Idego Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an e-commerce platform that specializes in selling well-being and health goods in Southern Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Idego Group?

The marketplace for tech developers in Barcelona is very competitive, and it was difficult to find a local company at a rate we could afford. We needed a team to help us, so looked further afield to find the right vendor.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Since we had trouble finding a company at first, we did as much as we could internally to build our own enterprise resource planning system. We didn’t have the expertise we needed, so Idego Group helped us develop the management tools we needed. They used Python and Django to build the backend and React for the frontend.

What is the team composition?

So far, we work with one full-time developer and a project manager on their side.

How did you come to work with Idego Group?

We chose to work with them for the cost advantage and for the personal touch of their CEO. We had a Skype call with him first, then we met in person to discuss similar projects they worked on previously. Ultimately, they were the best options among the candidates, so we decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

Our average expenditure is around 4,000 € (approximately $4,500 USD) per month for 11 months, for a total of around 45,000 € (approximately $51,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018 and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The tool is used for our internal purposes, so it’s challenging to track key performance indicators with hard data. We have increased productivity within our catalog team and have a tool that is tailored to our needs. Without their help, this kind of project would have taken at least twice as much time.

How did Idego Group perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is wonderful. We were reluctant to try an external developer at first, but they managed themselves brilliantly. We use Jira to track issues, and they provide reports on everything they work on. They’re like a team member who works remotely. It’s hard to differentiate them from our internal team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We are happiest about the quality of code they provide. They have no trouble building complex code and managing complicated integrations with third-party sources. It would be impossible to find this kind of quality in a local company for a comparable cost.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints, and am very happy with the results. It would be great if they had a higher level of Spanish, and we occasionally had issues in English, but other than that, everything went wonderfully.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work with them. In my experience, CTOs are often reluctant to externalize, but the room for improvement in your company is huge if you work with them. Plan what you want to accomplish and define what you need, and the experience will be awesome.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is BF International. We are in the transportation business; we do full truck loading (FTL). We are based in Poland and provide domestic transport, export, and import. We mainly do waste transport and other products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Idego Group?

The transportation market is out of date, still documenting everything on paper. My business partner and I felt there was a need to digitalize the way we work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After finding Idego, we told them what we wanted to do, and we started to think of ideas of how to convert everything to digital and what could be done more efficiently. They came back to us with ideas about how to speed up our work on our databases.

We subcontract the transport and have haulers who rent cars from us, and we have a large database. Each time we look for a car, for example from Warsaw to Berlin, we have to call 10 different companies to get the information from the market of how much it will cost and when they can load the trucks. This is a large amount of data, which can be used later.

Idego came to us with the idea of preparing a simple application that can manage the data in a two-step process by entering the postal code of the area you want to load the transport and the location where you want to reload it. From the database, you would get the top three closest possible companies that provide transport from Warsaw to Berlin according to the historical data that we collected. It makes it easier for the people who work in transport who complete 10–15 transports daily. If they are connecting with 10 companies on each transport, the database expands. The application contains all the data, and I can easily fill in the postal code of one location to another and get the information that I need. Idego used Python and Django to develop the app. The app is very user-friendly. It is custom made and fits our needs well.

What is the team dynamic?

We had three people from their team working on this project. We worked mostly with Piotr [Owner of Idego Group], and we were also in contact with two specialists; one who worked on the interface, and the other worked on the mechanism and making sure that everything works.

How did you come to work with Idego Group?

We were looking for a local company that has innovative ideas. Their cost fit our budget, and the communication flow with Piotr was really good. We became close friends during the course of the project.

How much have you invested in them?

Their price was comparable to other firms in the market.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Idego in July 2017, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are now able to get things done more quickly, and we are more accurate with our quotations for clients. We had been writing down everything in a notebook previously, which was easy to lose, and it’s hard to remember everything you write down. Everything is now in one place, and the data is available for everybody. Everyone is happy with the app. I can see the number of clients we can handle per day and per month is growing, which I believe is due to Idego’s contribution.

How did Idego Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We were in touch through email. We spoke on the phone at least once a week, and we also had meetings at least once a month regarding the progress of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They fit our needs and were always available to answer any questions we had. Everything was scheduled, and we knew what they were doing. They updated us along the way, and they provided us with a high level of customer service.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It was luck that we found them even though they are in the same building as us. Something they could work on is marketing, as the only way I found them was by walking through our building. They should think about promoting themselves to get their brand name out.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is an online marketplace for beauty products. We are a small group of six to seven people situated in Gothenburg.

What is your position?

I’m the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Idego Group?

We were in the process of transitioning from in-house to outsourced resources. We evaluated a number of companies for outsourcing and finally ended up working with Idego.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They helped us with the entire platform, everything from front end, back end, to server maintenance if needed.

How did you come to work with Idego Group?

The first reason we decided to go with them while evaluating a number of agencies was their great communication. We’ve outsourced before and have never really been satisfied. The second part was that our platform is built on the Django framework in Python, which Idego specializes in. It was clear that they are very skilled and have deep knowledge of those technologies, which was really important for us. The third thing was that they could deliver quickly.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We have Idego Group on a monthly retainer.

What is the status of this engagement?

