Radixweb

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Pharma Alliance Group distributes pharmaceutical test equipment worldwide. We also have a division of accessories and supplies for the same type of industry—in this particular case, for the solution testing that we run it under, LabECX.com. I’m the owner and founder of the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RadixWeb?

RadixWeb did both our Pharma Alliance Group and LabECX.com websites in order for us to promote our line of products, primarily the e-commerce site for LabECX. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first website built was for corporate. Pharma Alliance Group’s website is for the division that only handles the pharmaceutical testing equipment. LabECX.com is the other website that serves the industry for OEM [original equipment manufacturer] consumable sites.

RadixWeb had several departments based on the work that was done. For example, for the first website, there was a team of graphic designers that created the banners and manipulated the visuals. There was another team that put the database in place for it to work properly on the website. I’d imagine they had several teams of engineers and expertise in order to accommodate the project needs.

The banners are the visuals on the front page of the website, which in most cases are really what attracts customers. The banners were very well made and specific to what I was looking for. As a matter of fact, we are contemplating going to a second phase for that particular website to enhance it even more. That’s something that I am going to be doing in the next month or so, and we are probably going to be doing a third project.

For the second project, I was only working with one or two people. One of the biggest highlights I was very happy with was the e-commerce capabilities and how the product shows on the website. It has a lot of different ways of bringing it to the eye of the customer. RadixWeb added more flexibility to how people pay. In our case, people can go with Visa and American Express, but we added PayPal, which has been very convenient for some customers, especially for international people who don't like to put credit cards all over the place.

As a matter of fact, I'm actually more excited about the second website than the first one primarily because of the functionality and the skins of the website itself. I like it way better. There are so many themes that you can choose; if you happen to choose the wrong one, for whatever reason, that's really no reflection on them. It's actually the person who chooses it, which in this case was myself. That's one of the reasons why we are trying to go into another phase: to enhance the first website with a better theme.

From time to time, I had more interaction; but, I primarily had one person who was in charge of the whole project. Everything was fed to that individual, and that person would put my questions or requests into the right place.

How did you come to work with RadixWeb?

I found them by searching online. They were the only company I contacted. I rolled my dice and happened to be one of those lucky customers that landed on a reputable company. At the beginning, I was skeptical because these types of companies won't touch your project until you send money. Once you send the money out, many companies disappear, and you never get the product. In my case, for example, they’re actually holding over $1,500 in my account that is ready for me to spend. But, I feel very comfortable with them.

How much have you invested with RadixWeb?

I've spent at least $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together late 2015. It is ongoing. Our stuff never ends. Once we get through one task, we'll probably come up with another. It's constant work. That's one of the reasons why they have extra funds in place; whenever something comes up, they can jump on it and not have to wait for any money. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

One of the things that are quite enhanced, which is really interesting, is our SEO. Google Analytics is one of the hardest things to accomplish as far as getting organic hits. The SEO portion of the software that we chose is very good. Compared to some other experiences we've had with SEO, this one happens to be very nice. I can punch in any of our product part numbers, and we come out with flying colors. The SEO and the enhancements that RadixWeb has done have worked extremely well for us because we get a little bit more traffic.

How did RadixWeb perform from a project management standpoint?

We always hit deadlines. The times where we've been delayed were because of me. They have a project summary system in place with weekly reports every Friday that gives the status of the project itself. They kept us very well informed of the project milestones and progress. They let us know the percentage of what has been done, what's in progress, what's been concluded, and what’s pending.

What did you find most impressive about RadixWeb?

It’s their honesty. When you're working with an overseas company, you just have no idea who they are. For $1,000, even if it's a small amount, you could never see it again. But, this was never the case with RadixWeb.

Are there any areas RadixWeb could improve?

I'm not a developer, so all I can do is share my thoughts and ideas of what I think would be good. They will say, "This is a good idea," so that they don't hurt the customer's feelings. I tell them, “I want you to give me font #2 here," but no one can read it. They should come back and say, "This font can’t be read. I think you should make it font #6." At times, they didn’t review the outcome product in the views of an expert who developed the software, which would have allowed them to give us better feedback. That's one of the things that happened with the Pharma Alliance Group website.

