imaga ~ When UX & AI Both Matter

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager of the largest chain of food stores.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed help with web development and product analysis.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their priority was developing our website from scratch, but they also helped us with different tasks. In addition to development, they provide technical support and product analytics.

What is the team composition?

There are 5–6 people, including two managers, a designer, a developer, and testers working on our project. Depending on circumstances, we can also work with sales specialists, business or system analysts, and copywriters.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

They won a tender to create a website for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2016 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had a really good experience working with them so far. They’re truly experts in the industry. We’re completely satisfied with their work.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been very easy to collaborate with them. The team works well together and performs tasks on time. I’ve been impressed by their project management. We use Jira, email, and Telegram to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Since they created the website, we can now get the information ourselves without any help from specialists.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re experts in the digital sphere.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are experts in development and integration. I would recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager for a supermarket chain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

I needed a partner to develop our native mobile app complete with e-commerce functionality.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our mobile app, which allows customers to set up food delivery to their homes. The app is for both iOS and Android. They used Kotlin, Java, and Objective C in the build of the apps. They only did the development work for this project.

What is the team composition?

There were 5–6 people staffed on our account.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

I knew of them prior to the engagement. They had worked on the project for me a year ago. When we needed more help, we assigned them to our work again.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$49,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May–July 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were able to get started quickly and launch the app rapidly. I’m happy with their work.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was on our side. We managed their developers according to our needs. It went well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understood what needed to be done and how to accomplish our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they could do better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the category manager and product owner at T.B.M., a company engaged in the wholesale of components for windows, doors, glass units, furniture, etc. in the B2B and B2C space. I’m responsible for the development of one of the company’s internet resources. We have a big e-commerce system. We’re market leaders represented in major cities of Russia and CIS countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed help with the development and design of our new site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They made prototypes and a design for the new e-commerce website. The main task was to combine several B2B and B2C sites and an e-commerce system into one with the ability to further develop this as an ecosystem. They do the UI/UX for us and used Figma and Axure platforms.

What is the team composition?

At the prototyping stage, the team included the project manager and the project prototyper. At the design stage, there’s a project manager, a director, a designer, and a prototyper if necessary.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

We selected them on a tender basis. We wanted a company that had been involved in the launching of complex, heavy projects. We contacted several agencies and chose AGIMA.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our project isn’t complete yet. They completed the template, prototyping, and design on time. We’re satisfied with their work.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re completely satisfied with the project management. It’s perfect. We have offline and online conversations on Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a good position in the ratings of internet agencies. They had the experience of launching similar projects to ours which is why we chose them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can think of for them to improve. All is okay.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Cost is important but product quality and confidence in their performance competence are also very important.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at Astana Motors, a car sales company. It's the biggest automobile distributor and dealer chain in our area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

About a year ago, we started our digital profile company. We needed a company to help us create our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AGIMA developed a web and mobile app that includes general functionality of classifieds. The mobile apps are for both Android and iOS. Anyone can put an ad about their car or any car-related tools like spare parts. The platform allows users to apply for a car loan and installment programs. 

We also asked AGIMA to add news and videos. It’s similar to a news portal where anyone can read interesting articles from videos and test drives and more. 

There’s a part for used cars that are verified by dealers on the market. It includes legal history, technical conditions of the cars, etc.

Another part is the development of a new car section, where all the ads from official dealers with all the brand collected on a separate part of the portal without used cars. We hold around 12 car brands that are presented. We wish to show this and bring all the players in the car market on this platform. 

On the backend of the system, we used Django. The frontend is Vue.js. The  mobile apps are native using Kotlin and Swift.

What is the team composition?

I think there were 20-25 people.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

We were deeply searching the market for web studios that could create a platform for us. We analyzed the top 20 IT development companies in Russia. When we searched in the local market, there were few such companies. The pricing and portfolio of projects done weren’t big enough for us. 

We looked at the Russian market and selected AGIMA after several rounds of tendering. We visited Moscow three times and met with them. They showed us their offices. We described our vision of the project. They initially prepared a proposal for us with general ideas and rough numbers for the budget. 

We compared it to several companies and AGIMA was selected because they had strong design and development teams. We wanted to work with one vendor that could provide everything for us. They’re not cheap but they’re not the most expensive either. They were in the top five in pricing. We also liked the team. They have a suitable amount of developers and designers.

How much have you invested with them?

