Mito Digital

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m in marketing at Mupa Budapest, Hungary’s biggest cultural institution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mito Digital?

We have a very complex digital system. When we wanted to launch a new website, we had to think about our other digital systems within the company. We couldn’t find an existing solution for our website and chatbot, so we needed a partner to bring some new ideas.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mito Digital designed and developed our main website from scratch. They performed front- and backend development projects to support our digital needs. The team supported us with creative ideas. 

We have an ongoing working relationship with them, as they provide us with IT support and advice regarding digital questions and systems. 

What is the team composition?

We have 1 or 2 developers or project managers that are working closely with us. We have weekly calls and weekly status updates with them. Sometimes we have 3-4 team members working very closely like on analytics or UX design.

How did you come to work with Mito Digital?

They already worked for us when I joined the company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2018 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Mito Digital has met our expectations. Our users are very happy, as the site is easy to use, and it provides the exact functionality we wanted.

How did Mito Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re easy to communicate with and they keep to deadlines. I have a key account manager on my side and they have one on their side as well — they work very closely with each other. 

We have a weekly status call as well. All the ongoing projects are documented in Basecamp. We discuss the ongoing projects as well as our future plans.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team can really think outside the box, and they’re very forward-thinking. I see them as part of our team. Mito Digital has made our website and digital tools really high-end. It’s also impressive how quickly and effectively they can react to an unexpected change.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are changes in the team quite often. It’s never had a negative effect on us though; they manage it well. However, it can be frustrating sometimes that we have to deal with another account manager or project manager.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to them closely and take their advice. Mito Digital has genius ideas. If you’re on the same page, the relationship is going to be very fruitful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of digital platforms CEEMA at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mito Digital?

We wanted to launch a secondary service that would available via mobile application. The challenge was to provide a much more user-friendly and easy to access solution where users can browse content, schedules, and watch VOD content from our library.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our mobile app. We use our in-house backend VOD-related solutions with many departments involved. Mito Digital had to understand and find the best solution to use these in-house systems. Under this process, we received everything from them. They did the research, analytics, and the final development of the applications.

What is the team composition?

There were 15-20 people.

How did you come to work with Mito Digital?

They previously worked with us on different projects. We wanted a company that provided value for our money in the region. Our goal was to find the best agency that fit in the budget and that’s why we chose them. We knew that it was a bit more expensive in comparison to other development agencies in the region, but it’s lucrative because they design a better product rather than a simple one and it makes us money.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2018–April 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was huge that they could manage everything in a short time period and in a really flexible way. I was satisfied with them because we had a working partnership. They didn’t just implement what we requested. They helped us to find the best tools. They thought through the whole process with us and sometimes recommended a better solution that we hadn’t thought of. They’d give us choices to select from. It was an easy and efficient process. 

The user reaction and the feedback were really impressive. The framework they delivered is absolutely outstanding in the market. There were no problems with the application. After the launch, they recommended a company to help us with continued maintenance.

How did Mito Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is great. They delivered everything on time and we always knew what was happening on their side. They track and manage everything in a flexible way. They offered better solutions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were able to receive everything we needed from them. It was a one-stop-shop, and they were able to support us in many ways. They’re one company that can deliver everything and we didn’t have to fragment our project and scope.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would have liked them to offer the maintenance option to their team, but they don’t do that kind of work. The company they recommended is really good though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want a good agency and your focus is quality and not the money, you definitely should choose them. At the end of the day, you’ll be satisfied with them. They’re not a development agency but a digital consultancy agency. They can deliver, but also offer solutions and recommendations of their own. You will receive a really good product with value for your money.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project director and head of PMO of Scientific Games Austria. We’re the international part of an American lottery and gaming mother company. In my business division, we mainly serve national lotteries of different countries and not the grey markets.

We have two sides to our company. One side is our main lottery supply in Atlanta; it serves the American market. The other side is our European headquarters located in Austria; it serves the international business — and more or less the rest of the world excluding the US.

As the project director and head of the project management department, I’m responsible for all delivery projects executed out of the international office.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mito Digital?

