Clarion Technologies

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.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is an online prepaid retailer. We sell flying and driving experience days to our customer base, and then work with individual experience retailers to market their products and attract demand. I’m the head of e-commerce for the business, doing digital functions in terms of marketing, usability, site functions, and so on.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

The needs of the business were to find an outsourced development house that could take a complex website, one that has been around for quite some time, and build it up. We needed a team to be responsive to our needs, make this site as user-friendly as possible, and be an emergency resource should the site go down.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It's been quite a mix. It's been everything from refining the operations of the site, such as reducing things like page loads, and working on making the functionality on the site slicker. They've been an emergency resource when the site's gone down, and they've been there to alleviate our problems with the way the site works. Again, they've been on hand to be able to help fix those problems. It's providing almost a full stack of development resource in terms of backend and frontend development, as well as frontend design. It's really a whole range of services.

They have been adding additional functionality to our on-site sort function. They have been looking at making the page loads faster through JavaScript, etc. They have organized our site and looking at the sizes of images. They have also been working on providing different functionality on the way that the site looks and feels on a mobile site as opposed to the desktop site.

At the moment, I didn't think we've got them to implement any specific third-party technologies. We will be doing so very shortly in terms of on-site search. We're also looking at third-party payment provision as well. But in terms of implementation of other technologies, not so much. The original site database was built on SQL on a .NET platform.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

I wasn't involved in the recruitment of Clarion. They have been in place long before I joined the business seven months ago.

How much have you invested with Clarion Technologies?

The total cost is confidential but at the moment we have two full-time developers and one project manager who's only working on the site.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them when I joined the business seven months ago. The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has contributed to a site receiving hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors. It's not the biggest site, but not unreasonably small either.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Despite the fact that we have a project manager, we've been using mostly with the developers directly. When I joined, there wasn't a great deal of structure to the way that we interfaced with them: it would be ad hoc, either by Skype or by email, and we would get in touch with requirements. It came to me to start to build some structure around that, logging what was being asked of the developers and recording our conversations for our records and for theirs, in order to get into a place where we know there's a bit more visibility in terms of what the developers are doing on any given day, and the priorities that are assigned therein. I'm not entirely sure of the way that they work internally. I believe they work on a sprint schedule. We don't assign a schedule to them. I believe that the sprinters who are there— the project managers—would assign the way that they work on the tasks.

There's no doubt that the developers work very hard. They have produced quite a lot of work and on usually quite tight deadlines. When I initially joined, a lot of the work they did was very good. We were especially very pleased with the way that they worked, and the speed at which they worked. I've worked with a lot of businesses and a lot of developers over the years, and they’re certainly pretty quick. There's no question that they do work pretty hard.

Recently, there have been more issues with the quality of the work coming through. For example, we got a product feed, and there have been numerous issues with not only the way the product feed is formatted but the way the data has been pulling into it. There have been issues with some of the doorways and some of the requests for how specific data was handled. Equally, there have been questions about the quality of some of the settings on the frontend development work in terms of the way the website handles mobile and desktop. The functionality was built directly onto the page rather than being coded within the style sheet. Overall, they are very capable, but there recently have been times when they're having issues with some of the work they have produced.

What did you find most impressive about Clarion Technologies?

One thing they did recently for me was to add reviews to the product listing pages to allow us to sort by function. We spent quite a time working on that, and the end result of the work they did, in terms of the way that it looked and functioned, was very good. It was quite a complex bit of coding. In fact, they were relying on a third-party plug-in to be able to pull the data and then to render effectively on the listing pages, and then also to sort by order to rank those. I wouldn't say there weren't any issues; the end result was overall pretty decent. There have been a number of instances like that, either small tweaks or changes that we asked for that, that they happened to do effectively and very quickly.

Are there any areas Clarion Technologies could improve?

I have questions around the overall quality of coding they have done in terms of design and frontend development. We've had a few instances where the code has been showing to be ineffectively used. Equally, the look and feel of the current site, which is done using their in-house frontend developer, wasn't especially good in terms of the look and feel and the way it renders across different browsers. I would be keen to them to understand how they develop their frontend developers and to make sure that they are kept up-to-date with some of the latest best practices in terms of the frontend side, especially to make sure that the code is as clean as it could be.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is an e-commerce site selling DJ equipment and lighting. I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion?

