Clarion Technologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Vital Dynamix, a software startup. We have two primary pieces of software. One is an electronic visit verification software, which tracks home health visits. The other is called Vital ACS, which is an adult care software intended to be used in assisted living programs. It’s also been used frequently in enriched housing programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We’ve worked with Clarion Technologies to develop our software products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our software products already existed before we engaged Clarion Technologies, but they were in their early stages. We brought the team in to revamp and continue developing the products. We first did a knowledge-transfer process and an assessment to help them understand our software. After redesigning the products’ UI, we brought on the appropriate resources from them, including .NET and Flutter developers. 

We didn’t have mobile apps at one point. We realized that our progressive web app wouldn’t completely fulfill our needs, so we needed a better solution. Specifically, we needed a mobile app that could run natively on Android and iOS phones and work in offline mode. We went to the Clarion Technologies team and told them we needed two mobile apps in 45 days. They pulled together a couple of Flutter developers for us. 

At present, we typically meet with them on our daily scrum meetings in which we talk about existing issues and features. The developers show us what they’ve developed and talk about any blockers they might have. We use the Agile approach to develop the software rapidly. 

We also use Clarion Technologies’ infrastructure services. For example, their DevOps team works with us and helps us work on tasks such as setting up CI/CD pipelines, AWS, and API gateways. For key technologies, the progressive web app was built on the .NET framework. The mobile apps have been built using Flutter. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three .NET developers from Clarion Technologies; they consist of one junior developer and two senior developers, which include Neeraj (Senior Developer). A QA specialist and a designer have since joined the team. We’ve brought on two Flutter developers. Chetan (Senior System Administrator) and Vinit (Technology Architect) have worked with us, too.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

Clarion Technologies was a referral by another organization. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $230,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in February 2022, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Agile framework has truly helped our platforms. Prior to adopting this framework, we had several weeks between production pushes. People didn’t see feature changes frequently, and the software was stagnant for a while.

Since switching to the Agile framework with Clarion Technologies, we’ve managed to get several production pushes — sometimes even twice a week. The software has evolved much more quickly. 

Overall, Clarion Technologies takes ownership of their work. Neeraj is a great developer. If he’s assigned to a task, he doesn’t just complete the task. He also analyzes what he needs to do and makes suggestions for improvements. Moreover, all resources from Clarion Technologies use best practices for their work. 

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been able to stay on budget and meet our deadlines. There have been a couple of times when they’re behind schedule, but they’ve stayed on time and met our expectations 90% of the time. To communicate, we mainly use Teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

What impresses me the most about Clarion Technologies is their ability to understand what we need. Their project manager has been great at balancing their team. They understand what we need and make sure that we have the proper resources.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve experienced a slight communication issue before. For instance, we sometimes make a recording that illustrates an issue that we come across. There are times when we have to repeat something over and over again even though they already have the recording and the issue seems clear to us. To be fair, this isn’t exactly a huge and detrimental problem. It’s just something that they could improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Fully understand what you want. If you don’t understand your product, you can’t expect Clarion Technologies to understand it as well. Ensure that you understand what you’re asking them to develop. Make sure that the team has a crystal-clear picture of what the project is supposed to look like — clearly define your goals. 

For context, we made this mistake in the beginning. We didn’t fully understand what we needed until we started working with the team. As a result, we lost a couple of weeks. We probably could’ve made more progress in those weeks if we had a more clearly defined project roadmap. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of The Northside Sun, a news company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We wanted to create a news and social media website for our local community.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion Technologies has been helping us with web development in our existing customized Drupal open CMS. To jumpstart the project, we’ve asked them to coordinate with our internal development team and give them a list of our requirements, including the ability to share our stories on the front page using AI to determine what to display and when. We’ve also requested a social-media-like interaction in the platform where users can rank stories, see who’s reading them, and see a read counter.

What was the team composition? 