We are currently working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

They provide good development resources that work and can produce the things that we want. We have a pretty tight scope of the product, so we know in detail what we want. It can be challenging to produce that, but they’re doing a great job at it.

How did Idego Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They have done very well. The best example is today; it’s an international holiday, and they are still putting in at least half of a working day to get stuff done because we have a big release next week. They’re quick in response, transparent, and they’re easy to work with.

What distinguishes Idego Group from other providers?

We worked with outsourced resources before and bad communication can be very difficult and can mess up a project. They have consistently kept us in the loop. I’ve worked on projects where the team might know that what they are doing will create problems later and they don’t tell us. With Idego Group, we have a  transparent dialogue and are finding out stuff much quicker so that we can avoid problems as much as possible.

Is there anything Idego Group could have improved or done differently?

I would say no; we didn’t have any issues with Idego Group.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is called Kcalmar. We sell a web-based software for nutritionists. We also have two mobile apps for this. The software helps nutritionists create meal plans, manage and keep records of their patients, and schedule visits.

What is your position?

I am the Chief Executive Officer.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Idego Group?

We needed a few extra developers to help us with work.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

About a month ago I turned to them for additional developers. They provided us with one senior developer, one junior, and a product manager.

How did you come to work with Idego Group?

Last year we were working with an external IT company that didn’t come on projects a number of times. We found Idego and realized that they have a Python/Django-specialized software house.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did Idego Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I'm satisfied with what they are doing and the level of dedication they show. The work they are accomplishing is very well done. There are no major delays on their side, which is important. One time, the senior developer fell ill but he kept working. He wasn’t able to be there full-time, but he and his team came through when a number of problems were arising.

Is there anything Idego Group could have improved or done differently?

We didn't really have a chance to fully see their potential, but I'm very happy.

BACKGROUND

Please provide a description of your company.

I work for a holding company for a number of Polish insurance companies. We have a nationwide network of branch offices, and are headquartered in Sopot, Poland. [We are] the second largest insurance agency in Poland in terms of collected insurance premium tax.

What is your role at the company?

I’m one of our sales managers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached Idego?

We were looking to improve the management of our sales processes, in order to track metrics and make improvements. We had problems with the various CRM [customer relationship management] systems we tried. We decided to build a custom solution in cooperation with Idego.

What were your company’s business goals for the project?

Our business goal was to create a Web app designed to improve the sales process of group life insurance. Optimization of the sales process has increased our revenues.

SOLUTION

Can you talk about the scope of the project?

The works spanned the entire software development process of the project and the creation of the required documentation as well as its implementation and various stages of testing.

What was your process for selecting Idego with which to work?

We selected Idego based on the referral of a colleague.

Can you give a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms or personnel work hours?

This is confidential information.

When was the project completed?

The first stage of the project was completed in 2011. We've been implementing new versions of the project each year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project, and are there any metrics you can share?

The results have been very positive. Our latest version of the application is being used by hundreds of our salespeople.

How did Idego perform?

They performed very well. We have no complaints regarding their work.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies with which you may have worked?

They have a very good communication process, the speed of the changes when we would request something was incredible. They were very flexible in meeting our demands.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve or you would do differently?

The software build and implementation stages went extremely well. I would say the documentation requirements and planning could have gone a little better.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is an IT [information technology] services firm in Poland. It’s a system integrator company and is privately owned. We’ve been in the market for 20 years. We mainly deliver solutions for IT, such as hardware and software solutions and IT infrastructure.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m a department manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Idego Group?

We do not have any programmers in our company. We needed a billing system for cloud solutions. We delivered a HP Cloud solution for a large corporate client. There was a need to prepare special solutions for billing for using hardware for the cloud system. The native solution was not satisfactory for our customer, so we had to prepare a customized solution for them.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We work with them mainly delivering software solutions but we used to do many projects connected with Linux systems. They have very good specialists in this area.

What was your process for selecting Idego Group with which to work?

I know the owner of the company was working with them for many years. We started with smaller projects and it was very productive for us. We were happy with their work.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It was from $50,000 to $100,000.

When was the work completed?

We’ve been working with them on different projects for many years. The biggest project was finished in January 2015. The work will be ongoing. We are working on the second version of the biggest project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We don’t have metrics but the most important thing for us is customer satisfaction for what we are delivering.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

We are satisfied.

Is there anything unique or special about Idego Group that really makes them stand out compared to other online marketing companies?

They are able to work late hours and weekends.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I think looking back it’s always possible to say that something could be better, but I think one of the most important things is the planning stage. This could be made a little bit better on their end. That is something we can improve as well being the client.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of Finalrentals.com

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire EFEKT Agency?

The challenge was to delivery next generation design for car rentals.

What were your goals for this project?

To build the best mobile UI UX possible for car rentals

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

EFEKT came up with some great ideas to improve the quality of mobile user experience for Finalrentals and it was a no brainer then to work with them.

Describe the project in detail.

Finalrentals was looking to totally revamp mobile user experience from scratch from start to the booking process

What was the team composition?

There was a project manager as well as direct access to the people who were working on our project it was amazing and collaborative

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We saw 58% increase in our mobile bookings

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was awesome. They use great tools such as sketch and invision and feedback was instant

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are startup-friendly and understand the challenges of entrepreneurs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think they are the best for sure.