It will be around 20,000,000 rubles (approximately $273,000 USD). for the MVP. We’re now paying for each functionality that they’re building. Right now, it’s around 13,000,000 rubles (approximately $178,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020 and the work is ongoing. They submitted an MVP of the project in July. Now they’re working on phase two of our project. They’re adding some useful functionalities into the project now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our project is only in the initial stage of entering the market. We haven’t marketed very widely. We have about 3,000 people internally using it and giving feedback. The main metric is the number of visitors per month but we’re still not fully on the market which is why we’re not counting this KPI now. 

We’re using technical support and paying them a monthly fee for support and maintenance. They do well with this. The other KPIs are the amount of ads with cars being sold on the portal both on the web and the apps. 

We have KPIs to reach figures for a major local classified player. They have around 120,000 ads at any time. This is our target for next year in May or June. We’re satisfied with the quality of AGIMA’s work so far; everything is good.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is very good. They appointed three project managers for our project. There’s one for the website, one for development of native functionalities, and another one is for smaller tasks. They communicate very well and provide escalation points. If there’s something urgent, we can reach the head person. 

They work in sprints. They’re very structured. Their process is product based. Every time it goes through steps like project analysis, technical documentation, prototyping, designs, and development. They do testing and QA. Sometimes it’s a little slow to market but we understand this is the usual flow of project management in IT.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We selected AGIMA because they’re not only developers and designers but they also suggest best ways of creating a useful product. They tell us what hypothesis will work and what will not work and why.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could show more of the internal work done. For example, it’d be very useful for us to see at what stage such and such developer is at the moment. 

They provide more general status updates of the functionality and development but it’d be even better if they showed us how the tasks are pointed within the internal team, how fast it’s done, what problems they’re facing, and how they solved it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with AGIMA. Put as much detail on the functionality needed as possible. If you give just a rough idea of what you want done, they’ll estimate it in terms of time and money and will do it but if throughout the process you have other ideas to be added, it could be more expensive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the website development supervisor for a tobacco company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed a website developed and designed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We purchased a platform one and are having them make necessary adjustments for our requirements. They are our main partner for website development, handling the customer experience, design, business analytics, and backend development.

What is the team composition?

There are roughly 20 people working on the project, including two designers, a UX expert, five backend developers, three frontend developers, and four QA people. I interact with five people directly.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

They were referred by our internal IT partner, who had worked with them previously.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $1,000,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around September 2018, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the course of the engagement, we have seen the business grow quickly. They are one of the best agencies in our development market. I am very satisfied with their work.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

They have high-level project management, and communication has become smoother over time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There were some complexities in communication at the beginning. I’ve seen them grow and change, and it is a positive experience overall.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key. Create a partnership with them to get the best results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

• Medical care is delivered in accordance with up-to-date international protocols
• International JCI accreditation (the flagship hospital on Schepkina, 35)
• EMC is the first Russian health provider to become a member of the International Hospital Federation (IHF)
• A multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of complex cases, close cooperation of specialists involved in patient treatment.

My role as Chief Digital Officer is to transform business into new standards, and describe new 360 patient care philosophy simply with new website. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our website was created over 15 years ago and had become very outdated, especially for young consumers.

Since our internal marketing team has no such a strong competences to renew and support website regarding new trends we hired Agima to design & develop new age modern simple and graphical website.

Before we start we announce tender for agencies (Convergent participated but went down with low scores). By doing this we were hoping to recruit new consumers, increase our traffic and present our new philosophy with new vision.

SOLUTION

How did you select AGIMA and what were the deciding factors?

In Aug 2020 it was open request, we created request for web developers and shortlisted 5.

Unfortunately, we lost a time. For price criteria Convergent was a winner, but during first month we realized that propose was not analyzed well, some parameters were not matched and even during first month price increased twice.

We cancelled this tender and due internal regulations start process from Zero again. After crafted analyzing this time Agima won for all price & quality parameters.

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

We provided benchmark websites from Healthcare & Luxury industries around the world as examples, initiate workshop where deeply described EMC 360 degrees patient care philosophy, our medicine on demand conception and our view how website could look a like.

After a few iterations Agimas team designed and developed Start page and after that we approve all website constriction and structure.

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

Team Lead Project manager 3 developer 2 designers 2 test managers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in a long way process, but after we exchange Main page on website, lots of clients are happy with new visual.

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

We had weekly stand-ups with team Lead & Project manager, who communicated with rest of the team. Due delays, they let us know ahead of time so that we could prepare. We used Jira.

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

Agima plunge deeply into our core business and philosophy, this was very important for us because this is very out of box decision to change visual interpretation of brand philosophy.

