Cogniteq

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a department head of Standby GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company develops, manufactures, and sells control systems and warning equipment for emergency and special vehicles.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Cogniteq to accomplish?

• To develop an Android App for tracking assets in emergency vehicles.

SOLUTION

How did you find Cogniteq?

Other

Why did you select Cogniteq over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Cogniteq’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

We had an idea for an IoT solution for tracking assets in emergency vehicles using Android mobile devices and BLE beacons. But to begin with, we wanted to validate our idea with a proof-of-concept app that will be available to users. Now, this first version of the application is ready and we will analyze its performance and customer related use cases.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• It was the development of a mobile app for Android devices. This application will become a part of an IoT system used on emergency vehicles. The idea of the app presupposes using Bluetooth LE beacons that are continuously sending a heartbeat signal to the mobile app which displays the signal strength and calculates whether a traced devices is inside our outside a vehicle.

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

Everything was done exactly how it had been previously agreed on. It was very comfortable to communicate with the team. We had regular meetings and could always share our feedback. The workflow was clearly structured in analysing the needs, designig the features and user interface and finaly the implementatrion of the app.

What was your primary form of communication with Cogniteq?

Virtual Meeting

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

I absolutely liked working with Cogniteq. It was an excellent experience and I hope that we will have the possibility to continue our cooperation in the future. The team members quickly understood the needs of the project. They bring in they knowledge for UI and UX. The implementation went mostly with less bugs. Changes in user interface were designed and implemented fast during the test phase.

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

I can’t detect anything in particular that could have been improved. In general, there were no problems at all. Of course, we should admit that we worked together on a rather small project and there weren’t any serious issues. But in general, I am fully satisfied.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a project manager at PESCHKE.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide design & communication services in a B2B setting such as UX/UI, 3D, service design, product design and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Cogniteq to accomplish?

We needed support from a development team to improve and add on to our company website. We evaluated different software developers, but Cogniteq seemed to be the right choice to cope with our tasks.

SOLUTION

How did you find Cogniteq?

Other

Why did you select Cogniteq over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost
• Other

What was the size of Cogniteq’s team?

3 specialists worked on the project

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

As a first step, we wanted the development team to review and improve the code of our existing company website. Following that, we commissioned Cogniteq to develop additional functionalities for our website such as pop-ups and a new contact form.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Successful improvement of our website's performance
• Successful programming and integration of the requested features (pop-up, contact form etc.)
• Effective and professional communication
• Transparent billing
• The team responded to questions quickly, was reliable and delivered on time

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

We are very satisfied with the management and quality of the team’s work, their expertise and the fast response times. They were always available and happy to answer any questions we had and helped with other topics such as web hosting too. They successfully implemented tasks on time and were also quickly available in case bug fixes were needed. The whole process went smoothly and it was pleasant to work with Cogniteq.

What was your primary form of communication with Cogniteq?

Email or Messaging App

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

We like the way the team works. All the specialists that we communicated with were very professional and helpful. They demonstrated great enthusiasm and attention to detail. We felt like we were in good hands!

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

There is nothing critical I can note. Initially, we had some small misunderstandings with the team due to the level of English of some specialists. However, after a quick feedback call, everything was clear and any linguistic shortcomings were made up for with a strong eagerness to be helpful; all problems were solved extremely fast. Overall, we are very satisfied.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am technical director of a company who deal with IoT devices and services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We identified a need to bring a web application to market to be used with a new IoT technology we are starting to deal with. Speed to market was an important factor for us.

SOLUTION

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

The Cogniteq expert contacted me via LinkedIn some years ago but at that time we didn’t have any projects that we could work together on. When we were looking for a development team this year, we were considering three options, including Cogniteq and doing the work in-house. We provided our existing design to Cogniteq and received a lot of comments on how it could be improved and what could be done in another way. We liked the approach that Cogniteq had, what they offered to us and decided to start our co-operation.

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

This was a ground-up development of a new stand-alone web application. We had a requirements document and an initial system design document that I had written myself. It was important to us that we were delivered a software package we could host ourselves and make changes or add new features to ourselves if we wanted to. We needed languages we were familiar with to be used, Javascript was decided upon. The system needed to be multi-tenanted and re-skinnable. Cogniteq first suggested that we allow them to perform a business analysis and design stage so that we have a detailed specification before any development work was completed. We thought this was a good idea. After this development commenced with regularly (usually weekly) review meetings between myself and various team members at Cogniteq.

