Avenga

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Regional Pricing Leader and Global Application Owner for Pricing Tools for a global automation company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Avenga, and what were your goals?

We were rolling out a global pricing program within the division and were in need of a scalable global application that can provide price guidance to our users when quoting to customers. We needed this application to integrate well with some of our existing tools in our systems landscape and be available in the cloud as well as have mobile capabilities.

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

We conducted our due diligence on opening the requirements/bid to about 4 companies and accepted proposals. Avenga was one of the candidates and they have done some work for us in the past with another global application.

Based on what was presented back and their track record with us from past we chose Avenga as the vendor for the new application development as well.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They understood the business needs and processes well and started the development based on agile methodologies in 2 weeks sprints. We've divided out functionality rollouts into multiple segments based on data needs, user interface, approval flow, integration to other tools. All development and releases went per plan.

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

There were 4 people in the core team, including a project manager, a UI designer, 2 developers. Other resources would be brought onboard as needed.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The global pricing application has been rolled out to 70% of the countries we operate in and they are on track to support rollout to rest of the countries. Today 90% of our quote volume for products is processed to this new application.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Their project management, developer working style, and communication were great. The team met all the deadlines and where there were challenges they worked together to resolve.

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

The resources were very accessible and communicated openly. They have competent resources all across and partnered well with our business users.

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

They have delivered a high-quality product that was easy to work with. However they can do better in documentation and this has been communicated. They are working on improving this.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software company that builds and delivers AI solutions to the life sciences industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We engaged Avenga to augment our in-house software development team and work on both our web and iOS applications.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga is part of our development team and helps build out the iOS app we deliver to our customers. They work on different components of the app and use Swift. For the web app, their team has worked on its front-end and middle-tier logic. Their team uses our existing framework based in Node.js, GraphQL, and React. We provide them with architecture and design requirements.

What is the team composition?

We work with anywhere from 6–16 individuals, including software developers, architects, and program managers.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

One of our employees had prior experience with them, which was very positive. When we needed to augment our development team, she recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s close to $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began around August 2020.

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

From almost day one, their team was able to work with our existing team and existing technologies. We’re able to maintain our product release cycles with Avenga. They're part of our product development pipeline. Their team brings our customers new features. They're really smart individuals who know how to build software.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a combination of Jira and Confluence to manage the requirements, architecture, and daily development tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm impressed by their ability to scale and bring high-quality individuals into development processes and teams.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We use a variety of technologies and would further engage them if Avenga were to invest in other popular technology stacks. As they bring those skills in-house, we foresee an opportunity to continue leveraging them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You want to come into the engagement with clear requirements, designs, and documentation around your architecture. That will help them quickly ramp up and deliver the quality you seek.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT manager for a banking institution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We run a few high profiles in the investment banking part of the bank. We needed staff augmentation and consulting help.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga provides Java programmers and web developers.

What is the team composition?

They are supplying 5–10 consultants.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

They had a relationship with our company before I joined.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

They provided us with quite a lot of people within a limited time. If I had to calculate the impact, it’s relatively high, especially on their high profile projects. They’re doing a good job, and they’re a high-quality partner.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

We have project managers on our side. They’re managed internally by us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Avenga has good account management, and the team is top-notch.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am responsible for global delivery and software engineering taking place outside of our local markets. I am also the managing director of our Polish entity where we have an engineering center.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

They helped augment our staff. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga found candidates to support our IT projects in Poland. We needed .NET and Java developers to support one side of our business. We also are looking at Microsoft Dynamics because we are building several solutions on Microsoft Dynamics in finance and operations, and also business central.

Avenga compiled profiles of candidates with either a general engineering background or more specific, niche expertise for us to consider.   

We also use their consulting services and asked for technological advice on products that we are rolling out internally. 

What is the team composition?

We have about 20 people on contract right now.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

We found them through recommendations.

How much have you invested in them?

We spend around $1.5 million per year (approximately $3 million in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

The first contract was from in February 2018.

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

We have found some really good people through Avenga; we now have some awesome people working on our account.