We usually have more traditional central and terminal systems for our lottery retail shops, but we don’t have a digital frontend solution for the European part. Our company partners up with local companies to build digital frontends for our central system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mito Digital previously handled the digital frontend development for our Hungarian lotto. However, in this engagement, we’ve expanded their work into our other European projects.

They used PHP and other programming languages in the beginning, but I’m not sure how those have changed over the years.

The Mito Digital team also provides maintenance according to our long-term agreements. We have contracts with our end customers and deliver the Mito Digital efforts as part of our overall solution.

What is the team composition?

They’ll assign around 15 people for an average project.

How did you come to work with Mito Digital?

As I mentioned, they’ve been a supplier for our Hungarian lottery where we have a central system and terminal software in place. We had the same customer in Hungary and when the lottery asked us to replace the central system, they asked us to get everything out of one place and to supply the web system for them as well. Our team knew that Mito Digital was doing a good job there, so we contacted them to work on our main contract as a subcontractor.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of their services has been between $3 million–$5 million across all projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Mito Digital in 2012, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All of our clients are satisfied with Mito Digital’s work, flexibility, and skills. We’ve had no major problems in any of the projects. What’s more, their team uses state-of-the-art technologies that our customers have given positive feedback about.

As for the solutions, we still have the initial system in place and have also had some follow-up projects with national lotteries, and most of those are in place as well. Only one was shut down, but that was because we lost the contract with the lottery, therefore all systems were closed down.

How did Mito Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re really agile and flexible. We have had fairly flexible customers — in that they’ve changed requirements for the projects — but it’s always easy for Mito Digital to find a solution that satisfies them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re always fast and adaptable, both when we need a solution description and pricing and when we’ve had scope or deadline changes. Their team is always accommodating in finding a solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, there was a lack of quality in their delivered solutions. They were focused more on doing tests on the overall solution, so the module tests were a bit lacking sometimes. We’ve seen some improvements over the years.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Don’t be too concerned in the beginning if Mito Digital isn’t producing too much contractual paperwork and specifications. Try not to be too precise in the solution to be delivered. Mito Digital is flexible and always delivers what we need for a project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Wizz Air is a low-cost airline based in Central-Eastern Europe, in Budapest, Hungary. Related to this project, I was leading a large team of IT professionals to deliver application changes within the e-commerce sales channels of the company. My position was head of IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mito Digital?

We’ve been in partnership with Mito Digital going on nine years, and they had good knowledge, history, and experience on what the rhythm and culture we liked to work with were. Wizz Air is a fast-growing company, and we like flexibility, creativity, entrepreneurship, and diversity. We found that Mito Digital was a good partner in this sense. When we started the project, there was no question that we’d select them to work on the new sales-channel UI/UX. We’d worked with some of the people there before, and we trusted them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first stage was UI design. Mito Digital tends to use the newest platforms and tools available on the market, to create, manage, and modify designs. Since we launched the project five years ago, we’ve switched between three platforms for UI/UX management. Eventually, they joined the team that implemented the new sales-channel design. They used the Vue.js framework, which we identified together as a great tool to implement what we envisioned.

What is the team composition?

There were 15–20 people from Mito Digital involved.

How did you come to work with Mito Digital?

We initially worked with them on a previous design of the website. There, we had a typical tender process, which was quite rigorous. In this case, there was a sort of urgency in the project, so we chose to work with existing partners. It was a good advantage that Mito Digital already knew us and our environment, in terms of design culture, marketing, and brand.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial collaboration with Mito Digital began in September 2011, and they’re still our partner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had smaller pieces of work, for example, a project where we were showing our management what kinds of deliveries were being done by our digital team. We provided them with creatives like text, pictures, videos, and screenshot. Mito Digital created a one-and-a-half-minute video out of that. 

They have a creative group and a research team within their company, which they very much utilized. They didn’t work solely on e-commerce or website design; they have all the functions and expertise in-house, connected to this type of work. We leveraged that analytics research on the e-commerce side, and created design communication user guides for internal use, for marketing and PR.

