HighSolutions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of the construction company specializing in facade systems. The company was founded in 2006. We work on medium and big construction sites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We had several problems regarding controlling, business growth, internal communication, finance originating in lack of one central IT system. We were looking for a ready-to-use solution but our needs were much more sophisticated. We needed to have a bespoke solution. And they created it for us.

What were your goals for this project?

The software needed to be in the cloud, easy to maintain and develop further, easy to use, have a great design and be reliable.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

HighSolutions created for us our company website and when we didn’t find any ready-to-use solution on the market that fulfil our needs, we approached them if they can create such a solution we had in mind.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

This project consists of many interconnected modules such as contracts, agreements, invoices, incomes, commitments, payments, offers, orders, warehouse management, correspondence. It has also a CRM functionality and Business Intelligence features. They created the whole project from scratch basing on our specification and wireframes.

What was the team composition?

In the beginning, we were talking with Adam who was a lead developer then. When he became a full- time CEO, we’ve started to contact with Project Managers. To this time, we had only one change in that role.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact of this software is tremendous. Just after one year of working on it, during our 10th anniversary of establishment, I named it one of five big milestones that happened in the history of the company. Thanks to this software, we know the ROI of all of our contracts.

We can control our costs and profits exactly every day. Especially during CoViD-19 time, we were able to work together remotely without any problems because we had a remote central system that we use every day.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I am satisfied with the project management. They are clear and always creating to help.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I think is that they care our software, even if it was developed 5 years ago and we mostly just maintain it.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes we have to wait a long time for their window of availability to develop new modules. However, whenever the critical problem occurs, they respond immediately.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Early Stage is a school of English for children and teenagers aged 3-19. We have been on the Polish market since 1993. We operate in a franchise system and currently have 33000 students in Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We hired HighSolutions to create a system for the parents of our students to have online access to information about their children’s grades, homework tasks and content of the lessons. The system communicates with our e-register to get that data.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to keep the parents informed about the progress of the course as well as to lessen the load of our teachers’ work when it comes to communication with parents.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have interviewed several software houses and HighSolution’s offer was the most competitive. We also appreciated their organizational philosophy which is based on communication and constant feedback as it is similar to ours.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

HighSolutions have and are still working on developing a system that connects through API with our e-register and school management system to provide the parents of our students and students themselves with information about the tasks, the progress of the course and students’ results. Other functionalities that we are currently developing are online contracts, online homework as well as embedding links to online lessons scheduled by the teachers on an external platform.

What was the team composition?

The team at the moment is composed of a project manager, designer and developers. Most of the work was done in the frontend, but the online contracts system that we are working on right now has a backend part to it as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have not launched the product yet, but we are anticipating meaningful impact of this tool on our client satisfaction. The system will make our teachers’ work easier and our parents won’t have to reach out to the teachers each time their child is absent from school or forgot their homework. The ability to embed online tasks into the system will make it easier for the teachers to assign and check students’ homework. We already see an increase in interest from potential clients.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had a product owner from our side as well as one from HighSolutions side. We have been having weekly meetings as well as a couple of workshops organized to come up with the storymap and our goals for the project. We have project boards on Asana to keep track of what is currently happening. HighSolutions collaborates with the developers of our school management system for the two systems to communicate smoothly. The project management was arranged well, we worked together on solutions for our collaboration to be effective and adjusted the tools and intensity of meetings according to the stages of the project. The team were proactive forseeing potential problems or extra tasks that need to be done.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The design of Early Stage Online really has the customer in mind. It is clear and easy to use. HighSolutions were very engaged and focused on understanding our needs as well as to focus on the main goal of the project. They always offer more than one solution and present us with advantages and disadvantages of them. The product owner on our side is quite inexperienced in this role and HighSolutions made extra effort to explain all the processes and tools to her and made her feel comfortable.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't see any.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Halibut Grupa Szkoleniowa is a coaching and training company specialized in providing services for managers and directors for their personal growth. I am the co-owner of the company and coach for over 15 years of experience.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We have our own program for evaluating skills of managers regarding feedback, efficiency and management skills. In past, we had to gather all responses from general survey software in Excel and one report took me more than 3 hours to compile and comment. We won a big tender for conducting our program on 70 managers from a big corporation. We had to go to the next level and automate everything as possible.

