imaga ~ When UX & AI Both Matter

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Tripsider.com

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Tripsider.com is a laid-back, no-strings-attached approach to small group travel that feels more like exploring the world with old friends than anything else. Our less-restricting itineraries mean spontaneous, fun-filled opportunities to capture the best of what every spot along the way has to offer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire IMAGA to accomplish?

• IMAGA helps us to build an end-to-end report tracking the user's path to purchase to assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
• Develop a system of recommendations that will be built into all listings on the website and take into account as many user interests as it can.

SOLUTION

How did you find IMAGA?

Other

Why did you select IMAGA over others?

Company values aligned

What was the size of IMAGA’s team?

6-10 Employees

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

1. IMAGA helps us to build an end-to-end report tracking the user's path to purchase to assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. This may sound like standard end-to-end marketing analytics, however, this particular project has several business logic nuances that render standard solutions useless:

• The nature of the marketing strategy dictates that we use custom attribution logic
• There is a number of business logic nuances we need to take into account when linking marketing channels to purchases, for example, user languages.

2. Develop a system of recommendations that will be built into all listings on the website and take into account as many user interests as it can. To achieve such an advanced level of personalization, we use machine learning and data analysis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Click-through conversion without recommendations increased from 3% to 4.5%.
• Conversion with personalized recommendations went up from 6% to 9%
• In two months, we have achieved a twofold increase in desired action. And this is not the limit. We have three strategies we use to make recommendations to user

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

IMAGA was very responsive; We communicated through email and Jira. There are no problems.

What was your primary form of communication with IMAGA?

Virtual Meeting

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

IMAGA has a highly flexible team that has adapted to our requirements and approach. It’s ensured that the collaboration is effective.

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

Everything was perfect, I guess no.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a food technology delivery retailer. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IMAGA?

We needed to develop a new mobile application after being purchased by Yandex and undergoing a rebrand. We also needed help determining how to maintain our existing customers and how to gain new ones. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, IMAGA worked on the discovery phase, conducting market research and competitor analysis. They also helped our scrum master formulate requirements. The team brought forth some interesting features to be implemented in the application that eventually helped us boost our audience.

We also had some onshore workshops with them. They flew to Russia, and together, we worked on the prototype. They orchestrated user interviews on the market, talking to real users, which helped finalize the concept. Their art director worked with ours on the brand book and the design concept. The team also helped us plan the UX/UI design of the application using Figma. They used Apache Thrift to create the mobile app design for iOS and Kotlin to create the design for Android.

Additionally, they handled the product's production, release, and maintenance. They provided us with support until we staffed our in-house team and helped facilitate the transition.

​​​​What is the team composition?

The account manager was our main point of contact. We also had a regular team of 9–10 people, including a project manager, frontend developers, and QA engineers. We also worked with their discovery team, which included an art director and two business analysts. 

How did you come to work with IMAGA?

We searched for service providers online and came across IMAGA. We selected them because we liked how they prepared their proposal and how they approached our challenge.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $2.5 million in the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2021 and completed the full project, including the ownership transition, in August 2022. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a good experience working with IMAGA. We delivered the MVP version in three and a half months, allowing us to quickly transition from our existing application to the new one. As for metrics, we had approximately 70 million users by the beginning of 2021, and by the middle of 2022, we grew to about 95 million users. Their work and the quality of the application boosted our audience significantly.

How did IMAGA perform from a project management standpoint?

It was an extensive project, and we had a couple of incidents where we missed deadlines, but the team managed it well. They augmented their staff with additional resources to mitigate the deadline slips. We also had to make some adjustments to stick to the budget. We used Jira to manage the project. We typically communicated through Slack and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed that they were open to criticism and willing to change their approach. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I'm fully satisfied with their approach and the quality of their work, but they could lower their prices. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Collaborate with IMAGA; don't just leave everything up to them. Secondly, keep an eye on the budget and deadlines regularly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m part of Yandex. We're an ecosystem in Eastern Europe and other developing markets such as Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. We're developing about 50 services, such as our ride-hailing application, Yandex Taxi. We're also developing media services, a music streaming service, and we have one of the largest search engines in Russia. 

