected Cars and Smart Mobility. Currently, we have 10 engineers from Grape Up filling the roles of mobile developers, backend/frontend engineers as well as TL’s and architects.

They work in several teams mixed with our employees. In the beginning, they have been working with us on-site, however, due to COVID-19, we switched to near-shoring mode.

SOLUTION

How did you select Grape Up and what were the deciding factors?

We have seen several presentations delivered by the Grape Up team at conferences in Europe and the USA, where they presented their projects run for various car manufacturers in the area of Connected Cars and Smart Mobility.

Because we needed to build the system quickly to be able to bring new revenue streams for the company, we have decided that our partner needs to be well experienced in the field. Grape Up seemed to be the obvious choice.

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

Before the project started, we had defined a clear business model and use cases that we wanted to achieve. When we brought Grape Up onboard, together we have chosen the technologies as well as architectural patterns we wanted to use throughout the project.

After 1 week of meetings and planning sessions, we started the development project. Within 9 months since the project has started, we already had an up and running system that already went to production serving our first customers.

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

We have a team of 10 engineers from Grape Up working as Architects, TL’s, frontend/backend engineers, and mobile (iOS/Android) engineers. On our side, we have Project Managers, product owners, and several engineers working alongside the Grape Up team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

To build systems like the one delivered together with Grape Up, it usually takes years. Thanks to their experience, we were able to have MVP ready within 6 months, and after approximately 9 months we had a full-fledged product up and running. Currently, the product is rolled out in the USA, and it already serves our customers

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

We used an Agile approach. We worked at an accelerated pace, 1-week iterations, having daily stand-ups and planning as well as retro meetings. It’s worth noting that the Grape Up team is extremely flexible and easy to work with. Currently, they are working with our teams in the US and Europe and they have easily adapted to accommodate the time zone differences.

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

They take responsibility for product delivery. It’s not a body leasing company but a development partner on which you can count. They treat the project like it is their own. I can recommend them because of their vast expertise in the Connected Cars/IoT systems development.

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

I don’t see any room for improvement at the moment.