What were your goals for this project?

Make a professional platform, easy to use, automate whatever is possible and deliver beautiful reports to managers that are evaluated.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We chose HighSolutions because we had a relationship before. They have created custom page - https://ludzkastronazarzadzania.pl for us and we just rely on them to create this platform because they specialize in creating custom software development and we needed a partner in that endeavour.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our platform is a tool for coaches within the big corporations to evaluate of the managers they work with. When a coach starts evaluation of a manager, he provides contact data of managers peers (subordinates, co-workers and bosses) to whom will be sent a link to start a survey.

The survey takes a quite long time (around 30 minutes), has different types of questions and when the time of the evaluation has passed, coach receives the access to all answers combined as a report. Then she has an opportunity to comment every section of the report and after finishing it, the report with explanations, results and comments is generated and send to the manager.

After that, this platform will be used by the coach to work with the manager on a weekly basis and he will be able to make notes and goals there. After some time, there will be the second survey send to the respondents to evaluate the change in the behaviour of the manager. This time too the final result is the report.

What was the team composition?

The team from the HighSolutions side has been composed by: Adam, Product Owner and Business Analyst Adam #2, UX/UI Designer Michalina, Project Manager Piotr, Team Tech Lead and Senior developer Paweł, Front-end developer Kamil, QA For some time our project had the support of two more programmers, but we had never met them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Of course. We conducted the whole first phase of the operation, so surveys have been sent to more than 2000 employees and reports has been generated for all 70 managers. We have spent almost no time on managing that process. Without that platform, we would have to spend around 300 hours of very repeatable job.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We are using Asana and thanks to this everything is always clear who should check/do something. I am a fan of e-mail and there was no problem when I sent some spontaneous message via e-mail. I am very satisfied with the project management done by Michalina and later by Adam.

I always know what is the phase of the project, what will be the cost of development in every month, and I could count on a fast response when there was a need to make improvements or changes to the platform. I am also satisfied that in a team was QA who was checking everything very thoroughly, so we didn’t have repeatable problems.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their dedication to making the best software for us is impressive. To solve every problem we had. That they anticipate issues that I don’t even think regarding the process that I’ve created. Their transparency and honesty.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are coaches so we know that there is always time for improvement. But the only problem we had, they said straight why it occurred, what they did to prevent that against happening it in future and they did it. We had cooperated with different IT companies, and I don’t think of anything that they lack.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

External Affairs Specialist responsible for public relations of the Nutricia Foundation. Nutricia Foundation is non-profit organization, funded by Nutricia Polska Sp. z o. o., that aims to educate society about the role of proper nutrition at every stage of life.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

Due to Foundation's reorganization and rebranding process, previous website has no longer fullfilled its role, as well as needed to be adjusted to new conditions (new areas of activities, mission, team, logo, brandbook). Addittional difficulty becomes the absence of a person who was previously responsible for the webiste and at the beginning of the project has no longer been a member of Nutricia Foundation team. The agency needed to try to overcome challenges with lack of access to the platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build new website, using existing domain, and make it more accessible for users. We run an audit of the previous version of the webiste and according to the results we wanted to change webiste's design, as well as make it easier, more visible and user-friendly.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have selected this vendor via tender. We invited 3 companies to participation, then selected 2 of them and arrange meetings with them. At the end we chose HighSolutions on the basis of the offer that met our all needs, at finance and business level.

Describe the project in detail.

After vendor's selection, we met in person in order to arrange all details, set the budget and schedule of all activities. Then we started to work on particular phases of the project: design preparation, content preparation, web-designing.

What was the team composition?

