LOVATA sp. z o.o.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Head of Delivery of an information technology company 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire LOVATA sp. z o.o. to accomplish?

• We were seeking for an open-minded team capable of creating an innovative art tech product

SOLUTION

How did you find LOVATA sp. z o.o.?

Referral

Why did you select LOVATA sp. z o.o. over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from LOVATA sp. z o.o. were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

I can only reveal a few details about the project as it is still in the launch phase. However, we believe our platform will help market participants worldwide to better manage their portfolios and sell art.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The product hasn't been released yet, so we don't have such data at the moment. However, I would like to point out that we are highly satisfied with the LOVATA team's care and attention to our wishes during the work.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The work started with a team of two people. But the team size increased to 9 people in a year and a half. Management coped well with the growth and solved problems in time. It is worth noting that LOVATA provided a choice of candidates that we had the opportunity to interview before they joined the project.

What was your primary form of communication with LOVATA sp. z o.o.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

These guys are really flexible in working with us, which allows us to experiment a lot to find the best solutions for our product.

Are there any areas for improvement or something LOVATA sp. z o.o. could have done differently?

It would be great to have part of the team in North America, allowing us to move some of the tasks forward more rapidly. However, we realize that the services would then cost more.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founder of October CMS

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

October CMS is a widely-used content management platform built on Laravel. Our company is responsible for its development, as well as providing a marketplace for plugin and theme authors to either share or sell their extensions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire LOVATA sp. z o.o. to accomplish?

• Developing plugins and themes for the October CMS Marketplace
• Maintain and support October CMS core modules

SOLUTION

How did you find LOVATA sp. z o.o.?

They've published a premium product in our marketplace

Why did you select LOVATA sp. z o.o. over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• High-quality products and customer service

How many teammates from LOVATA sp. z o.o. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We have entrusted the LOVATA team to handle a part of our work on developing the plugins and themes marketplace on the octobercms.com website. They also helped us support and maintain some October CMS modules. In some cases, their October CMS plugins required modification of our platform, which they helped to implement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With their help, we delivered a better experience for our customers on the octobercms.com marketplace and improved our clients' satisfaction with our product.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Since we worked on an out-staff model, their employees became part of our team for a while. So, management was on our side, but everything went well.

What was your primary form of communication with LOVATA sp. z o.o.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Beyond their product development skills, we've noticed and appreciated their dedication to providing good customer support. They were responsive and consistently addressed our concerns.

Are there any areas for improvement or something LOVATA sp. z o.o. could have done differently?

We didn't experience any problems during our cooperation with LOVATA. Therefore, I can't really suggest any improvements to their work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a manager of HostChain LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a web hosting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire LOVATA to accomplish?

• We contracted Lovata to develop and further support a corporate website integrated with WHMCS billing engine..

SOLUTION

How did you find LOVATA?

Referral

Why did you select LOVATA over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from LOVATA were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project LOVATA is working on is a corporate website of a hosting provider, which provides various information about its services. The team configured and integrated the popular WHMCS billing system with the website. A page builder has also been built, with the help of which we can create new pages from the block library without the assistance of the vendor's team. 

October CMS was chosen for the backend - the best CMS built on top of Laravel Framework. And LOVATA is an official Gold partner of this platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The new website version improved the user experience, positively impacting visitor behavioral metrics and increasing sales conversion.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The duration of cooperation (more than five years) shows that LOVATA successfully organized the project development and maintenance process. Everything was organized efficiently enough to keep things done on time and within budget.

What was your primary form of communication with LOVATA?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The team has proved to be highly flexible in their work. They always try to find the most suitable solution and offer a way out of any tight spot if it occurs.

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

No idea here. Perhaps the services could have been cheaper. :) However, they match the quality level.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

rikkir inc and I am an Project Manager, Engineer, and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire LOVATA?