A lot of it is really no reflection on them. I should have come back and said, "This is blank, or this has a line that is not supposed to be there." In other words, they let the customer take a look at it and tell them what's wrong. In that aspect, they should spend more time reviewing the website themselves before they give it to the customer for them to take a look at it. I wish they would try to identify what's wrong beforehand, and then go to the client and say, "Here are the things we identified. What do you think?"

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with RadixWeb?

Be a little bit more in contact with them. Stay on top of their weekly reports and ask more questions. In my scenario, we run a very small operation. As the owner, I'm the one who handles everything. This is not a reflection on them; it’s more of a reflection on myself. I can see the difference in performance, looks, and navigation capabilities from one website to the other. I was actually more on top of the second website because I neglected to ask them to look at it as well. All of the faults that are on the first website happened because I didn't get a chance to get to them, compared to the second website. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology and development manager at an IT company. I’m responsible for the implementations, stability, and development of ongoing enhancements or additional features of our applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RadixWeb?

What we’ve done is we built customer apps or software with RadixWeb’s help on software development and support. Based on requirements that I needed or on specific client needs, I’ll get a scope from RadixWeb based on a brief that I provide and they would try to give me a solution based on the need at hand. That’s the relationship in a nutshell.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked on multiple projects, ranging from online web apps to mobile app development. The first app was along the lines of point of sale tracking. We built a technology to track the entire chain of assets in trade in terms of design distribution production and execution. We built an app to track the entire process using a mobile and web app, so we provide access into that.

The second app was a financial system where clients have the ability to calculate savings and a benefit tracker. They’re responsible for high-end calculations that sit at the backend of this app, where you can plug in figures on live items. It would automatically calculate savings so that clients could essentially see what benefit our company offers based on the savings or results that we offer.

The last app was a supplier platform. Our suppliers can log into the system and view the overall order activity based on the stuff that we’ve placed for them. RadixWeb has managed all the apps that support our suppliers, as well as our clients, and in addition gave us access from an admin point to view exactly what’s going on both ends.

How did you come to work with RadixWeb?

I did have quite a few other companies that have approached us. But Milan [Shrimali, Business Development Executive] from RadixWeb gave me a call two years ago mentioning what they currently do, and we were indeed looking for a solution. To be honest, we gave RadixWeb a try with a smaller project to see if they’re capable of handling software development. It was a project that was due between some ridiculous timelines. That app needed to hit the market in three months, and we had no sight of what their current client base or their reputation in the industry. We gave them a chance with that one app, and they actually delivered within the three-month timeline as we required. Based on their ability to deliver on the project, giving us a holistic overview with the project timelines and meeting our expectations, we started building a long-term relationship with them.

How much have you invested with RadixWeb?

We have spent about 3,000,000 rupees [~$47,000] with them over these past two years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have had a working relationship with them for the past two years [since 2015].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We get a lot of feedback directly from the clients we support. There is not much feedback from two of the apps because we developed the apps and passed it to our operations team. But in terms of the one app that I’m actively dealing with at the moment, the feedback coming from our clients is that it’s a pretty slick app, looks good, and delivers what it’s meant to. We haven’t launched it in a live workspace yet with those clients, but we are checking all the right boxes in terms of RadixWeb managing the app development on our side. It’s been quite a successful relationship—we’ve actually taken to market three of the apps that they developed and they have been successful apps.

How did RadixWeb perform from a project management standpoint?

I think it was actually quite good. There weren't any misunderstandings in terms of the briefing sent to them, so they handled that quite well. There have been some follow-ups if they needed more clarity, which is quite fair. With any software development firm, understanding the client’s needs over a call is not an easy task, but they seemed to make that process quite efficient and smooth in meeting our needs.

So in terms of the team involved, we would deal with a business analyst and a developer. We communicated over Skype, so we used conference calls quite a bit with RadixWeb. They would then delegate what we discussed to their team. We’ve only ever had one channel of communication with a project manager. I’m assuming that they manage their resources quite effectively on their side. Everything is remote. It’s not face-to-face, as I haven’t met the team at RadixWeb yet.

What did you find most impressive about RadixWeb?