The formal part of the project (budget, offer, tender) has been arranged with CEO of the company. Then the Project Manager was assigned to the project and I was in contact with him.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within 3 months, HighSolutions company has created not only a new web design and finished the project, but also managed to do it at shorter time period than it was expected. The whole team managed to overcome challenge with lack of access to the previous platform due to the absence of Fundation's team member who was responsible for that. What is more, the team has delivered also CMS platform for Foundation's temat to be able to change content of the webiste by themselves.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The assigned Project Manager has contacted me on regular basis through e-mail or phone. I appreciate the way of working especially days before the launch of website. Due to the shorter deadline than it was previously set and expected, the whole team needed to speed up at the end of the project, just before the launch, and constant contact with project manager helped me to be sure that all work will be done till deadline.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Client approach was one of the factor that predominated the tender we run in order to choose the best company. I felt that the agency cared about the project and meeting the clients' needs. Speed of team's work was also appreciated and impressive. What is more, I feel team's support in webiste development also after its launch. I appreciate also creativity in finding solutions of technical problems with platforms I couldn't have find access to (like Google Analitycs, some mailboxes or contact forms). The agency found way to solve all this problems by themselves.

Are there any areas for improvement?

For now I don't see any of them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work as a Career Office adviser at a university of technology. Our job is to help our students get internships, prepare them for entering them to market and how to be prepared for job interviews. I was in a team responsible for preparing details for tender in which we have chosen the IT vendor. Later on, I was one of the product owners of this project and I had been in contact with HighSolutions on a daily basis during the whole project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We had to change our website because the old one was not secure, not working properly and quite old. We organized a public tender and HighSolutions won. We hired them to design and implement for us a new website that consists of few areas: available for everyone website with tips, events, news and offer of our office; portal for the students where they can create their digital CV; portal for companies which can search for students they need; and portal for us to manage the whole internet platform.​

What were your goals for this project?

Goals of this project were:

• design a modern internet solution that fulfils the needs of each group of users (visitors, students, companies, administrators)
• fulfil all of our strict availability, security requirements
• deliver on time fully finished platform
• support the whole platform for a year​

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We are a public university so we were obliged to conduct an official public tender. HighSolutions applied and they receive the biggest score and meet all the other requirements.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

HighSolutions created the whole project from scratch. They designed UX of the platform, later on, they designed all of the views (user interface), implement website and platform for every user group. At the end of the project, they were responsible for cooperating with our IT department to install the platform on our servers.

Team of HighSolutions was not only focused on delivering an IT solution but also they spend a lot of time educating us about modern IT solutions and what we can change in our processes. Moreover, they conducted few workshops for us (at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end) thanks to which we know that the project is in right hands and will meet our expectations. At the end, HighSolutions conducted training also for our whole staff.​

What was the team composition?

I don't know how big exactly was the project team but I can estimate to at least 6 people. We had the contact all the time with the Project Manager. In the crucial moments (beginning of the project and wrapping up each milestone) team was supported by their CEO who has a vast knowledge about how to connect IT and business.

In the design phase, their lead designer had been in contact with us and was responsible for ensuring that the UX/UI of the project will satisfy our needs and requirements. I can recall also at least 3 developers and 1 QA that was involved in our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Yes, definitely. Thanks to the new version of the platform, the process of scheduling meetings between us and students became completely automated what increases the number of meetings by around 20%.

Moreover, the number of job internships for students has gone up significantly as well as the perception of our services in the eyes of companies (our clients). In addition, we are now spending much less time on website administration. Every module in the CMS and administration panel is easy to use and automates many activities.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We are very glad and satisfied with the way how HighSolutions conducted our project. We had a weekly call with PM from their side about the progress of the project. Moreover, we were using Asana as the platform for the communication where everything was always up to date and we didn't drown in e-mails.

The team always met the deadlines and were proactive regarding potential problems, drawbacks or tasks that need to be done. Very helpful for us was their e-book about Project Management which allowed us to get know the specifics of the software development very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attitude, communication, and quality impressed us. Attitude because they showed many times that they truly want to make the best possible project for us and to fulfil our goals. Communication because we always knew what is the status of the project, what was delivered and when new modules will be uploaded.