How did Mito Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

We used our own tools when they were doing actual programming. Mito Digital got access to all our internal tools, and it was quite seamless. We managed their team, and they complied without any issues. They used their own tools while working on the design, to share updates and collect updates. We used Basecamp for many years, but we’ve moved from that. I believe we’re using Figma now.

They’re flexible in the sense that the reaction time for their team is down to a couple of days. We can just call their account manager, send him a request, and get a response in a matter of days. When we really need structured project management, we tend to use our own tools, to keep control. That’s not specific to Mito Digital; we do the same with the 10 other similar vendors we use.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been there over the whole period, and I can say that Mito Digital not only worked with me and my team, but also with our marketing, communications, and e-commerce teams. They’re a well-known partner across the organization. They’re flexible and very creative in their use of tools and processes. If we need something hip and fun quickly, Mito Digital is absolutely the go-to team.

It’s their out-of-the-box creativity that’s impressive. When we ask them for something, we’re sure that they’ll come up with an idea that we’ve never thought of. They can bring some breakthrough, modern ideas. We don’t say yes to everything they bring, but I really like that because it’s inspiring at the same time. We’ve been happy with them overall, and we’re continuing the relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We haven’t particularly used them when it came to large projects because we didn’t feel that they had the competence and experience to manage rigorous IT projects, with multiple tasks and follow-ups. Their creativity flourished so much that sometimes they overdid what we were requesting, and they also delivered things that we didn’t ask for. That led to some misunderstandings, and we had to learn from that and adjust.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’d advise agreeing on a scope of what they need to work on. If Mito Digital has a different idea, clients should listen to that, but set the boundaries on the areas they want the team to work on. Mito Digital should have creative freedom, but there should be a limit to that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Deutsche Telekom Europe as the product owner for a digital app. Our division covers nearly all European telecoms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mito?

Our goal was to create a new app and launch it in nine countries across Europe. For that, we needed a development and design agency to implement our vision. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mito developed our app natively for Android and iOS devices. It gives users access to their services, usage, data bills, and more.

We used Swift for iOS and Java and Kotlin for Android. We had product development internally, based on which we created an MVP scope and discussed it with Mito. They started creating the UI design. We also involved our Deutsche Telekom IT colleagues to create the API. Based on it, Mito implemented the frontend design and mobile clients. Additionally, they developed backend components for us, which sit between the apps and the local countries’ backends.

We used an agile approach, with all development being done in two-week sprints. We defined the scope and user stories and went into API design when those were ready. Mito created the UI design and implemented the client code on Android and iOS. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition changed based on demand, but we worked with 15–20 people throughout the project. I believe there were five iOS and five Android developers along with a UI/UX team, QA, and some backend development.
 
How did you come to work with Mito?

I wasn’t part of the initial vendor selection; I started working with them after that.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in 2017, and the MVP scope took 4–5 months. We’ve since taken this engagement in-house and continue to work with Mito on other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We selected five of our eleven countries to launch the MVP. Before, each country had its own app. We’ve replaced those with a centralized one, which means that we can deploy new features much faster and share features across countries.

The feedback’s been very good. We’ve seen a huge uptick in user numbers and penetration, going from around 20% to 50% penetration for smartphone users across the country. We’ve also seen an app rating increase, rising from a 3-star average rating in some countries’ app stores to around 4.5 stars, which is extremely high.

How did Mito perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve never really had issues when it comes to project management. Working with a telecom can be quite demanding, especially since this MVP was made for five countries and felt like five projects put into one. It’s been challenging, but I’ve had no complaints about the project management part.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were able to provide a complete package. They delivered the app from a technology standpoint while providing a full UI/UX team: Mito delivered everything. They had a wide area of expertise when it came to this project, and they supported us with some smaller marketing activities as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We needed to scale much faster at some point, beyond the current size of Mito's development team. Other than that, there’s not much to improve.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Mito is great not just when it comes to delivering, but also co-creating. They’ve also provided us their own experience because they have worked on similar projects. They’ve been able to consult us in some areas when it came to development, and we’ve been able to benefit from their experience.