Dana Networks Inc

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of CentMobile. We provide discount international long-distance services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dana Networks?

We needed a software development and technical support team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

There were three different parts. First, they transferred our system to a new infrastructure, moving from a typical data center to a more virtualized environment. Second, they provided ongoing support for our system. The third part was new feature development and maintenance.

What is the team composition?

We have five people working on the project, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Dana Networks?

It was accidental, through word of mouth. I knew the founder of the company, and I was looking to share ideas. I approached him for contacts for venture capital but I decided to try him out when he mentioned he had a software development shop.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Dana Networks around December 2018, and we were already using the new infrastructure by January 2019. Some parts are completed, but the nature of our business requires constant development and maintenance. We have an ongoing collaboration with them.

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

Software development teams aren’t the easiest to work with, and that was the problem with the team we had before. They were very talented, but it was difficult to work with them because of their ability to interact and the human factors.

On the other hand, working with Dana Networks was a very pleasant experience. They are very strong technically and they can do the job, but the most pleasant part for me is the easy interaction. They have people in their staff who actually studied and worked in the US, so they’re fluent in English. That makes it much easier.

They cared about our work, and they put in extra effort when we had a problem, even though they didn’t have to. There was a break-in and someone was pulling money out of our system, and they helped detect it. I’m very happy overall, and I plan to continue working with them.

How did Dana Networks perform from a project management standpoint?

They use a scrum methodology, with daily standup calls. The daily standup calls require a big commitment even on our end, as the customer, but they help make everything transparent and allow us to see the daily progress. That’s a good practice for addressing problems and for product development, from my experience. They’re a Microsoft shop, so they use Team Foundation Server as well. They break larger jobs into pieces and prioritize them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s hard for me to say since I don’t know that many of their competitors. We do have an internal team, and we’ve worked with a number of external teams. We struggled for many years because of the human factor, but working with Dana Networks is really smooth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They’ve made errors, but it’s human to make mistakes. What’s good about them is that they took ownership and don’t try to hide things. If anything comes up, I just address it with them, and it’s resolved.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s good to talk through the agreement and define expectations before the start, instead of figuring it out as you go. Maybe that’s why it’s so reasonably-priced and why we’ve had a good experience. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences before, so I was very clear about my expectations, and I defined metrics on how to move forward.