Avenga

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the program manager at Fidelity International, a financial services company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We needed help optimizing our cloud sales.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga provides us with cloud consultation and resources we lack within our team. They help us build a number of cloud solutions to help us onboard strategic data we can implement into our data lake platform.

We start by presenting our requirements to them and giving them an overview of the new data we're looking to onboard.

We then come up with a design solution which usually involves understanding how the data will be set, how often it'll be updated, and how it'll be consumed once onboarded.

Moreover, they provide off-site support and utilize AWS, Snowflake, Bitbucket, and NiFi to build custom solutions and troubleshooting support.

What is the team composition?

We work with a senior AWS engineer, junior AWS engineer, and DevOps engineer.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

I joined a year after they engaged with our company.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in August 2020.

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

They deliver their solutions successfully, and the data is onboarded and consumed by the relevant internal stakeholders — they also provide documentation we hand over to other support teams.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a fantastic job managing the entire project. They're well-versed with the AGILE methodology and accustomed to creating tasks on JIRA.

They also attend daily standup calls, provide regular updates, and consistently adhere to our established timelines. We typically use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Confluence for communications.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're impressed with their knowledge, work ethic, and punctuality. They're also very good when it comes to conducting knowledge transfer sessions before completing each project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything they need to improve on because we have experienced any problems working with them. They're very open to feedback, which makes them a robust partner for our organization.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to provide them with enough information about the project and what you want to achieve, to get the most out of your engagement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I head engineering for few products within the company

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

We had need to expedite our product development. We hired Avenga to provide experienced staff for these projects.

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

We had reviewed 3 vendors and narrowed down to Avenga based on their track record and costs.

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

Design, develop and test the product features

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

The team size was around 30 including:

• project leads
• scrum masters
• developers
• architect
• testers

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

We were able to launch the product on time and have been able to get new features in the committed time frame.

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

Their project management was good, we had all meetings per scrum. We also had a short weekly status meeting to provide us with where the project stands, any risks that we need to be aware of, etc.

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

The team is easy to work with and, for the most part, keeps their schedule.

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

There is one area of automation where they should figure out how to speed it up

Please describe your company and your position there.

Radium Capital provides Research and Development Loan funding to businesses in Australia and New Zealand. We provide loans up to $10 million. As the CTO I provide ongoing strategic platform guidance to the business to ensure our customers can do business easily and without concern for their data safety.

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

We use Avenga's services to provide us with project management, technology advisory and Salesforce development. Our goals are to continue to provide customers and internal users with functionality that improves their daily workflows and operational needs.

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

Avenga is well placed with regards to time zones, has excellent references from other clients, and I have used them previously for non-Salesforce related projects. Choosing Avenga was critical to our speed of implementation requirements and quality of service requirements.

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

They designed a Salesforce based solution to provide loan funds collection management using tried and tested ideation, discovery, and delivery methodologies. Avenga used our existing project management solution - Jira - and delivered the source code for their work directly to our Salesforce development and production environments. Avenga continue to provide insights to manage our Salesforce instance and are now working with our entire group of companies.

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

There were 5 people in the core team - their roles included:

• Solution architect
• Scrum master
• Senior and Junior Developers
• QA Specialists
• User Experience Practitioners

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

We were able to plan the deprovisioning of our existing Loan Collection Management system which was unstable and had too many manual processes. Avenga always delivered on time and to budget.

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

The way Avenga were engaged by us made it feel as though they were simply an extension of our own team - they understood the business, were focussed on outcomes as much as we were, and they were not simply trying to find new ways to uncover revenue for themselves -- instead focussing on delivering cost savings to Radium Capital.

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

Avenga really makes it feel like you are working with an existing internal team.

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

None that come to mind

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a fintech company that operates in the accounts receivable, supply chain, and other B2B financing products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Avenga?

We had a complex platform that needed to be completely re-architected. It was built inside the Salesforce portal as a PaaS (platform as a service), so we needed a specific skill set.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Avenga provides custom software development services. They’ve developed an application using the Salesforce platform. It’s an internal-facing application with some components that face external users, and they’ve revamped the existing system. 

Initially, we developed the requirements and new architecture. We’ve used many of the Salesforce-provided functions. Avenga has done a bit of coding, but we’ve also used declarative automation, customer customization, better metadata, and so on. All in all, the project has lots of complications and a very complex workflow.

What is the team composition?

We just have one Salesforce developer.

How did you come to work with Avenga?

