Deazy

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at Fleetcor

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Leading supplier of business payments and vehicle & mobility solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Migration of multiple websites to a new technology stack
• Implementation of new website design
• Full offshore development

SOLUTION

How did you find Deazy?

Referral

Why did you select Deazy over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Deazy were assigned to this project?

15

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

Migration of 5 key UK websites to a new CMS platform, incorporating a redesign and implementation of a new infrastructure stack. This is part of a larger strategic project to move all UK and Europe websites to a similar operational model. Deazy provided a full offshore development team to complete all build elements, and ongoing operational support after the project, including training of internal development resources.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Full migration of websites into a new operational model (supported by inhouse IT teams) 
• Delivery to plan of 5 UK websites, and the framework for ongoing projects to migrate further

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

• Project managed jointly with internal PM and Deazy led PM 
• Excellent project management throughout, on a very complex project with multiple levels of stakeholders 
• Offered higher strategic support to move forward into further future projects

What was your primary form of communication with Deazy?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They were very flexible and responsive to our needs. Their willingness to understand the complexities of a large organisation to deliver the best outcomes for the business.

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

Service provided has been excellent, and they continue to adapt to how we move as a business.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at LOANHOOD

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A circular fashion company offering rental and swapping solutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Create an MVP of the 'rent button' widget
• Seamless intergation into third party websites, particularly Shopify
• Support throughout testing phase with selected Partners

SOLUTION

How did you find Deazy?

Referral

Why did you select Deazy over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Deazy were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Discovery session which led to the following deliverables:

• Product Goals
• Map current features required for new development
• Final user flows
• Draft high level requirements document

Deliverables included:

• A code review of our current app
• Admin portal
• Widget
• UAT
• API documents for app/widget sync
• Partner Support

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Delivering successful product with live partners using the widget

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

The project management was handled exceptionally well, from communication to time management. The team went above and beyond our needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Deazy?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We really enjoyed working with a female team throughout this project, which is something we have found difficult to find within the tech sector. As this project was funded by Innovate UK, their knowledge and experience in similar projects was also helpful as they understood the requirements needed from the Innovate UK perspective.

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

I think clearer communication at the beginning of the project would have helped the transition from dev to live production easier - the scope of the project at this stage was not clear to us and we definitely needed support with our Partners when implementing and testing the technology.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Manager of UMA

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Workplace SaaS for hybrid work, improving employee experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Technical Consultancy
• Development Services

SOLUTION

How did you find Deazy?

Clutch Site

Why did you select Deazy over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Deazy’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

The project is an ongoing piece of work to continue developing the roadmap for our application. The application has multiple web apps, 2x android apps and 1x iOS app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since hiring Deazy developers, we have increased stability in the product and hit all necessary timelines on our release schedule. Notably for mobile, we had issues prior to onboarding Deazy but the native developers have come in and made pro-active recommendations for refactoring and stabilising the code.

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

Deazy's communication is second to none, and we really like working with the team in the UK. They have adapted to our ways of working and embedded themselves in our business seamlessly. We have regular catch ups with Deazy account managers and they are always looking to help and improve the way we work together. It's a great partnership.

What was your primary form of communication with Deazy?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

For us, Deazy's USP is having the core consultancy and account management team in the UK but the ability and flexibility to give us onshore resources with a multitude of experience and skill sets. We get the right mix of communication, culture, and price that fits our business needs.

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

We are completely happy with the service we get from Deazy, there are no improvements I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a fintech startup business developing a risk management platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Deazy?

Deazy helped us get started with all aspects of the project, including front-end and back-end development, as well as project management and product aspects.

SOLUTION

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

We came across Deazy while looking for potential outsourcing partners. The candidate selection process and the flexibility of the offering convinced us to try, and their developers and project manager convinced us to stay.

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

Deazy provided 2 back-end engineers, 1 front-end engineer and 1 project manager. They worked effectively both on separate tasks as well as together, and seamlessly integrated in our small core team.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We established the relationship by taking on two engineers, one front end and one back end. After reviewing their resumes and a short interview, we decided which of the candidates to proceed with, and they were ready to start right away. Further down the line, as we replaced the back-end with a new language that required a new skillset, Deazy provided us with candidates to replace the previous back-end engineer who was not familiar with the new language.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While the project is still ongoing, we have seen major progress, noted by our potential clients and advisors as well as myself and the others in the business. Overall, the developers have delivered great value and helped speed up our delivery timelines.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As Deazy provided a project manager for us to interact with, as well as help put our processes in place, the workflow has been seamless, with our project manager managing the JIRA boards and task allocations as directed by myself and the business priorities.

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

Their developers are friendly, easy to work with, and willing to go the extra mile when required, even without being asked to. Greatly appreciated in a startup environment such as ours.