We had problems with other IT companies in the past and HighSolutions showed that they are different. Quality because we almost not experience any bugs and the software passed well all of our technical and security audits.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Maybe they should have an office in Warsaw because most of the communication was handled electronically and we had face2face meetings only once a month.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of a website that enables dog owners to find vacation spots where they can stay with their pets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We needed help with the complete development of our website.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a database of dog-friendly hotels in Poland, and more widely in the future. We were looking to acquire as many possible spots as possible and build our new brand in pet and tourism industry.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had a specification prepared, and I received a few offers, from which I chose the best option.

Describe the project in detail.

They were given detailed specifications and UI mockups. Their work included the whole website, including the CMS system—the administrator panel and the hotel's managers panel. They also worked on the mailing system and adjusted the design as required. They still support me when I have any questions or if I am launching new features.

What was the team composition?

I work directly with the project manager and occasionally contact their tech leader.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site has been running perfectly for a year and a half. We have several thousand users each month, and more than 70 dog-friendly vacation spots are registered with us. At the beginning of February 2019, we were nominated for a new technology in tourism award thanks to the website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was effective; the communication and project management was impeccable.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attitude and willingness to look for new solutions are impressive. I also appreciate their understanding of the client's needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can't name anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a digital specialist at Nutricia Medical Polska. We develop and sell over 200 medical nutrition products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We brought on HighSolutions to develop a website to help us engage with pharmacists.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a platform for pharmacists to learn more about medical nutrition and make informed recommendations of our products.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We had collaborated with HighSolutions in the past, and their work impressed us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

After receiving the brief, HighSolutions created mockups of the site. Once we gave our approval, the team created graphic elements and programmed the site. They then ran rounds of testing and implemented the finished product.

The site consists of four modules that we developed with the HighSolutions team. Our e-learning module provides educational courses for pharmacists. Each course includes slide decks with text, pictures, charts, and research results as well as a short quiz afterward. A loyalty program allows pharmacists to score points based on their knowledge and use of educational modules. HighSolutions also created an advanced statistics feature that measures the activity of each user and interest in each course. In addition, they created a database of articles on our products and ready-to-download materials.

What was the team composition?

We worked with Marcin (Project Manager, HighSolutions), Marek (Full-Stack Senior Developer, HighSolutions), Amadeusz (Frontend Developer, HighSolutions), and a UI designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our site debuted to a positive response from our target audience. HighSolutions delivered a high-quality solution and launched it on time. We’re thrilled with their team’s work.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our collaboration was effortless from start to finish. HighSolutions ran the project according to our agreed schedule and updated us at every stage. The project manager was also available any time we needed his input.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

HighSolutions produced high-quality code and graphics. They provided full client support throughout the process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated by the client on April 7, 2020. New content is below.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a jr Digital Manager at Nutricia Polska. We develop and sell over 200 medical nutrition products. We are a part of Danone group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HighSolutions?

We hired HighSolutions to refresh a website for one of our most popular products – Nutrikid which is a nutrition drink for children.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were to adapt the website to the new brand and to better engage visitors.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

HighSolutions supports us for 5 years during which they have created a lot of websites, internet platforms and maintained legacy projects. They were a natural choice for this kind of project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

After receiving a brief, HighSolutions provided an estimation of works. Further, after our acceptance, they prepared mockups of changes on the website alongside with suggested information architecture. After our acceptance of these works, they prepared new designs for the website and implement them in the way we wanted. The website consists also of CMS, e-commerce module and few on-line games for children.

What was the team composition?

We worked with Kazimierz (Project Manager), Anton and Adam (designers), Filip (full-stack developer), Paweł (front-end developer) and Kamil (QA). The project owner from their side was Adam (one of the co-founders).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On-line sales and marketing are very important to us, so we have to have such projects to promote our brand and products. The new website has a higher conversation rate of 20% comparing to the previous one.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our collaboration was effortless from start to finish. HighSolutions ran the project according to our agreed schedule and updated us at every stage. The project manager was also available any time we needed his input.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

HighSolutions always care about meeting our goals, not only about IT stuff. They do projects from the beginning (design) to the end (development and maintenance), which is very convenient for us because we can trust them with our projects completely.