Overall, we're very happy with the collaboration with Avenga. There were two people that we had to get rid of and one person found another job. Apart from that, we retain more than 96% of the people they send us.  They hit the mark and are able to find the right consultant for us. 

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been very good. The people we have had the pleasure of working with have all been very engaged. They've been very good at communicating, and have been open and transparent about various challenges.

They are very attentive, honest, and transparent which were all important factors at the beginning of our engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We work with a lot of talented people and it is also a pleasure to see that a lot of females are sitting in higher management positions in Avenga. I think it sends an awesome message to the whole of IT because there are a lot of men in IT. I couldn’t be happier with the performance of the developers and engineers that are female.

I think it sends a strong message to everyone. Avenga does not only talk the talk about equal opportunity they also walk the walk which is super important for us. In our engineering center, we might not reach 50/50 men and women tomorrow. However, we are working hard to be an attractive workplace for girls in IT and it's essential that our strategic partners align with us strategically as we are rapidly growing the female ratio of our IT talent. Avenga is leading the way in this aspect.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One of our other partners has a pretty fantastic online administration system that we wish Avenga would use. The tool lets them manage all the consultants that we have on contract with them, view the data regarding their rates, and monitor the expiry of the contract. Everything can be called out electronically from this portal. 

When we ask, they will send all that information to us and it doesn’t take very long. Still, I believe in self-service so if I can log in to a portal a see all of that, then I don’t have to disturb anyone on the team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be absolutely transparent about your needs, what kind of success factors you have, and the type of candidates you are looking for. Transparency will help them deliver what you want. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at a large multinational industrial company with operations in more than 100 countries. We have around 110,000 employees. I work as part of the communications department, and I’m responsible for our websites, including our public website as well as our corporate intranet.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We used Avenga as experts to develop our website and then the intranet.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we used them under more of a staff augmentation model. We had people from Avenga who worked for us as contractors, so they worked for us as if they were our own employees. The resources we employed from them were mostly from the developer side, but also UX designers and other technical subject matter experts.

They took care of the maintenance of the web platform from a technical point of view. That entailed developing new features for the website, which ranged from conceptual and UX design to technical implementation. They also did testing and were responsible for keeping the website up and running.

The CMS we use is Sitefinity, which is based on Microsoft .NET. Most of the competencies on the technical side were on Microsoft .NET. We also have some smaller WordPress websites, so they provided developers with WordPress competencies.

What is the team composition?

We worked with an average of 30 people; it varied a bit, depending on the phases of the project. We set up the team so that we had a number of product owners onsite at our company headquarters, and then their counterparts were at Avenga’s site. The team members offsite acted as both scrum masters as well as application managers, so in addition to running the daily scrum, they also oversaw the products or software that they were developing.

We also interacted with the functional analysts on their side, as well as UX designers. We didn’t interact directly with the rest of the people on their team.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

We have a very long history with them. We originally started working with them because our company had a strategic setup where we were using internal resources based in Poland for some of our IT projects. Then, we decided to outsource. Many of those internal employees formed a company called Solid Brain, which was acquired by Avenga.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together began around late 2015, and the project finished in June 2020.

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

They had a number of people who were really subject matter experts in very specific areas, like information security, test automation, or web analytics. If we needed support in an area for which they had an expert within their company, the expertise was really good. On the negative side, they sometimes didn’t necessarily have all of the competencies and expertise, so for some other areas, we’d have to pull the expertise from elsewhere.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was generally okay. We used the scrum methodology. I think communication could’ve been a bit bitter. They were a bit weak in terms of internal collaboration, but that could’ve had to do with our model, through which we were hiring people from them to then work for us like they were part of our team. A problem was that they weren’t very good at communicating with other parts of their own company; for instance, if there was a particular challenge where we were looking for specific expertise, they weren’t very proactive about finding that expert within their own company. We’d have to go to the account manager.