We’ve worked with four members of Clarion Technologies’ team.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

We found Clarion Technologies on Clutch and chose them because they seemed like an organized team.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent $200,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website’s stats have increased substantially thanks to Clarion Technologies’ work. They also have a structured feedback system to track development progress and success.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Clarion Technologies has been meeting our deadlines and budgets. Regarding communication, they’re very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Clarion Technologies’ organization and accountability are one of their biggest strengths.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on because they’ve done a great job delivering exactly what I want.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clarion Technologies is the best choice for development tasks.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Senior VP at Performance Improvement Partners, a technology advisory, implementation, and value-creation company. We are a Technology-Driven Value Creation Partner For PEs & PortCos. We assess potential, identify opportunities and risk, and maximize investments. Understand what technology levers one can pull to create value. We devise a technology-driven business transformation strategy that maximizes potential, mapping each metric to create an optimal plan. And finally, we achieve value creation through technology implementation (ERP, Cloud, Data, App. Dev, etc) initiatives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

A client of ours had a problem with developing third-party APIs in .NET. Additionally, we constantly had new requirements, so we sought Clarion Technologies’ help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion Technologies has developed the third-party APIs we needed in .NET from scratch. Initially, we screened their developers to ensure that they could quickly get up to speed and train to develop the unique integrations we required. From there, we engaged with the client on a discovery process and brought on Clarion Technologies to handle the technical side of the project.

During the discovery process, Clairon Technologies understood the requirements, helped us fine-tune details, and set expectations. Then, they worked with us to deliver the APIs based on our client’s requirements. Since that project, they’ve continued providing us with a lot of other services.

Now, Clairon Technologies helps us with other technical areas for our business, such as NetSuite solutions and process documentation. Their scope has included custom app development, integration, and testing for both custom apps and package apps. Additionally, they’ve helped us with a cloud migration using Microsoft (MS) Azure. They’ve primarily used the MS stack, but they also build custom apps with PHP.

What is the team composition?

For our first project, we worked with a team of four developers from Clairon Technologies. For other projects, we’ve had business analysts and offshore program managers overseeing the team we work with.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

Clairon Technologies had already partnered with us in the past. When this project arose, we reached out to them directly. At the time, they had resource availability, and their capabilities matched our requirements. Additionally, they showed commitment to deliver, so we hired them. We likely originally found Clairon Technologies through a previous relationship between someone in their company and someone in ours.

How much have you invested with them?

Overall, our engagement with Clairon Technologies runs in the millions-of-dollars range. For our first project, in particular, we spent less than $500,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on our first project from April–October 2022. However, our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The fact that we continue working with Clairon Technologies is a testament to their commitment and excellent deliveries. Their team is flexible and committed to our projects, and they’ve delivered high-quality work.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Clairon Technologies’ project management has been very good. From the start, they adopted the right governance model with us so that communication and governance cadence was always maintained. Now, they continue to provide good developers with project and client expectation management capabilities.

Initially, one of their developers had some challenges, so Clairon Technologies’ project management team came in a provided additional training until all was good. As for collaboration tools, we use Jira, MS Teams, and Smartsheets to communicate and manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Clairon Technologies’ commitment and flexibility to our changes and requirements are impressive. They work as a true partner, and their commitment runs from the top down, including their C-level staff.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing Clairon Technologies could improve on — they’re providing exactly what we’re asking for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go ahead and engage with them. They’re very good to work with, and their strengths are app development and integrations in Java, .NET, and PHP. They may have other capabilities, but I haven’t engaged them on those.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Visyt, and we create AI avatars to use for employee benefits communication. I also started NE2NE, a B2B integration tool. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

I needed help in various software development projects for my two companies. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’ve used Clarion to build an enrollment transactional software. Later, they’ve also helped me in developing a hire-to-retire tool. They took over from another vendor for these projects — they’ve redone and improved the existing code. We’ve first used Zend, but we’ve migrated the platform to Laravel. Most of the software is written in PHP. 