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

No, I feel matters have been handled well and with ease.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Work.Life. We provide workspaces for businesses and freelancers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Deazy?

When we started the business, we used white-label tech solutions to manage our office spaces and workspaces. However, as our business grew, it became clear that that was no longer fit for purpose. We needed help streamlining our workspace operations at scale across multiple locations and a large team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Deazy to plan and deliver a digital transformation roadmap so that our technology could support our rapid business growth. We used their expertise in product management and prioritization to review our existing digital product portfolio and create a new portfolio roadmap that aligns with our strategic ambitions.

Deazy was tasked to organize the discovery, design, delivery, and release of our digital products. They managed the product roadmap prioritization for us and delivered a suite of products, which included a native mobile app, a web app, and an updated website and CMS dashboard to manage our office, space, and meeting room bookings.

What is the team composition?

The core team was composed of a part-time product manager, a full-time backend developer, a frontend developer, a part-time tech lead, a part-time designer, and a part-time QA specialist. The team scaled up and down throughout the engagement according to the product roadmap.

How did you come to work with Deazy?

We found Deazy through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere between £100,000–£200,000 (Approximately $120,000–$240,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2018–January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We saw a 6x increase in our digital product delivery velocity. Working with Deazy allowed us to increase the overall quality of our digital products and made it easier for us to manage all of our systems as our business grew.

How did Deazy perform from a project management standpoint?

Deazy performed well in terms of project management. They shifted us from a fixed-scope waterfall approach to an agile delivery approach for product development, which helped us increase our design and development velocity.

We primarily communicated through phone calls and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things we enjoyed about working with was having access to a full, cross-functional team rather than just a single freelancer. Aside from that, since our workload varied a lot, we found their ability to efficiently scale the team up and down to be incredibly useful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Fika is a team building platform that supports businesses to create a great team culture in a hybrid working environment. The platform provides soft skills micro training and integrates directly into work calendars and existing meetings

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We began working with Deazy following the development of our MVP with an offshore partner.We engaged Deazyto help us move from our MVP to a stable and Beta-ready app through refinement of our ways of working and the introduction of a flexible, scalable and experienced tech team to stabilise the code base and build out the product further.

Deazy stabilised our app and enabled us to start Beta testing with universities. Deazy helped us deliver a more stable platform for our Beta testing and also replaced ad-hoc development with agile and planned releases. They improved our underlying code-base and implemented a testing methodology.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through a known referral. Then we met and it were convinced.

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

Deazy advised us on our ways of working and resourcing models then provided us with a highly skilled and experienced development team to support the build of our flagship application, transitioning it out of MVP to stable and scalable in-flight app. Deazy offered a truly flexible resourcing model so we could scale the team up and down according to our roadmap, which supported a flexible cost-base as we worked towards product-market fit.

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

The team reached a total size of 5 resources at it’s peak but started with 2 resources and scaled up and down Part-time Product owner Cross functional dev team: including One senior full-stack developer (Firebase and React Native expertise) Junior React Native developer Part-time Project Management Part-time QA resource

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After we began working with Deazy we saw fewer bugs and fewer crashes in the app, and were able to work through continuous integration process, allowing for seamless feature releases.

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

We used an agile delivery structure, which allowed us to shift to planning optimal releases and build critical functionality rather than reacting to shifting priorities.

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

Deazy were able to spin-up a tech team in a matter of days and their resourcing model was extremely flexible so we were able to match our team to our roadmap and manage a flexible cost-base while we worked to achieve product-market fit.

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

We found our engagement with Deazy really productive. Working alongside them made creating a beta-version of our app really easy and cost effective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of delivery at a web and app development software company offering full-package services. In addition to web and mobile app development, we support discovery activities, so we have product owners, designers, testers, project managers, and marketing specialists in our team. In my position, I’m in charge of building the actual solution, and I oversee a team of three project managers and two testers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Deazy?

Deazy supports development efforts by solving our resourcing challenges.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When some of our clients request development resources at short notice or want resource changes for a short period of time, we go to Deazy to expand our development team. We work with them using two models. One model is staff augmentation, in which they provide us with resources to work as part of our development team. The other model is complete project outsourcing, in which they provide us with resources to complete entire projects without any real involvement from our side.

Onboarding Deazy’s resources is a joint effort. For every project, they have a checklist to ensure their resources meet certain requirements, such as being set up on our systems and having access to our different tools, including task management systems, code repositories, and more. We also have a checklist of aspects to meet to ensure the team is given a proper project introduction.

For one of our biggest projects, Deazy provided us with a resource to help us develop an insurance-based solution. We needed to create a customer-centric portal where users could access documentation and details of their insurance policies via this portal. This person joined our team to help us with Drupal development, and we worked together for about nine months.

