InnovationM

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an IT services company working with clients in the travel and transportation industry, as well as banking, financial services, and insurance industries. We are a niche player and have been in operation for 30 years. I am the global head of advisor relations, as well as the manager for infrastructure services marketing. I also run strategic initiatives for the company, including customer research, and any large undertaking which impacts the company as a whole, from a marketing perspective.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InnovationM?

We were looking at developing a mobile app solution for managing clients. We work on various projects on their behalf, and the communication, knowledge-sharing, and status updates around this needed to be resolved through an app, giving them a real-time 24/7 option for accessing the projects we’re delivering. They could see project statuses and updates anytime, anywhere, as well as reach out to the members of our organization using the mobile app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InnovationM built our app for iOS, Android, as well as a Windows version.

There are features around some of the metrics which we normally track for our project governance. The app pulls data from some of our databases, and displays it in the form of metrics, showing whether a project is in the green, red, or amber. The app also has email communication and chat built in, as well as features around locating a person assigned to a project, asking an expert or raising a concern.

What is the team dynamic?

We had 2 people from InnovationM’s team dedicated to the project, but I don’t have an idea of the overall team size.

How did you come to work with InnovationM?

There was a reference made to us by a colleague who had evaluated InnovationM earlier.

How much have you invested with them?

[Confidential]

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with InnovationM in July, and ended in October 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We put metrics in place for our timelines, but we didn’t monitor the number of bugs, from a quality perspective.

How did InnovationM perform from a project management standpoint?

We had some issues around the schedule, but they were resolved through mutual dialogue. We mostly communicated face-to-face (since their office is close to ours) and by email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by their flexibility and collaboration method. InnovationM was ready to accept changes without too much pushback, and they were accommodative and collaborative. Their CEO has knowledge around our industry, which was a very good point. Delivering the project wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were times when they repeated certain mistakes. We thought that InnovationM could have learned from past experience. Sometimes, they became a bit surprised by some of the changes we introduced, and tried to resist them.

BACKGROUND

[Our company] is a marketplace of branded budget hotels [and bed and breakfasts]. Operating from Gurgaon, [India,] we have grown from three hotels in December [of 2013] to now 16 hotels by the end of June [of 2014].

Founded by a Thiel Fellowship from India with his colleagues from IIT [India Institutes of Technology], [we are] already the biggest chain of branded BnBs in the Gurgaon province of India and 10 percent of the total hotel business in the region.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We needed a firm for development for our hotel management application for hotel managers. This was an internal application for productivity.

SOLUTION

They were responsible for developing an Android application with UX/UI [user experience/user interface] services, integration, and testing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

The Android app was delivered in time with reasonable quality. Their team was very good and was vocal and proactive about suggestions. They were very good at documentation, architecture, and implementation. They are professional and competent.

BACKGROUND

Our company, which employs less than five people, focuses on comparison shopping. Loosely translated, that means product and discount discovery mechanism for e-commerce enthusiasts within India.

I am the founder and CEO, which means that I take care of marketing, product, and business development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

One of the challenges we face is around finding discounts, which is a very arduous task as it involves opening multiple tabs, which is a very difficult thing on mobile devices for most users. The application we wanted aims at making the whole process seamless via a single screen. 

SOLUTION

The target was to create a prototype that could make the coupon application process a single click or single screen affair. This needed to work across retailer sites. This task was accomplished using the Phonegap Platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

The software worked great and accomplished all the set goals.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

I work for a small organization that provides health communication consulting services to a diverse clientele. They include federal, state, and local government agencies as well as private and nonprofit organizations. We do a range of things, including developing Web content, designing websites, and designing and developing mobile applications.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the Director of Interactive Media, and I serve as the subject matter expert for any projects we have with clients on interactive media products. Those include instructional technology products, like online courses or other Web-based content as well as mobile apps, e-books, Web-based mobile websites, and responsive Web design. I’m also a project manager for these, and I can serve as a subject matter expert on an area for that project, or I can manage projects that focus on other areas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with InnovationM?

InnovationM submitted a quote for a project where we had tried working with an in-house developer. Because we had never produced a mobile app before, the whole process was very new. It didn’t work out very well with the in-house developer. Toward the end of the project, we had to find a last-minute outsourcing development firm to help us implement the design for an Android app, both smartphones and tablets. We had already done the iPhone version, so it was just a matter of implementing it and putting it on the Droid platform. We worked with InnovationM to accomplish this, and they turned it around quickly, in a very short timeline. We were nearing the end of our contract with our client. They finished it in about three weeks, when the normal development time was eight weeks.