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

The team from Cogniteq included 1 front-end developer, 1 back-end developer, 1 Project manager, 1 QA specialist, 1 Account Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the goals outlined in the specification were met, some adjustments and suggestions post-delivery were made. As yet we are working on launching the product (as it depends on other factors and deals) so it's too soon to talk about outcomes but the initial product is working well and we intend to re-engage with Cogniteq to implement the next set of features.

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

Any interaction that we had with Cogniteq was a pleasant one. Even despite the fact that we had a rather long project, there was a holiday season and some specialists had vacations, everything went smoothly. The guys dealt well with all the tasks and the communication from Cogniteq was excellent. They put in place an account manager who was our main point of contact but we also had contact with the actual developers, testers and analysts as we wanted.

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

Their ability to take some fairly vague specifications and requirements from us and build a full project specification, then deliver on this specification was impressive. Since we are a busy, growing company with various other projects in progress, we gave Cogniteq ideas on what we wanted and they were able to join the dots and for a sensible cost.

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

I think Cogniteq initially under-estimated the work. They had a very keen price which went up during their analysis stage. I don't believe this was a tactic to get us to sign up with them as we had no commitment at this stage. I think perhaps some more investigation with us before quoting pricing would have been worthwhile. I have to say though, we are happy with the value of what was delivered and I think their original quote was unrealistic. The only other suggestion would be some better documentation on setting up the delivered software as this required a bit of support from them as settings weren't well documented. Cogniteq could have hosted for us but we wanted to self-host.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the lead data-scientist of Medstone. I also do project management of most IT projects within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted a new platform for connecting players in the pharmaceutical industry in the Netherlands: pharmacists and medicine manufacturers. The platform is called "Medstone Connect", we needed some additional development power for the Frontend. After meeting with a few companies we decided to employ Cogniteq for this work, much to our satisfaction.

SOLUTION

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

An online search for frontend oursourcing in Europe yielded three candidates: two companies from Ukraine and Cogniteq (Lithuania & Poland based). The Ukrainian companies fell through for obvious reasons (war), but Cogniteq felt good after meeting them. The IT lead was approachable and knowledgeable. Cogniteq was also really flexible in terms of starting the project very soon after the first meeting.

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

The project skeleton was already set up for Cogniteq: a Vuejs 3 project with Naive UI as a component library. Cogniteq had to theme the UI kit, design the landing/homepage, and also the frontend after the login for three user types: pharmacies, manufacturers and admins. All get a very different dashboard. We approached the project in three stages:

1. Basic theming of the site
2. Building the pages behind the login (contracts, invoicing, user managment, etc., etc.)
3. Building the landing page

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

We three core people working on the project: Vladislav (designer), Yauhen (frontend dev / Vue.js) and Elena (project manager). I also had contact with Anastasiya (contract and payments) and Nadya (sales). There was also Aleh for QA but he mostly communicated within Cogniteq I think, at least I didn't speak with him.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is delivered fully to satisfaction. We stayed within budget (both money and time-wise) , the code they wrote is "clean" / not messy. Very happy with the results!

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

They internally had daily standups with the team managed by Elena. We communicated daily via Slack and about once a week via Teams. Project management was done via Confluence / Jira.

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

We were impressed by their flexibility in terms of scheduling the project and changing the features a bit along the way. Very capable designer, frontend dev and good project management.

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

The first meeting was with a lot of people from their company who didn't all introduce themselves. It (initially) wasn't clear for me who I had to reach out to for e.g. project requirements related discussions. Also note that not all of the employees speak English (or only a little bit), not a big issue since management people do speak it, but for direct communication with the devs you need a translator.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Managing Director at a computer software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

The task for Cogniteq was to develop a cross-platform mobile app that would provide access to key information about players at a soccer academy. It was crucial to make the application as easy-to-use as possible.

SOLUTION

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

We usually hire external developers when we do not have the necessary expertise. Earlier, we already communicated with Cogniteq and we knew what expertise their team has. That’s why when we got this project that presupposed the development of a mobile application, we decided to ask Cogniteq to help us.