RadixWeb is the first and only company we outsourced development to, so it would be quite difficult to compare them with someone else based on the same line of projects. What I could say is my working relationship with them compared to local suppliers is that they’re quite responsive. Their response time is excellent as well as the availability to resolve issues on the spot. There’s no waiting period. I manage a quite large team that heads up these projects and I look at it from a very high-level perspective. But if I were to request at any given time for them to give me a detailed overview of the activities on a specific project that has taken place—a collective view of all the issues that an app is currently undergoing or has undergone, or the overall status of what my team is doing versus what’s RadixWeb doing on their end and putting both pieces together—I find they’re relatively quick to pass on that information. In addition, there’s the finance overview. If I were to request a full update from the time I initiated a project until today, including the SLA feedback, I found that they were exceptionally good on passing that information without having to wait for feedback or encounter delays in terms of misunderstandings. They’re quite transparent on that regard.

Are there any areas RadixWeb could improve?

It’s difficult to try and highlight areas of improvement. To be honest with you, I can’t think of anything at this stage because we basically checked the boxes at both ends in terms of deliverables, etc.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with RadixWeb?

One of the crucial pieces of software development and technology is project management. If there was anything I didn’t pick up from RadixWeb, it was the ability to almost scope out a project to meet client expectations. If a client were to expect a brief on a particular project, they’ll expect for the timeline and deliverables to be almost immediate. What I found with RadixWeb is they would give you a realistic timeline but in addition account for all the scenarios or projects that might go wrong. I think that was one of the key benefits on their side—they would press in areas or ask questions that most clients wouldn’t have thought of. That has been absolutely crucial in terms of us going to them with a concept and scoping up what our requirements are. They ask the right questions to get us to think through different scenarios help us think of things that we have might not have. By asking those questions, they helped us add functionalities or address pressing issues early on in the project so that we could actually meet or streamline our development timelines.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a technical development company working on data acquisition and training projects in the nuclear world. I am a manager within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RadixWeb?

We typically work with outsourced providers and are constantly looking for highly skilled ones. We needed to deliver an application that generated automatic drawings of nuclear fuel rods.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RadixWeb developed our Windows 10 application. I don't know exactly how many people were assigned, but I can assume that RadixWeb had two technical and two management resources working on our application.

We made a very detailed specification document with about 50 different features. That was what we delivered to them and had them work on.

How did you come to work with RadixWeb?

From the beginning, I received very good feedback from RadixWeb's team about my technical questions and requirements. I felt confident in their skills, and the price was also good.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with RadixWeb in January 2016. The project was completed in December of that year, but we plan to continue working with RadixWeb. We are waiting for an order from our end customers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We didn’t have a solution in place for this purpose. It was delivered from scratch, based on our requirements. The final application functioned properly. We are using it internally and are not deploying it to end users. RadixWeb has fulfilled our specifications 100%.

How did RadixWeb perform from a project management standpoint?

The collaboration was easy to manage. We communicated mainly through email and Skype and had interactions once per week.

What did you find most impressive about RadixWeb?

It would be difficult for me to say since RadixWeb is the only Indian company I've used. Their competitors are located in Spain.

Are there any areas RadixWeb could improve?

We didn't identify anything surprising about RadixWeb.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a manufacturer of electronic inverters. I am the product communications manager. I was responsible for the proposals and project management related activities. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Radixweb?

Our new product range will integrate more web features, which is where Radixweb was involved. We want to offer remote control functionalities for clients' installations, as well as to implement data logs, notifications, and alarms for our products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an original version in place, but it had been built using an older version of ASP.NET. Radixweb was brought in to refresh our website. They created a new interface as a first step. We are now working on the backend. Radixweb is building a custom solution using Bootstrap, CSS3, and ASP.NET Web API [application programming interface].

Radixweb assigned one developer, a QA engineer, a project manager and a business analyst to our project. Other resources contributed to the work as the circumstances emerged. 

How did you come to work with Radixweb?

We found Radixweb on the web, after issuing a request for proposal. The first reason for winning the project was Radixweb's price. They're much more cost-effective, compared to Swiss developers, but Radixweb is also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. They're very responsive and flexible, and the documentation provided by Radixweb was well-formed. It was very pleasant working with them.