Additionally, Clarion helped me build a tool that can automate B2B integrations. Users can take any file and map it into any file format. For example, if they want to do business with Amazon, they must use specific formats — that’s standard practice in the industry. However, a lot of companies don’t have the internal resources to do that. 

I didn’t have a tech background, and I couldn’t write a technical specification. I just explained to Clarion’s team my vision, how I thought the apps should work, and what we needed to do. They’ve then helped me pick the tech stack, and they’ve handled all aspects of development. 

What is the team composition?

At the height of the project, we’ve had 11 resources. This includes a project manager, a Scrum master, and some software engineers.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

I found Clarion on the web. I talked to them before I started Visyt, but I didn’t use them on my projects. To my regret now, I went to their competitor. However, after my dissatisfaction with the agency I worked with, I moved back to Clarion. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The tools Clarion has developed work as intended. 

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Clarion is tremendously good at project management. They’ve been able to do everything I needed. They meet their deadlines, and they’re very efficient. We usually communicate through Zoom. 

I do not see my relationship with Clarion as a client-vendor relationship. Instead, I see them as partners. I prefer them more than the other agencies I’ve worked with. They collaborate with me — they want me to improve my business so we can grow together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Clarion’s partner-oriented approach is impressive. They’ve been good working with us despite the financial restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve been flexible in terms of staffing. 

Clarion has such a broad range of capabilities in their team since their organization is quite large. Their resources are experts in what I need them to do. They bring specialized people to advise and help me, and they never charge me for their consultations. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I need more high-level and strategic advice in improving my tools. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go work with Clarion. Their pricing is fair, and they have integrity. They will partner with you, and they are very skilled. They have enough good quality resources in everything that most people need help on. If they can’t do something, they’re going to be candid with you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering for an e-commerce and retail company. I’ve been here for more than two years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We needed help with staff augmentation and tech automation including quality automation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It isn’t one project as it is more of a service. We asked them to provide resources and services every time we need them on a continuous basis. Clarion Technologies helps us with manual testing and QA and they also perform automation. We did some research on which tech stack to select, but they helped us with it. The technology was mostly web-based or TypeScript and Node.js. For the automation, they used WebdriverIO and other tools. They work on projects with different development capabilities.

What is the team composition?

It evolved over time and is quite dynamic. There are 17 people working on the project. Ketan (Digital Evangelist & Strategic Accounts) is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

We looked for a company in the domain of QA in 2019. We selected a handful and went into a selection process with an RFP. We did a test project with them and asked them to automate a test during the selection process. Then, we selected them among multiple competitors. They weren’t too expensive, they were very professional, as well as flexible and capable of assisting us on demand and trying to solve things rather than convincing us to do what they wanted. They were very open-minded, and there were plenty of very good reasons to select them compared to their competitors.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent $627,000 CAD (approximately $598,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership as a service started in March 2020 and it is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because they provide us with three services that are all different, manual testing, automation testing, and development, we do actually evaluate the success of the individual and the staff augmentation service they provide. We evaluate each individual’s productivity, quality, and documentation. We also evaluate the support of the rest of the team, leadership, accountability, autonomy based on deliverables, engagement and respect of the engagement, innovation, and drive, as well as pure technical and business knowledge.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

The only deadline I have is when I need a resource by a certain day and if they are able to fulfill that request with the level of quality of resources I would expect. They match our expectations more or less. There have been some candidates that weren’t ideal that were added to the pool and we had to terminate people that didn’t meet our expectations. In their area of expertise, they really provide good candidates very fast, but for development, it is lacking a little bit. I communicate with them through email, Slack, and individually, as well as during the meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have a lot of experience working with outsourced and offshore partners. They are in the middle of the road, and I don’t really have anything that would blow my mind in the way that they work or provide services. It is pretty much standard, but it is a positive and good standard. It’s not poor or bad, but it’s nothing exceptional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should find extremely high-quality individuals or train the people that they have internally. They meet our expectations, but not exceptionally or above them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat them as if they are part of your team. Be as respectful as you would be if they were working as a colleague and not as a provider. That will go a long way with trust, mutual respect, and project delivery.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of KnoWEwell. We’re a global community marketplace for regenerative whole health that helps individuals achieve what we call “wellthier” living — happy, healthy, abundant, and purposeful living. 

