KiZAN Technologies

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Global IT for a manufacturing enterprise that operates globally. The company has 65+ manufacturing operations (Including 25+ international) and 10 global distribution offices

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire KiZAN Technologies?

We wanted to consolidate our 50+ subsidiaries into one Office 365 environment. This included multiple workloads (Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, etc.) and standardization in operating securely and efficiently.

SOLUTION

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

We engaged multiple VARs without luck due to the complex nature of merging so many environments into one tenant. Ultimately we asked Microsoft for recommendations of partners that can handle our needs, which is what led us to KiZAN.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

This project involved many aspects. We had to establish plans for identity management, security controls, workload separation, data cleaning, and migration. KiZAN offered solution architects that built migration plans and runbooks specific to our needs. They were already clear about issues we may experience but never walked away from a challenge.

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

We've had the opportunity to work with various KiZAN teams, including but not limited to:

• Project management
• Messaging and collaboration
• Security
• SharePoint
• Licensing
• Support

In total I suspect we work with thirty members of KiZAN

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is still ongoing, but KiZAN has increased our ability to collaborate with subsidiaries, which we could never achieve with our previous configuration.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Highly effective. Our Account Manager and Project Manager do a fantastic job keeping me informed of the project -- if we are on schedule, late, challenges, successes, etc.

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

They spend time understanding our needs and offer solutions to help advance our business.

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

We occasionally run into resource constraints because KiZAN's consultants are fully loaded. This doesn't impact ongoing work vs. the ability to take on new work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineer at Constellium, an aluminum company in the automobile industry. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with KiZAN Technologies?

They helped us design a scrap application a couple of years ago. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The work that they did was to amend the application. Whenever we originally purchased it, we dropped several features. This was to add some of those features. We wanted the ability to go and fix some of the data that was messed up, whether it be by just operator error or we didn’t know why we scrapped something at the time when we did, but we used the application to help improve our product recovery which helped us make more money. 

For this project, we had a kickoff meeting where I defined all my expected deliverables. At that time, we wanted the ability to be able to edit transactions inside of the system and to keep a log of that. We also wanted to be able to have a different way of putting stuff in and we wanted to be able to edit it, in our second way of putting it in as well. On top of that, I also requested a three-digit drop-down feature inside the application which we used to add two lists that look at each other — they fixed that for us. After all that, I spearheaded the testing efforts for the application. Once I made sure that everything was okay, I usually gave them the go-ahead to push it into our production environment.

What is the team composition?

In total, we worked with four people, but we mainly communicated with two people — their development engineer and project manager after the first few meetings.

How did you come to work with KiZAN Technologies?

Our IT group already worked with KiZAN Technologies several times in the past, but I’m not sure how they found them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent under $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September–December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was very happy with the quality of their work. I was able to tell the engineer what I wanted and I described it to him. After that, he created it and even allowed me to test it. For instance, when I did the testing, I usually found some issues, and he fixed them very quickly. Their engineer even encouraged me to keep looking and inform him if I found something.

KiZAN Technologies’ engineer and I really worked well together because I knew that he wanted to provide the best product for the company. He did everything he could to make sure I was satisfied and even shared different kinds of scenarios and gave me everything I needed. Overall, they’ve been helpful for our business — to the decisions that we made based on this application and the data that came from it. 

How did KiZAN Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was very helpful. She provided updates every single week. We also had weekly meetings and she informed us where we were with our deliverables, budget, timelines, and other things. She also gave progress updates each week. Any time there was any kind of change or any notes, she would send out meeting minutes every meeting — that was really great and helpful because I had a stack of documents that gave me the project status each week and I could tell very quickly where we were and what we completed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I worked with other companies in the past, and I think the big thing with KiZAN Technologies was their responsiveness. They really did their best to find the problems that we described and rooted them out. Some other companies we’ve worked with haven’t always done that — they’ve spent more time just trying to get you up and running instead of looking for the problem and fixing it. KiZAN Technologies was very good at doing both — they get you going and in the process fix your problem. If for some reason, they were not able to fix it, they would make sure you understand what’s going on and why it couldn’t be fixed the way that it should be.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they were a little cheaper, but that’s the way it is. I really had a great experience with them and I couldn’t think of anything that I would ask them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are great to work with. The best way to do the project is to send someone who’s technical and who understands the requirements and to put that person inside the project. That person should also have testing requirements set up so that things could work really well.

We’ve done two projects with them and the first time we did the project we had some budget issues. That happened because the guy who was running the project didn’t really know what he wanted and he was asking things that were not part of our budget. Overall, they’re fun to work with. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior systems analyst of a restaurant chain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with KiZAN Technologies?

We engaged KiZAN Technologies for SharePoint and server maintenance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

KiZAN Technologies has worked with us for several projects. The team helped stand up infrastructure, build up servers, and install and maintain applications within SharePoint and IIS (Internet Information Services) servers. They also built various forward-facing web pages that required multiple rounds of permission adjustments, stored procedure calls, and data maintenance.

The KiZAN Technologies team works in other departments in our company for exchange work on IIS and mobile. They’ve also maintained several projects built by outside vendors. For example, while other vendors handled the design and development of an internal employee portal, KiZAN Technologies managed our side, making sure we delivered our requirements for the project. Their team then took over management and maintenance once the project wrapped up.

What is the team composition?

Denise (Director of Project Services, KiZAN Technologies) serves as our primary project manager. Ken (Senior Account Executive, KiZAN Technologies) is our main sales rep, helping bring the best resources onto our project. Justin (Director, KiZAN Technologies) also pitches in to fix any problems we need assistance on, and Joshua (Senior Software Developer Consultant, KiZAN Technologies) understands our needs and expectations any time we’re starting a new build. We have direct communication with several developers as well.

How did you come to work with KiZAN Technologies?

I heard about their team through word of mouth at a PMP (Project Management Professional) meeting. A colleague had worked with KiZAN Technologies on a previous project and gave me their contact information.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together nine years ago, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our long relationship with KiZAN Technologies is a testament to their high-quality products. We especially appreciate their willingness to take ownership of other vendors’ work for the sake of our company’s success. The team is now helping us roll out another internal employee portal. Overall, we’re thrilled with our collaboration.

How did KiZAN Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a simple structure to manage our work. We start with a whiteboarding session where we break down large segments into milestones and individual deliverables. Our status meetings orient around those components. Denise gives us a week-by-week breakdown—or a day-by-day if needed—of progress and upcoming plans as well as a budget status.

When listening to our requests, the team always takes into account our needs and overall goals. That way, they can push back against a request and suggest a better way to address what we’re asking for.

What did you find most impressive about them?

KiZAN Technologies acts as more than a development company. They care about clients and their success. Their team takes the time to build relationships and make sure that their products integrate well into existing project assets and environments. Also, KiZAN Technologies ensures that their products will work for the long haul and bring their clients’ desired outcomes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this point, I haven’t seen anything they can improve upon. Even when turnover occurs, KiZAN Technologies ensures that our project gets stellar replacements with similar if not better skill sets who can quickly get up to side and minimize the cost impact on our team.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that your team fully agrees on your project scope before talking to any consultant. KiZAN Technologies excels at incorporating feedback from stakeholders who lack IT backgrounds. However, it can save a lot of time, money, and energy to detail your goals and requirements beforehand.