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

No. Everything improved very fittingly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Mars is a global pharmaceutic corporation. I work in the Kinship department, which is dedicated to new business models in the pet care industry — both acquiring startups and developing them from scratch. I’m the head of operations for Kinship and all R&D is within my focus.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We were struggling with the level of demand for our online tele-vet product. The average Russian pet owner needs an online clinic only once a year, and our general goal was to increase the retention level and the number of consultations for our product.

Our general strategy is to build best-in-market products. We’re currently developing a pet insurance service with a Russian insurance partner, along with some e-commerce products. Being a pharmaceutic operation, we don’t have a lot of experience in product design so we went to AGIMA for this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have Android and iOS applications, an e-commerce site, and a complicated backend. AGIMA is our IT partner in product design, and they were responsible for designing and developing all of these solutions.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a team of 10–13 people from AGIMA. We communicate with all members, but 50% of our questions are directed to the project manager on their side.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

We received a recommendation from one of their clients.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is around €1 million (approximately $1.2 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with AGIMA in July 2019, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

AGIMA’s team is pretty strong in UI/UX design and backend development. We initially developed our website using another team and ran an audit where we identified a lot of parts that had to be redone. AGIMA redid the work, and what they delivered was excellent.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m pretty satisfied with their management. We have no problems with deadlines or missed tasks now, but we’ve had to spend 3–4 months building a sustainable team. We had to change the project manager 3–4 times. Their performance is 10/10 now.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their product design skills make them stand out. AGIMA is not just an outsourced team that we delegate tasks to. They’re involved in our product development and regularly come up with ideas and improvements. They’re constantly thinking about our product along with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have an insufficient level of product analytics right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend letting AGIMA inside your product development team. Don’t be shy to interact with their team and mention when someone needs to be replaced.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House, one of the biggest publishing houses in Russia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed help with web design. Our website had a lot of errors and elements that didn’t work. We needed a facelift.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did the UI/UX design and designed our news website. It was built with Python and MongoDB for the database solution. The new frontend is Node.js. We received the first layouts from them in February 2020. My team worked on it at the same time. It’s now fully designed and the work is finished. Now we’re fixing some bugs and working on some improvements.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a UX/UI designer, a system analyst, and a data analyst. My main points of contact were the project manager and director. There were also about four designers.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

We worked with them some years ago and liked their design.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is perfect. They’re very punctual. Prior to COVID-19, we had weekly meetings in our office. However, we’ve since switched to Zoom meetings. We have a working chat in Telegram where we have daily discussions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They pay attention to detail.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we liked everything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re professional and their advice is perfect. Take their advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of e-commerce at AlfaStrakhovanie, an insurance company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed help with development for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been developing and deploying our website and online sales. Our department’s main task is to sell insurance products with our website and mobile application.

Their team is engaged in developing the site and the integration with our internal systems. We have a CMS called Beatrix. Their team has helped us with design, architecture and programming, UX/UI, and testing.

What is the team composition?

We started with five people, and currently, we have 15 people from their team working on our projects including developers, designers, and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

They are professionals and they know what they are doing, so we chose them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent 40 million RUB (approximately $547,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with AGIMA since January 2014, and we are continuing to work with them. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We deliver an online service and for our website, we are number one. The website developed by their team has helped us win awards together. They’re the best partners in our company. 

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is one of the positive things about them. They’ve helped us out many times and when we give them a big task or problem, they quickly scale for that task. We use email and Jira for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

AGIMA is a team of professional specialists who know what they’re doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The cost was more expensive and when they started working the costs grew, which is one of the problems we’ve had working with AGIMA.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise potential clients to make a detailed statement of the problem or task you have as this will cause fewer problems in the future.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing and brand communications of Snow Queen, one of the biggest fashion retail chains in Russia. I work with our contractors and am also responsible for branding, web design, and digital presence.

We operate more than 120 stores in 50 of our country’s cities. Our company has a 20-year history, which is quite old for our market. We’re the number-one retailer in Russia in the outwear segment, specifically leather and ship-skin goods. Our main season is winter.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

Our team launched our first-ever collaboration in early 2019 with a world-famous Russian fashion designer. We’d seen how this worked with our competitors, but it was completely new for us. Our goals were to attract a new audience and show a strong fashion image.

The Snow Queen brand in general is quite classical, and we wanted to make a small upgrade in the fashion market. One of the solutions we thought would work was to create several promotional websites, different from our main site, which would be relevant to the fashion audience.