We collaborate with today’s regenerative whole health providers of functional medicine, integrative and personalized telemedicine services, and complementary and alternative medicine.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We previously worked with a development firm that came highly recommended but had poor project management and communication skills. As a result, we incurred a number of challenges along the way. The main issue was that they continuously went over budget even though we had a fixed price. Since they couldn’t sustain the work and we couldn’t pay them more, they decided to hand over the code and walk away.

We were left in a very bad position. Instead of going live like we were supposed to, we had to take the project out for bid again. That’s how we ended up with Clarion Technologies.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Clarion Technologies has taken over the end-to-end development of our platform, using some of the previous work and writing new code. It’s a community and marketplace solution that’s integrated with a full backend office ERP suite and an amalgamation of other technologies. I’d built the original publishing platform based on Drupal so that users could publish content into community topic groups.

When Clarion Technologies first started on the project, they donated a two-week inquiry period to really dig in and understand what was done beforehand. We’d have phone calls at 9 o’clock every morning and night as they learned about the code. After that investment, their team put together a reasonable proposal: they offered to send their lead developer to the US so that we could get the work done on time, given that we were starting behind schedule.

Since then, they’ve been managing the entire project with the same communication routine. They do whatever is necessary to get the job done. 

What is the team composition? 

My main point of contact is Nishad (Technical Lead). It’s funny — he was supposed to return to the US to support us for a few weeks back in February 2020. But, then the pandemic happened, so he ended up living with us for five months! He really became a part of our family during that time and is a wonderful human being.

We’ve also expanded our total resources over time. If I need another person to help cover items that weren’t in the original frontend, they’ll find me a team member.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

Clarion Technologies bid on my project during the initial selection process. At the time, they were very professional, but I was concerned about the time difference and potential language barrier issue. I had a fixed budget, so I didn’t want to risk ineffective communication factors. That’s why I chose a development firm on the East Coast as my previous partner.

When that fell through, we reached out to Clarion Technologies again. They actually brought on the same person who originally did the bid for our project.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, I’ve spent between $50,000–$200,000. We’re a startup, so there are sometimes ups and downs with cashflow. In those cases, they’ve worked with me from a financing perspective to make sure we could achieve our goals.

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve been working full time since November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since the beginning, their services have gone far beyond any of our expectations, and the technical quality of everything they’ve developed has been outstanding. We’ve just launched our marketplace solution and are now cultivating collaborative partnerships with global leaders to make it a success.

Anecdotally, I can say that everyone at KnoWEwell loves working with Clarion Technologies. It doesn’t even feel like we’re separate companies anymore because we work as one team. They’re just a part of our family, now.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve kept with the same communication throughout. It’s a call a 9 o’clock in the morning and another in the evening. Nishad also helps us manage the back-and-forth with the rest of the team in India. They’ve all been incredibly responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re not just technically-savvy but also genuinely kind, loving, and thoughtful people. The team is always looking at our platform, respectfully challenging some of our ideas and bringing new ones to the table, and they care about the services they provide. That’s made it such a pleasure to work with them.