In addition to that project, Deazy has helped us develop a help-based solution entirely on their own. The project included developing a mobile application and a backend solution. Although we fully outsourced that project to their development team, we provided project management. The product is now finished, and although we’ve handed it over to our client for internal management, Deazy’s team continues to provide ongoing support.

What is the team composition?

For the staff augmentation project, I only worked with one resource from Deazy.

How did you come to work with Deazy?

The main reasons for which we chose Deazy were the speed at which they provided feedback and the speed at which they found skilled and available developers for us. From the start, we knew that we sometimes require resources on short notice, so we wanted to work with a company that offered quick turnaround times. From our initial requests, we realized that they would be able to fill positions very quickly.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $450,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with Deazy on different projects since September 2020. Currently, we don’t have an active project, but we’re continuously looking for potential opportunities.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The insurance platform that Deazy helped us develop went live recently, and the end client has been very pleased with the solution after the initial weeks of using it; it is a very good product. Additionally, the project they developed completely on their own went fairly smoothly, without many problems.

How did Deazy perform from a project management standpoint?

Deazy’s overall communication and adherence to timelines have been very good. Their resources work as part of our internal team, joining our daily stand-ups and our client-facing calls to provide feedback and resolutions to issues.

We use Slack to communicate, and Deazy has their own platform for managing formal requests, which we also use.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Deazy’s customer service has been exceptional. Their management team is very attentive, and they’re always looking for ways to improve our relationship and the services they provide us with. They consistently request feedback for every project to ensure that we’re happy with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if Deazy ensured consistency regarding the level of developers they provide. We’ve had mostly good experiences working with them, but also a few bad ones, in which some developers haven’t been up to standard. Maintaining consistency is key.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure that the information you provide them with is as detailed as possible because it will help them streamline the process of finding the right people for your team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of delivery operations at a digital services and transformation company. We're a digital consultancy firm that provides public and private sector services. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Deazy?

We needed help with IT staff augmentation. We had an issue with the introduction of IR 35. We were looking for particular skills and tasked the practice leads in those areas to review the profiles sent to us from Deazy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Deazy provided staff augmentation for us. We often have spikes in resource requirements and requests for specific help that we don't always carry, so they offered four people to cover our needs.

Their engineers worked on several clients and projects for us. Our client, a data company, required people in the EU with specific skills, which were difficult to find, but Deazy found them for us.

What is the team composition?

We had three developers and a tester from Deazy, and they all performed well.

How did you come to work with Deazy?

We spoke to several potential partners, and Deazy impressed us with their working methods. Their attitude and cultural values seemed to align best with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $500,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2021–July 2022. We expect to collaborate further in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team performed well, and we were very pleased with their knowledge and how easy it was to work with them — the collaboration went well. They also integrated themselves into our agile processes, so we built a great team.

How did Deazy perform from a project management standpoint?

They led a strong project management experience and kept us up to speed with the progress. They were also extremely responsive and ran an agile delivery process — those guys became part of our cross-functional team.

Regarding tools, we used a framework to plan and prioritize work for the next few iterations and execute them. We also used Slack internally and integrated their developers into our channel.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of the team's performance, what they could deliver for us, and the service that we got from the account team were their outstanding attributes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Look for talent from different countries. We don't make a huge margin with this model because they need to do the same.

Any advice for potential customers?

Spend time engaging with the team; they're there to help you. Also, have regular touch points for performance data.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO at Deltabase. Deltabase is a SaaS business that uses data science and defence intelligence techniques to provide specific, accurate and actionable insight to businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Deazy to help us build the MVP of our web platform which allows users to browse, view and analyse a company's digital transformation capability maturity. The information provided by the platform can be used by M&A investors as part of their due diligence processes, or by consultancies to help identify areas where their clients are most in need of support.

We wanted to keep our inhouse development team lean, keeping down our overheads, and avoiding building out our team until we had product market fit. We decided to work with Deazy because they were able to quickly spin up a cross-functional team, with SaaS expertise, to help deliver our MVP, whilst giving us flexibility in our capacity and cost base.

SOLUTION

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

We were referred to Deazy from a mutual contact. We met Andy (CEO) and Gus (CTO) for an intro, and there was immediately a great understand and appreciation for what we wanted to achieve and a great fit technically with the skills we needed and our timeframe to deliver. We didn't find that great fit from the other partners we met with.

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

Deazy was involved with the design and delivery of our project from initial planning, to prioritising the workflow in order to define which features needed to be included in the MVP. Deazy then designed and developed, tested and released the MVP so we could take it to market quickly.

In fact, Deazy then designed, developed, tested and released the MVP so we could take it to market quickly. The build process took less than 4 months from idea to MVP. During this process, 20 companies were assessed, scored and uploaded to the platform, using up to 5,000,000 data points in the evidence of each.