Some of the subject matter experts were really good, but they were like isolated hero characters, whereas the average person that we worked with wasn’t that strong. When we were dealing with a subject matter expert, we got exactly what we wanted from them. However, some of their team members weren’t able to work as a team. The coordination didn’t always work out very well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were pretty good at running some of the scrum ceremonies, such as sprint reviews. During the reviews, they demonstrated the work they’d done over the previous two weeks. I thought those were usually professionally executed, especially compared to some other companies we’ve dealt with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we worked with one of the individuals on their side, that usually worked really well. However, as soon as that individual needed to involve other people from their company, it didn’t work as well.

Any advice for potential customers?

You have to know pretty precisely what you want and be able to specify that upfront. They do have some people who are best-in-class in their specific areas, but it’s important that you know to ask for specific competencies; you can’t just expect that you will get the best people by default. It also helps to know their organization and the references of their resources, so that you can pick the best people that they can provide.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an IT provider for a group of companies. We’re active across the globe and have about 500 tech employees in Austria. We provide software solutions and services to the group’s different organizational entities. In Austria, we’re developing a software system that provides all of the critical business processes for any type of insurance company. The system has been developed for nearly two decades, and it serves as a strategic solution for the entire group.

In Vienna, we have three different delivery centers. One provides the core solution, a generic version of the system that is adapted by different optimization units to the specific needs of our end-customer. I am involved in one of these customization departments, so I’m adding the delivery and cross-functional teams for our end-customer, a partner of the group. We are taking over the system’s core and are developing it, customizing it, and changing some requirements and features to enable the system to work for the end-customer, a global organization focused on travel, event, and device insurance as well as assistance services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We have a high demand for external contributors. We’re always looking to fill specific positions — sometimes on a temporary basis — for experts in various areas, such as business analysts, developers, testers, test managers, and specific specialty positions. Since we’re growing very fast, we have to react very flexibly to the demands of our end-customers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga has become one of our trusted service providers. They regularly work with us to fill the expert positions we have open. They work with us in the same way as our internal employees: they’re part of the team and contribute like all of the other team members. We have two separate streams of development for the different needs of our customers. We have teams that work on the travel insurance side and on the assistance business. However, they both work on the same code base. 

Our teams consist of both internal and external contractual partners that work closely with our product owners. Our product owners come from our customer audience partners and define the requirements for the teams. We’re currently working toward three major releases of our system per year. We work in two-week sprints, and we have intermediate, bi-weekly minor releases for the customer as well.

What is the team composition?

I’m responsible for staffing the developer side of things, so mostly Java and phase one developers. If we have a requirement for business analysts or project managers, another department handles that.

We typically have an extensive selection process with two rounds of interviews to ensure the consultant or specialist fits with the team. We currently have about 15 contractors that are distributed across different teams and projects.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

I can’t tell you how we originally came to work with them because it precedes my role in the project. However, they were one of the group’s first partners. The quality of their profiles impressed us, as did the experts that they came up with. We were also impressed by their communication.

How much have you invested with them?

I’d estimate that we spent about $1 million–$1.5 million per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe Avenga has worked with the group for 3–4 years, if not longer.

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

They have fast reaction times and quickly resolve issues.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

The account manager we work with is very helpful and diligent about coming up with solutions that work for us. We have a very open and honest atmosphere. If there’s a problem, we can quickly resolve it and find a solution that is beneficial to us.

The communication style, the experts they provide, and their management style is what has made us stay with them as a partner. They’re close by and can drop by for a face-to-face discussion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very diligent with their preselection process. Sometimes, providers send all kinds of profiles that aren’t suitable or don’t fill your base requirements. Avenga makes sure that they preselect the appropriate resources that have the skills we need. In general, they have a very solid process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open about any problems you encounter or if you’re not satisfied with one of your contractors. They will make sure that problems get solved, such as finding a replacement candidate. Work on building a relationship with them. Maintain communication and provide regular feedback on how the contractors are performing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-owner and CTO of NBTV, a digital media house with a technology background. We create digital channels and verticals.

What challenge were you trying to address with Core Value Inc?