When we collaborated with IMAGA, I was in charge of the business unit responsible for over-the-top (OTT) media services. I was the leader of the product management group. Currently, I’m managing fintech services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IMAGA?

We hired IMAGA to help us develop some infrastructural and frontend components of our OTT media service and music services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired them using an outstaffing model and incorporated them into our development processes. They were split across different functionality modules, including the music player, the product catalog, audio streaming, and more. The outstaffing model was flexible for us because we had the freedom to add specific people to our teams. 

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with the engineers.

How did you come to work with IMAGA?

Initially, we tried to select the right outsourcing partner to supply developers as fast as possible because we didn't have our own resources. We followed a simple process and selected criteria: time to deliver the engineers, seniority of the engineers, and pricing. IMAGA fit the criteria, so we moved forward. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $200,000 for the entire project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2022, and the project ran until September 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're satisfied with the resources they provided. Although each team member performed differently, we were pleased with the seniority and quality of the engineers from IMAGA. They were a good fit and sufficiently met our needs. 

We'd like to engage them again for upcoming opportunities.

How did IMAGA perform from a project management standpoint?

IMAGA was very responsive; we usually exchanged messages via Telegram. We also integrated the developers into our own ticketing system. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with how quickly they supplied us with resources, which was nice. They were also responsive, which made it easy to communicate. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We faced delays when signing the contract due to a bureaucratic process on both sides, which I can't fault them for. They could improve the speed by scoring their engineers' skills and proficiency levels in a more structured way.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I suggest approaching the project with clearly specified requirements if you're looking for an outsourcing engagement. If you're looking for outstaffing to augment your internal engineering team, try to understand which qualifications you're looking for. I also recommend conducting interviews with the engineers; don't just rely on IMAGA's high-level estimation of the resources.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of analytics at an international supermarket company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

Our main goal with them was to gather accurate data; it’s easy to collect corrupt data, so it was important that we found a way to collect trustworthy data. Another thing we were looking for was to be able to organize and share our data in a simple way.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The way we work is the following: my colleagues from the product team come to me with tasks, and together with AGIMA, we meet with our colleagues and decide how we can help them develop a new feature or calculate test results. We’re always collaborating to solve requests from different teams.

We use Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Firebase, which is Google's tool for mobile apps. We create technical documentation for our developers and use a monitoring system to monitor data; we also work with databases and perform A/B testing to evaluate results. 

What was the team composition? 

Right now, I work with a manager and two analysts.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

As we are a big company, we have to go through a licitation process when hiring a service provider. We had a series of requirements and an open call where different companies sent their offers. We thought AGIMA'S offer was the best after evaluating different areas. Overall, AGIMA had the best professional skills combined with a good financial proposal. 

What is the status of this engagement?

They were collaborating with the company before I worked here. I have been in this position since April 2018, and we are still working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been great, and their work has been very good; in the last two years, they’ve only made one mistake. We have periodic reviews and have developed a process together, so it has worked very well. 

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great with project management as well. If something goes wrong, they’re very proactive, and they don’t wait to come to me to find solutions. As for project management tools, we use Jira and Google Docs. We use Zoom, Telegram, and Microsoft Outlook for daily communications.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re not afraid of working with a big company like ours and are very transparent and willing to openly discuss everything, which we really appreciate. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t come up with anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest with them and discuss everything with transparency. In general, communicate with them as colleagues, not just as a service provider.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product manager at O’STIN. We’re an apparel company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We needed help developing a mobile app based on our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re building an iOS and Android application, using Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android.

What is the team composition?

There is a team of 20 people.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

They participated in the initial tender from our company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked together since January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After we launched the MVP product, 75% of our sales came from the mobile application.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through email and Jira. There are no problems.

What did you find most impressive about them?

AGIMA has a highly flexible team that has adapted to our requirements and approach. It’s ensured that the collaboration is effective.
Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no idea.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with AGIMA. It’s necessary to give the exact cost of the project, prescribing the requirements deeply. Otherwise, the cost of the project will be determined by an assessment of the minimal complexity required for the task.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the IT Director of a company called SberAutopark.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?