I needed an A-Team to support me on building a software in a short time and with a high level of quality. We had them build a prototype, help with the design flow, frontend and backend and all development.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a job matching tool for employers and candidates to make the process easier for both parties to find what they want.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I asked several companies to give me examples of what they have done that was similar and none of them appealed to me. I was on linkedin and was a approached by their business development person. I asked for a portfolio and they provided some excellent work examples. After a good 2 hour interview and discussion i knew I had the PERFECT TEAM.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

I cannot describe all of the details nd created the architect and flow, but needed as I mentioned a solid team to develop it. as this was a government contract but essentially they helped me build a software that had several login roles from admin to agency-level where an employer could sign in and submit a vacancy.

Then an agency would help a candidate input their details the software algorithm would provide a match in a percentage to any vacancy based on those candidate details. This helps the employer find qualified candidates and the candidates get matched to the proper jobs.

What was the team composition?

There was a dedicated developers, project manager, engineer in parts that were required. Graphic designer and even he CEO was involved at certain points to ensure development and delivery was met our satisfaction.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Their team is amazing and professional. They are hard working, dedicated, transparent, always making sure deadlines are made, looking for ways to cut costs, but not quality.

The impact is that I will be returning to Lovata every time for any project that I need a larger team. I have dealt with several companies over the years and no one compares to these guys,

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project Management was weekly meetings and questions dropped in a que for me to review and reply. It was very effective as it helped prevent and issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

All of it! That was the best thing is that everyone was so highly skilled and great at their jobs I felt no one dropped a ball or was not giving it their all.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Only on my side to be a clear as possible as communication is key to making sure a project is understood from day one.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a deputy head of creative and innovation department at Eurotorg, the biggest food retailer in Belarus.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire LOVATA?

We wanted to create a website for a loyalty promotional campaign.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted the website to become a place to meet the promotional goods, which look like animal heroes.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We chose them from a set of the best website developers in our region.

Describe the project in detail.

LOVATA held a couple of meetings for us to describe the main idea. Then they made some design concepts. The first concept was excellent, so we decided to go further with it. Two weeks later, the site they delivered was almost ready. 

What was the team composition?

I had conversations online with the project manager and the designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The campaign was awesome. We sold the whole consignment of the promotional goods.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everything was quite clear and efficient. For me as a client, the project goes much faster when I can work with fewer contacts. LOVATA even made additional corrections after the site was deployed without passing on any additional costs.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was most impressed by their quality design and accounting.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some of my questions during the project could have been answered a bit faster.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Arendny Portal.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire LOVATA?

We were trying to enter the sharing economy services market in the construction equipment lease domain. The service was aimed at individuals seeking to lease construction equipment online without having to contact companies directly via phone. The only options available at the time had limited functionality and users had to leave contact information for service providers to contact them regarding their order.

Our idea was to create a universal online solution instead. We had a comprehensive understanding of the market and hired LOVATA to provide high-quality business analysis, competitive environment analysis, and web development services.

What were your goals for this project?

We were looking to create a solution that could potentially conquer the market with its unique features and functionality. We were also aiming to later expand the solution to other Russian Commonwealth countries and European markets.

Our main objective was to create a service that allows users to browse through a large catalog of construction equipment products for lease, look through details and information, find the location of the equipment on a map, and place orders online. One of the major features of the service was a CRM for equipment providers to keep track of their relations with their customer base and to automate inventory control processes. Smaller providers who did not require a CRM were to have an opportunity to manage customer relations and inventory through their user profile pages.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were looking for local web design and development companies with great ratings. We contacted several of them and LOVATA proposed the best plan of action for implementing the solution. Additionally, their professional team of experts demonstrated great communication skills.

LOVATA also proved that they had enough experience for the job as they had already worked on a similar project in the healthcare industry, which turned out to be a success. This really interested us and played a great role in choosing them for the project.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Together with the company’s business analyst, we formulated the best business model for the project, after which LOVATA took on all development responsibilities. We had to accommodate two types of users: the lessee and the lessor. The lessee had to be able to browse for lease services, locate them on a map, see product’s details and lease conditions, and place orders online. The lessor had to have management capabilities.

Overall, the project was to have the following components and features: a product catalog, orders, lessor reviews and other promotional content, profile pages and a CRM system for lessors, and a rating component based on the quality of products and services provided by the lessor. The administrators of the service would have system management capabilities, including commission and order moderation, communication with lessors, etc.