I really believe that it comes from the top down. I have no other words to describe their CEO other than divine. He reaches out to me to see how I’m doing and hires like-minded individuals who are good, human people. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to work with him and all of the other individuals at Clarion Technologies whom I’ve met on my journey. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be helpful if they could add other business services to complement their technical skills. For example, they’ve helped design the frontend marketing site, but it’d be valuable if they also had marketing resources who could help us figure out how to do SEO and set up our Google Analytics. That way, we wouldn’t have to figure out another service provider to go to.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just be very clear and specific in detailing your expectations. You need open, honest, and frequent communication to make any engagement a success.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology manager at a content delivery platform. We focus on employee communications and explaining healthcare, primarily through video content and distributed microsites. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

There is a lot of technology inherently surrounding our delivery of video content and microsites. Clarion has helped us develop new technologies, maintain existing technologies, and scope new projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We host a large video content platform, and we also license it as a SaaS platform. Clarion has delivered quite a few things around the platform. The platform is primarily built on Laravel PHP, although we’ll probably move it to a different codebase eventually.

Clarion is involved in our entire development process, from scope all the way to deployment and testing. First, we lay out the functional and nonfunctional requirements up front. Then, we scope out ideas and solutions with their experts and create a plan. We develop sprints off of discrete goals, and Clarion executes along the way. 

Last year, we implemented a responsive website creator into our content platform. We are just about to deploy the alpha version. This is part of a larger project we have in mind with Clarion. 

What is the team composition?

In total, I’ve worked with about 10 people from Clarion. However, we take on resources as we need them. We have a group of developers that is focused on our content platform, which always needs maintenance. Then, we contract additional resources for various tasks, such as if we want to develop new features or implement a new testing suite. I’ve also talked with their president and CTO a few times.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

When I joined my company, Clarion was already an established development partner. After working with them and looking around a bit, we decided there was no reason to change — they’ve done good work. I’ve been happy with them so far.

How much have you invested with them?

The responsive website creator implementation was roughly $30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The website creator implementation was from May 2020–January 2021. However, there are always ongoing projects to support our platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve given our clients sneak peeks of how development of the responsive website creator is going, and we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback along the way. Our main goal is to make sure that our big clients are very happy with the website creator, as they’ll be the ones using it most. So far, it seems like they are happy with it.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Clarion provides a dedicated project manager who helps plan sprints and translate some of the tasks to dev talk. From that perspective, they’re extremely supportive and always very willing to suggest solutions, rather than just put their heads down and take orders. 

They’re great about meeting deadlines, even though I often throw quite a few unexpected bugs at them and we have to rearrange things. We’re usually within a few weeks of their projected deadlines, as long as realistic scope requirements are kept in bounds.

Our work with them has always been remote, and we have very clear contact. We frequently meet with them early in the morning. We’re currently meeting about three times a week, but there have been points when we’ve met every day. They also use all of the modern messaging apps, so I can reach them that way. We’ve used Slack, email, Jira, and WeChat, amongst others.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Clarion is very committed. They work tirelessly to find a solution, even if I’ve given up. They’re very responsive to needs. They also want to be involved in the process, which I think can be a big distinguisher amongst other development companies. Others just take orders, even if there isn’t a clear mission behind it because the person commissioning it doesn’t know how tech works. It’s great to have a partner in that sense — the collaboration is really appreciated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only way they could improve would be to shift their time zone, but that’s not realistic. Beyond that, I don’t have many complaints — they have fair prices, they get things done, they adequately test, and they ask for feedback bi-weekly. They’re looking to learn, and they’ve very supportive. I can’t think of anything negative.

Any advice for potential customers?

Anytime that you’re working with an overseas development company, or there are language or cultural barriers that could confuse the meaning of instructions, visuals are absolutely key. Visuals help to cut through any barriers and prevent miscommunication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m systems control manager for a feed and forage analysis company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We constantly update our system, which requires hard-coded development. Clarion works on those upgrades.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion updates our website and develops our program. Their team also works on our reporting process, updating how we generate reports and items included in them. They also build programs to help us communicate with our clients and affiliates.

What is the team composition?

