CN Group CZ a.s.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Tech Lead from a enterprise SaaS company based in Norway and Denmark.

For what projects/services did your company hire CN Group CZ a.s., and what were your goals?

We found ourselves in a situation where we needed extra development, QA and DevOps capacity and were looking for the best way to get qualified resources added to the team as quickly as possible.

How did you select CN Group CZ a.s. and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking at outsourcing as a potential way of solving our need for extra capacity, but also knew that if we did it, it had to be with the right partner.

We started our search and CN Group was one of the companies that we reached out to. They convinced us that they would be the right match by their years of experience, a big roster of qualified people, a location that was easy to get to and a mentality that was a lot like our own. The fact that their company has Danish roots was a fun coincidence, but who knows if that helps explain the likeness in mentality.

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

CN Group has been working as a part of a scrum team for continuous development of new features and maintenance of one of our products.

The techstack has been Vue.js, Node.js and MongoDB.

Furthermore they have also helped us with DevOps work primarily related to AWS.

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

The size of the team has varied since our situation and needs have changed throughout our cooperation. 

Currently we have a scrum team consisting of 4 developers, 1 QA, 1 DevOps and a scrum master.

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

CN Group is a valued partner for us that is helping us grow and improve one of our products.

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

They are very clear, honest and direct in their communication. When we have raised concerns or issues, then they have always handled it very professionally and have been quick to react. 

They make a great effort to make sure that we are aligned for instance we have a bi-weekly status meeting, where we cover the status within the team. Of course if more sudden issues arise, then we take it ad hoc. 

We are also a company that moves rather quickly and CN Group has always done their best to keep up with us with helping us find a new person for the team or help communicate a new change in our approach etc.

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

We have been impressed by their mentality and overall level of quality. 

The CN Group mentality seems to gel really well with our Scandavian way of thinking. There is a good understanding between us on a project mangement level and also between developers.

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

The level of English of some individuals has a few times been an issue, but we know that it's something that CN Group takes seriously and makes sure that their employees can get training if they wish.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO for TF Bank, which is a niche bank in the northern part of Europe.

What challenge were you trying to address with CN Group CZ a.s?

We wanted to step up our development capacity and needed to hire a vendor to collaborate with us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CN Group has supported several software development projects. Their team was heavily involved in the design, architecture, and development of our origination system, which created a loan ledger system. They also helped to build other critical business applications.

Their team continues to support us, working in our preferred tech stack — Microsoft. They write code, conduct tests, and manage deployments.

What is the team composition?

We collaborated with roughly 13 people including a team lead and lead developers.

How did you come to work with CN Group CZ a.s?

Our CEO saw one of CN Group’s commercials and brought their team to my attention. We evaluated several potential partners but found them to be the best candidate.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent more than €1,000,000 euros (approximately $1,190,000 USD) on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in 2012, and our partnership’s ongoing.

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

CN Group’s a dedicated partner. They always meet or exceed our expectations.

How did CN Group CZ a.s perform from a project management standpoint?

They work as part of our team. We follow up daily and weekly with each individual team member. It’s a good partnership.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We trust them. They use their knowledge to challenge us and keep an open dialogue, which I value.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At times, I wish they could find people faster.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start with a smaller pilot project and scale slowly. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of a media company.

What challenge were you trying to address with CN Group?

Initially, we were looking for testing support. We also needed some development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They consulted on testing support and recommended that we have our internal team handle the support. Now, they focus on the development of product downloads. From there, they play a role in testing our products. They work on several projects throughout different parts of our company.

What is the team composition?

Three of their teams work with our company. I personally work with five people.

How did you come to work with CN Group?

They were working with our mother company when I came into contact with them six years ago.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we've invested about $390,000–$440,000. We spend $11,000–$12,000 each month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them about two and a half years ago. Our engagement is ongoing.

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

We have started doing Scrum and Agile development, working in sprints. My focus has been on building team cooperation, meeting one-on-one with each developer to ensure they understand the business and openly communicate with me. When the team is strong and cooperative, internally and externally, the output will be good.

How did CN Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager is impressive and very good at communication. He supports us within the team and serves as an Agile coach. We are very happy with him.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our teams are always on the same page, often thinking on the same wavelength. This allows for better communication and smoother operations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have a difficulty of finding good engineers on occasion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your expectations, have open communication, and give honest feedback. That is the only way to make things better.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the head of IT of one location of a software company that supports the construction industry.

For what projects/services did your company hire CN Group CZ a.s., and what were your goals?

We wanted to extend our business by integrating our business model to other products in the company. Therefore, we wanted to start from scratch, building a middleware with frontend MVP that brings our business to new markets and also lays the foundation for the refactoring of our legacy products.

How did you select CN Group CZ a.s. and what were the deciding factors?

We especially looked for a vendor near our location to enable collaboration not only virtual but also physical. Additionally, we read about the great reputation of the company. The first communications made it clear that CN-Group do not simply want to offer man power but is interested in a long term relationship and a successful business start.