How much have you invested with Radixweb?

The cost of Radixweb's services has been around $25,000 for our first phase. We estimate to pay $40,000 overall.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Radixweb in June 2016. The project has suffered some changes and delays, but Radixweb was flexible in this regard. This was our first project with Radixweb, but we plan to go further in the next phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our specifications were imprecise in certain areas, so Radixweb needed to interpret them. As a result, some features didn't turn out as we wanted. The overall results are good, though.

How did Radixweb perform from a project management standpoint?

In the first phase, the scheduling was okay. We discovered that some specifications weren't very clear and needed to make a few unexpected changes in the next phase. Aside from this drawback, the communication with Radixweb was clear.

What did you find most impressive about Radixweb?

The documentation put together by Radixweb for our project was very clear.

Are there any areas Radixweb could improve?

Clients need to make sure that they're very clear about what they want when requesting something from Radixweb. Otherwise, they can do the job.

BACKGROUND

Exclusive Healthcare is an SA [limited liability company] in France. The administrative center is in St. Raphael [in France] with accredited agents in France and the United Kingdom. Exclusive Healthcare is an insurance agency based in St. Raphael that specializes in healthcare policies for English-speaking people who have either moved to France, are planning to move to France, or who vacation in France. I have worked for the company since 2005. I am involved in the administration of the policies and have taken on the role of project coordinator with Radixweb.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

When the relationship between Exclusive Healthcare and Radixweb began, the aim was to be more visible and to reach out to our target market by providing up-to-date information on health issues relative to expatriates living in or moving to France. Importantly, EHC wanted to create an online facility to allow the purchase of complementary healthcare plans with immediate coverage. At the time, this was revolutionary in France. In addition, EHC wanted their agents to be able to issue policies and to access their client's information.

Radixweb was involved from the start, providing the means to achieve greater visibility and the online purchase of complementary healthcare policies in France. They created a client-based system accessible to our agents.

SOLUTION

Radixweb were engaged to provide the solution because they were highly recommended by an important player in the insurance world. We were a small company at the time, just setting out, and so cost was an important factor. This has been an ongoing project with Radixweb, which provides constant backup service and help to develop our database according to our changing needs. We are currently developing a new website that will be launched soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

The client base increased greatly during the first few years and this was due, in part, to the fact that we were more visible and able to give a good service to our clients and agents. With Radixweb, we are about to embark on a major update of the database, which shows that we are happy with them as our outsourced development team.

Through the years, we have modified and adapted our work strategy in accordance with our changing needs and staff. In hindsight, if embarking on a new project, we would spend more time determining our needs and certainly pay more attention to potential needs.

Throughout our working relationship with Radixweb, we have been allocated several project managers, all of whom have been extremely conscientious and provided us with a good service. It is not unknown for them to work late in order to help in an emergency or to meet a deadline. Quality assurance is dealt with both at our end and at Radixweb's end. The COO of Radixweb, Dharmesh Acharya, has been involved with the project from the beginning and has played an active role in the development of our database. We do not have anyone within our own company with IT [information technology] database development experience, and so we do rely on Radixweb to provide that for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a small IT services provider in Denmark with a background in advertising. We provide custom web development, marketing software, and implementation of back-office systems.

What is your position?

I am the chief technical officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Radixweb?

We have used their team's assistance in developing our software.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We've worked on around ten different projects with them so far, spanning from a couple of weeks to two or more years in duration. They participate in both project management and the actual programming.

We work primarily with .NET and our work is mostly custom-built from the ground up. We build desktop web applications and focus less on mobile development.

Their team has ranged from 3 developers to 20, at peak capacity and including their testing and quality assurance people.

How did you come to work with Radixweb?

We have multiple divisions within our company. One of those is a print broker which handles outsourcing our print work to other partners within Europe. We were looking for web printing software and came across a Radixweb solution called Web to Print.

I happened to be in Mumbai and was told about their company. Their headquarters were relatively close and, coincidentally, one of their sales reps was also in Mumbai. We set up a meeting and talked about their print shop solution. I returned to my office in Bengal, and we didn't talk about any other development opportunities. During this time, in 2007, Oracle, Google, and Microsoft were entering Bengal, which led to a shortage of skilled developers. Everyone was migrating to those gigantic IT companies. I concluded that it would no longer be feasible for us continue our operations there, but I also came to find that Radixweb was a very sound developer themselves. We started our first project in 2007 for our PHP-based print shop solution and gradually grew together.