I work with five people at Clarion — four developers and one project manager.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

I did not find this team. Rather, I inherited the relationship when my previous colleague left the company. As a result of the system’s complexity and some of our tools’ ages, we haven’t changed vendors.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the eight years of our engagement, we’ve probably spent between $500,000–$750,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Clarion has been a partner of ours for a number of years. Our partnership began roughly eight years ago, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They complete the tasks that we assign them, and that’s essentially our metric. We’re pleased with them because their team meets our goals. They now make a lot more advancements in a shorter timeframe than before.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Microsoft DevOps to organize all of our tasks but also communicate via email. Over the past two years, Clarion has become much more organized. We also updated our processes based on their suggestions. They perform to a good standard.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Clarion is tenacious. They will work to find a solution no matter what we ask of them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have a little more imagination. Their team’s tenacious about finding solutions but we have to come up with ideas for development and advancement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your expectations and know what you want ahead of time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We translate content for many different buyers whether it’s corporate or legal. We translate everything from patents to life science work, all the way to legal and product marketing. I am the Co-CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We needed to upgrade our technology talent in a scalable type of way.  We wanted to get technology expertise at an economical price point, who could also focus on tenure retention and the quality of their employees. Overall, we were trying increase the development expertise within our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are the development arm of our company. They not only solve day to day challenges for our business and the clients, but they also help dictate the future direction of the company. We have a proprietary portal that was developed and we also have our own enterprise resource planning system. Clarion Technologies was critical and essential in the ability to integrate these platforms so that we can have a closed loop architecture. In addition to that, they’ve built other things such as visualization when it comes to reporting metrics for our overall organization, and they've built integrations with third party platforms for clients and alliance partners.

Clarion Technologies also offers support in multiple different languages and platforms in stacks. We have work in AngularJS, C#, and DotNetNuke. They've been able to support us in all of those avenues. They are also an extremely talented agile shop.

What is the team composition?

We were assigned a half dozen developers. We also were assigned designers, project managers, and a couple of scrum masters. We're actually expanding our team almost every other month because we're just continuing to be happy with the quality of work they put forth. We want to continue to grow our relationship with them.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

When comparing different vendors, Clarion Technologies stood out because of their large breadth and depth of multiple languages supported, strong experience in integration,  API development, and UX development. They just seemed like they covered a lot in their virtual employment model, where we actually got to look at resumes, tenure, and actually select our folks. That's really what moved us over to them versus others vendors.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have worked with them since October 2017.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From the quality of perspective, I would say we've had zero escape defects. The quality of the work is fantastic. We’ve had zero complaints and we’re happy with all their work so far.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We have global clients but we’ve never had an issue with communication or overlapping. Their people will jump on a call at any time of the day, over any issue, and respond quickly. We use Jira as a project management tool but again, the communication or language barriers have never been a problem with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their commitment and dedication to our success is very impressive. I don't look at them as a different company, or as a third party. They are part of the team. That’s the thing I’m most impressed with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t really think of anything except as they continue to get bigger, they could offer more services. But in terms of customer service, retention, tenure, and quality of code, everything has been fantastic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're such an active company where they want to engage and they want direction, which is fantastic. I would recommend having a single point of contact for them. We actually hired our own program manager that straddled the business between product technology, so that person becomes a point of contact for the development team. That really helped the process along by having a single point of contact to work with each scrum master and the development team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Instant Evaluate. We provide automated solutions related to customer satisfaction and employee recruitment. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

We needed to find more efficient ways of scaling our development team. At times, we don’t have a lot of work to be done, but that can shift drastically within a month. Clarion gave us the ability to scale up and down as needed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion Technologies started out by looking at our practices. At that time, we were working on customer-satisfaction surveys. People would provide feedback through an IVR [interactive voice response] system and online, based on which we needed to create digital reports and immediate notifications for upper managers if problems arose. Clarion standardized the way in which we were using our platform, making it easier to scale up and down. We were building individual solutions for each client initially, but Clarion created a new platform that made it easier to add clients.

Much of our work is PHP-based, and we undergo mobile and database work, but I’m not a technical person. Clarion has our complete confidence, so I don’t question them. We come up with solutions, and they build them. Clarion has also been instrumental in sourcing and managing designers and other types of resources.