What was the team composition?

LOVATA’s team comprised of a project manager, a business analyst, a UI/UX expert, three frontend specialists, two backend developers, and two QA engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Since this is a startup, we don’t have any historical metrics or data to compare. However, the developed system has met or exceeded most of our goals and expectations. We have great metrics for daily visitors, return customers, and conversion rates, as well as an increasing amount of business. Users and stakeholders are pleased with the project’s usability and performance.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Communication has been great. LOVATA’s staff organized regular demos for the implemented features, which were documented and approved by us. Overall, the process was very effective and productive, resulting in a fully-functioning solution. We’re happy with what we’ve been seeing.

They used their internal tools for managing the workflow, but we never asked for access to any of those as we trusted the team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

LOVATA is highly dedicated and they fully submerge themselves into the project, becoming a lifetime business partner. They understand production both from the business and development point of view, which was really important to us. I also have to compliment their level of UI/UX expertise.

Their team gave us their insight, taking into consideration the typical users’ behavior and proposed practical solutions which led to outstanding results, minimizing bounce rates and increasing conversions to levels that we didn’t even anticipate.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

When we actually started communicating with potential users, we discovered some missing requirements that weren’t thought of in the early stages. We learned that it would’ve been more prudent to involve end users right at the start of development. This matter had some effect on project scheduling and shifted some of our deadlines, however, LOVATA’s team worked hard to deliver the solution as soon as possible. We received a high-quality product at the end, which is what matters most.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of the Perspective Development Department in the Center of Information Technologies of the Minsk City Executive Committee. The information technology center is responsible for: providing the Belarusian government sector with IT tools, as well as support for the IT infrastructure of the city’s executive offices and each Minsk city district's administration offices. The center’s services include a unified contact center and dispatching service. I was responsible for prospective development projects and their deployment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire LOVATA?

The communication between Minsk residents and the municipal services was ineffective and, in some cases, non-existent. A complex service needed to be developed on a state level that would provide citizens with means to report discovered problems.

Using our own resources, we developed a contact center, while LOVATA  was brought onto the project as a qualified team of web development professionals to create a high-traffic portal that provided successful and timely delivery of a project of countrywide priority. The goal was to complete the project in a short time period. It was given high priority and a lot of responsibility.

What were your goals for this project?

Since the project is socially oriented, its main goal was to improve the citizens’ living conditions and the quality of municipal services provided by Minsk city. The project was expected to cut down expenses as a result of limiting the number of direct online requests to state organizations. It was also expected to allow direct conversations between citizens and representatives of responsible service providers.

The project's publicity had to motivate responsible parties, while the organization's rating on the tool would be an incentive for public servants to provide quality and timely processing of incoming requests. Currently the project is already a part of the country’s e-government infrastructure, and there are plans to launch the service countrywide.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A dedicated team was created to find appropriate vendors and gather requests for proposals. The most significant factor was the developer’s qualification, but we had also put forth tough budget constraints and strict deadlines. Among the companies that were considered, only LOVATA agreed to strict deadlines, limited budget and huge risks associated with project’s scale and high level of responsibility for the final results.

Describe the project in detail.

The project is a service used by citizens to report problems concerning the city’s infrastructure. After the request is sent, the problem is addressed by responsible municipal services provider at the earliest possible time. For user's convenience, a web interface and mobile apps for both iOS and Android were developed. We were responsible for contact center’s interface and services for integration with third-party systems.

LOVATA developed the client- and server-side of the portal, and was also responsible for integration with the client’s inner infrastructure and existing CRM system. A year after its launch in the capital city, the project has grown and, with the help of LOVATA, we added support for an additional inner city. The current goal is to scale the project further and launch it across the whole country.

What was the team composition?