Are there any areas for improvement?

What could have been done to improve our cooperation, has been done. I can’t think of anything else.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of EnviroSolutions. We provide geographic information system (GIS) solutions and AR services for application platforms and IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HighSolutions?

We needed additional development help for work on multiple applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

For most of the applications they worked on, we were responsible for the mobile side and they were responsible for the web and server aspects. That included APIs, connecting to the data sources, and data migration. They mainly used PHP for their work.

What is the team composition? 

I worked with around five developers and five to six graphic designers.

How did you come to work with HighSolutions?

I met the CEO a few years ago when working for a startup.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July–October 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A project they worked on for a university was successful, which involved a box product for career offices. We’re now looking to expand that into other universities, demonstrating its great success.

A tour guide application for a city was also a success. We’re now preparing some hybrids based on it for an expo in Dubai in 2020.

How did HighSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good—they keep to timelines, maintain perfect communication, and in many cases, they’re responsible for interacting with our clients. We don’t have any problems with them. They’re clear, and everybody understands what’s going on at every point of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know how to coordinate their people, which is very helpful. They’re professionals, so the products are very well done, and their graphic designer is good too.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hear them out because they have really good ideas.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work within Nutricia, which is the medical division of Danone. I work within the Nordic cluster of Europe, specifically in Denmark. I hold the position of category manager and am responsible for the very specialized area of metabolic diseases and epilepsy. I’m basically the only one in the country working in this rather small category. I work within medical sales and marketing, including digital services. This is where HighSolutions entered the picture.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HighSolutions?

We were looking to build a platform that would allow healthcare professionals to help patients succeed with ketogenic diets. We looked at different solutions from around the world, none of which apparently matched the expectations and functionalities that healthcare professionals needed. We needed a partner that could help us meet the requirements of our customers and basically build this platform from scratch.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HighSolutions has developed a service that we provide to specialized epilepsy centers in Denmark. Patients initiating a ketogenic diet register on the platform and link directly to dieticians and healthcare professionals who also have profiles. Those professionals work out all the details and features of the diet, making it more interactive and engaging for the patient.

This is a rather demanding and difficult diet, so we need to ensure that the patient’s parents and other family have the tools they need to succeed. They also go through checkups at the hospital. The tool essentially connects healthcare professionals and patients, and gives patients information about the diet and treatment while they're home. We still work together on different projects.

We’re constantly improving the platform and implementing new features, and we’re still in close dialogue with HighSolutions about new additions. The latest one pertains to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, which has impacted our platform, Keto Planner, and our company, which hosts the site. HighSolutions has been very helpful in providing everything I need to update the site and make it 100% compliant. In this sense, I consider them a business partner.

What is the team composition?

Their CTO has been our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with HighSolutions?

Our collaboration with them started before my time, so I’m not sure how we found them. We have centralized IT teams based in Poland, and I recall receiving a recommendation from one of our internal specialists there.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of their work has been €50,000–€55,000 ($58,000–$64,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with HighSolutions in April 2016. There may have been some preparatory work before that, but that’s when the contract was signed. We have launched the new platform, which has been tailored to healthcare professionals’ wishes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From a customer relations and stakeholder management perspective, the value is almost indescribable. Feedback and engagement are generally great. Dieticians sometimes provide direct comments from patients. Parents have stated that without Keto Planner, their diets couldn’t have succeeded.

How did HighSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They stay within the deadlines in all situations. If something evolves and makes additional development more complicated than anticipated, they give me advance notification. They manage expectations and deadlines very well, so there have been no unfortunate surprises.

With encouragement from HighSolutionse, we use Asana as a project management platform. We also use email, and we have phone meetings. We communicate in English, which is neither of our native languages. If we need to clarify something, it’s often better to do so over Skype or the phone. We mostly communicate through Asana tasks and conversations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In the Nordic environment, HighSolutions' biggest strength is their cost. Doing a project with a similar number of hours would cost more than twice as much using a local specialist.

