Arete Software

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Capittana is a lifestyle brand for women and I am the head of Information Technology

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Arete Software?

We wanted a global website for the brand that can help us to increase our sales and improve our commercial presence

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

At the beginning was for referral but the deciding factor was the specialization that they have in those kind of projects

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We had many meetings to discuss and understand the current website that we had in that moment and what we could use to improve the navigation and sales experience in there

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager and a team of developers, I'm pretty sure that more people were involved, but we had fluent communication with the ones that I've mentioned

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A project manager and a team of developers, I'm pretty sure that more people were involved, but we had fluent communication with the ones that I've mentioned

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working with this team that took out the Capittana's project has been unique. They gave us constant support before, during, and even after the website launch

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

They understood our perspective when developing the website and were always looking to improve their results to leave us very satisfied with our new e-commerce, which is super friendly with the final client and the people who manage the backend

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

They understood our perspective when developing the website and were always looking to improve their results to leave us very satisfied with our new e-commerce, which is super friendly with the final client and the people who manage the backend

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a partner at a boutique consulting firm. We focus on the education industry, primarily in the K–12 public sector. We do HR consulting and work with educators on the teacher-principal-leader spectrum.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Arete Software?

We’re developing a mentoring platform. At the time, we’d completed an in-house proof of concept as well as a prototype and felt that we were ready to take things to the next step. We opted to go with Arete Software to develop a scalable, potentially widely distributed piece of software for us.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Arete software developed a mentorship management solution for educational institutions. Initially, we came to them with a prototype that we’d implemented in a few places, talking them through what we’d done and what we wanted to do. That included some code that we’d developed, screenshots of our rudimentary platform, and customer research.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Arete Software then guided us through their design phase. We went through journey mapping, developed user personas in much greater detail, and created wireframes. Once we transitioned into full-scale development, they built a cloud-based app in AWS and released the product. We also had them design and develop our marketing website.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At the peak of their involvement, there were around 15 people who rotated in depending on our needs. They assigned a business analyst, a project manager, two backend developers, a frontend developer, a full stack developer, three QA specialists, a designer, and a software team lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We’re in the midst of rolling out the product through various soft launches. Anecdotally speaking, we’ve received feedback from non-tech-savvy educators who’ve found the UI to be very intuitive. Our core administrative users have also found the feature set to be compelling. As we talk with both current and prospective customers, the solution’s flexibility has been really positive from a technical standpoint. We’ve had no bugs come out due to the system nor any downtime. It’s just been solid and reliable in its performance.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

At the peak of their involvement, there were around 15 people who rotated in depending on our needs. They assigned a business analyst, a project manager, two backend developers, a frontend developer, a full stack developer, three QA specialists, a designer, and a software team lead.

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

We were really impressed with the steps that they took to understand exactly what we were trying to accomplish. It went beyond understanding our requirements. Instead, they’d ask themselves, “If I were this type of user, what would I try to do? What would be the pain points?” That really allowed them to point out potential unintended consequences, thinking through if we needed to test a functionality because there could be downstream implications.

It really felt like every team member was bringing their expertise and creativity to the floor. They weren’t just delivering to our user acceptance criteria but rather pushing us during the development to consider other cases. It really helped us achieve an outcome that we believed in and felt good about.

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

No, this really was a great experience, and we’re still working with them now. We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to work with them again on another sizeable enhancement to the product.