Vinfotech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a yield management platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Vinfotech?

We needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vinfotech designed and built a restaurant discount platform for us from scratch. I started by giving them a brief of what I was looking for, and they created the system based on that, using PHP, CodeIgniter, Invision, and MySQL as their main technologies.

What was the team composition? 

Our main point of contact with Vinfotech was a project manager from their side, but a team of developers and designers were working behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Vinfotech?

We found them through a Google search.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent $30,000–$50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2014–October 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Vinfotech over-delivered on the project. We had a successful beta phase of the project, and we had 30 restaurants and around 500 users in the first few months after launching the product. Overall, we had a great experience working with them because they felt like an in-house team that accommodated our needs.

How did Vinfotech perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team met deadlines and budgets and was detailed and attentive to the platform’s design, distinguishing them from other providers. Moreover, they were communicative and responsive, using Basecamp and Skype as our main tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Vinfotech was thorough and flexible in the UX development phase. In addition, they were personable throughout the process and acted with a lot of integrity, which enabled us to trust them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be communicative and provide sketches and context for what you want so they can clearly understand the reason for your decisions during the scoping phase.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of Squad Social. We are a startup that aims to improve the mental health and well-being of the members of the LGBTQ community by connecting them with other LGBTQ people with common interests.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vinfotech?

I engaged Vinfotech to build our social networking application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hoped to have an iterative development process so that we could learn from customer feedback, and we wanted to capitalize on some of Vinfotech's accelerators because they claimed to be social media specialists.

In my estimation, this was a relatively large project that would take about 12 months of work. Vinfotech instead committed to a delivery in five months. We agreed on plans for a product that created a social network of communities, featured payment integrations, and allowed users to authenticate their account using Facebook.

What is the team composition?

I know that the team consisted of 5–7 people, but I was only ever in communication with a project manager. Vinfotech lacked transparency in this regard. Because they don’t operate on a fixed-team basis, it seems that they assigned any developer available to my project, but that was never for very long. As such, I never got to speak with much of the team.

How did you come to work with Vinfotech?

I searched for app developers with social networking experience. I reviewed the references for several companies, and Vinfotech came highly recommended. Unfortunately, there was nothing that I heard from the references that matched the services I subsequently received. I’m not overstating this, but this is one of the worst technology projects I’ve ever been involved with.

How much have you invested with them?

We agreed to a total project cost of $80,000. I’ve paid about $30,000 of that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed the contract in September 2018. I’ve been attempting to contact their team for about six weeks, but nobody has returned my calls. This is now a sustained effort to ignore my needs as a client. It’s evident to me that they are not working on my account anymore.

They still have the source code and the key to the Amazon hosting account. As soon as I recover those things, I will consider this project complete. I have had my lawyer draft litigation against Vinfotech that would take them to court in the United Kingdom if this is not resolved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The timeframe that we agreed to has elapsed, and we do not have a defect-free product yet. Vinfotech delivered a broken MVP about a month late. Since then, they’ve only issued a single bug fix release.

My company is largely dead in the water because of Vinfotech’s ineffective management and delivery. As a startup, I’ve trusted a vendor and burned much of my run rate. It’s one thing to spend money on a bad product, but it’s another for them to drag their feet and obfuscate for so long that my runway runs out. The fact that they have behaved this way is likely to cause my company to fold.

How did Vinfotech perform from a project management standpoint?

It appears to me that Vinfotech is unable to identify a single point of accountability within their organization. Their underlying operational processes are similarly ineffective. I’ve been given the runaround to three different project managers, but they are unable to produce a simple status report. Vinfotech has not demonstrated a single core competency that I would consider to be acceptable at this time—not one.

We attempted to track the project through Jira, Trello, and DoneDone, but those tools were not referenced often. Vinfotech also mandated that we use Basecamp but later grew to ignore all communication there, as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their communication and project management methods need drastic improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would strongly caution against working with Vinfotech.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of a fantasy sports website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vinfotech?

I needed to develop and design a daily fantasy sports website with custom game types.

What were your goals for this project?

I wanted to have the project done in eight weeks so it would launch in the middle of the MLB season and be ready for the NFL season.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We did online research and saw that their past work received good reviews. A few of their past projects were visually appealing.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They provided a UI and a backend database for our three sports and four game types. Unfortunately, one of the games doesn’t work properly.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a head project manager (PM), a team of 10+ developers, and three different direct project managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There were several issues along the way. While some of them stemmed from Vinfotech not having sufficient knowledge of popular American sports (MLB, NFL, NBA), they also missed deadlines and provided virtually no testing services. What was contracted to be an eight-week project turned into a nine-month ordeal. Even now, a significant number of outstanding issues are preventing the site from going live. I’m looking elsewhere to remedy them.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

There was a definite language barrier between myself and the project managers, and despite marketing themselves as fantasy sports experts, their knowledge didn’t extend to popular American sports. Multiple times, the head PM tried to walk back agreed-upon deliverables, including two native mobile apps that were spelled out in the contract. When I asked to them fix existing issues, they informed me I’d have to pay a monthly maintenance fee.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

To me, they were skilled at avoiding contract language and delaying my project.    

Are there any areas for improvement?

If they’re looking to secure long-term customers, they would benefit from making comprehensive improvements to their communication process including responsiveness, time zone management, and PM turnover. Customers appreciate vendors who manage expectations and fix problems immediately, instead of assuring them they’ll handle it later.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Ceo of a sports company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Om Gaming Enterprises

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Partner module
• Whitelable

SOLUTION

How did you find Vinfotech?

Referral

Why did you select Vinfotech over others?

Sales

How many teammates from Vinfotech were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Scope is simple. They are selling partner based fantasy app

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Success Is none so far but outcome is miserable. Suggest Other partners to be careful before stepping into this org

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

No proper ticketing system for issue solving. TAT of resolution is unexpected. No weekend and graveyard support.

What was your primary form of communication with Vinfotech?

Virtual Meeting

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

NA

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

Please focus on improving a good customer experience.