Normally, when meeting with a new vendor, you'll be shown a bunch of PowerPoint presentations which are unlikely to leave out any buzzwords from the industry. Radixweb was quite different. They were down-to-earth and had all the standard certifications that come with their field, but what stood out was their project management ability. They were significantly ahead of other Indian companies. It felt natural to choose them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total development cost so far has been around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Most of the software we develop will end up being used by 10-20 people at most. Our aim isn't to create the next Facebook, so we have no significant metrics.

How did Radixweb perform from a project management standpoint?

As an example for their ability performance-wise: we've worked on a project that was 80% complete when the client decided to move in a completely new direction while, at the same time, keeping the same deadline. Radixweb was able to scale up perfectly within a couple of days. The project was completed almost on time, with around 50% of the work being altered. It was a testament to their project management skills and to the architecture that was laid out at the beginning of the project. Scaling up on bad architecture is not achievable.

Normally, our projects don't go out of hand. This was an out-of-the-ordinary example. Radixweb does everything possible to keep deadlines once we agree on them. They keep track of all communication, and their project managers are good not only in giving a status of what they're doing exactly but are also great in communicating what they want from you as a client. There are companies that don't practice this communication, and it can be a huge surprise to learn that everything got delayed because you didn't answer certain questions.

Radixweb is focused on bringing deliverables and they acknowledge that finished work equates to the client receiving what they asked for. They ask the right questions at the right time and keep the client aligned. This has helped me when trying to get my clients up to speed on the current progress. Radixweb typically alerts me within one week of any event, and lets me know that we have to receive certain details from the client, which gives me the time to obtain them.

We use Redmine for project tracking, which is the main tool used by Radixweb internally. Coming from the advertising industry, it can be overwhelming to see such an extent of information flowing around. I use Jira with my clients and also use Jira Sprint Board when communicating with project managers. I've learned that it's always best not to interfere with whatever is happening behind their doors. Whatever tools help them organize should be allowed.

What distinguishes Radixweb from other providers?

Most of the other providers I've used have asked "How high?" when I said "Jump!”, which is not the ideal response. I need someone who will challenge my ideas, and Radixweb has been such a company.

Radixweb is one of the only companies I've worked with that has their own framework. They have 5-6 developers who do nothing else except for implementing a solid framework of tasks that are common to every IT project, like authentication, sending emails, and so on. When sending emails, a lot of processes come into play if the message cannot be sent out, which includes ways in which to handle SMTP servers that are not responding, or which are quarantining the email, and so on. Having all of this functionality built into one framework makes it tremendously fast to reach 80% of a prototype, when moving down the line. The system has been tested extensively, and the first build deliverables that we see from Radixweb are very good. Nothing is perfect in the IT world, but they are the closest we see to perfect.

We're also working with a different team. Any task that we give to them should ideally be described in minute details, down to the code level. They can deliver fine work, but don't have any backlogs of functions, whereas Radixweb has a very good framework that they keep developing. When we first used it, it was not as mature as it is right now. They've constantly worked on improving it within the last four years.

Is there anything Radixweb could have improved or done differently?

When executing projects that span thousands of hours, there will always be hiccups, and there will always be someone who falls out of line on the team. In Europe, we have a tendency of seeing Indians as simply Indians, ignoring the diversity that exists within their society. For example, we encountered a developer who said yes to everything we asked of him. In his culture, though, "yes" didn't always mean "yes". It took a while to realize that he was doing more harm to the project than moving it forward. It was eventually assessed internally, and he was replaced with someone else.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We develop websites based on open-source technology.

What is your position?

I am the general manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Radixweb?

I was looking for a partner knowledgeable in an open source CMS [content management system]. We wanted to be able to leverage their resources to complete project work.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They have been involved in the visual design, UX implementation, and have done custom development. Radixweb also offers ongoing support and maintenance for the product.