They were a referral. The Salesforce environment required a broad and deep knowledge of the industry and our application, and Avenga was the only resource we could find.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020, and our partnership is ongoing.

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

We’ve done three major and dozens of minor rollouts, all of which have been successful.

How did Avenga perform from a project management standpoint?

They use our project management tools, and we mainly communicate through Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their resources and talents are outstanding. Their bench is full of experts; they provide a service we couldn’t get anywhere else.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, their business continuity plans are flawless. It would’ve been reasonable if their service was impacted due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, but there hasn’t been an interruption.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their experts. Their team is highly qualified, and you should trust their advice.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I´m a Project Manager in a Telecommunications company. We offer connectivity and connectivity related services.

For what projects/services did your company hire Avenga?

We hired Cloud Developers and Software Engineers from Avenga to supplement our existing teams and enhance our skill profile.

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

We evaluated candidates, available skill sets and value for money against competitors and existing partners.

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

Avenga colleagues work in the context of building and maintaining connectivity related software components.

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

An Account Manager is our main point of contact for demand management, recruiting and commercials, supported by a Project Coordinator. We work with 4 Software Engineers and Cloud Engineers.

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

Improvements of cloud based services and automation. Improvements in SRE, monitoring, alerting. Delivery of functionalities and new features.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Two separate organisations work together and deliver parts of a joint outcome. For this, effective communication channels were set up. In addition, weekly reports are delivered with content related and commercial parameters.

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

There's a high commitment from their developers towards their work and our company.

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

There have not been any major issues. Feedback from both sides is given on a regular basis. Small improvements where done this way.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Director of Engineering at Within3

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

The project was to create a private native iOS application that mirrors feature parity with our web platform.

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

We provided Avenga with a set of product ACs and designs and they worked on these in scrum sprints to complete features according to the roadmap.

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

A senior iOS architect, two senior iOS engineers, a team lead and iOS QA.

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

Avenga completed all of their deliverables in a technically sound and timely manner. The app us currently used in production and is highly stable and performant.

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

Avenga was a pleasure to work with. They were very organized and professional and communicated progress and issues daily through Slack clearly. We also met with them weekly via zoom to review the progress each week and deal with issues that came up.

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

Everyone we've dealt with was highly skilled technically and also a pleasure to work with. They went above and beyond to deliver an outstanding product on time.

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

No - all went well!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the IT program manager that worked with Avenga on this project.

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

We had tried to work with a different vendor on this project. The vendor was unable to understand our requirements and come up with a solution. We hired Avenga to come up with a solution and implement it. The timelines were very tight and we needed a vendor that was reliable and was able to deliver the project on time and budget.

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

• Factor #1: Previous Experience with Avenga
  I have worked with Avenga in a previous company and have always been very impressed with the high quality of work they did. This was a very important factor in selecting them.
• Factor #2: Availability of Qualified Staff
  We needed staff that was qualified to work on custom Salesforce applications. Avenga has highly experienced staff in all areas we needed: Developers, Testers, Business Analysts, Architects and Project managers.
• Factor #3: Historically proven to deliver projects on time & budget We wanted a vendor that would deliver the project by early April 2022. The timelines were very short and the project was critical to our company's transformation.

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

The scope of work included building a custom salesforce application that was intuitive, easy to use and integrated with our current Salesforce CRM module and two other internal systems. Project Steps:

1. Submit RFP to Avenga team to go over project scope and desired timelines
2. Review proposal provided by Avenga
3. Kickoff project; meet the Avenga team
4. Requirements planning
5. Feature demonstrations/acceptance
6. Go live

Key Deliverables:

• KOM
• Requirements
• Architecture/Design
• Detailed requirements
• Agile delivery methodology
• bi-weekly demonstrations
• Test cases & hypercare support

Technologies Used:

• Salesforce
• JIRA
• MS Applications

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

Team size was around 7 people:

• Architect
• Developers
• Project manager
• Business Analyst
• Quality Engineer
• Salesforce Administrator

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

First release went live on time delivering the full project scope. End users provided very good feedback. The quality of the work was excellent and the service provided by Avenga during hypercare was exemplary. The whole team went above and beyond and we couldn't have been more pleased about them. We are gearing up to extend the project with them for subsequent releases.

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

Communication was done via email, remote calls, Teams, and JIRA. The project management was excellent. Avenga's project managers are very professional and all their updates and presentations follow PMP best practices. Timelines were always met and any potential risks to the project deliverables were promptly identified and mitigations were put in place to ensure the project was successful.