We had a developer that was working with us prior to Clarion but he wasn’t very reliable so we were looking for a replacement to revamp our existing website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we first started working with Clarion, we were having them perform some updates to the backend including order processing and management, label processing and printing, and API configurations with our backend and EPS and other third party sites. They helped with creating POs for purchases from the manufacturers and creating pick lists for our own staff. Another task was helping us keep track of returns and return merchandise authorization management. We use payment services including PayPal, Amazon Pay and regular credit cards, so getting our cart to work with payment services is a big part of what Clarion does. They also worked on data feeds for Google shopping and third-party marketplace sites.

We got someone else to do a complete redesign of the graphics for the frontend and then Clarion did the coding for it. We have used Clarion for simple graphics projects but we decided to go with someone else for the frontend project. The designer was impressed with Clarion’s team. As time went along, we kept coming up with new tasks and updates that we wanted to the site, and they eventually they revamped the whole site. The site is coded in CakePHP.

How much have you invested with Clarion?

We spend around $50,000 a year with Clarion.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before we started working with them, we were growing by 30% a year and we were able to keep that up. That’s pretty high for a business that’s been established for five or six years. They helped us continue that pace. Last year was less growth than previous years but we expected that the more business we do, the harder it is to keep up that percentage every year. I think without Clarion, we would’ve slowed our pace much sooner. The site is drastically better than it was three years ago. When looking at the site, there’s a big difference in the snapshots. Part of that is the graphics team that worked on it, but Clarion was able to implement everything and get it running smoothly. We also changed our advertising strategy while working on the website so it’s hard to attribute what’s working and what isn’t.

How did Clarion perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate mostly by email. We also use Google Hangouts, chats or phone calls. Sometimes I think a task should be done in a day or two but it would take two or three weeks. Other times, I think a task will take a week and they’re able to do it in a day or two. I don’t know coding that well so it’s hard to know what a reasonable timeframe is especially with security issues and payment options.

What did you find most impressive about Clarion?

They have a wide knowledge base. If I ask them to do something, they’ve never said they couldn’t. There’s enough people working on the team that they can collaborate together to get the work done. Occasionally there’s a language barrier, so it’s important to clearly explain the tasks. If you give them all the information and screenshots and a good description, they’re very good and they’re able to make it look exactly like the mockup. If you leave it up to them, sometimes they don’t understand the purpose of the task and might end up doing something that a native English speaker might not do.

Are there any areas Clarion could improve?

Sometimes the testing isn’t as thorough as we’d like. When it goes live, I test it myself and it might work the first time but the second time it doesn’t work or they tested it on just one browser. They’re always able to fix it but it’s frustrating when something new goes live and it’s not thoroughly tested.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Clarion?

Explain things clearly and don’t assume that they have the same understanding that American developers might have.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Financial Driver creates online business-performance management software for budgeting, planning, forecasting, and business consolidations.

What is your position?

I am a product manager for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with vEmployee?

vEmployee has acted as our development arm.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

vEmployee has been in charge of the development of our product, acting like virtual full-time employees of our company. We have mainly used one resource, but we may use an additional person from time to time, depending on what we need. The same person has worked with us during the four years I've been collaborating with vEmployee.

Our product works in an online environment and uses the Microsoft stack, .NET, C++ and, in general, industry-recognized programming languages.

Our product is built from scratch, without the use of external components. We have developed our own engines, frontend look-and-feel, and so on.

How did you come to work with vEmployee?

vEmployee was brought in prior to my start. When I came onboard, there was some talk of moving away from vEmployee. Their services have been okay, and we've continued the collaboration. Generally, we get what we need, but there are some gaps in some areas where vEmployee doesn't have a full skillset.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This is confidential. Our cost is relatively low, in terms of development.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with vEmployee 5 or 6 years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The developer we have provides very high-quality work, but also thinks outside the box. If something happens, he can proactively come up with better approaches, but I've also had to ask for this. Being self-starters is not a part of the culture in vEmployee's country, but I've always encouraged it. I've told them that whoever works on our team will need to think creatively about what they're doing, and come back with different approaches.

How did vEmployee perform from a project management standpoint?

The relationship is maintained between myself as product manager and vEmployee's developers. We involve their managers whenever there's a need to modify or reprioritize a task.

What distinguishes vEmployee from other providers?

vEmployee has tried to understand our business and where we're coming from, working with us on how to deliver solutions.

Is there anything vEmployee could have improved or done differently?

vEmployee's team is not forward enough, which is a cultural limitation. Partners in the US or UK would be more questioning, since that's normal for our culture.

