Romexsoft

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We make digital color tools for the home deco industry. For instance, software that allows you to upload a photo of your own home and apply new colors onto it. We have product configurators and so on.

What is your position?

I am the founder and chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Romexsoft?

We couldn't find enough qualified engineers in Holland. We started to look elsewhere, and came across Romexsoft. We just needed more resources available to complete our project work within our timeframes. Scalability and cost effectiveness were big factors in our search. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We have projects that use Flash and Java. We have staff in Amsterdam that supervise the people at Romexsoft. After awhile, we started giving them more and more responsibility. Eventually, they did things on their own. We interact directly with the engineers.

When we started out, they operated as a contractor for us. During the course of the years, they became kind of an extension of our own team. That's worked very well for us.

Delegating developers for our projects is a shared responsibility. They will come up with some people that might be a good fit, and we discuss it. They don't impose anyone on us. It's really a two-way discussion. We always have the power to switch people around if we feel like we need to.

How did you come to work with Romexsoft?

We found them through general research. Resource availability was a determining factor in choosing them, along with price.

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

It runs in the hundreds of thousands, but I'd rather not be too exact.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship is ongoing although, at the moment, we don't have many projects. That's not their fault, though. If the work picks up, I'm certainly planning on extending our collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We have collaborated with other IT [information technology] companies. By comparison, our team, including Romexsoft, was able to deliver faster and at lower cost. Together with them, I think we work more efficiently than much of the competition. At times, I need to slow them down a bit. They keep working during the night and on weekends, and I have to tell them that it's not that urgent. That has been my problem, rather than getting them to work.

How did Romexsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They've always delivered on time, although that has been largely my own responsibility as well. I acted as project manager in most cases. The tools we use for project management are JIRA, Basecamp, Google Hangouts, and agile.

What distinguishes Romexsoft from other providers?

They take it personally to deliver upstanding work. It's very much a part of their corporate culture. I appreciate that about them.

Is there anything Romexsoft could have improved or done differently?

I couldn't think of anything. Through the years, we've worked as a joint process and, whatever we do, we always keep improving.

My advice to anyone looking to manage an IT [information technology] project is to know what they need. I always define the problem first. Every piece of software exists to solve a problem. When that is clear, the management becomes much easier. You can delegate to developers, and they can come up with solutions. When the problem is not clear, and you just need a page with a button here and there, they won't understand what it's about, and the solution will be below par.

Another tip is not to try to control them too much. Give them some space to do their own work. You have to remember that they're the experts, and your job is to guide their thinking, not actually manage their problem solving.