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

The app was built using the React Native technology. It is an application for coaches that has a row of different and technologies used. features for recording players’ enrollment and graduation data, saving each attendees's personal information and scheduling training in the calendar.

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

The team included 4 specialists: 1 React Native developer, 1 Project Manager, 1 QA specialist, 1 Account Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app underwent multiple testing and can be already used by sports schools.

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

We were fully satisfied. And we are already considering variants to continue our cooperation with this team.

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

We were impressed with the excellent quality of the mobile app. The team needed just 2 months to create a high-quality, feature-rich application.

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

Actually, we didn’t notice any problems at all. The project was not large and the team easily dealt with all the tasks and managed to build a product that fully met all the requirements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of a company that provides a customizable platform for selling books, ebooks and audiobooks on the web, iOS and Android, as well as options for monetization of previously published media content.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Cogniteq?

We needed help in mobile and web development

SOLUTION

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

As a rule we get a lot of emails/LinkedIn requests from nearshoring development companies. Even though many of them feel spammy, certain companies (like Cogniteq) are good at standing out. We decided to choose Cogniteq because of the short lead time and high competence of developers.

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

We needed to speed up the work on the mobile application and web platform, so we needed additional resources.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

After briefing the account manager on our project, their team quickly provided what they thought to be the most suitable candidate. In both cases, we were happy with the proposed developer and went with them after the initial interview.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We has previously hired a different web developer to work on the web project, but decided to terminate the agreement due to lack of progress. Cogniteq's web developer delivered the entire first iteration of the project in the time it took the previous dev to set up the basic framework. We were very happy with the efficiency shown by Cogniteq's team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I really liked the communication with the team. The guys always responded quickly and as a rule, I got all the necessary information.

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

Our cooperation with Cogniteq exceeded our expectations. Having talked to nearshoring companies in several European countries, lead times are fairly long and offer few benefits over using traditional recruiting solutions. Cogniteq, on the other hand, were able to find excellent candidates at short notice and with minimal friction.

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

Some miscommunication arose from the fact that one developer's level of English wasn't very high. Overall, this led to far fewer problems than one would expect, however.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed help in web development.

SOLUTION

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

The Cogniteq specialist contacted me via LinkedIn. We carefully analyzed the portfolio of the company, the technologies that they work with and realized that we are very similar in the way we develop our solutions. So, we decided to have a look at how we could cooperate with the Cogniteq team.

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

We worked with Cogniteq on 2 projects already where we needed assistance in our development efforts.

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

We have our in-house software developers and from the side of Cogniteq we worked with 1 Senior .NET developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything was great. We received the necessary help in development. One of the projects is already at the stage of customer testing. And as for the second one, we are already finishing up our final testing. So, thanks to Cogniteq we managed to meet the schedule.

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

Though it was our first experience of working with an outsource company in such a way, we absolutely like it. All the set tasks were fulfilled perfectly.

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

We had absolutely positive impressions for them. And we will definitely turn to Cogniteq in the future when our team will be overloaded with work and we’ll need staff augmentation.

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

Actually, I can say that there weren’t any things that we can classify as problems. But we noticed that we should pay more attention to documenting some complicated aspects related to business logic, for example,more in detail. If something is not clearly stated in specification, we usually verbalize it. But probably because of a language barrier, we should have initially stated complicated things in the documentation. However, it didn't affect the time frames of the projects. Everything was okay and it was just a kind of learning experience for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an CTO at the computer software company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking for a company that would help us with web development.

SOLUTION

How did you seleCogniteq and what were the deciding factors?

The Cogniteq expert contacted me via LinkedIn some years ago but at that time we didn’t have any projects that we could work together on. When we were looking for a development team this year, we were considering 3 variants, including Cogniteq and one company that we had worked with before.

We provided our existing code to Cogniteq and received a lot of comments on how it could be improved, and what could be done in another way. We liked the approach that Cogniteq had and what they offered to us and decided to start our cooperation.

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

We had a web app and wanted to introduce some changes to facilitate data analysis.

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

The team from the side of Cogniteq included 1 front-end developer, 1 back-end developer, 1 Project manager, 1 QA specialist, 1 Account Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All our requirements were fully met and the platform was enriched with all the necessary features.

