Altamira

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The company offers cloud based solutions to the Governance Community of Independent Directors, Executive Directors, Company Secretaries and other board related groups.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GBKSOFT?

GBKSoft have been the sole development partner for the first product of Tivus Limited - PrivateSec.

What were your goals for this project?

An organisational management tool for Board Directors with a slick User Interface and excellent reporting tools for regulatory purposes

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We conducted a tender process with 4 parties - three were Irish and GBK. GBK was selected based on skill sets, client references and costs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed from scratch a workflow management tool that used an email server for external communications and was founded on a unique CRM database

What was the team composition?

The team was comprised of 2 front end developers, 2 back end developers, a slicer, a project manager and a relationship manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team worked diligently to understand the context in relation to which the product was developed - and gave valuable insights with regard to design and the tech stack employed. Their understanding of AWS and how to leverage that resource was invaluable.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management comprised of two weekly calls with the project manager. The developers were brought into those meetings on a case by case basis.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The communication between GBK Soft and me was excellent - facilitated by the project manager. She knew when to escalate and when to delegate in order to achieve the desired outcome as quickly as possible.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There were a number of changes to the project manager in the early days of the project which resulted in a loss of continuity. However, GBK did appoint a higher calibre project manager in the end which was very beneficial.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Our company is a cloud-based mobile marketing company. People use our software platform to send SMS [Short Message Service] messages via push notification with a link to a mobile landing page built on our platform. Typically, it would be for one of our clients, such as the marketing department of a telecom company. For instance, you could get an SMS from your phone carrier on your mobile phone. When you click on the link, you’ll see an offer, for example, to upgrade to an iPhone 5. That’s what we use on our platform.

Most of our clients are European-based, although we have clients in the United States. Currently, we are focusing on the markets closest to us.

What is your role? 

I am the chief technology officer. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with GBKSOFT?

They are the development team. They do everything. I’m an ex-web developer. I thought it would be quicker just to hire someone to redesign everything.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We send them the descriptions, and they code it. My partner is a telecom expert, so we design everything and send it over to them to code.

Now that the company is growing, we brought in a project manager who works at GBKSOFT. She is very efficient. The owners of GBKSOFT were very receptive to this, and it has saved a huge amount of time. She is in the office with them the whole time. One of our full-time people got food poisoning and went to the hospital. That put me under a lot of pressure because we have a lot of deadlines and work coming in. The upside was that they were able to loan us some developers. If I had a dedicated team here in Dublin, and one of my people was out sick like that, I wouldn’t be able to do that.

Their costs are about a third less than what they would be in Dublin. There is a little disconnect because we're not in the same room, as well as cultural differences. Eastern Europeans are not always as innovative as Westerners are. We come up with harder ideas, whereas they are used people telling them which task to do. You have to be prepared for that kind of tradeoff. We are going to continue with them.

What was your process for selecting GBKSOFT to work with?

We found them on oDesk. We had a Pakistani team before that, and we weren't as happy with them. Initially, we used the head of the company. Our process was initially based on ratings. We were also prepared to drop them if they didn't meet our standards.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Initially, it was about €50,000 [$53,000] per year. Recently, we have upped it to about €200,000 [$214,000] per year. We have a set amount of developer hours every month for the project manager's time because she juggles multiple clients. We use other people part time because we work with the apps as well. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

GBKSOFT proved to be very good, and they’re very reliable as well. They are quite conscientious. They will go the extra yard to make sure we're happy. They're not always trying to get the extra bit of money. Sometimes, I have to remind them to charge us.

Since our process is being refined, particularly in the area of testing, they have implemented a much better system. We’re using Selenium as well as combined manual and automated testing. That’s just a normal evolution. We’ve been with them since March 2012, so that’s 5 years. Obviously, things get better, particularly in the testing area.

How did GBKSOFT perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of project management, they’ve taken on more of a lead role. I was more hands on in the last interview. They have very strong project managers who take great personal responsibility. That’s actually less work for me. They’ve taken on a broader role than before, and the testing has improved.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

As of right now, I don’t have any suggestions. I’m very happy with how things are.

The only drawback is that if you have a senior developer in your office here in Dublin, he or she would take the lead on a project. GBKSOFT doesn’t really do that; they code. They are looking for innovation from us, which we're happy to do. That’s not a criticism, and it’s what we want.

To be fair, we’re not in a position where we’re waiting for the coders to be innovative either. It’s paint by numbers, so we’re very specific in what we want them to do. They don’t have much of a chance to be innovative. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a software as a service (SaaS) platform that provides enterprise lead management software to various industries, such as telecom and advertising.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GBKSOFT?

We hired them to build our initial SaaS platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build our platform and form a long-term relationship with a development team.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We researched other vendors, compared our specifications to their respective skill sets, and ended up choosing GBKSOFT.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Their team worked on the front- and backend development and carried out the testing phase of the project.

What was the team composition?

A combination of backend and frontend developers, system administrators, testers, and a project manager worked on the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were flexible in terms of the number of people we wanted working on the project. This allowed us to have a say in the price of the project, which saved us money and the trouble of building and maintaining an in-house team.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their project managers are excellent. They are always available and push the project along at a pace that works for us.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are our outsourced development team of choice for the past five years. They consistently go beyond what is expected of them and are skillful, well-organized, prompt, and courteous. The project managers lead a team that defines professionalism.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Segmatic is a Dublin-based strategic, scientific search marketing platform that can optimize the profitability of a client's advertising. Our comprehensive, intelligent platform improves paid search performance, using our semantic technology to turn clicks into conversions and maximize a client's return on investment. Our target markets include North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

What is your role at Segmatic?

I am a founder and chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with GBK Soft?

We needed to develop from scratch a paid search automation platform. We hoped to be able to automate paid search campaigns, initially targeting agencies and individuals around the United Kingdom. We are in the early stages of development, so the possibilities are endless. We will position our product based on initial market reactions.

SOLUTION

How did you come to work with GBK Soft?

We discovered them through a referral, and we have since referred them ourselves.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

The project involved working with their developers. As a technical person myself, I was able to develop a strong relationship with GBK Soft's project manager and developers directly, which meant the project worked well.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project is ongoing. We have been working with GBK Soft for more than 10 months now [since 2015].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did GBK Soft perform from a project management standpoint?

They were on time and on budget. They were very friendly and very responsive.

How would you describe your overall experience collaborating with GBK Soft?

GBK's performance has been very strong. We've referred them twice, which says all anyone needs to know about them. A referral is the ultimate signal we can give that these guys are great.