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

The cross-functional team Deazy provided included a designer, a project manager, as well as 2 developers, a QA engineer and a Dev Ops expert.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Deazy helped us deliver our go-to-market MVP SaaS app in just 4 months. By the time the project was live we were able to onboard 20 B2B users. The platform also proved to be sticky, with users staying on the platform to find and extract the information they needed to help drive investment decisions. Furthermore, Deazy also helped automate manual processes, which could help Deltabase scale their platform quickly and reduce admin time.

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

For this project, given the fixed scope, Deazy used a waterfall style project management approach, with well-defined milestones at certain points in the delivery. Deazy mainly uses Slack for communication, with virtual meetings when more collaboration is needed.

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

Deazy’s speed is something we were really impressed with. Being able to spin up a cross-functional team in a matter of days / weeks and take a product from idea to MVP in just 4 months helped us quickly build our business, prove our concept and work towards product-market fit.

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

One area we had difficulty with at the beginning of the project, was working with one of the new delivery partners in Deazy’s ecosystem. With little insight into how well the team would perform, we had to trust in Deazy’s recommendation and vetting process. The team proved to be capable, trust was established quickly and we were able to successfully deliver our project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a large building company based in the UK and we have many projects. I’m the systems project manager for HR, so I look after all of our database systems, creating new ones and addressing any data or technical issues.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Deazy?

We had manual paper files, charts on our walls, and were manually writing up and assigning people to potential roles for upcoming projects. The process includes a bid and planning who goes on to the project, and all of that was being done via paper and memory.

Our goal was to systemize it and make it HR compliant, as well as to maintain information about the people that were being nominated for projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The key stakeholders are our client and their marketing team. They're the people that bid for the jobs, and when we win them, they’re the people that decide who should be assigned to those jobs. They look at resourcing — who's going where and when, and so on. The key deliverable was to enable those two sets of people to make more informed decisions rather than empirically deciding that someone would be a good fit.

Our client wanted to make an informed decision on staffing, taking into account if the candidate had worked in this sector before, their previous experience, and if they had the right qualifications for their project at the time. The deliverables were a better understanding of the people that they were trying to place, a better understanding of the jobs that we were winning, and the timeframes behind them.

This platform is for resource management for a very select few people: only the top 10 roles for every project. This information goes to the directors and people that might want a spreadsheet but would actually prefer to see the information visually. This format makes it easy for them to understand why people are being placed where they are.

We worked a lot with Deazy for the mapping of our processes, jobs, and criteria in a way that was conducive to visual displays of the information. 

What is the team composition?

Our team has changed, but we normally have two project managers and two developers. We also deal with an account manager. Overall, there are normally 5–6 people from Deazy’s side.

How did you come to work with Deazy?

We were using another company before Deazy that we'd also used in the past. Due to COVID, they had the other vendor had to restructure their business and move into another field, so they recommended Deazy. We tried a few different options, and Deazy was the strongest candidate.

How much have you invested with them?

We have a service agreement and a developers agreement with them that's paid in a monthly fee.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking with them in late 2020 but had to pause our plans for a while because of the pandemic. We’ve started other IT projects with them now, and they’ve delivered the second phase of this project for us. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project will help our diversity and equality because decisions are now being made based on who the best person for the job is rather than a personal connection between people. A lot of people candidates were being overlooked for no specific reason because they simply didn't come to mind. Now, when our client is presented with a list of people, they post the best person for the job, which is helping our diversity. We also now know that we're top-heavy with male candidates, so the project is driving all those sorts of conversations. 

Additionally, the platform will allow users to forecast more accurately in the case someone leaves and needs to be replaced. Also, if there’s a large job coming up, the app will let them know that they have 20 roles they need to fill in the next three months.

How did Deazy perform from a project management standpoint?

We've had some internal issues, which have caused them to miss a few deadlines, but those were more our fault than theirs. Their project managers are very good and keep me up to date with any issues they have. If they're going to miss a deadline, they let us know.

We have weekly meetings with the product management team, myself, and my manager, and they have daily stand-ups with the IT team. Confluence and Jira help us with in-house delivery. I'm not necessarily involved in using Confluence and Jira, but they talk me through all of the actions and progress that are being recorded on those boards.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We just told Deazy what we wanted, and they've given us the solution. They provide a lot screenshots and make suggestion that we haven't actually considered yet.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes, because of the problems on our side and the differences in technology being used, their explanations are lost on us. This has caused a bit of frustration on both sides. If they slowed down and explained to our development team a little bit more, it would be helpful. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about what you want and get your IT team involved very early. Another company might have the same problem as we did — that their IT team isn’t as advanced as Deazy's is. If I was doing my project again, that's what I would do differently. But, all in all, it was a good experience.