We were building out a new platform for the spirits business and were looking for a development partner that aligned with our thoughts and objectives.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Core Value Inc developed the platform from start to finish. This project included delivering three platforms simultaneously: a web, mobile iOS, and Apple TV version. Their team uses Angular, Java, and AWS. 

The Core Value Inc team was involved in design and architecture work, as well as providing expertise in sales and e-commerce systems. Their team also built video capabilities. They also performed QA testing and continue to provide ongoing DevOps support to our platform. 

What is the team composition?

Our project has a team of 15–20 individuals, including business analysts, project managers, and developers. Core Value Inc has a good structure for software development and makes sure their people adhere to that structure and work accordingly. 

How did you come to work with Core Value Inc?

When I was shopping around for a development partner, my chief architect recommended Core Value Inc because he has some past experience with them. He highly endorses their team as someone I should consider as part of our search.

How much have you invested with them?

By the time we’re done, we will have invested slightly over $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Core Value Inc began in October 2018.

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

One of the really strong parts of Core Value Inc’s organization is that they were helpful in assisting our navigation of delivering three platforms at a time. We released our first version of the platform about 30–40 days and we are now working on rolling out an Android version as well as enhancements to the UX and back administration experience. The Core Value Inc team was great at the organization and management aspects involved in developing multiple platforms at once. I’m not sure we could have done it as well with another partner.

How did Core Value Inc perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very good in terms of communication. Core Value Inc is very structured, and we would have weekly tech and project management meetings. Our teams have ongoing daily discussions about metrics to communicate the percentage of completion on features of the platform. They also let us know about any issues, bugs, or anomalies we needed to address. We always knew where our time, money, and efforts were going, which is the key component of a good partnership.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Core Value Inc’s willingness to make sure that we are collectively successful stands out. Whether it's bringing on more resources or providing some other capabilities, they go above and beyond. They bring their broad portfolio of talent to the table. I have had bad experiences with vendors in the past, but Core Value Inc made me feel like I had nothing to worry about. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were some cultural divisions that impeded communication. There are always aspects of projects that could be better, but there wasn’t anything totally detrimental. To their credit, whenever we were having any kind of challenge they would always step up and help guide the way.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t overestimate the amount of communication that could be needed to onboard everybody upfront. That was probably the biggest challenge for us. Their team was very helpful in bringing in more people, setting up more meetings, or having more discussions to make sure we get through issues quickly. This was possible because we stayed on top of communications. 

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m VP software development at Instem, a software development house that works within the life sciences industry pharmaceuticals. My position covers all of the software development and testing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Core Value Inc.? 

We had a significant contractual commitment. We needed to augment our staff in order to help us deliver that software.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Core Value Inc. provided us with supplemental development staff who worked as integrated members of our teams. They also provided a software tester to give us additional capacity to meet the contractual requirements. 

Their team used a mix of technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server and the .NET framework. On top of that, they used an application lifecycle management (ALM) Azure DevOps system. 

What is the team composition?

For the most recent project, we had two people working with us. We used a team of 6–8 people on a previous project. 

How did you come to work with Core Value Inc.?

Instem was already using Core Value Inc. when I joined the company. At one point, we moved away from contracting for strategic reasons. We brought them back on when we changed our approach because of the value they provide. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The most recent project started in January 2017 and ran for 18 months.

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

They've become an integral part of our team’s ability to actually deliver the work we need to do. Core Value Inc. met all assigned deliverables, which made them very valuable.

Judging their contributions as members of a scrum team, the feedback has always been that Core Value Inc. consistently provides top performers. Their employees are often the strongest members of the various teams. We've been extremely happy with the contributions they've made, and continue to see the benefits of having them on board. Because of their successful work to date, we just brought back the two people we used recently for a different project.

How did Core Value Inc. perform from a project management standpoint? 