Their team varies in size depending on the projects we work on. Typically, they assign us two to three developers, one QA [quality assurance] specialist, one designer, and one CSS/HTML developer. There were also periods when I only had one developer dedicated to my project.

How did you come to work with Radixweb?

I found four potential suppliers by searching online. I sent requests for information related to the project I was looking to work on. I interviewed the four candidates, and Radixweb performed the best out of all candidates. They had the most developers for the specific technology I was interested in.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost for all projects so far has been in the area of $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together two and a half years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There are no metrics for us to share because we aren’t tracking anything. They deliver their assigned work and we review it. I’d say that, overall, we’ve been impressed with their performance.

How did Radixweb perform from a project management standpoint?

They have performed well. They're below expectations with some tasks, and above expectations with some others. I use a time registration system through which I keep track of Radixweb's work. Whenever they approach 80% of the total agreed-upon time, I receive alerts. Other than this, we don't use any specific tools. We share files through box.com.

What distinguishes Radixweb from other providers?

They have a broad range of services. They specialize in certain technologies but don't limit themselves to any single area, in particular, thus giving me access to varied resources and capabilities.

My company is in the process of merging with another entity. They use different CMS technologies like Joomla, to which we will have to adapt. Radixweb's diverse knowledge will prove especially useful in this situation.

Is there anything Radixweb could have improved or done differently?

They could focus their attention more on what other departments are doing. The knowledge and communication of the products they can offer in other departments could be a point of focus.

Radixweb also has a lot of internal security implementations, which can make day-to-day work with programs and files difficult. On the other hand, it's good to know that they do have strict measures in place and that the documents I share with them don't reach unwanted places.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a web marketing company working for local businesses in Montreal. We also develop websites. We've been in business for three years. 

What is your position?

I'm the director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Radixweb?

When starting out, we needed a partner upon which we could rely for website development. We took care of the administration, but didn't have enough money for employing full-time web designers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They typically develop sites for us using WordPress, but we've also worked with DotNetNuke. They also handle image editing for banners and other elements for social media.

Radixweb has design and development departments, which are run by a project coordinator. We will typically interact directly with that person instead of the actual developers. They handle the requirements and design aspects.

How did you come to work with Radixweb?

I'd worked on PrintShop projects with them in the past. Ricoh had approved them to be an authorized supplier for the solution. We called Ricoh, and they highly recommended Radixweb. The credibility was there to begin with.

I found that they also did web development work, and decided to give them a try. Our first experience was great. Radixweb designed the business card letterhead, logo, and website for the customer. The speed and quality of their delivery were very surprising to us. We decided to continue our collaboration on other development projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've worked on at least a dozen projects together, and the work remains ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I've never received a complaint from one of our customers. Everyone was satisfied.

I handle the local maintenance with customers. I then communicate the requirements to Radixweb, who work on making any changes. We never had any significant issues with them. Whenever something came up, they would take care of it very quickly.

How did Radixweb perform from a project management standpoint?

Their delivery time is very fast, and they're very efficient. This is the reason we continue using them, and I've heard that's not always the case when working with overseas developers.

We have a very good relationship with their product and business development managers.

We mostly communicate using Skype and through the phone. They've also created an email account for me that tracks all the projects we're working on. Whenever we need to transfer large files, I will use my own cloud service. Other than that, we use Word and Excel.

What distinguishes Radixweb from other providers?

Their flexibility and willingness to adapt to our changing needs really stood out.

Is there anything Radixweb could have improved or done differently?

The time difference is the main issue when collaborating with them. They typically start their workday when our local time is midnight. This is not their fault, of course, and has more to do with people in North America wanting to deal with offshore companies.

I've adapted by sending them necessary information at midnight. They start their work the same day, which means it will be complete in the morning, when I come to work. In the end, this is actually efficient. My recommendation to them would be to extend their hours by having some technicians available during United States and Canadian working time. Even so, Radixweb are available even until 10 a.m. local time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a software development company, and we only cater to the recruitment industry: human resources and payroll. We have our own software product, and we offer consulting services to recruitment and HR industries. In terms of size, we are about 60 people. Our head office is in Melbourne, Australia, and we have a sales office in Sydney, but most of our operations are located in Melbourne. There aren't many end-to-end products out there and, when I say end to end, I mean something that caters for full end-to-end recruitment business process right from hiring candidates to pay and bills. FastTrack is unique as FastTrack360 is a completely integrated recruitment, payment, and billing solution.

