Link Development

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital transformation director at Saudi Commission for Health Specialties, a healthcare services organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Link Development?

We needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Link Development has provided us with custom software development services. Initially, they helped us with a software quality check project. The next year, we signed a contract with them for the development of two different software solutions we needed. Last year, they helped us develop three more solutions, and now, they continuously support our operations team. As for the technology stack, we’ve used Microsoft Dynamics CRM for backend development and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for frontend development.

What is the team composition?

We work with seven people from Link Development who are working physically in our building alongside our operations team.

How did you come to work with Link Development?

After we found them, we were happy with the audit that they provided, so we decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $2.5 million—$3 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our first project started in June 2018, the second one started at the end of 2019, and the third one took place in 2021. Our engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Link Development’s work quality is very good. Although they’re great at understanding our requirements, it takes them a bit longer than desired. Still, they’re very fast during the development phases.

How did Link Development perform from a project management standpoint?

Link Development is very responsive to our calls. Sometimes, we have calls with them at around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Link Development is very flexible, and they have great software development skills. Overall, it has been a good relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if Link Development were faster at gathering requirements. However, I know that they prefer quality over speed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work closely with them, take their advice, and be honest and transparent with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director at a government organization. We provide non-financial support for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Our organization also supports entrepreneurs and organizations wanting to start a business. I’m responsible for digital solutions and platforms for SMEs.

Although we don’t provide direct financial support, we aim to provide coaching, guidance, and other material support to help clients establish and run their businesses. We also have another area designed for organizations most likely to become uniform in the next 20 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Link Development?

Since we're a government organization, we don't have the flexibility to have unlimited hiring for a technical team. We have our own solutions and systems up and running, and we want to make continuous enhancements, add new features, and do other things. Therefore, we've hired Link Development to develop and enhance our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Link Development helps us on a technical level. They work on our platform, a mobile application available for Android and iOS, a web-based application, and a technology-driven product. They've helped us develop our funding platform and have helped build our main website, in addition to multiple other projects.

The main website uses a CMS; the team did the full customization and design from scratch. We have other platforms where the team has used other content management systems such as Drupal, and we also have some platforms built from scratch based on the .NET framework.

We have rolled out many services and features throughout the past four years with Link Development. For example, we introduced a new mandate within our organization that required building a fintech capability on the funding website. Link Development worked with us on collecting the requirements and designing the sign-up journey and the application journey for SMEs to apply via the website. They've developed all the features and integration layers with the fintech platforms and rolled them out.

Additionally, the team has helped us with SEO and metadata to ensure we appear on search engines. Overall, Link Development has the largest portion of activities.

What is the team composition?

Over 30 resources from Link Development are working with us. We've designed the engagement to have a product owner responsible for one or multiple projects. This product owner leads a team of scrum masters, senior developers, team leaders, UI/UX developers, frontend developers, backend developers, engineers, and the database team. 

In addition, we have another department concerned with integration, and we also have resources from Link Development working in that area with our internal department. Another in-house department is concerned with innovation research, and we also have some resources from Link Development working with them. 

How did you come to work with Link Development?

While I wasn't there when we initially kicked off the engagement with Link Development, I believe our VP had worked with them on developing another government side project, and they introduced us. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around Q4 2016, and our engagement is ongoing. We renew our contract with them annually. Additionally, we have platforms that require continuous development, and we offer those opportunities to tender. Sometimes Link Development wins those tenders amongst their competition.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our objective for designing the digital platform was to reach the maximum audience in our market. Doing that physically is almost impossible because we would have to exist in every small town and city. Link Development has enabled us to provide those services digitally, which has more than doubled our client base and helped us achieve our organization’s main objective.

Link Development has been one of our biggest partners when it comes to our digital transformation. We work collaboratively in managing our engagements. They’ve provided an excellent service in consultancies and executing our digital operation and digital transformation strategies. We haven’t suffered any major quality challenges with Link Development. Therefore, we trust them in managing our digital operations and when it comes to dealing with major and minor technical difficulties that occur on our platform.

How did Link Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven’t seen any major issues with a commitment to deadlines from their team. In fact, they’re one of our finest partners in meeting deadlines. 