Our basic site is a big marketplace where users can shop and see collections. We needed to have something completely different for this collaboration, and we had limited time for the project. We also had to keep the DNA of the designers’ personal brands — which was different from our main brand — and to make the execution of the whole project modern and in-fashion.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AGIMA’s main goal was to create a mobile-friendly website. We understood that most of our new audience would come from Instagram, using mobile phones. It was placed as a subdomain of our main site.

The new site needed to show all the beauty of the collections and all the details of the project. We also told AGIMA that it should engage visitors and give them a wow effect. The site was done on Bitrix24. Our main site is on Magento, and the two are connected.

They also handled technical integration with our main website, for online purchasing. We had no time to create purchasing functionalities on the promotional website, so we made a redirect to our main site.

Their team made an automatic emailing set-up for news, with the system we’re using. We have fully integrated Google Analytics between the subdomain and the main website. This is in order to trace the full path of every visitor and see what the subdomain is doing for our business.

AGIMA also had to configure data collection for our remarketing communication channel. The site needed to work fast because the people coming from Instagram want everything fast, and it had to work properly across all country territories, where mobile internet isn’t very speedy.

They also implemented three seasonal updates. Our collections change and the page design updates accordingly. AGIMA provided 24/7 technical support for a whole year.

What is the team composition?

I worked with their account manager. They also had a designer, 2–3 programmers, and a PR manager who helped us with the release of the technical specifications. The team was quite small, but certain people were connected with us for a whole year.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

Being a big and older company in Russia, our company was a desirable client for anyone, so we always had a good choice of contracting agencies to work with. We’d had a short project with AGIMA in 2018 — a digital quest that lasted one month — and we were fully satisfied with their work.

We did a price check with several possible contractors for the new project. The pricing was very important for us, and we found AGIMA’s offer in line with our expectations. Their previous work was good, and they had a strong portfolio in general, so our decision was quite easy.

How much have you invested with them?

Our investment was on par with Russian prices for similar work. AGIMA wasn’t overpriced at all, otherwise, our business owners wouldn’t have allowed us to work with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We launched the project in January 2019, and we had around a month to do everything from start to finish because we had a presentation for the fashion community in March of that year. We were under very crazy deadlines and didn’t know whether it would work, but AGIMA made it happen. They gave us a couple of design options from the very first meeting, and we chose one.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our project was successfully finalized in January 2020, and the website received lots of appreciation from our customers, who wrote a lot of comments on our social profiles. The fashion community was very impressed by our event, and the fashion designer herself found this site to be the best one among her numerous collaboration projects.

The site attracted new consumers, who spent more time on it than even on our main website. We got a lot of positive response from customers, and the collection sold much better than our regular ones — even better than we expected. We had no problems with the site’s loading speed. It was quite fast on every device type.

Most products from this collection were successful even before discount periods started, and the demand was greater than our stock. This happened through the promotional part of the site, where people could see how beautiful the goods were and become inspired to buy them.

We didn’t have any problems with new releases. We always had short deadlines for implementing changes for upcoming events, but AGIMA managed to do everything in time.

We used the same site for our spring collection, and we’re going to load another one in September 2020. Most of the work is done, so we only have to change the design, which is really good value for us.

AGIMA was well-connected with us, and they understood our needs. They showed a good understanding of the difference between this collaboration brand and the main one.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoyed their project management. We’ve worked with multiple providers and had no difficulties staying connected with AGIMA or asking them questions. They even pushed us to meet the deadlines and demonstrated a deep immersion in our needs in fashion.

This is a difficult field, and it’s even more difficult to find a web designer that can understand it. We had no problems with AGIMA in this area. They were really involved and interested in building the site in the best way. It was a pleasure for us to see this.

They gave us a schedule, and we communicated through Telegram. They were available 24/7, and no one complained. They often exceeded our expectations in this project, and the design reflected the brand DNA nicely. They kept deadlines very well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

AGIMA has a very modern type of communication. They worked fast and wanted to make things even better than we expected. The quality of their team is really high. They’re very careful about the people they onboard into their team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. I hope they continue to work as well as they have. I’m quite happy with this project, which doesn’t happen often. I was nervous about the deadline and because we were doing something new, but everything was done fast. I can say only good things about AGIMA.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

We’ve already recommended AGIMA to some of our colleagues. I know that someone started negotiating a project and a couple of companies started something. I hope they’ll be really happy with AGIMA as well.

If the client has a good brief, understands what they really want, and can say it in words, it will work with AGIMA. They really understand us and can give us good professional recommendations.