We have an ongoing project that involves building a fleet management system. For certain reasons, we have decided to start this endeavor from scratch and turned to AGIMA to help us with that effort.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The main goal of the project is to automate manual operations and provide a certain level of data flow between the after-sales and accounting departments. This way, the amount of paperwork could be brought to an absolute minimum.

On the business level, the system we’re developing will mainly be used by the after-sales department to manage the life cycle of vehicles. On the technical level, this custom microservice architecture-based software – with Python in the backend and JavaScript in the frontend – will be able to do several tasks through various modules that AGIMA is developing. 

We will have one module for calculating quotations for the customer and another for managing our relationship with our suppliers. The type and amount of services provided by suppliers, current contractual obligations, timeframes, and deadlines will all be managed through the latter.

The team is also developing a fleet registry. This will serve as a centralized system where we can manage and check the status of the thousands of cars in our fleet.

What is the team composition?

We started working with five people and now have 10–12 members dedicated to the project. Our main points of contact are the project manager, the team lead, and a backup team leader who works on the backend development and system analytics.

How did you come to work with AGIMA?

We decided to host an open contest. We first did some market research and gathered the input of other companies in our ecosystem. Based on our findings, we prepared a technical brief which we then sent out to 10 agencies that we felt could perform on this project.

AGIMA was one of the few who showed real interest in the project, joining us for workshops to make an accurate quotation for the development of the first module. This left a very good impression of how technical they can be when it comes to specific decisions.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in January 2020 and AGIMA is still working on this project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

What I like about working with AGIMA is they're very flexible; they try to find the best way to perform as the client needs, bringing everyone closer to the ultimate goal. When the team didn't perform as well as expected at the beginning, we modified some of our processes and approaches. AGIMA made significant changes to their process as well. 

We're still participating very closely with AGIMA to try to modify the way people and teams collaborate. Together, we want to make sure that our approach stays effective and that everything is accounted for so that when problems arise, we can solve them as quickly as possible.

How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?

The attention to detail that they’ve shown during the initial contest has not worn out. We’re managing the project jointly. They have a dedicated person working with us. We use Atlassian, Jira, and Confluence to keep track of our tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility is the most impressive thing for me. I communicate with different levels of management in AGIMA during different parts of the projects. On each level, I am met not just with understanding but also a willingness to adapt to whatever needs I may have.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be a little bit more flexible with their pricing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work closely with AGIMA and make sure that they understand your business needs. Don't just pay them and leave everything up to them.

BACKGROUND

Describe your company and your role.
DNS is a Russian company, the owner of a retail network specializing in the sale of computer, digital and household appliances, as well as a manufacturer of computers, including laptops, tablets and smartphones (assembly production). I'm the project manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Describe the goals that you wanted to achieve with this project.
The mobile development department in the company appeared about a year ago, and at one point we had too many ideas and too few opportunities to implement them. We turned to AGIMA in order to implement the functionality for the mobile application that we could not implement on our own in a short time.

SOLUTION

Why did you decide to hire AGIMA?
Tender was held among 5 outsourcing teams. AGIMA became one of the best in terms of results.

What was the composition of the team?
Unfortunately, I only signed up at the end of the project. Mostly I only had contact with Anastasia and Dmitry. The team consisted of 10 people, I guess.

Describe in detail the project and services that AGIMA provided.
The "reserve list" tool in the Mobile App for the sales assistant. This tool is a list of expense invoices that contain a list of reserved items.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Share information that demonstrates the direct impact of this project on your business.
The product is for internal use only.

How was the project management and communication organized? How effective was it?
Everything was fine, and we were always in touch. The team was very responsive.

What impresses you the most about AGIMA?
Quality of work.

What advice would you give to someone who is thinking of starting a project with this company?
We will advise the company to our colleagues in the market.

Are there any areas they could improve on?
Sometimes deadlines were broken.

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.