We have 2 primary platforms: 1 for recruitment and 1 for customer satisfaction. On the recruitment side, we allow candidates to respond to job offers, either through an email that includes a link or a posting on a job board such as Indeed or CareerBuilder. The links take candidates to a landing page, which is where we come into play. We ask some questions to make sure they’re qualified for the job. Assuming they are, we will allow them to self-schedule an interview, based on the recruiters’ availability. Candidates receive confirmation emails, as well as reminder texts and emails before the event. There is constant communication between candidates and the recruiting managers.

Our reports have various hierarchical levels, based on the setup of the franchised operations. One person may own a store and only see data for that particular location, but a district manager could be responsible for 27 stores and have access to all of them.

The customer service platform allows people who have visited restaurants, clinics, and other businesses to submit surveys. If, for whatever reason, a negative survey is submitted, our system will immediately notify the right person. The client defines what a low score means. This system is valuable since, in this day and age, it’s common for clients to give negative reviews on Facebook, Yelp, and other platforms. We try to notify managers before this happens so that they have time to fix the situation.

If a high score comes in, our system will suggest sharing the result on social media. There are other simplified solutions on the market, but we offer a customized platform that can track scores from customers at particular locations and determine which person needs to be notified. This all factors into things like the Net Promoter Score.

We have 3–4 full-time developers on-staff from Clarion’s side. They represent 100% of our development team. Sometimes, we have another third-party take care of niche work, mostly design.

There were months when we didn’t have any direct communication with Clarion’s resources themselves. Everything was done via email, and it worked very well.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

I googled terms like “PHP programming” some time ago. We had been working with local talent, which tended to be sporadic and less reliable. I was a bit desperate, but I came across Clarion’s team, who offered to work without advance payment. They appeared confident that their solution would work, so I took a shot.

How much have you invested with Clarion Technologies?

We use multiple developers throughout the year, but I’m not comfortable sharing specific numbers.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Clarion at least 10 years ago. I believe we were among their first customers. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

We can bring on new clients, tell Clarion what we want and how long it will take, and have them build it. They’re generally correct with the estimates they provide, but we usually end up changing the scope. A project that’s estimated at 40 hours can sometimes take 70, but I don’t think it’s Clarion’s fault.

We’re good at finding customer solutions and figuring out what the customer wants, and we try to communicate that information concisely. Clarion can become frustrated with us after we change something they’ve half-finished. I don’t know if this is restricted to us, but custom solutions are constantly changing after the customer realizes they need something else. Overall, Clarion is good at working with us, and they haven’t given us any reason to go shopping for another provider.

We’re 100% dependent on Clarion. We do everything with them. When they tell us that something works, it usually does. There are bugs at times, but this is to be expected with custom software.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We interface through a project manager and have Skype chats every morning. The developers will sometimes be cc’d on a conversation. Their performance has been good in terms of project management, but Clarion is all we know, so I’m not sure how to compare.

We have a project management tool in place, which simplifies making and receiving notes. They’ve been good at summarizing the work on a daily basis.

What did you find most impressive about Clarion Technologies?

They give us a list of everything that they did in the previous day. I was never able to get a developer to do this locally. Their team also seems to care about our success, and it’s important for them to know that a project was done well. Prior to Clarion, the developers we were using were basically punching the clock.

They’re genuinely a part of our team, so our wins and frustrations are also theirs. I’ve found Clarion to be a genuine partner, and they take pride in their work.

Are there any areas Clarion Technologies could improve?

They have more holidays there than we do. This was a big point of conflict in the beginning, but I reread the agreement, and it had been clearly stated. They haven’t even taken all the off-time they’re entitled to, and they do take calls during off hours. We have had issues and woke them at 3 a.m. with urgent needs. We don’t like to do this because we want to maintain a friendly relationship, so we have restricted these calls to crisis situations.