Quintagroup

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I represent Transparency International Ukraine, which is the Ukrainian chapter of the international anti-corruption movement. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Quintagroup?

We needed to develop a procurement and public sales system for our NGO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with them on two projects—the ProZorro public e-procurement system and the ProZorro public sales system. The public procurement system is a full-scale system which now serves our government. It has about 30,000 procurement entities and about 200,000 bidders in the system. ProZorro Sale is a system that sells governmental assets.

They were the main developers on a multi-party team for a minimum viable product. They road-mapped the implementation and developed the backends in Python. The team is still developing modules having just finished the pilot project and transferring the tool to our government. 

What is the team composition?

They have about 60 people. We don’t work with everyone as we mostly interact with business analysts and lawyers. We don’t work directly with the software developers.

How did you come to work with Quintagroup?

We had a tender process.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2014 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The systems serve more than 230,000 users in terms. As government-owned entities, the systems have helped conduct more than 2 million online tenders in the last three years. 

How did Quintagroup perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven’t had any problems with them. We communicate through Slack, email, and Google Hangouts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re not the best partners because, as an NGO, we are funded by donors, and sometimes we have to postpone payments to them. Quintagroup understood the situation and worked as a reliable partner even though we sometimes failed to pay on time, even with delays of several months.

They are not just expert software developers. They are innovative and feel passionate about public procurement. The team also suggests features to make it more user-friendly and more efficient.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are sometimes too concerned about quality, more than we needed or requested. It is sometimes hard to get into deployment with certain components because of their QA. They occasionally postpone the release because they aren’t sure that all testing is complete, but generally, it is fine.

They have good leadership in the organization, but most of their knowledge is concentrated within that leadership. They need to increase the number of people who are fully aware of everything they do as it could cause issues if they continue to grow.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are a reliable partner. They understand what needs to be done, and all tasks are clearly articulated to the team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing associate for a Salesforce software consultancy. I oversee design projects and lead our website redesign.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Quintagroup?

Our website was 10 years old, and we wanted to upgrade to the most recent version of Plone. We needed a partner to migrate our content from Plone 4 to Plone 5 and employ a new site template.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I built the design for the new site and provided the draft and wireframe to Quintagroup. They then built out the actual theme, making sure that all of our content stayed linked to the original location and remained active. Part of our website is a blog, so we wanted users to still be able to find the content in its original location, but we also wanted to change the UX/UI of the whole site.

Quintagroup also helped upgrade the site and migrate everything to the latest version of Plone. Updated features include adding testimonials, podcast customizations, and making the site mobile responsive.

What is the team composition?

We originally talked to a sales representative who set up the scope, budget, and timeline of the project. After the initial phase, we then worked with our project manager and a developer.

How did you come to work with Quintagroup?

My company had worked with Quintagroup on a past project, and they’re one of the only agencies that works with Plone.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on this project from February–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new site has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our team, clients, and community peers. They say it’s much easier to navigate and looks a lot better.

How did Quintagroup perform from a project management standpoint?

Quintagroup was responsive and stayed in touch even after the site launched; they wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. We mainly communicated via email because of the large time difference. We sometimes had Skype meetings, like when the site went live, but not too often. They always responded within a reasonable timeframe.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The project manager translated all of our specific requests into tangible changes on the website. They understood what we wanted and made sure to accomplish those goals, solving any problems that popped up.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be aware of the limitations that come from working with an overseas developer. They may not be immediately accessible, but they’re still a great partner. Have clear expectations for what you want and track the project on your end, too.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of (a/an) IT Services

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Enterprise software platform providing location intelligence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• feature enhance our platform
• Add scaleable artefacts
• Specific frontend functionality

SOLUTION

How did you find Quintagroup?

Referral

Why did you select Quintagroup over others?

High ratings, Referred to me, Company values aligned

What was the size of Quintagroup’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Not disclosed

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• functionality delivered ontime
• embedded in team and seniority
• problem solving approach

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

worked as part of the development team - embedded on Git

What was your primary form of communication with Quintagroup?

Virtual Meeting

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

Open, communicative and fully engagedacross the dev teams

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

We had regualr review checks through the engagement with the Senior team which address any issues - which were few - as they arose.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of an information and communication technology (ICT) company called CyberCom, Inc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Quintagroup?

We needed resources to develop a Python-based CMS.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted them to complete the site for us.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them through online research.

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

They built a CMS from scratch using Python while we handled the content development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They successfully completed the project as expected and, subsequently, provided ongoing maintenance for nearly 13 years.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They worked efficiently and got the job the done.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated their work and continued collaborating with them for nearly 13 years.