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

Their resilience, talent, and ability to deliver on time were impressive. There are so many other things such as everybody's communication style was very professional, they always think about all options and work to provide the best solution for the customer and their ability to adapt and pivot when changes come up.

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

N/A

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP Quality Engineering and Release Management

For what projects/services did your company hire Avenga?

Avenga is one of our partners helping us implement our product's roadmap as a team's capacity extension .

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

We started our partnership in April last year, with only a few resources. 

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

Following our first experience, with quite good feedback from teams such as; qualified developers and testers, good soft skills in terms of communication and engagement. Since we never stopped expanding our collaboration, currently we do have 22 HCs.

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

22 HCs, Daily contact with all team members, and with the Account Manager

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

We do particularly appreciate their reactivity to ramp up, also their ability to manage the turnover when this happens ; a notice in advance, with overlapping periods of time, and a minimum of team velocity impact. Most of the resources are based in Ukraine, after the recent events, they relocated few members to Poland, and they are still seeking to build a shadow team in Poland. This looks like a challenge for them since the Polish market is also impacted and under pressure. They do care really well about their people, which is really key in their engagement to get them motivated and productive for their customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Daily collaboration as they are pat of the same Agile teams

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

In conclusion, I do really recommend Avenge as a partner you can rely on. The main challenge is with Ukrainian ressources location, which is in a war zone unfortunately, with the risk associated with that. Hope this is useful for your consideration.

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

Relocation challenges they are facing while requested to relocate ressources from Ukraine following recent events

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the COO of an online software company. We aim to be a marketplace that allows people to exchange services easily.

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

We hired Perfectial to help build out our online custom software. Our main goal was to build an mvp as quick as possible.

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

Perfectial was selected via our CEO. Major deciding factors for us was availability, communication and costs. All we're met with Perfectial at the time of setting up the partnership.

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

Perfectial helped us begin the process of building our code, as well as creating the UX and UI for our mvp. Project steps were based on the desired functionality of the platform. Some engineers even went beyond this to help us with other issues we incurred along the way. Technologies that we integrated to help achieve the aim of our website we're twilio, pubnub, stripe etc.

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

The maximum number of team members that we worked with were 3 people. One senior engineer, one engineer and a senior ux designer.

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

We almost completed the mvp for our website on the development side. UX was completely finished by the end of our time with Perfectial.

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

The project management was really great. We really appreciated their ability to be so flexible. On a daily basis, the team communicated over teams and slack. Tasks were delegated through platforms such as trello and github.

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

What I found the most impressive was their devotion to making sure our needs we're met. They understood our demands, and tried their upmost to fulfill these. They we're also super communicative, easy to reach at all times and had a positive attitude through out the whole project.

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

The quality of the work achieved by their team was great and we are extremely happy with them. The only recommendation I have, is to create a better process to onboard using testing (our requirement). That being said, I could tell they really tried their absolute best to bring in top talent for us whilst using this method.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a world leader in the Arts sector, based in London, UK. I head up the Digital Products team, responsible for all digital touchpoints with our global audiences.

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

We wanted to augment our in house team with an additional team of software engineers, quality assurance, delivery managers and designers. Initially we engaged with Perfectial on a small part of our digital offering to deliver a discrete piece of work. The relationship grew organically from there.

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

We looked at a number of vendors, eventually shortlisting four based on their responses to our RFP. We ranked them on a number of standard factors including technical skills and design capabilities.

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

The Perfectial team augment our in house team, aligning with our ways of working, led by our people. We try to work on products, rather than projects, so the team shift focus according to our needs across our suite of products. They are able to offer candidates to suit all of our needs but our tech stack largely consists of JavaScript (in various flavours) right now.

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

We have a standing team which consists of a mixture of junior, midweight and senior developers (some fullstack), QAs, a delivery manager and a UX designer. Occasionally this flexes up or down, based on our needs.

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

The deliverables are consistently to a high standard. The team's excellent support has helped us build our credentials internally with our stakeholders.

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

The team aligned with our existing ways of working, which was perfect. They also run their own internal stand-ups to make sure they are aligned and feel part of the wider Perfectial community. We use Slack and Jira as our standard toolset, with Teams for video calls within the product teams day to day. The combination works well. We also have weekly checkpoints with our project/delivery/account manager for service checks and general engagement.

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

Their talent identification and onboarding. We've never encountered a problem in bringing additional people with new skillsets on demand. They're also keen to push their internal talent pipeline and are always looking at effective ways to bring junior staff onboard.

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

They're a terrific partner but as the relationship grows we'll expect to see more technical and thought leadership.