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

We used resources for planning the new product as well as for implementing it. In the planning phase we used a business analyst that helped defining the MVP and work packages. After defining the MVP we started into a 6 month agile implementation phase where we extended our own team with JAVA developers from CN-Group. Furthermore, our agile process was enriched with experiences and knowhow from CN-Group which optimized our own development process. At the end, we did this MVP in time and in budget together with CN-Group.

How many people from the CN Group CZ a.s.'s team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 1 business analyst, 2 junior developers and 1 senior developer.

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

We were able to finish this projects in time and in budget and launch the MVP as planned within 6 month from design to an actual running version. Thus, the first customers started back then and the product is still on continues development.

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

The project management was focused and a great help. It was easy and fast to acquire more resources as needed. CN-Group totally integrated into our communication and development tools which is Teams, Jira and Git.

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

The team was very friendly and open-minded. And most important, it'sa personal matter for CN-Group to bring the project to success. Also the location in central Europe is helpful and the people never hesitated to travel to our locations.

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

Not really. We would love to work together with them again in the future!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a software company in Germany. Our clients are small and midsized construction companies in Germany. We develop complete ERP-Systems for our clients as a Standardsoftware.

For what projects/services did your company hire CN Group CZ a.s.?

There is a big demand in mobile Solutions by our customers. Therefore we needed help in developing new mobile Solutions.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal is to engage the collaboration of all companies, that are involved in one construction project. With mobile applications it is much easier to connect all persons together and to simplify the information transfer between all parties.

How did you select CN Group CZ a.s.?

We did some market research and after a meeting with a sales person from CN Group in Munich the next step was a workshop in Praque. During the workshop we could learn a lot about CN Group, how they work, and what their cultures is.

Describe the project in detail.

The goal is a mobile platform for a better and smoother interaction between construction companies and their subcontractors.

What was the team composition?

A scrum master, two developers and a tester.

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

with reached the mvp in between the planned time period. We are now preparering the delivery to our customers. In parallel we are planning the next milestones together with our product owner and the scrum team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. Communication was excellent in all project stages.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very professional, very effective, and even very flexible. The communication between CN Group and BPS is excellent.

Are there any areas for improvement?

not at the moment

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work as a product owner for a digital publishing house in Munich, Germany, which is known for several leading and well-known brands. We believe that every day we can help people to lead a better life - with reliable information, intelligent services and constructive coverage that not only identifies problems, but also provides solutions. We reach more than every second internet user in Germany and are a driving force in the public debate.

For what projects/services did your company hire CN Group CZ a.s.?

Our company was in need of a system to manage the content of our external author network. The goal was to develop a tool which allows us to apply certain workflows in order to ensure the good quality and usefulness of articles created by authors for our different brands.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal for the project was (and is) to develop a stable, scalable but also to a certain degree customizable system which is as self-explaining and intuitive as possible in order to give our author network a "home" for their work.

How did you select this vendor?

CN Group seemed to have a good understanding of our needs and presented ideas for solution which convinced us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our CN Group team developped the entire author content system from scratch, at any time closely corresponding to our requirements. It is a headless CMS which is set up as a Drupal project. 

What was the team composition?

The team consists of 4 developers, 1 test engineer and a part-time scrum master. 

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The above mentioned system to manage our author network content had originally been mainly designed for search engine optimized content. The importance of this topic has increased during the course of the project and in the meantime the Content Lounge is being used by all brands of our company, also beyond the original SEO context. The content which is created in this system accounts for a considerable part of the overall company traffic. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We work on this project based on Scrum principles, including 2 weeks sprints, daily standups, planning, review, retrospective. We also used to have face to face workshops every 2 months.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciate especially the good and effective communication we use to have. There is a very good understanding of what is the goal of each story or task and the desired result. If problems arise, there are always quick and outcome-oriented ideas for possible solutions.

Are there any areas for improvement?

It happens that sprints are slightly overplanned in the end which results in stories taking longer than expected. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Software Engineering Manager at a public relations and earned media software company and services provider.

For what projects/services did your company hire CN Group CZ s.r.o.?

We are using CN group to supply engineers/developers to work on our media communications portal.

What were your goals for this project?

To maintain and develop the existing platform. Add new enhancements and features with a view to make our platform the go to portal for earned media and communciations.

How did you select this vendor?

We have an ongoing relationship with CN group for over six years now and when I started with Cision I kept the relationship on-going given the history and knowledge the software engineers on the team had with our products.

Describe the project in detail.

CN group provide software engineers as resources who in turn help us maintain our product and roll out new features to clients in the media and communication space.

What was the team composition?

6-8 software engineers

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

The team is responsible for all software that is written on the estate and has made continuous progress.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication is perfect. Weekly calls with Project maanger definitely help.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Flexibility Approachability Dependable.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Turnaround times for new resources could be improved.