iSolutions Belgrade

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Endava is a large scale multinational IT services company where I am an Alliances and Channel Manager in charge of vendors or partners like iSolutions is.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire iSolutions Belgrade?

We needed to add a small agile front-end development team to our ongoing project and existing client.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

iSolutions was on my map because of the technology stack and certifications they hold. We needed a self-sustainable multidisciplinary and multi technology team that can adapt quickly and take over a specific project load, and iSolutions fit the bill.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

They integrated easily with the rest of the team and during the onboarding they quickly proved their seniority and solved some of the blockers even though they were out of their direct scope and helped the project as a whole. The assigned modules for the team are continously delivered on time and bug free.

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

One Lead engineer and three developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The assigned modules for the team are delivered on time and bug-free. Not only that, their Lead Engineer serves as a consultant to the client in multiple areas, so they are really a value add.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Regular, SCRUM, daily meeting, weekly, etc, JIRA...

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

Their Lead Engineer serves as a consultant to the client in multiple areas, so they are really a value add.

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

Not at this point

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

i'm CEO in Elever Srl, based in Milan, italy. We develop and maintain custom software solution for small and medium business companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We started working with iSolution in a small mobile project. It's a mobile dashboard based on data coming from several sources of the client. iSolution helped and solved some issues and developed several new features based on our UX and UI.

After this, we started a strong collaboration, maintenance and evolution of our product Prassi. Our goals were to ease at most new developments and maintenance and cut costs, respect the Italian average, gaining in quality.

SOLUTION

How did you select iSolutions Belgrade and what were the deciding factors?

I have a lot of experience in the selection process through usual platform online, like upwork.com. My usual process is based on a small test project.

Key factors are:

• quality of the code
• quality of communication and comprehension
• timing in deliver
• personal feeling.

If each of those KPI is ok, we can start a bigger project, and iSolution passed each of them.

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

Scope: Maintenance and new development of our product "Prassi", a complex CRM we started in 2015. Project steps: The application is used by two main clients with quite 500 users.

Usually, we define new features in detail - eventually bugs - ask for estimates, start with the project, test and release. We constantly work together, to find out a solution, so iSolution is more like a partner with us more than a simple executor.

Technologies:

• .net
• mongo db
• circleci
• github
• slack
• gotomeeting

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

Mainly 2/3 depending on the periods. Igor: Pm Ana: software developer Vladimir: graphics/html/css

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After several months of work the application is completely bug free, reducing 80% costs in assistance and maintenance.

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

Pm is great. We meet once a week with GoToMeeting, and every time iSolution record the meeting to have a continuous trace of what's going on. During the week, when needed we use slack, for short chats and communications.

Github for issues and new features tracing. CircleCI for continuous integration.

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

Deliverables are always:

• well done, with accuracy and quality
• in time.

Whenever is necessary it's easy for them and for us to find together a solution even when there are problems that are not exactly in the scope to better the software both in term of performance, staying inside the budget.

Overall I would say balance, equilibrium.

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

I'm completely satisfied with iSolution. Whatever I requested was done, also small changes in their method, at first.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at an IT company in Slovenia as a business development manager for the Slovenian and Serbian region. We develop custom solutions from various clients across the public sector and enterprise telecom providers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iSolutions Belgrade?

We needed a partner to help us develop a unified platform solution for our end client who had over thirty thousand web pages in different languages around the world.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team is working with us to develop each of the old sites that our client provided into one which can operate on a central platform so that the client will have everything under one roof. They write the HTML5 web pages, build custom components such as self-help portals that can be reused between different sites, and create integrations with backend Bloomreach CMS and so on.

Our end client provided the designs that they had come up with using a specific company for that component, so we have been able to focus directly on implementing those. We take the content from the old site, make sure that all of it gets transferred to the new version, and prepare it for production in multiple languages before it gets launched.

What is the team composition?

Right now, we have three people from the iSolutions team working with us on the project.

How did you come to work with iSolutions Belgrade?

We were originally recommended to them by a friend who introduced us. It was clear that they were very capable at what they do, so when we had this huge project to deliver, we knew we could reach out to them for their help.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost so far is around €150,000 (approximately $177,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We first got the project in November 2018 and slowly brought them on from there, and we plan to continue with them into the foreseeable future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because the project isn’t officially over, we don’t have any formal success stories, but as the lead on this project I am in constant contact with the customer, and they are very happy with the work iSolutions is doing. That means I’m very happy with the work they’re doing as well. Their work is done professionally and always pays great attention to detail.

How did iSolutions Belgrade perform from a project management standpoint?

They interact both with us and directly with the customer, which has helped to streamline the process as well as to make our teams feel more fully integrated in the process. We have both daily and weekly meetings to make sure that we are always on the same page about what is being worked on and to recap what we have accomplished at regular intervals and change course if necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Members of their team are always willing to help, no matter what challenge you are facing. From day one of our partnership, they have been just as much a part of our team as our own employees, which is rare to find in an outsourcing relationship and which we really appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing we haven’t achieved yet is to get all of their developers certified in Bloomreach, but that is an ongoing process and something that will be done eventually.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just be honest with them. Tell them what you want and how they should help you, and they will do the best that they can from there.