The project consisted of three groups of professionals that regularly communicated with each other: the client, geolocation experts, and LOVATA. On the client’s side, there was a project manager, two back-end developers and a QA specialist. Experts in GIS development were involved in the geolocation service development process: a back-end developer to implement the geolocation server and the API for integration. LOVATA’s team consisted of a full-stack development team and, to accommodate strict deadlines, additional specialists were also added to the team. Thus, the team consisted of a project manager, a business analyst, a designer, a frontend developer, a backend developer and QA specialists.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project turned out to be successful and is now being scaled to cover the whole country. The results of our work have been covered by local media multiple times. As of October 31, 2017, the service has helped to solve over 90,000 problems, while over 50,000 users are taking part in the project. Thanks to the monitoring of work and the integration of job completion report feature in the form of a before/after images, the quality of work performed by municipal services has improved immensely.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were in constant contact with the project manager and had weekly meetings to discuss the completed work. If the necessity arose, we could've communicated directly with the team to effectively solve the problems and issues that occurred during our cooperative work.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The work was finished on time, all of the issues were addressed quickly and efficiently. They had great communication and are a professional team of qualified developers.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Product Owner of jurist.by, and the Editor in Chief/VP of Production at Vladimir Grevtsov’s Legal Knowledge Agency, LLC. Our company’s main focus is business media. We deliver professional knowledge to lawyers from various organizations, including corporate lawyers. The company publishes printed magazines and organizes educational events, ranging from relatively small to some of the largest in the county. Our editorial staff is involved in the process of Government Relations, organizing expert discussions of statutory act drafts. The company owns www.jurist.by portal. Jurist.by, our online media project that we are developing with LOVATA, contains professional information for layers and provides services that automate certain business processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire LOVATA?

Jurist.by had an online presence, but the website was obsolete, with poor usability. It simply provided PDF versions of our printed magazine. We had an information product, but no means to promote the content on the web. There was no search function, links to relevant laws or legal acts, etc. 

Our goal was to redo the website completely, add new functionality and expand our distribution channels on the web. Besides online representation of our printed magazine, we decided to add additional custom functionality to the website that was in high demand with our target audience: counterparty/contractor check service that would allow manual checking, as well as automatic monitoring.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to significantly increase our paid subscriptions. The goal was to increase subscriptions in number 10 x over the following year. We also wanted to add new innovative features that could help corporate lawyers automate many tasks they do on a regular basis.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We gathered a list of companies of various ratings and reviewed them. The criteria we were looking for was: technology stack and the availability of an experienced team capable of handling large projects. We narrowed the search down to two finalists and chose LOVATA. They had all the team members we needed (designers, business analysts, software developers, project managers) and were available to start quickly. LOVATA also already had projects of higher complexity in their portfolio.

Describe the project in detail.

We’ve come up with some quite detailed prototypes, but they had little presence on the final look and feel of the product. We had regular meetings with the team, but the project was managed entirely within LOVATA.

What was the team composition?

There were two teams, one on each side: ours and LOVATA's. Our team originally consisted of myself, the Editor in Chief and Product Owner, a Business Analyst, an editor, a content manager, a marketing specialist, and a system administrator. LOVATA’s team consisted of a project manager, a business analyst, a UI/UX expert, 3 front-end specialists, 2 backend developers and 2 QA engineers. Our teams had bi-weekly meetings, where LOVATA presented the work completed during that sprint. Since the project was quite complex, the tasks were prioritized and we had monthly deliveries, with the MVP provided two months after the project’s launch.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our media project’s revenue started rising at an increasing rate once the project was launched. We're seeing numbers that are already 4 x higher compared to the same period of last year and are expecting them to continue rising. LOVATA took a large amount of initiative on themselves to make that happen.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team gave our project high priority. The company is certainly 'living the project;' they know it really well, the project manager understands and solves all our issues and is very quick to react. Sometimes it seems like LOVATA’s project manager knows our product better than we do ourselves.

LOVATA's team has a deep understanding of customer needs and immerse themselves in the project. All communication is quick and productive. We are continuing to work with them, developing the product further by adding new innovative features that will automate many tasks that corporate lawyers do on a regular basis.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The company is sincerely interested in solving day-to-day issues without shifting responsibility to the customer, which is important to us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the IT manager in general and the project manager this project. My company is a small, private English-language education provider, specialising in business English and International English Language Testing System (IELTS) preparation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire LOVATA?