Do you have any recommendations for others considering working with vEmployee?

vEmployee is a dedicated company and they will work with a solutions attitude, thinking about how we can solve a problem. Because of the breadth of the business, our team members can generally consult with their colleagues. If we need to bring in other skills, we can do this as well.

Our current resource is not a designer, but vEmployee does have a design team which ensures the look-and-feel of the product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief technology officer at an organization that comprises different product verticals—tuition and student information systems, basically K–12 software—for private and public schools. I’ve been with this company for about two years. My background is in technology. I also do research and development; PCI [payment card industry] compliance; and enterprise IT, and development operations. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion?

We hired Clarion to do some of our offshore development work to augment our in-house development team. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion worked on several products in our portfolio. The products had to do with K–12 software, specifically for payment—receiving payments, credit card payments, ACH payments, etc. Clarion used multiple technologies, including PHP, Java, and Python. They mostly did custom work for us.

How did you come to work with Clarion?

We went through a vetting process while looking for a company with whom to partner. We had a short list, but Clarion was on it. We went through a diligence process with them and started with a small project. They did well on it, so we continued to leverage their resources going forward.

How much have you invested with Clarion?

I’m not comfortable talking about how much we’ve invested with Clarion.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with Clarion for about two years. We started working with them at the end of 2014. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m not sure how many hard metrics I can share. Under one of our brands, Clarion is directly responsible for maintaining the software that drives all the revenue for that brand. It’s a pretty substantial responsibility, and they’ve always done a great job with that. As far as specific metrics, we track velocity engineering throughput and quality, and we have been tracking that for a little over a year. We set pretty aggressive goals for Clarion, and they’re always meeting them. From that standpoint, our work together has gone well. They’re good at delivering, and they generally do what they say they’re going to do.

How did Clarion perform from a project management standpoint?

Clarion is good at project management. We’ve used them for engineering at a high level, so we’ve used them as PHP and Java engineers as well as database administrators and Scrum masters. They’ve also provided us with architects from time to time on certain projects. They’ve always provided a dedicated project management resource to us. In our case, it’s more of a Scrum-based project management, so we’ve had a Scrum master on the project for the last 2.5 years or so, and she’s done a great job. There was a small window where we had another project going, and we brought in somebody else as well. That lasted for about six months or less, but Clarion has been consistent in their allocation of resources.

What did you find most impressive about Clarion?

There are a number of things Clarion has done well. One thing that stands out is that we had a new product that we were innovating. Clarion took that product basically from conception to release, and they were able to deliver it on time for a successful launch. They were almost single-handedly responsible for that, which was pretty cool.

Are there any areas Clarion could improve?

I’m an engineering manager, so I may be too deep in the weeds with Clarion on a day-to-day basis, but they’re a solid group of people. I can’t think of anything they could change for the better that would be dramatically different from what they’re doing today. We’re happy with them. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We implement end-to-end maintenance, repair, and inventory management for big companies. I’m the VP of research and development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion?

We needed a stable group of developers who could help produce new products and added functionality over a long period of time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re enhancing our software products all the time. They’re like full-time employees. When I need a new developer, they find one within two weeks who is highly qualified.

How did you come to work with Clarion?

I initially interviewed three companies. When I talked to Clarion, I could tell it was a perfect fit. I got along well with the people I was dealing with. I stressed that I needed a long-term relationship and they were fine with that.

How much have you invested with Clarion?

This information is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2011 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over six years, I’ve gotten nothing but excellent development, extreme productivity, and a very dedicated development team which has a huge work ethic. They are the best team I’ve ever worked with and that’s why I continue working with them.

How did Clarion perform from a project management standpoint?

I have direct access to the project manager and I talk to them daily.

What did you find most impressive about Clarion?

I know the owner personally and have met him and his wife when I was in India. Clarion is a large organization and they have incorporated a set of core values that makes them who they are and allows them to continually satisfy customers. They don’t tolerate any deviation from their core values. Their integrity is impeccable.

Are there any areas Clarion could improve?

No.

BACKGROUND

Can you give a brief overview of what your company does?

We provide online ecommerce services, including online credit card processing, so we sort really do a complete full service.

What is your position within the company?

I actually own the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your main business goals or objectives for undertaking the project with Clarion?

Early on its development, which is about 10 years ago, it was just to provide a secure payment gateway for our clients at the time; mostly to allow them to enter transactions manually, like a simple payment gateway. From there, it just grew to offering a more advanced, easy-to-use shopping cart program. At this point, we were just trying to provide being a different partner to our clients where we make it really easy for them to do ecommerce on the Internet. That was the goal of what we wanted to try to do. It’s to make it easy. That was the biggest thing. Make it easy for small business owners doing it themselves, as opposed to providing a service for Web developers.