We had all the design and specs for the iPhone app, and we asked them to port it to Android phones and tablets. We had done all the IA, the wireframing, the mockups, and the graphic assets. We had worked with this in-house developer to develop the iPhone and iPad version of the app, and we needed to do that for Droid. That’s when we decided to go with InnovationM just for the Android component. We gave them all the graphic assets, IA, structure, logic, and the source code from the iPhone. They referenced it, but I don’t know if they used it or were able to build on it. I forgot which language they used.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting InnovationM?

InnovationM approached us, and put in a quote. I had a call with our current contact, and he asked some questions about the project. They submitted a quote; it was the most detailed of all the quotes we received. It was very well priced for the turnaround, and they were willing to do it very quickly. Some companies we contacted for quotes didn’t agree to submit a quote with that timeline. That’s how we went with InnovationM.

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

It was fairly small.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

It was less than $10,000. The project was completed in May or June 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very pleased with their work, and their ability to implement a complex-to-understand app. It's a communication tool between shelter employees, and people to come into shelters or evacuation centers who don’t speak English or have communication challenges of some kind. They are very specific users with very specific needs for the app. They were able to get the work done, and implement it very successfully. Unfortunately, the client we were working with was the State Health Department, and they had never built an app before either. They had been stuck in red tape for six months. The app is just being launched, and we just started uploading it to the different sites, like Google Play and the Apple App Store, this week.

I don’t have any metrics on it, although we and the client were very pleased with the final product. It hasn’t gone to market yet, but I hope it will be on the market this week or early in the 2014.

We got the app that we designed on Nielsen Norman Group Enterprise Apps Report. It was one of 10 apps that were highlighted there because of its  design. They asked for a lot of entries. I was at one of their conferences when they put out a call for entries, and we submitted and made it into their top 10. We were profiled in one of their reports, which came out in late summer.

Do you feel that moving to Android from iOS was a good move, or do you think you could  have switched the order?

I’m not completely sure. For us, it was easier to start with iOS because it is so structured, and has such a structured set of guidelines. Android is so fragmented that it would have been harder for us to tackle, given our internal process. Process wise, it worked for us. Generally, we agreed to develop an app that would fit all platforms for this client, which was quite ambitious. With the existing process, that was tough. We're doing another app for this client this year, and we decided to make more refined recommendations on what platforms to use.

For example, on the next app, we're just recommending doing it just for tablets, because of the use case and the users. I think we may have been overly ambitious, and it would have made more sense to identify their users, and they should implement the app for that user space. For that particular platform, Android probably would have been best. A lot of staff members have Androids versus iPhones.

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

Their responsiveness was impressive, and their ability to implement something well in a tight time frame was impressive as well. Since that project was completed, we're in talks with them now. We have a small consulting contract with them for this next app, and we will likely ask them for another quote. I like their communication style, and I like their responsiveness.

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 can’t think of anything. That was the first time we went through that process, so there were a lot of lessons learns on our side. The challenge involved InnovationM being offshore; the timing had to be something we thought about. We had calls early in the morning because that was late in the day for them. That's just the nature of where they're located – timing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

My firm provides technology and technology consulting and solutions to private equity firms.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the senior partner in this firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for the work with InnovationM?

We needed to develop new cloud software for mobile devices for our clients. It was to be used on browsers on tablets for Android and iOs. The first step was to create it for computers, and the next step was to do it for mobile.  The design was geared toward tablets.

SOLUTION

How did you select InnovationM to work with in the first place?

There aren’t many firms specializing in this kind of work, and I wanted one that was local in India. I have known their director for years, and have kept tabs on their firm lately. I knew they had experience and everything necessary to achieve our goal.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative in a general dollar figure?

I cannot give a general figure, but it took several months of work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

It was successful. We are going live this month with the first customer. I should be able to change the branding for the customer without changing the underlying product, which is the color, look and feel. I think that will be achieved.

What is unique or special about InnovationM compared to other IT vendors?

InnovationM is as good or better than a much larger and more reputable Indian company I also work with. They are speedy and responsive, and get the work done. I have great respect for them.

Looking back, are there any areas that you think InnovationM could improve upon or something you would do differently?

I think they still sometimes lack experience. The response was very different from a mature firm so I had to invest a little bit more of my time to get the solution we needed. They could improve that responsiveness.