Our website was not delivering what we wanted to say in an effective manner, which contributed a minimal number of conversions. We were expanding the product line to include a specialised pre-university English and subject course, aimed mainly at Middle and Far East markets.

What were your goals for this project?

There were several key targets. Business process improvement (e.g., capturing potential client data) was something that we wanted to build out. Plus, we wanted clear visibility online that delivered our message to potential customers.

We needed a sizeable increase in traffic and and a marked improvement in search rankings relative to our competitors. Also, we needed a more effective means of delivering information about new offerings to our customers, as well as keeping current students up to date with educational blogs and materials.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We looked at several different design agencies locally, but none offered the value for money or the rich client portfolio of LOVATA

Describe the project in detail.

The scope of the project was wide, going from discovery through design and planning to development and into product support. LOVATA managed all of the design and implementation of the website, as well as rollout of the project on the hosting platform of our choice.

What was the team composition?

Initially, we had an assigned project manager, but shortly thereafter, I was talking directly with the business discovery person as well as reviewing work done with the lead developer and designers. The team in total was about seven people: one designer, project manager, business intelligence, and several frontend and backend developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The expanded product line that we rolled out was very successful. We received praise from customers on how informative and useful our website was. The design was intuitive and visually appealing, web traffic grew significantly, and the product was delivered on schedule and on budget. Overall, target audience has responded well to the new format.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was great to work with. During the business discovery stage, the business intelligence consultant asked all the right questions and helped us formulate a great strategy for the design, as well as focus our motivations for change.

In addition, their professional and consistent approach to project delivery was very helpful. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated the personal touch of the delivery manager and the ease with which we could talk to the business discovery team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am CEO & co-owner of a medtech startup that simplifies interactions between patients and doctors. We help patients find the right doctor to book an appointment, and also help private practices and small clinics optimize business processes while managing their customer bases. We are based in Belarus, which is where we initially launched our product. We are currently in the process of expanding to bordering East-European countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with LOVATA?

We are a team of five people with mostly business and medical backgrounds, so we decided to outsource all technical development. This allowed us to focus internally on polishing our business model and customer acquisition.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We described the details for every stage of the project to LOVATA, including deadlines for the MVP [minimum viable product]. They then suggested the technology stack to us while taking into account that we wanted to scale the project in the future to other markets.

The MVP was ready in 2 months from starting the project. The frontend was done on ReactJS, and the backend was done on Laravel, with October as the CMS.

LOVATA is very flexible and startup friendly, and we were able to agree on a very decent fixed price for the MVP. After launching, we switched to a T&M [Time & Materials] model for all other stages.

What is the team dynamic?

We had one project manager who started with us in the beginning. I’m unsure how many people were involved in creating the MVP, because we were only communicating with the project manager at that time. When we switched to the T&M model, there was a different amount of people involved depending on current tasks. We had a maximum of six people working on the project when we were working on our CRM [Customer Relationship Management] for clinics, including a designer and QA.

How did you come to work with LOVATA?

I worked at LOVATA previously as a business analyst. We communicated with several established companies in our market at the first stage, but decided to continue with LOVATA even though they were slightly more expensive. I knew their potential, involvement, and commitment, and we’d had a good relationship for almost 2 years. I’ve very happy we chose them as our software development company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000 for the project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in February 2016 on this project, which is currently ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

LOVATA’s expertise and ability to deliver on time has helped us grow 15-20% month over month. We are covering five major cities in Belarus, and there are three more in the pipeline. I really appreciated the level of involvement, responsibility, and accountability they’ve provided us.

How did LOVATA perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly communicated with Project Mananger, which worked well for us.

Lovata suggested we work within Agile methodology, so we had our scope divided into two-week sprints. At the end of each sprint, we had a live demo. I liked this model very much because it permits full visibility and transparency regarding progress and updates. We have access to their JIRA, but I’ve only used it a few times because their demos are sufficient.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a great team of professionals who are focused on building long-term business relationships instead of one-time gains. I appreciate this approach greatly, and I will definitely recommend them to any startup.