Did you have any systems in place before you started working with Clarion?

No.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Clarion 10 years ago if you remember?

Actually, at the time I was just looking for a company to build some ecommerce structures for me. When I came across Clarion or whatever it was at the time, they had a different idea than everybody else that I was talking to. They were giving me prices accordingly, fixed dollar amounts for building a system that I wanted. On the other hand, Clarion had a different idea that they wanted to offer developers for hire, willing to work as employees for me. That idea intrigued me. I thought it gave me a lot more control on the development than just giving it to somebody to do. I could be very hands-on with them, and have them all these many years. That’s definitely what I wanted to get as a response. Not that I knew any coding or anything. When I say there’s something that I wanted, there’s a logic that I wanted, and there’s a certain look that I wanted. I didn’t really care how it was made to work, or what the coding looks like because I have no idea what’s good coding or what’s bad coding. However, I know that’s easy to use, and that’s what they developed for me.

Are you still working with them till this day ?

I still work with them. Early on, they spent time building the systems, putting them all in place. Now, what they do is run most of the ecommerce infrastructure for me. So there’s tech support guys and management that they supply. They supply pretty much the whole technology side of our business.

Can you give me a general cost estimate for your work with Clarion?

It’s changed from year to year, depending on how much development was being done. Back in the early days, it was $300 to $400 a week. Nowadays, there's more development work so it would be $800 to $900 a week. So, it’s kind of what I’m doing because I have the support people with fewer expenses than programs or not, and they do a lot of support of my primary business, but they do it for me as a long-term customer.

Do you know what programming languages or technologies they mostly used with you?

I don’t know. They used everything from AST, ASTX, PHP, and they’ve done some Java work. They’ve done pretty much whatever I needed done. It’s like we’re in the process of looking into doing some Android development.

BACKGROUND

Can you give a brief overview of what your company does?

We’ve utilized the Internet to deliver content to display managements, so we do display these large outdoor LED screens in airports, that sort of thing. Our technology delivers the contents to the screens via the Internet.

What is your position within the company?

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main business goal or objective for undertaking the project?

They developed the whole system utilizing the Internet, so I don’t know if you’d clarify that as Web development. We got them to develop the whole backend, the whole delivery system. That’s the daughter bases, the actual communications, and everything.

Did you have any existing system in place before they started the project?

Yes. We had a system, and they rewrote it. We didn’t show them anything on the old system. We just put all the specifications in place. They, if you want to call it, rewrote the whole system for us.

If you’re comfortable, where exactly was the historical system lacking?

I think just in the technology point of view, it was at the very early days of digital signage, so I think everybody was sort of still finding their way. We developed our own player that goes on the back of the screen. Now, you can basically buy them off the shelf. Things have changed dramatically.

What was your process for selecting Clarion?

We had got some folks in Romania, and we got some guys in Europe to do the system. They had let us down, so we were sort of locked two or three months into the project, and then added some research. The basic reason I went with them is that the two owners, the guys are both IIT [Indian Institute of Technology] graduates, but anybody that comes out of there is worth their weight in gold.

SOLUTION

Could you tell me a little more about the scope of the project?

Pretty large. It has four basic module administrations, which is how we look after the system, and monitor the controllers that are at on the sites. There’s a network module, which is a person who owns their own network and can put in hundred of screens of their own. Then, we have an advertising module that allows advertisers to run their spot or space that they board on that screen as their own networks so they could buy spots of everybody’s network and then they run their ten second slots as if it was their own network. The other module that was developed was a previous module where, if an advertiser board space on the network, they would have direct access to their 10-second slots, but if the network owner wanted to check that ad or content before it went on to the screen, it would be sent off to places to be able to be approved.

Can you give a general estimate of the project in terms of cost?

I stayed with them for quite a long time. I was most probably with them for three years. We developed the initial system, and then we started adding a whole lot of extra pieces to it. So, I had them initially working on the whole system, and then I employed them during a three-year period. This way, they continued working on the system, and all new things that we put in. For example, our first system that went out, you just could put one piece of content on the screen. Then, we had what we call zones, and you could cut the screen up into four zones. Then, another project was where we had the system run a number of screens off of one controller. They were all added advantages to the system that they continued developing. I would say between $200,000 and $500,000.

How long ago was the project completed?

I haven’t worked with them for about the last three years.

What technologies were used in the project, if you know?