What is your position?

I work with FastTrack as the product lead. I am responsible for building and maintaining our systems. I work extensively with our clients and our CTO [chief technology officer] to build the roadmap of the product. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Radixweb?

We were trying to rebuild a previously existing application, which was a client-server based desktop application hosted on in the cloud. Our existing application required a lot of maintenance and upkeep, and required a lot of expensive hardware to host and these costs were prohibitive for some clients to come on board. Besides, most of our clients wanted to move their services, data, and properties to the cloud. We were looking to rebuild our entire suite of applications using latest technologies and host everything in the cloud.

Are there any metrics or numbers that can quantify the challenge or opportunity?

I don't know if I can put any numbers as such, but it was quite evident that we were losing market share because we didn't have a cloud offering. We had competitors that had cloud offerings and most of our clients wanted a simple system where they can simply go to a URL, log in entering user name and password, and then are set to start using the system. Our old system was quite heavy in terms of installation and maintenance. We were losing market share, and our aim was to recapture our market share again.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We had a large application in operation for the last 14 years. We had more than 600 clients using our current application. There were many functionalities that were added during that period. When we decided to go for a cloud offering, we decided to start from scratch and rebuild all our applications using one technology. Having a consolidated platform was going to be key. We decided to build our application in separate stages. We have clients of all sizes, some ranging from one to five users and others with nearly 2,000. It's a huge system catering to quite a bit of market, and our strategy was to rebuild it in phases.

Our first goal was to build something quick with which we could go to market. Our first target audience was a small user base with between one to 20 users. We were trying to build a system that could handle the end-to-end business of a small- to medium-sized recruitment company and then slowly, in future phases, grow into an enterprise system and bring in the rest of the functionalities for more demanding clients.

We worked very closely with Radixweb in terms of our design and architectural approach. Radixweb provided their framework and suggested an alternative architecture for our applications. Radixweb had good framework already built, so it made sense to use existing framework to build our products on. We had very aggressive timelines for phase 1 and wanted to go out to the market in six months with the whole product built from scratch, which was achieved with Radixweb. I won't go into the details about cost except we were happy with the cost and Radixweb ensured that they kept my project within budget. In phase 1, we had 15 developers at Radixweb for about seven months. We had a similar team for phase 2. We are now into phase 3 and into an ongoing development lifecycle. At this stage, we have various projects running with an average of between 12 to 15 Radixweb developers.

What software or technology did you select and why?

Before executing this project, we had a good idea that we wanted to build a browser-based system, and we were already beaten up by the whole bandwagon from Microsoft Silverlight. We had invested quite heavily into Silverlight in last three years building software within our own organization. Microsoft decided that they are not going to support Silverlight anymore. We discussed our issues with Radixweb as well as many other consultants in Australia in deciding the best technology to rebuild our application. After a lot of consultation from number of various stakeholders with Radixweb and in Australia, we decided to rebuild using HTML5 with an AngularJS Framework for the front end, and web APIs [application programming interfaces], and Microsoft SQL Server Database for the back-end as our technology stack. 

How did you come to work with Radixweb?

We had an extensive approach when it came to finding the right service provider. I had personally visited offices of about six different providers in India, Australia, and Sri Lanka and had spoken to a number of them. We did some pilot projects with a couple of them, and that was our strategy to find the right partner. We were looking for a service provider that could work with us as our partner and not simply as a vendor. There were a number of things that set Radixweb apart from others, but if I have to say one thing, I would say their ability to understand our business requirements clearly. I was surprised with how most of the vendors that I was speaking with were not able to understand what we wanted to achieve. Radixweb provided a plain, simple, and obvious solution and said, "OK, let's put a team together. Let's start building it." 

With what parts of the project was the service provider involved?

Radixweb was involved with the initial architectural discussion. Then, they were involved in the design, development, quality assurance, integration, and configuration. 

When was the project completed?