We led the project management and oversight. We got weekly updates and reports so that we could understand where Core Value Inc. was in the project and what they’d provided us. We also integrated them into our communication systems. We used Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Azure DevOps. They were fully integrated as members of the team and using the same technology as everyone else. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Core Value Inc. was quite flexible in their availability. We've got a good working relationship. They've been able to accommodate us, even when we required additional resources on short notice. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, at the moment we're very happy with the people we've used. Their team is so strong. As a fundamental issue, I expect augment staff to be able to work as if they are part of our team and have been for a while. Core Value Inc. is absolutely able to do so. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

I encourage you to work the way we do and incorporate them on your scrum teams. Give them the same tools as everyone else and treat them as if they're an FTE.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the group vice president and process excellence manager of ABB, a leader in digital industries. We have five leading businesses: Electrification, Industrial Automation, Motion, Robotics and Discrete Automation, and Power Grids. I oversee complaint management throughout the ABB group.

What challenge were you trying to address with Solidbrain?

We rely on a management tool to register, track, analyze, and resolve customer complaints. By 2014, this tool had been in place for about twenty years. We needed help updating and adapting it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Since 2014, Solidbrain has updated and developed our complaint management tool. Their support is ongoing.

What is the team composition?

Our main contact is a senior developer. We do not have regular contact with other developers.

How did you come to work with Solidbrain?

Another department within my company hired Solidbrain; I don’t know much about the background of the engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working on the project since 2014. I’m not sure when ABB initially engaged Solidbrain. Our partnership is ongoing.

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

The tool has garnered a reputation for being user-responsive, even though it is one of ABB’s oldest tools.

How did Solidbrain perform from a project management standpoint?

The senior developer is very pragmatic and transparent. If we present impractical ideas, the Solidbrain team is upfront and proposes great alternatives. Rather than expecting us to tell them what to do, their team is part of the thought process. They are incredibly committed and engaged. Our collaboration has been smooth and easygoing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Solidbrain conducts thorough technology tests before releasing anything. We are confident in the team’s ability to deliver high-quality work on schedule, which allows us to focus on other areas. They have made the collaboration effortless on our end.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of any, which is unusual for me.

Any advice for potential customers?

Engage Solidbrain’s team as much as possible. Make them part of the full process and ensure that they understand your requirements and goals.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a data engineer and analyst for an insurance tech company. We provide a platform for on-demand insurance.

What challenge were you trying to address with Core Value?

Our analytics team needed help in all things data-related, so we contracted with their data science and engineering team. Our company provides everything from software engineering to data science work and extract, transform, load (ETL).

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built and maintained analytics databases from scratch. We also added their data science portion, for analysis of those databases. They produced in-depth analysis of our product and how to improve it.

What is the team composition?

We worked with eight people from their team, including the project manager.

How did you come to work with Core Value?

They were brought in before my time at the company. We’d gotten good referrals for them in the past, and decided to bring them on.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend over $50,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in late 2015 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We’ve built several key databases, which store all the important KPIs we need in order to make decisions. Deploying those databases and making sure they’re continually operational is a tremendous success story, given that Core Value has done it in such a small amount of time.

The data is quite accurate and it’s supported multiple products and markets successfully. Our ETLs are running smoothly. Data is coming in and going out with no issues. We’ve been able to leverage that data for reporting to partners and for internal processes.

From a data science perspective, the people from Core Value involved in the work have had tremendous success. They’ve helped us detect and reduce fraud by a large portion, by providing key metrics in that direction.

They’ve been able to improve our product and ad spend significantly, informing our team on our marketing targets, and how to improve efficiency.

How did Core Value perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re in touch with them daily, and they’re very much integrated into everything we do. They’ve taken on a lot of work and consistently delivered on it. We work in an agile setting, with two-week sprints. Our velocity has increased, and the whole company has started working in the same methodology. The analytics velocity is always high, and that’s largely because of Core Value’s effort.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the most impressive things about them is their ability to understand our business, and not just the technical implementation. They understand why and how we’re doing things. Core Value is an offshore team thousands of miles away, but they’re very much integrated with our product line. They always ask key questions and they have a vision of what our company is trying to do, and how they’re contributing to that effort.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re worth considering as an offshore partner, and we haven’t run into issues regarding communication nor effectiveness.