RIA Solutions Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time, I was the director of custom development at a software company. We worked primarily with the trucking industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RIA Solutions Group?

We needed help with development. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their contributions are project-based. Currently, they work more on Android-based development and customizing for our customer’s needs.

What is the team composition?

We currently work with seven people from their team, including developers, QA specialists, and a team lead.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018, and I left that role in June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very satisfied with their work. We’ve had several clients that have also been happy with their work.

How did RIA Solutions Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They do daily standups on their own, and we also meet weekly to go over planning or any changes that might be needed. If there are issues, we meet more often than that. We use Jira for project management and Slack for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve had a long-standing relationship with them and have been really happy over the years.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing I’d say is when we wanted to expand our team it took longer than we’d hoped to get them on board. On the flip side, we didn’t want to fill those positions with the wrong people either. In the end, they made the right decision.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to maintain good communication checkpoints and clear paths for expectations for the work that’s been done. It's what's made us really successful with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the development manager at a financial services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RIA Solutions Group?

We wanted to consolidate two of our products into one.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RIA Solutions Group initially came on to help us with day-to-day development such as building new features and fixing bug fixes. They became actively involved in merging our products later on.

Their team is now fully integrated even they’re offshore. While there is still some formal delineation in our company, I consider RIA Solutions Group to be as much a part of the team as anyone local. Unless there’s a physical impedient, they contribute fully and are an equal part of our development organization.

What is the team composition?

We work with four developers and two QA members now. Three of the developers are senior and one is mid-level; all of them are full-time and full-stack.

How did you come to work with RIA Solutions Group?

Someone at the company a few years ago had had some previous experience with RIA Solutions Group and brought them into our company. We originally brought in just one person who now leads our current team. As we needed more help, we brought in more of his team

How much have you invested with them?

If I had to guess, it’s been about $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together 2–3 years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I really look at RIA Solutions Group as part of our team. We have lots of people coming and going without a strong lead, which can be frustrating. They’ve extremely patient and polite throughout all of that. They’re also sharp from a skills standpoint; it’s very impressive what they come up up with.

How did RIA Solutions Group perform from a project management standpoint?

Our communication is very transparent and open. They have excellent English skills, both written and spoken. Our only complication is navigating the time difference, which is not their fault. Their team is integrated into our Slack and has access to Jira, email, and BitBucket. They join our Monday morning meetings and our regular standups as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their willingness to drive direction. They can contribute to architectural decisions, have ownership, and lead the way without me holding their hand. Compared to my past experiences with offshore developers, they’re terrific.

It’s been a joy working with RIA Solutions Group; I wish them great success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve done very well, even when we ask a lot of them, such as being available on off-hours on a holiday in Romania to accomplish a pen test remediation. When we had somebody who wasn’t working out too well, we got a replacement very speedily.

Any advice for potential customers?

Whenever someone makes it to the interview stage and has been heavily vetted, we still do our due diligence. This advice isn’t specific to RIA Solutions Group.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of application delivery at a transportation services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RIA Solutions Group?

We wanted to increase capacity and find highly skilled developers. We were looking to do more and move faster with some remote developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RIA Solutions Group provides staff augmentation. We typically just use them on any project we need them. We might put 1–3 different developers on a set of different things whether we’re enhancing a web application, writing an API, developing a mobile app, or any of those kinds of things where we just need a few more hands to help.

What is the team composition?

We are working with eight people. There’s one person onsite near me who is available to review any work anyone is doing. There’s about seven offshore, which includes a technical account manager, and I meet with them in regard to the status of the whole team.

How did you come to work with RIA Solutions Group?

They’re local and based near us, so I’ve used them in a previous job.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $600,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in February 2019 and the relationship is currently ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the projects we were working on was documenting images up in the cloud. Despite having a short time frame of only 2–3 weeks, RIA Solutions Group was able to write a proof of concept, monitor the process, and give us all the statistics and everything with only two people. It really solidified a multimillion-dollar deal that we had to trust them with.

How did RIA Solutions Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They're good. We do a lot of video conferencing instead of only emailing or messaging; we actually have Microsoft teams here.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When having a bit of a cultural challenge in the beginning, they were very understanding and grew with us and helped us. We had different skill levels on the team and when there were a few things that weren’t done right, they were quick to address them, make it right, and work with us. They listen to feedback and grow with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Be more collaborative and talk when reaching out. If someone doesn’t understand something, bring somebody up and have a conversation instead of emailing for two days; that can waste a lot of time. Have the senior people on the team review the work of junior people and make sure it’s right, which they do now but we previously had issues with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start small and see how it goes. Get a senior person and see how they integrate into your team. If you’re seeing the results in the collaboration you want, then take it from there.