Diatom Enterprises

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a system developer and project manager at Finland’s largest reseller of Canon printing solutions. We also have a large IT support network throughout our 13 offices in the country. We provide IT support as well as many other IT services to our business customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Diatom Enterprises?

A customer of ours wanted to build a meeting system for their housing company customers so that stock owners could attend digital meetings on a website to vote on different annual decisions. We outsourced the development of this platform to Diatom Enterprises.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were was to build a well-functioning administrative backend in Angular that enables the customer to administer things like multi-tenancy, housing companies, shareholders, and meetings. We also wanted to build an Angular-based frontend and create the functionality for shareholders to log in and vote remotely during annual general meetings.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We initially met them at a business technology fair and have worked with them on several projects over a few years. Since we don’t have our own development resources, we needed to outsource this project to a cost-effective and reliable partner. Diatom Enterprises has always done a good job and provides skilled developers to help us reach our goals.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Diatom Enterprises coded and implemented both the backend administrative web app as well as the customer frontend portion needed for the solution. They also did QA on the implemented user stories. The actual architectural design and user stories were given to them from our side. They took care of the rest, and together, we reached a mutual understanding of the project goals. We worked in two-week sprints and were able to achieve great things during our collaboration.

What was the team composition?

The team consisted of four people, including a product owner from our side. Diatom Enterprises provided a developer, a junior project manager, and a senior project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our end customer is among the first in Finland to start using digital general meetings for housing companies, allowing shareholders to cast their votes online without needing to attend yearly meetings in person. This will give them a huge advantage in the market.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was very well set up. Their junior and senior project managers have great experience and were always up-to-date with the deadlines. Communication from their side was excellent regarding delays or missing information we needed to collect. We were in touch through Skype, email, and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We always spoke to the right people to get a mutual understanding of everything that needed to be done. They felt like part of the company thanks to their open communication lines and straightforward approach. Diatom Enterprises also excel at finding the right people for the job that needs to be done and has immense knowledge of different techniques, programming languages, frameworks, etc.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At this point, I have no suggestions for improvement other than the general small things that every company needs to keep up with.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated by the client on February 12, 2020. The original star ratings were: Overall - 5, Quality - 4.5, Schedule - 4.5, Cost: 4, Willingness to Refer - 4.5. New content is below.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Canorama Oy provides ICT-services and .digitalisation solutions for the B2B sector.

For what projects/services did your company hire Diatom Enterprises?

Custom software development projects and integration projects for end customers as well as for Canorama internal use.

What were your goals for this project?

Create custom software and system integrations that support digitalisation of business processes.

How did you select this vendor?

Based on previous reviews and customer recommendations.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Diatom Enterprises took care of development, UI/UX, testing, QA.

What was the team composition?

Canorama had role as product owner and project management. Development team was outsourced to Diatom Enterprises.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management included daily scrum meetings, sprint reviews and video meetings when needed. Was very easy and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Customer orientated, agile and all in all gave a very professional impression.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Better "readiness" for taking on short-term projects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of a marketing agency. We help our customers with online marketing and online presence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Diatom Enterprises?

We engaged Diatom Enterprises to help us develop a new platform.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our in-house resources are quite limited in terms of software development, so we have relied heavily on Diatom Enterprises. In our time working together, we’ve tasked them with architecture strategy, development, testing, and deployment of our application.  

We did most of the design internally, but Diatom Enterprises developed a self-service platform, where we will add third-party suppliers and make use of a complex system that is readily available for the SMB segment. It is a cross border platform using Xamarin and Microsoft SQL. We plan on introducing Android and iOS versions of the application.

With this app, we wanted to provide a platform where businesses can retrieve user feedback when it comes to what effect their marketing activities have on the company.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a project manager, a lead architect, a lead developer, two frontend and backend developers, and a part-time testing engineer.

How did you come to work with Diatom Enterprises?

Diatom Enterprises was already on board before I joined the company.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent around €200,000 (Approximately $224,730 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in April 2018, and the work is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the last few months, we’ve made great strides in adding functionality and testing the application. Our owners have been quite satisfied with the latest version of the app.

How did Diatom Enterprises perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, they have done well in managing the project. We’ve had some small issues, but they have been very transparent and helpful in solving those for us. We track much of the project through Jira, which has worked well.

Prior to January, our team caused some communication issues because we didn’t have the experience of being a good customer. Our teams went back and forth for some time, but we have since remedied much of those problems.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The project manager has been forthcoming when it comes to helping us solve our internal problems. They have understood our situation, and I have been very grateful for that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve when it comes to communication, especially at the beginning of the project, to ensure they have understood how things look at the other end. They might have overestimated our ability to be a good customer, and it could have been handled with a little more communication with our senior management level.