It was all basically PHP based. There were a couple of things that were written in C that got taken into the system, but the database was MySQL, and most of the stuff was PHP.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results of the project?

I would recommend them any day of the week, and have actually recommended them a number of times.

When you were working with Clarion, did you notice anything unique or special about them compared to other developers?

I think they’re the sort of the business model where you are hiring one person, but you are actually getting a whole range of people. For example, at the start of the project, they had systems analysts involved. Then,  when you went over to the coding, they had a sort of team leader, even though they weren’t the specific person that you were paying for other things, like they would have testers. So, you’re basically hiring one virtual person, but you’re getting all of this other expertise involved as well.

Looking back on the project, is there any area you think Clarion can improve or do slightly better in?

No. When we started, they were obviously also starting. I helped them with their business model to a small degree, but when they were starting, they were obviously finding their feet but by the end of the project, I think they had everything down pat because we went through situations where they lost a staff member, and then they would bring a new virtual person on. They would sort of eat the cost for the first three weeks or months of the staff member getting up to speed, and then they would start charging you once that staff member was up to speed. I think they’ve got their business model pretty well pat down.

A very high level of accountability?

Very high level, and then the wages are even sort of measured against. If you’ve got two or three people onboard, let’s say you hire one person and the quota is off for a day, and the test is all working, you see exactly what is being done with your system on a daily basis.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I'm an executive at Real Time Solutions

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Custom business software, software as a service, website design and development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Clarion Technologies to accomplish?

• Stand up automated testing of our SaaS products

SOLUTION

How did you find Clarion Technologies?

recommendation

Why did you select Clarion Technologies over others?

Referred to me

What was the size of Clarion Technologies’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

stand up automated tests for our SaaS products

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Automated tests working and completed.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project management delivered on time and responded to our needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Clarion Technologies?

Virtual Meeting

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

They're very thorough and dedicated to the project. 

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

Not at this time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is nonprofit healthcare workforce development. We help healthcare organizations deliver astounding patient care by maximizing their recruitment, training, and retention potential with human-centered workforce development solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

Various workforce-related challenges our healthcare clients have. For example, training delivery, tracking, and reporting, and job application management.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarion is our technology development partner providing application development and maintenance as part of our product development team.

What is the status of this engagement?

On-going and active.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

​​​​Our relationship has not changed other than resource allocation scaling up and down based on project deliverables.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Clarion is already very proactive at seeking feedback and addressing challenges that arise. We continue to work with them to optimize our processes together.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Having referred clients directly to Clarion in the past, we wouldn't hesitate to tell others that Clarion is a great partner not only for technology development but also to align product strategy with business goals.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on August 1, 2017.

Director, Healthcare Career Development Non-profit

Nonprofit

11-50 Employees

Syracuse, New York

$200,000 to $999,999

Apr 2015 - Ongoing

Project summary

Clarion developed a learning management system using PHP, WordPress, and a MySQL database. They created custom features involving reporting and data aggregation, and continue to help enhance the platform.

Feedback summary

Clarion’s collaboration process is streamlined and effective, and they’ve been crucial to gaining new clients and helping internal teams make more of an impact. They’re superior in Agile development and project management, and their communication skills offset some time difference challenges.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is a healthcare workforce development organization. We design, develop, and implement products, programs, and services that help our clients and partners improve. We close the gaps where there is a need in workforce development, specifically for healthcare.

I am the director of strategy and planning. My role in the company is to analyze our clients’ needs and to lead teams on designing and developing solutions that will help meet those needs, specifically in training, which is a large area. We also support pipeline development: getting people into the health career pipeline and then supporting them throughout their journey in various areas.

Our key focus is building technology-based products that help our clients and partners recruit, train, and develop their workforce in the healthcare setting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarion Technologies?

Initially, when we started working with Clarion, we needed to build a platform that would support a new initiative that was coming through the state of New York. We needed to build a platform, a learning management system (LMS), that could handle a number of different custom features. It needed to provide training not just for a single organization, but for an organization that is overseeing hundreds of other organizations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of our complex needs was that the content needed to be able to go down to partner organizations, and then reports would be aggregated up. It would also allow for all of the partner organizations to have a central place to report and aggregate other workforce development or transition data.

As the clients’ and partners’ needs became more identified, we grew from there. We took the concept to Clarion Technologies and they built what we needed. They helped to maintain and support the product throughout as well.

