AdvantISS

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of the product development team. I head up both the design and software development implementation. We are a small company and we would still call ourselves a startup.

We are building some fairly complicated software products which are used by manufacturing companies for doing simulations of different aspects of their production lines.

The actual technology itself has 3D components for all of the graphical rendering part of the simulation but it also has a series of control features and dashboards which are accessed through a web browser. There is quite a broad range of technologies that are involved.

What challenge were you trying to address with AdvantISS?

We were looking to get into a fairly long-term relationship with a vendor that could bring a full package of experienced developers but who could also contribute some architectural elements, and that we could outsource QA engineering set up as well because it is actually quite difficult to recruit for in Denmark.

It isn’t a popular thing for qualified undergrads. It is either pretty expensive to set up an operation like that, or the professional standard is pretty low. Those are the few things we were looking for there.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to pretty much outsource most of our web stack development to them. It was full-stack .NET technologies and JavaScript frameworks on the frontend. They ended up working up primarily with C#. .NET, Angular, and Vue.js. 

We have an in-house team that is focused on the 3D part, and we have a senior project architect and CTO on our side as well that also have the senior decision making role, but we have outsourced some of that decision making.

The main features were still designed on our side and the specification of the release schedule is still managed on this side, but they earned some semi-autonomous status on working within the broad guidelines which we set. That is a result of the fact that we have been working with them for over two and a half years.

Over time, we have been able to build that relationship with them which goes beyond what you would expect to have in a standard outsourcing set up. That isn’t necessarily what everyone needs or is appropriate all the time but for us, it has worked out really well. It is good to mention that we have had success in working with them in that way.

What is the team composition?

On an ongoing basis with them, we still have frontend specialized developers, backend specialized developers, QA engineers and we have a part-time software architect resource working on their side. Later on, we also added a project manager on their side to take more of the tasks, planning, and time management and those kinds of administrative tasks that they could become semi-autonomous.

How did you come to work with AdvantISS?

We were generally looking to outsource certain aspects of the development, either that we wanted to have more flexibility or we had difficulty recruiting locally. There is quite a lot of these outsourced crews that work in Ukraine that are targeting the Nordic area where we are. A lot of companies are approaching directly from that area, but we also reviewed a Ukrainian focused outsourced portal where there were a lot of teams.

We filtered them by which teams had the right experience profiles for what we were looking for which was specifically Angular and Vue, which was quite an uncommon technology for people to be experienced with at that time. We wanted a company that was used to working on B2B software products, and for example, we didn’t want B2C developers as I think they are the wrong profile for our product.

They were one of around 10 to 12 outsourced recruits that we set up interviews with, and at the end of the day, it was a combination of their presentation, their expertise, professional competence, and price. They had the right sweet spot, so they were the ones that we picked.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent €125,000 Euros (approximately $150,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them around March 2018, and we are still working with them.

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

They have been very important to us for making some customer deliveries on three or four occasions during that period. Our customers are very large companies, and we have a small number of big projects.

We don’t make deliveries that often, but the three or four deliveries we have made to customers have been very much involved in developing features that were required by that project or requested by the customer during the sales process. That is obviously been a very important contribution to the delivery side. I think they have made an important contribution to us when we have discussed migration to more modern technologies, especially around frontend technologies.

I think that overall, they have had a very noticeable impact on the quality of our software build release cycle. As the product has become more complex, they have played a strong role in ensuring that the QA engineering side of the testing framework has been implemented in a good way that has helped us to not just maintain but improve the quality.

How did AdvantISS perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira and Slack which are the two key technologies for us to collaborate. They have some in-house client keeping software. We probably have the longest relationship of any of their customers. It has been pretty successful, so we keep adding to it.

It has worked really well and shows that they have become, in some sense, quite invested in our products. They understand the technology, but they also understand who our customers are and what the most important use cases are.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say the effort they have put into understanding our product and customers has been key to the successful collaboration and is the reason why we have a lot of trust in their capability to deliver for us. If we have a customer project, I wouldn’t hesitate to include them in some of the important elements of that because their track record and professionalism has worked out very well for us.

I think it has really has been based around the fact that the relationship is close and their investment in our product is something I would not have expected when I started, and I don’t think I could have done that with just any outsourcer, and I think it marks them out as being a little bit different.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There must have been things along the way because we have made changes to the way we work and we have altered the configuration of the team. There have been some developers that didn’t work out as well as other ones and who we decided to move on from. They have helped us to find more appropriate replacements that just worked out better on our team. There is nothing significant that they should improve on.

The level of English in Ukraine is not as high as it is in Denmark as a second language, so in the beginning, I think we had a few times where there was a misunderstanding about feature requirements or things like that but it is just a case of stopping there, clarifying and make sure we understand. That is another example where they have been responsive to it.

I was quite skeptical about how it would all work out. I was worried about the things that a lot of people are worried about and that they wouldn’t be invested in the same way as a local team member is, or what if their standard wasn’t high enough. I couldn’t have been more wrong really.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I have found it has always worked out well for us to have a good dialogue with them and explain clearly what it is that we require.