The Provato Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the VP of technology at United Consumer Financial Services, an indirect lender in the financial technology industry. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Provato Group?

We hired The Provato Group to evaluate our internal cloud infrastructure. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Provato Group completed an assessment of our cloud infrastructure and services in Azure to determine if we had our systems set up correctly. They dug through Azure to produce a report to present what we were using, how it was being used, and any way to optimize our usage. We wanted to ensure everything was set up properly and secure behind firewalls, including our SQL servers. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with three teammates from The Provato Group, including Dan (Technology Director) and two technology specialists. 

How did you come to work with The Provato Group?

I’d worked with The Provato Group at a previous company and got back in touch with them when I started my current role. They told me their services, and we hired them because I had an inkling we needed their technical expertise to advise us on optimizing our cloud infrastructure. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Provato Group in January 2021, and our engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Provato Group provided a comprehensive assessment and recommendations that my team can now use to improve our infrastructure. They’re not just telling us what to do; they’re coaching and mentoring us to help us get to where we need to be. 

How did The Provato Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The Provato Group is a very collaborative and responsive partner; if you send them a message, they’re open to jumping on a call to answer questions right away. Their team lets us know if there will be any delays on deliverables.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Provato Group has a very collaborative approach to our partnership. They use their expertise to inform recommendations while also understanding our business and environment. The Provato Group is a true partner, not just a group that gives us a list of tasks and walks away. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d suggest The Provato Group hire teammates with more experience in reporting as they grow over the next few years. Other than that, I have nothing for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise any customer to hire The Provato Group if they want the perfect mix of expertise and collaboration in a partnership. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization makes industrial cleaning and sanitation products. We also manufacture the big, ridable equipment that’s used in large stores. I’m the CIO here.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Provato Group?

We first engaged them to redo our website and turn it into a legitimate CMS. When I onboarded the company, our external-facing website was built on SharePoint, which is great as a collaboration tool but not for data management. We needed to migrate to a more robust platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the first engagement, they designed a new website for us on Progress Sitefinity. They improved its look and feel, as well. As our relationship progressed, we relied on them for additional programming. They built customized sales and inspection tools for us.

What is the team composition?

We had 3­­–4 dedicated people working with us. We originally worked with the former president of the company. We also had a couple of their business analysts and programmers.

How did you come to work with The Provato Group?

We looked into different CMS platforms, and Sitefinity seemed to be among the more reasonably-priced. We engaged The Provato Group because they were a local provider who dealt with Sitefinity.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $200,000 to $1,000,000 over an 8-year period.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in 2012, and it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The bottom line is that they deliver what we ask them to deliver, within the time that we ask of them. Our organization is notorious for the scope creep of our projects, but they’ve been accommodating in light of that. They’re still able to get it done in a compressed timeframe, despite there being additional tasks tacked on to the original statement of work (SOW). They do a great job, and the longevity of our partnership speaks to that fact.

How did The Provato Group perform from a project management standpoint?

Any issues we’ve had can usually be attributed to our side. They streamlined our internal processes in one project that saw a massive change in scope. It yielded great results, so we don’t have any complaints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m surprised that they’ve put up with us since we’ve been very demanding at times. We’d ask for an urgent turnaround on an item, and they’d work with us to arrive at a compromise. We weren’t always the best partner, but they’ve had a lot of patience with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. They’re professional and competent. I’d say that if anybody needed to improve, it would be us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set them up for success by doing your due diligence upfront. That way, you can prevent scope creep and save money.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Corporate Screening Services. We are a global provider of pre-employment background screening and risk mitigation services. We serve primarily in the healthcare industry and tangential industries such as pharmaceuticals and financial insurance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Provato Group?

The majority of the providers in our industry use a retail software to manage their background checks and handle their customer interface. We’ve always built our own in order to be in control of our own destiny. We took it upon ourselves a number of years ago to build one of the world’s first web applications for background screenings. It helped our company tremendously and helped differentiate us, giving us a tremendous advantage.

We got to the point where our company was experiencing significant growth, but the platform wasn’t scalable anymore. It was difficult to troubleshoot and fix.

We had a few smaller projects and we didn’t have the internal bandwidth to support them, so we put those out to bid. The Provato Group won those builds. They did really well on those projects, and then, once they had some experience working within our code structure and our platform, they brought up that our platform needed to be redone or purchase a new solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At that point, they completely redesigned the platform. They helped us with the process, and we completely transformed the organization.

There are two pieces of the platform; there’s a backend that is pretty much the entire ERP system built in .NET. The code was C#. We also had a customer interface as well. They came in, took a look at our process, learned our process first over 2–3 weeks, understood where our pain points were, and determined where we had opportunity to improve and streamline the process. They ultimately built the technology to support that.

What is the team composition?

We worked with just under 10 people. There was a whole lab of developers, and we had a single point of contact with our project manager.

How did you come to work with The Provato Group?

After the RFP, we selected them because their approach was more altruistic than the others. They understood that we wanted a partner and not just a vendor.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was just short of $2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2016 and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was beyond anything that I could have imagined. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better solution or a better relationship. They’ve knocked it out of the park on every metric and every measurement. They killed the UI design.

The system has already paid for itself. It has helped us most recently in our reaction to COVID-19. Without this build, there’s no way that we would have been able to sustain growth through the pandemic. We’re saving about 1,200 hours a month in production time.

Since the platform was launched, we’ve done several iterations with them.  They helped us out pretty tremendously with our service. It was completed rapidly and it worked perfectly from the start.

How did The Provato Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They helped us learn how to manage the project. We learned a lot from them.

They quickly became part of the team and completely immersed themselves with our organization and process. They had to understand the industry, our brand, and what we produced. They even understood our company culture. We’ve never had that kind of relationship with a vendor before. We lucked out.

We did go over budget, but whenever we determined that there were certain aditional things we needed, they quoted us so we knew what to expect. They helped us work through the rationale. We brought them on so they had a seat at the table and were able to help us through every step of the process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to evaluate and improve the process, along with their technical wherewithal, was outstanding

Are there any areas they could improve?

Maybe the only area of improvement could be if we added a bit more artistic flair. We had a specific look and feel in mind, and it was difficult to capture that with their art team. They ultimately achieved what we wanted, but it would have been nice if that would have been a little bit easier to reach.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for a partner, they’re the right choice. If you just want a vendor, look elsewhere. The Provato Group thrives when they’re integrated into the organization.