The project is ongoing, and it will be ongoing for a while. We still haven't finished it. As I mentioned earlier, we are doing in phases and phase 1 and phase 2 are now finished. We are into the third phase, and we have quite a lot left to complete. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

The project was delivered on time within budget, which is quite unheard of in the IT [information technology] space, but the guys at Radixweb did a fantastic job to make sure that it is done in the right way. Our main goal was to gain the market share back. We haven't quite reached that level yet, but we can definitely see that we are going in that direction. We now have a fantastic product that we are putting in the market. There is a lot of interest coming out from the market for this. We have a number of sales in our pipeline, quite a few clients have already gone live on this particular system and lot more are in a queue to go live. I won't share the number or the process, but in terms of efficiency, we have certainly been able to gain that market confidence and are well on track to regain market share.

Do you remain confident in the technologies used to build your solution?

Yes, of course. There is no doubt. Absolutely – no doubt in our mind. We have selected the right software, right technology and right partner. One thing I would say to anyone who likes to work with Radixweb, there are absolutely no doubts that they are fantastic guys. But, just like any outsourcing project, you will need someone to work very closely with Radixweb. This is true of any service provider, and it's fairly important that the goals are outlined very clear.

How did Radixweb perform from a project management standpoint?

They have delivered everything that we had scoped within the agreed schedule and the specified budget. They were very flexible, and the team at Radixweb is fantastic. We had our fair share of release deadline pressure on few occasions, and I must admit the team worked extremely hard to get us through. When there is time to go above the regular commitments, they have always done so. I have no complaints.

What distinguishes Radixweb from other providers?

I haven't worked with many other service providers. I don't think I can compare my experience with Radixweb to my experience with another provider. I will reiterate the fact that they were very good at understanding the business logic and requirements we described. Having a clear grasp of our business definitely resulted in a better project experience and, ultimately, a more suitable solution for us. 

In hindsight, were there areas in which they could have improved?

I believe there are always areas for improvement. I think what they could improve is with better estimates. Having said that, they were not too far away, but there were some instances when their timing or pricing was a little unrealistic. 

How would you summarize your experience with the service provider and would you recommend them to others?

I'll recommend to others – yes, of course, I would say this without any sort of hesitation. It has been a great experience, a journey that I had never done before personally or as a company. All our development was always from Melbourne at our head office with our own team, and we went ahead with it by taking a step with outsourcing. It has been a fantastic experience. For the first few months when things were settling, there was some level of back and forth, but once it all settled and as soon as we started talking the same language after building some rapport with the project manager, things started working as expected. My experience with Radixweb has been very good.

BACKGROUND

We are a digital signage and place-based digital communication company focusing on the retail sector. We provide a full-service solution, such as design, hardware supply, installation, cloud-based digital signage management platform, ongoing support, and specialize in providing customized digital signage solutions for large retail networks. We are based in Australia, but support clients worldwide.

I am the chief technology officer, responsible for product strategy and development as well as overseeing technical operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

When we selected Radixweb, we were seeking a partner to maintain and develop our core digital signage product. This product is critical to our business as it underpins our primary service. We were seeking cost-effective and reliable maintenance capability, enhancement capability as well as capability to expand teams rapidly in order to respond to client-specific needs or undertake client specific developments. Key measures for improvement were in relation to cost effectiveness, responsiveness to customer needs, and platform reliability.

SOLUTION

Radixweb was identified by referral. They were selected on the basis of technical fit – range of technical capabilities to support our needs and range of technical services – quality of communication and reporting, quality management processes, flexibility, customer service, and cost.

The scope of the service is development and technical research. Strategy, design, and architecture is done in-house as is task prioritization. We continue to complement Radixweb resources with some in-house technical capability for R&D [research and development] and quality management. They have been engaged for 12 months and the project work remains ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Performance has been great. Compared to previous methodology – onshore development with in-house developers – our costs are down by around 30 percent while our output has doubled. Quality has improved. Costs are predictable while we have improved access to certain skill sets. They are highly flexible and responsive and have provided a continuity of resources. They have delivered everything that was expected on them.

As with any development team, quality varies between individuals, and this is something we need to be aware of in assigning projects and tasks and assessing time frames. Management of developer QA [quality assurance] prior to handing code for final QA, which we undertake in-house, could be improved.