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

In general, the interaction that we had with Cogniteq was a very pleasant one. Everything was quite good. Even despite the fact that we had a rather long project, there was a holiday season and some specialists had vacations, everything was okay. The guys dealt well with all the tasks, and their communication was good.

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

We are very happy with the quality of the software that Cogniteq developed for us. Of course, there were some very small issues but there are always. But I could give 9 out of 10. Yes, maybe not 10 but very-very close to it. We are absolutely satisfied with what we got. And we think that we will definitely work with Cogniteq on some new projects as well.

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

Actually, there is only one point that I can mention here. I think we were missing a bit of communication. The guys went a bit too far without talking to us and it was difficult to keep on track. I wish we had had more communication, maybe some daily updates on what had been done and what would be done the next day.

At that time I was very busy with some other projects and when I wanted to track the process, it was not easy to understand what was going on. But I think that it can be easily improved in the future.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Active in the secondment of IT specialists for over 20 years. In recent years, we have developed further, whereby we now accept, execute, staff, monitor and deliver software projects in accordance with pre-agreed quality and planning standards. As a Business Resource Manager I'm responsible for finding the right IT specialist for projects and monitor/manage software projects. In addition to our specialism in ICT, we would like to contribute to sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We didn't have our own mobile development team at the time, so we were looking for a company to partner up with to develop a mobile app for us.

SOLUTION

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

The sales manager contacted me. After chatting, we had a call and discussed the details. And there was a click. The communication was very pleasant and productive. We got all the information that we needed. We had a very good feeling, so we decided to try to work together. It was not only the first time we decided to work with Cogniteq but also the first time we started cooperation with a team from Belarus. But as we have excellent results, I believe that in the future we will continue our work with Cogniteq.

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

The team developed for us a mobile app for iOS and Android. The design was done by a design team from a company based in The Netherlands, but all the development was done by Cogniteq.

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

One Android developer, a iOS developer, a web developer, a Project Manager, a QA and an Account Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is still ongoing. However, we have already done a few tests and presented our app to some customers and received their feedback. They seem to really like the idea of the app and have shared with us their thoughts about what can be added to make it better. I hope that when the app is fully ready it will be used by some large companies and agencies which will be very good for us.

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

In general, everything was good. We mostly communicated via Skype (chats and calls). The way of working at Cogniteq is different from what we are used to in the Netherlands. We are accustomed to get questions back regarding features to make sure the acceptance criteria of user stories are correct. The Cogniteq team is more straightforward, they aren't asking many questions and if they do they're usually asked by a project manager. But that’s the issue of approaches.

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

It was absolutely comfortable to work with Cogniteq because their communication was clear and very friendly. We've found a good way to work together.

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

Cogniteq is definitely a company to partner up with again in the future. I think an improvement would be to ask more questions to make sure every feature is clarified enough and to ensure that both sides have a clear understanding of what needs to be build. This will not only help Cogniteq but also the company requesting their help. Due to the language and distance barrier it can be more challenging sometimes to understand each other than in the case when we work face-to-face. The above will help in these situations. I believe that it will help all of us work faster and spend less time on getting things clear.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Im the owner and CEO of a digital agency in Sweden. We build apps and web solutions for clients mainly in the nordic countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our client needed an iOS and Android app. To be able to meet the need faster than we could deliver ourselves we hired Cogniteq as app developer sub-contractors and built the backend ourselves.

SOLUTION

How did you select Cogniteq and what were the deciding factors?

We searched for outsourcing partners in Europe and Asia and created a shortlist of a handful of companies. From these we hired Cogniteq based on their past projects, broad skillset and references.

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

We discussed the project with PMs at Cogniteq and explained that we needed to be in daily contact with the developers ourselves. We believed that to be the best way to get results fast in a dispersed team. Cogniteq had no objections to this and the communication with the developers was very smooth.

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

A project manager, one iOS developer and one Android developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The client loved that we were able to deliver on time, on budget and according to requirements.

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

We needed to manage the project with our own tools for issue management, repositories, and communications tools. Cogniteq were on board with this from day one.

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

Cogniteq has a great can-do attitude and won't shy away from any task. Apart from the project described here, we have used them for many other projects as well. They are always able to help quickly which is much appreciated.

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

The deliveries from time to time contained bugs but being developers ourselves we know that is part of the game. Cogniteq always corrected the bugs swiftly when reported.