Knowing that we needed to get the product out in the most flexible way, we started to build on WordPress and now have a highly customized WordPress application. PHP is key, which sits on a MySQL database, and it has been highly customized. Clarion has really helped with customizing the WordPress platform effectively.

The system is uniquely integrated in terms of user roles and content management, which are all very specific to each individual partner. The client oversees hundreds of partners using the system for different things. Everything is aggregated up to the larger partner organization. It was a very complex requirement, especially to be built on top of the WordPress framework. The developers did an excellent job of making it work, and keeping everything running fast and effectively.

How did you come to work with Clarion Technologies?

After doing some research, I posted on a WordPress forum looking for developers, and one of Clarion’s business development representatives reached out to me. After speaking with a handful of clients that they currently work with in the U.S., it was their references that ultimately sold it for me.

We started out small with Clarion, and that quickly grew. They are now a big part of our team.

How much have you invested in them?

We are close to $200,000-$250,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Clarion in April 2015. It is a long-term partnership now. They are our development team; they know our business inside and out and are really helping us get the product where it needs to be for our clients. We hope that Clarion will be part of our team long into the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had 1 client in this initiative before the product was built. Through Clarion’s work, we have been able to grow that. Their work has helped us gain more contracts and more clients. We have been able to solve more problems and make more of an impact.

With Clarion’s help, 12 of the 22 organizations that oversee this large initiative have been able to really be at the forefront of providing a one-of-a-kind product for these clients to effectively manage the workforce transitions in terms of training and tracking.

How did Clarion Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We started off with just 1 developer, and also had a project manager that we worked with who oversees the task. As our team over there has grown, that role has become really vital. My technical team on this side has varying capabilities in terms of their ability to code versus their ability just to understand and be able to project manage different products. Everyone works really tightly together.

There is daily communication between my tech specialists and the developers with Clarion. It is extremely well-managed on both sides. Professional project managers assign tasks and discuss things efficiently. There are no issues in terms of ensuring work gets done. This has been extremely valuable for us.

The lines of communication are always open. We use Skype for group chat for various things, which all of the developers participate in. We also have regular calls and webinars for reviewing. Because of the open communication, the distance between us is not noticed.

If we bring any of our needs to them, it is a very streamlined process where their team will review and give us some solutions. We will work as a team collaboratively to ensure that the right solution is implemented.

What did you find the most impressive about them?

We have been very impressed with the management structure on their side. Developers have been great, and we have been very happy with the product that has been produced. With the scale and chaos of the project on our end, Clarion was able to help us implement our Agile development strategy through their project management. For us, this was extremely valuable, just having that expertise coming from their side. There wasn’t an additional fee for us to get that expertise and have someone on that level managing the development implementation and testing, and putting things into a more standardized process.

Being in another country and having the ability to grasp and understand what our business needs are, versus just our technology need, is a unique attributed of theirs. They are very good at ensuring they are on the same page with where we are going business-wise. Clarion helps us get there by ensuring the right solution is implemented as well as building what we feel is a need in the moment.

Clarion ensures that things are well-tested and that regular staff meetings occur where we can discuss project deliverables and long-term business deliverables. Products are built and designed to support long-term growth, which has been exactly what we need in our partner for development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because of the time difference, an area that could be improved would be to have developers dedicated to working during our daytime here, to fix any issues or bugs that come up. Otherwise, Clarion is extremely good at responding during our evening, and we know things will be fixed by the next morning. We are in discussion right now with Clarion regarding this, and they are currently in the process of putting someone in place to help us with that.

It has been a very good and enjoyable experience working with Clarion. We really do see them as part of the team. As we grow and develop, they are growing and developing with us.

I highly recommend Clarion. The plus side for us is the additional project management that comes with this company. They really help look after your project, and they are really dedicated, ensuring that our business needs are met, which has made a huge difference for us.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Clarion Technologies?

The only advice I have for someone who may potentially be evaluating Clarion, is to be upfront in terms of what your needs are regarding business hours and being covered during those times. Then it will be addressed. Allow Clarion to advise and guide the process; accepting it will make things better in the long run, rather than trying to rush and get everything out.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 5 Clarion implemented improvements, or when issues or minor things have occurred, they quickly solve the issue, and sometimes are ahead of solving the problem.

Quality: 5 Clarion produced the products that we needed, and everything produced has been top quality.

Cost: 5 Their value for cost is excellent.

Schedule: 5 This is simply because there have been times when something came up, but we had to wait until night or the next morning. We are addressing that, and the rating will soon be a 5.

Willing to refer: 5 Based on my experience, Clarion would be my first choice in recommendation.