Innolance

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your role and responsibilities.

I’m a product manager for an online job posting board similar to Monster or Snag-a-Job, where employers post jobs and jobseekers find jobs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Innolance?

Innolance provided development services for us on some Web and mobile applications.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Innolance also did some minor consulting as well as a full development life cycle for us from wireframing to UX [user experience] design and graphic design, and then just coding it.

We did an app for iPhone, and we have an Android revision in the works with them, which is not released yet. The iOS app is in the App Store now. For the website, we have a WordPress blog that they wrote the coding for. That’s a side note for our site. The rest is done with PHP and other formats.

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

We were referred by one of our sister companies that had worked with them before.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

We had been working with them and shelved the project temporarily. In terms of total project hours, it's about a year's worth of development, with two to three developers at a time. In terms of cost, it was around $450,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with the results?

The work is great. They worked with us for the whole project lifecycle, and I haven’t had any complaints at all. They were able to mobilize as we needed them, in the sense that when things were slower for us, we were able to drop down to a smaller development team on a week's notice. We were able to mobilize back up as soon as we needed to, so that was great. The prices were good and the service was excellent.

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

Considering that we built the entire platform with them, I don’t think that even a user count would be particularly fair because we don’t have any other basis to compare it.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They are an offshore resource, but they have a lot of onshore people to talk to about our projects. They were within our time zone so we could interface with them rather than staying up until midnight to talk to somebody or wait until the next day for everything. We were able to get results when we needed them. If we had issues with the site, we could report them in the afternoon. They would be done before the end of the day because they had people who were actually here that we could talk to. Their office is in Herndon, Va.

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

The only thing that would have been nice was to have more allocation on the project manager. This is probably our fault because we pivoted a lot of times around different products. It was difficult sometimes without someone to sit there and be a project manager. We had one from the beginning, but due to cost, we had to go without one for a little bit. However, we still consulted with them from time to time. It would have been nice to have one there for us the whole time, but that was more our choice than anything else.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a public relations and communications firm that has a Web design arm. We are one arm of a much larger company, but my team just focuses on design and creative services. We have a few dozen personnel here that focus on creative strategy.

What is your role?

I am the vice president of the studio. I am responsible for project management, and for selecting partners. I was the responsible for starting the partnership with Innolance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address for the work with Innolance?

We needed to add some more skilled developers. We were in a situation where the client work was coming in so fast that we didn't have the staff in place to complete the work. I thought about hiring new developers but that would be difficult and expensive.

The best decision appeared to be to find an outsourced team that could come in right away to work as part of our group. They needed to have a deep and skilled group of programmers that could handle work for large American clients. The decision was made to interview some outsourced firms that we thought were fits.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Innolance to work with?

We liked Innolance because they had enough developers to handle the work right away. They worked hard and were competent. I have known their top people for years, and really trusted their ability. 

The great thing about Innolance is that they could handle a diverse array of projects. They could handle large and small projects for all types of development. 

Please describe the scope of Innolance's work?

They handled a huge variety of jobs for us. They do PHP, CMS, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Drupal, and many more platforms. They can help with the actual design and usability or just take on the coding. 

Can you provide a sense of the size of the initiative with a cost range?

The projects are all between $10,000 and $50,000 generally.

When will the work be completed?

The last project ended in September of 2013. They may do more work in 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the projects so far? Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement?

I don't have reliable stats to give for these projects. The main measure of success is completing the project on time for the client with no major mistakes. By that measure, all of the projects have been a success. I really like how their team will work extra hours whenever needed and are extremely flexible.

They are always willing to change the scope of the project. All of the minor communication issues were quickly cleared up. They feel like part of our team, we can make changes with them daily, and there are no issues. I really feel like they are part of our company now.

What is unique or special about Innolance compared to other IT firms?

They are really hard working and committed to a project's success. They never complain about working nights and weekends. They simply work harder than a lot of Western employees. They are very professional, skilled, and have a deep talent pool. The solutions that they create are great for everyone. They are very collaborative, and work well with our in-house resources.

Looking back on the work, is there anything that you think Innolance could improve upon or something you might do differently?

They should invest in video-conferencing technology. They do a great job and are strong with communication, but meetings are too hard without this capability. I think they are at a point where they could make the investment worthwhile. As they grow bigger, I think they will improve on project management details like this. This is a minor issue but worth mentioning. I don't think Skype conferences are sufficient for their needs.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your company?

We create and publish online language learning tools.

What is your position?

I’m the systems manager, so I manage our internal Salesforce processes and tasks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenges were you attempting to address when initiating the projects with Innolance?

Innolance is one of our partners in terms of development work around Salesforce-related portals and customer-support portals. They’ve been helping us rollout new forward facing portals with improved usability.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project in terms of its components? Did it include custom design, development, training, or support?

They’re basically involved in backend development. As an example, if we’re rolling out a U.S. customer support site, they are involved from the very beginning. We define the requirements and objectives, and they begin building a custom solution from the ground up.

How did you select Innolance as your solution partner?

Innolance was already partnered with our parent company. During internal transition about a year ago, they were delegated to our division.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How do you feel Innolance has performed on the projects?

They’ve done a decent job thus far. Of course, there’s always room for improvement. I would say we’ve had a positive overall experience.

When working with them, is there anything that you would consider unique or special compared to other solution partners you’ve worked with in the past?

The biggest thing I can think of is flexibility. They’re working out of India, so the time zone difference can add serious difficulties. That being said, their developers are extremely proficient and quite competent communicators, which is something you don’t necessarily run into when you outsource to foreign development teams.

In retrospect, are there any areas that you believe Innolance could have improved upon or things that you might have done differently as the client before approaching this type of project?

There is always room for improvement. They’ve done a good job on building out our portals, but it’s been rote, kind of procedural accomplishment. We’ve always explicitly defined the requirements and objectives for them, and they take it from there. I’m not absolutely confident that they could formulate a creative solution or set of solutions catered to more complex and ambiguous requirements. If we needed something unconventional, we’d probably have to source a new partner.