Initially, we didn’t use any project management tools. Later, we introduced Jira to the Link Development team to communicate about the backlog, sprint planning, and team efforts. The team has been using Jira for the last year, and it’s been a good experience so far because it gives us visibility on the operation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’d highlight two main points; first, we appreciate that Link Development is willing to go beyond our initial agreement to satisfy our objective and help us with our challenges. Secondly, they have one of the best quality outputs, making them stand out amongst most of our other vendors and partners. Additionally, their management communicates business items professionally, which we’re glad to deal with; it’s why we’ve been working with them for so long.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should organize their efforts and document the product owner’s process. The team could do this by providing tools for us to track. For example, we’ve provided our own Jira access and bought the license for the Link Development team. If they did that for their clients, it would be a big plus.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Link Development will ensure that your business gets the most out of the engagement. I have been constantly in contact with them, and they let me know when some resources need to be utilized more on projects. I advise having your requirements available and properly communicating them to the Link Development team. As much as the product owner team is good and capable of understanding the business requirements, sometimes there can be some miscommunication in that area.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the commercial and customer experience director at FLOW Progressive Logistic, a logistics and supply chain brand.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Link Development?

We needed help with software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Link Development mostly did software implementation, including its customization and integration. We worked on three projects, including fully developing our CRM solutions in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with the account manager, but about 40 team members were involved, including project managers and technicians.

How did you come to work with Link Development?

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $3 million with them on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2018–January 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This was the most inspiring and successful project we’ve done; they showed a huge understanding of the business and our requirements. Overall, we received a positive ROI and a very successful KPI. We're planning to start another project with them.

How did Link Development perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager was good; they facilitated the communication between my team of 10–12 people and the 40 staff members on their side. In terms of tools, we used Trello.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were remarkably different from their competitors, and the business development team was very experienced in their domain.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There could be less complexity of automation — it would've been nice if it was simpler.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My overall recommendation is to meet and work with them to implement the solution you need successfully.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is the Islamic Development Bank. We’re an NGO, and I’m the head of IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Link Development?

Due to the nature of our current project, our peak season only comprises two months of the whole year. During those two months, 20,000–100,000 people access our website; during the rest of the year, maybe 10 people view it per month. Therefore, our major challenge was to build a flexible hosting system that could expand during the peak season and downsize or downgrade during the off-season.

We have an internal IT team, but we found it most cost-effective to outsource those services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website was built on SharePoint, and it has several APIs, web services, and integrations, including SharePoint. The architecture is almost 70% supported on cloud servers.

It also has e-commerce capabilities. When clients buy products, the site has a back end to cover the manufacturing and delivery of products. It also has an integration with affiliates and resellers — resellers who are big names here in Saudi Arabia. The downtime has been zero since the beginning of the project, and it's been almost four years now. The system also contains 2–3 mobile apps and a payment gateway.

Link Development is now responsible for the infrastructure, maintenance, and support of the system. We’re renewing our contract with them.

What is the team composition?

We talk to a project manager every day. The head of their Riyadh branch and their CEO have met with us as well. When we signed the contract, the business analyst and the product owners came on board to gather requirements. After that, we met the UX team, and later on, the technical, development, and infrastructure teams.

How did you come to work with Link Development?

They found us through a bid. We released the RFO in a newspaper and 10 companies responded. After a technical and financial evaluation, we narrowed it down to two teams.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent more than $500,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in January of 2019, and the development lasted almost 18 months. Our contract is still ongoing, and it will end within two months, but we’re going to renew it because we keep updating the system and adding more features.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This is a very sensitive project, as we can’t afford any downtime during our peak season, and especially because our previous solution failed. This led to our KPIs being downtime and hosting cost.

We used to pay around $600,000 yearly for a combination of our CRM and SharePoint solution. When you build an infrastructure as a server, all servers are running at the same time for the whole year. The delivered system is very flexible and elastic; the cost of hosting on Microsoft Azure has decreased from $600,000 to a maximum of $100,000.

How did Link Development perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re perfect. We have another project now, and my colleagues have already started communicating with them in this regard.

For project management, we started with Jira for the development team and Microsoft Project planner. Then, they moved the development team into Visual Studio, which is also a Microsoft product.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their level of quality, documentation, planning, and communication are perfect.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at the moment.

Any advice for potential customers?

The RFP has to be clear and mention all the requirements because they work according to the requirements.