Nexapp

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the development manager at a telecommunications company. I’m in charge of the group that develops B2B SaaS solutions for the telecommunications industry. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Nexapp?

We needed Nexapp’s help with custom software development tasks. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially worked on understanding Nexapp’s culture and their DevOps methodologies. From there, we’ve worked together on custom software development projects. 

Currently, the Nexapp team provides coaching to help with our work culture and development methodology. Aside from that, they’re a part of our team by offering staff augmentation services. Meanwhile, their main deliverable is a cloud-based app with APIs and a web UI. Our key technologies include Angular.js, Node.js, and web APIs. 

What is the team composition?

I’m in contact with their owner. 

How did you come to work with Nexapp?

I met Nexapp’s owner in 2014 at a social event. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I measure the performance of their team as a whole. With that in mind, Nexapp works well with our team — they meet my expectations. 

How did Nexapp perform from a project management standpoint?

Our team handles project management, and we communicate via GitLab and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Nexapp has a more modern way of working as opposed to traditional companies. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to improve as everyone else does; we’re able to deliver outputs, but it’s more difficult to show results. Moreover, staff augmentation may not be their real forte; they’re good at it, but it’s not their main focus. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage Nexapp less for staff augmentation and more on handling specific projects. If you want to leverage the maximum benefits of your contract, give them a small portion of a project. Let them manage it and its resources. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of GPHY. We're developing a web platform to help companies manage their hybrid workspaces.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Nexapp?

We needed a company that could help us develop a hybrid workspace web application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Nexapp to develop a web app from scratch using React with TypeScript, Kotlin for the backend, and AWS for the infrastructure. The main purpose of the web app is to help employees book desks in their offices. It features an interactive map that allows users to see the availabilities of desks in their offices. It also has an asset management feature that allows users to track the equipment available in their offices.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with six full-stack developers, a product owner, a scrum master, a UI/UX designer, a sales representative, and an engineering lead from Nexapp.

How did you come to work with Nexapp?

We found Nexapp through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 CAD (Approximately $373,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Nexapp has done an excellent job so far. They produce high-quality code and are incredibly thorough when it comes to unit testing, which ensures that everything they deliver works as it should. 

Since we’re a startup, our focus and goals pivot a lot, but Nexapp has been really flexible and accommodating of the changes in the scope. They also provide valuable insights that help us make better decisions for the project.

How did Nexapp perform from a project management standpoint?

Nexapp has performed well in terms of project management. We follow an agile approach and work in two-week sprints. We have sprint reviews every two weeks to track their progress and product planning sessions every three months to set objectives.

We use Jira for project management, and we typically communicate via Slack and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with Nexapp’s ability to quickly adapt to the changes in our needs and the project’s scope. They also have a diverse team that can offer everything from UI/UX design, front- and backend development, and infrastructure development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They sometimes over-engineer or do too much testing when they want to do a feature really well, so they end up taking too much time on a single feature.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to be transparent and tell them exactly what you need.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Elo's mission is to simplify mentoring for mentors, mentees, and employers. We provide technology to help manage mentoring programs, consulting and training. I am co-founder and president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We use Nexapp's services for several needs: development and maintenance of our web and mobile mentoring application, management of this technological infrastructure, collaboration for the development of our product roadmap. Our goal is to offer an easy-to-use mentoring platform that meets the needs of our various stakeholders. Our company is a small business and our product development choices must allow us to generate growth.

SOLUTION

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

We chose Nexapp after a process where we gathered several agency references from other companies, our previous technology provider, and our board of directors. We requested bids and interviewed a few agencies that had excellent references. Three factors were key to our choice:

1. Nexapp's experience in developing similar products.
2. The "fit" in the culture and way of working of our two organizations. We were looking for a partner to develop our business, not just a supplier and we felt that this is what we found.
3. The rates

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

Our collaboration is not only on a project, but it is an ongoing collaboration. I would say that Nexapp took the time to understand our existing product and then worked with us to identify the best possible development paths to improve and enhance our product.

Each small project we do with Nexapp is organized according to the same steps: needs assessment and evaluation of development options and costs, co-construction of detailed descriptions of the elements to be developed and approval. Then begins the development in an agile way, followed by the quality assurance tests.

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

Depending on the project, the team varies according to the needs. There is always a scrum master involved, 1 or 2 developers. Sometimes, we use a graphic designer or a UI/UX expert.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I could talk about the last project we did, which was quite large and complex and had some technological risks since we were working on a product with a few thousand users. It was the transfer of our technological infrastructure (web application, mobile application, databases) from the US to Canada. This project had specific deadlines, which were met, and required continuous communication between our teams.

This technology transfer went much more smoothly than I imagined thanks to the foresight and professionalism of the team! What was delivered was to our satisfaction and the few anomalies encountered (expected when working with databases) were handled promptly and with minimal impact on only a few users.

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

The project management is agile and transparent and respectful of the fact that we are a sme, which is very important to me. We use various communication and work tools: Slack, Jira, Miro and of course meetings when relevant.

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

In addition to what I named in the other questions, I would say their ability to always find availability for our projects and to act as a partner so that our company progresses towards its goals.

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

The beauty of working with Nexapp is that we talk about it transparently as we go along and we mutually find the best ways to work together.