As a partner, they are eager and professional in engaging with our perspective. They tried to understand our scope and visualize what was important to us and what we needed to deliver. Once they adopted that mindset, they presented opinions on how to improve and develop. They're integrated with the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Although the collaboration is quite smooth, the language barrier has been a challenge. I think in Danish and try to translate my ideas into English, so they can misunderstand me. That's typical for this kind of collaboration.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

This may be due to my limited experience, but I advise clients to be very keen about plotting out the project plan. This includes both tasks and corresponding hour estimations. For a project like ours to run well, we need to stay aligned.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated by the client on January 21, 2020. The original star ratings were: Overall - 4.5, Quality - 5, Schedule - 5, Cost - 5, NPS - 4. New content is below:

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work within Nutricia Specialized Nutrition, which is the medical division of Danone, specifically in Denmark. I hold the position of category manager and am responsible for the specialized area of metabolic diseases and epilepsy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HighSolutions?

We were looking to build a platform that would allow healthcare professionals to help patients succeed with ketogenic diets. We looked at different solutions from around the world, none of which apparently matched the expectations and functionalities that healthcare professionals needed. We needed a partner that could help us meet the requirements of our customers and basically build this platform from scratch.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HighSolutions has developed a service that we provide to specialized epilepsy centres in Denmark. Patients initiating a ketogenic diet register on the platform and link directly to dieticians and healthcare professionals who also have profiles. Those professionals work out all the details and features of the diet, making it more interactive and engaging for the patient.

This is a rather demanding and difficult diet, so we need to ensure that the patient’s parents and other family members have the tools they need to succeed. The tool essentially connects healthcare professionals and patients and gives patients information about the diet while they're home.

We’re constantly improving the platform and implementing new features, and we’re still in close dialogue with HighSolutions about new additions. The latest one pertains to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, which has impacted our platform, KetoPlanner, and our company, which hosts the site. HighSolutions has been very helpful in providing everything I need to update the site and make it 100% compliant. In this sense, I consider them a very reliable business partner.

What is the team dynamic?

The team hasn’t changed at all. Our main contact is still their CTO, but we’ve also been in contact with a dedicated project manager since last year. 

How did you come to work with HighSolutions?

Our collaboration with them started before my time, but I know that they were recommended by our business systems analyst from our corporate common business services within Danone Group.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of their work has been €50,000–€55,000 ($58,000–$64,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with HighSolutions in April 2016. Since the start of the platform, HighSolutions has provided technical support on a daily basis. They always react very quickly and solve all of our problems.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

I can say it’s on the same high level as when I started working with them. They are a reliable, trustworthy, and involved IT partner. They were always eager to help in 2017, and they are still eager to help and recommend solutions in 2020.

How did HighSolutions address the challenges that arose?

First of all, they deal with challenges very quickly. Sometimes we get solutions in a matter of hours or even faster. Their communication is clear, and I always know the status of the task.

Second, they often warn us about potential risks or describe potential problems while suggesting an idea for new functionality that we’d need. However, when we agree to do something, they always deliver it on time.
To sum up, I am very confident that they can solve any problem that emerges in the future.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

From a customer relations and stakeholder management perspective, the value is tremendous. HCPs sometimes provide statements from their patients that emphasized they would never have managed the diet treatment without KetoPlanner.

How was project management handled?

They stay within the deadlines in all situations. If something evolves and makes additional development more complicated than anticipated, they give me advance notification. They manage expectations and deadlines very well, so there have been no unfortunate surprises.

With encouragement from HighSolutions, we use Asana as a project management platform. We also use email, and we have phone meetings. We communicate in English, which is neither of our native languages. If we need to clarify something, it’s often better to do so over Skype or the phone. We mostly communicate through Asana tasks and conversations.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

In the Nordic environment, HighSolutions' biggest strength is their cost. Doing a project with a similar number of hours would cost more than twice as much using a local specialist.

As a partner, they are eager and professional in engaging with our perspective. They tried to understand our scope and visualize what was important to us and what we needed to deliver. Once they adopted that mindset, they presented opinions on how to improve and develop. They're integrated with the project.
 
In what specific areas can they improve?
 
All cooperation works very smoothly.