Digicorp Information Systems Pvt. Ltd.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a social media content marketing company, and we mainly work with e-commerce brands. We offer them a widget that facilitates the use of their e-commerce tools and curates all content, all while making it shoppable on different social media networks. They can aggregate their content, tag each of their posts and product pages, and enable website viewers to browse and make purchases.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digicorp?

In March 2013, I had the idea to build a widget for collecting customer testimonials. The social aspect was absent, so I reached out to Digicorp for help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digicorp has been involved since the start of the company as my counterpart on the development side. They’ve made some additions to what I initially presented by navigating my ideas to come up with a strategy and overall plan.

We built an initial prototype of the platform, and then kept continuously iterating and improving it. Digicorp used CakePHP to help me design and development the platform, and also helped me maintain all DevOps operations on the server side after the product started scaling.

We came to understand our customers’ needs once we started selling and talking to them, which is what helped us to expand the platform. They wanted something like social testimonials rather than static ones. This is when we first integrated with and started curating social reviews from Facebook and Twitter.

Concurrently, Instagram started picking up, and e-commerce merchants discovered that many people were sharing products they were purchasing from certain brands by using hashtags. It would be a great idea to integrate different content using hashtags and show it on e-commerce sites, but Instagram’s photos, at the time, weren’t clickable. Even though people could like or follow a page, there wasn’t anything else we could do with it.

This was the biggest pain point we identified, because we needed to provide a link on an Instagram profile, and then direct that link to an e-commerce website which displayed the same photos. The only difference is that on the website, photos are now shoppable and tagged with product pages.

What is the team dynamic?

The founders were present during the conceptual stage, but after that, the business analyst/product manager and full-time developer became more involved. We used 2 full-time developers and a designer on an as-needed basis. We also used a DevOps team member when required.

How did you come to work with Digicorp?

I’d known about them for a long time because I went to the same university as their founders, and I’d also seen news about them. I saw the great jobs they’d done on other projects, so I reached out in order to see how they could help, and they presented some nice solutions. I liked their overall approach, so I decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

I don’t remember the total cost exactly, but I had a $15 per hour rate. We had a 2-year engagement, so I spent roughly $40,000–$50,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in March 2013. The initial build was finished in 3 months, but it was more of an evolving product that required continuous, new requirements. The bulk of the work was completed sometime in 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, we were able to group around 4,000 initial customers, and we launched the app on different e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and EventBrite. We had 5-star reviews and a lot of downloads on all of them. We were also quite comfortable on the revenue side, which continued to increase.

How did Digicorp perform from a project management standpoint?

I didn’t define my requirements correctly in the beginning, but the collaboration became very nice eventually. They were able to provide timelines of execution based on my requirements and assign additional resources in order to deliver accordingly.

We used Basecamp for sharing most of the tasks, and Trac for the bugs side. I personally used Asana to interact with the team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were always trying to reach the product market, and it was beneficial to have this kind of partner. Many companies build a product, finish it, and then fail to maintain it in an ongoing relationship. Our relationship with Digicorp is a proper, continual engagement, which helps my product evolve. When I started creating my in-house team, I could work nicely in conjunction with Digicorp.

I appreciate their ownership and ability to bring a fresh perspective. Many times, I gave them requirements, but didn’t really understand how they needed to be implemented. Digicorp came up with their own suggestions and got their technical leads involved in order to explain what they were proposing. Instead of focusing on finishing features, they try to do the right thing to build the best product.

Digicorp is not a traditional outsourcing company that completes tasks and runs away, but instead, they own it like it’s their product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we started, they were not supporting all the latest technologies. My engagement was mainly for a CakePHP-based and LAMP stack platform, but I believe they’ve now started supporting the latest technologies.

We eventually figured out the right project management methodology, but we had some initial glitches regarding estimates. The work took a little longer, which is expected for a new product, but I would encourage them to refine their estimation and forecasting abilities.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I would definitely recommend them and advise clients to take them on as a partner. It’s important to view a developer as a partner in building an end-to-end product rather than as a prototype builder. Digicorp can be a true partner that brings a vision to reality.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

iMusti is the largest supplier of online audio and video content, in both digital and physical format. We have a very large collection of audio titles. We also offer books from various publishers in India as well as the international markets across of the world.

I am the chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digicorp?

They were doing our development work: website development, front-end website design, mobile application design, and also the applications for our overall technology platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built all it from scratch, starting with the design and then coding all the front-end. We have a backend team. Digicorp had its own projects but they worked together. It was mainly web design and mobile app design for Android and iOS. I know they used HTML.

How did you come to work with Digicorp?

It was a referral from a business partner. We had a good reference. We started working together, and gradually confidence started building, so we gave them more and more work.

How much have you invested with Digicorp?

We have a budget somewhere close to $15,000 to $20,000 per month. So it runs $200,000+ per year, probably.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with them since 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They did a good job designing our website. The designers they have are very, very good. We constantly get feedback about the work. They tend to deliver the jobs on time and communication was good. I would say overall reporting and quality was good. In some cases, there were bugs but we just moved on.

How did Digicorp perform from a project management standpoint?

They have one individual who is our focus point and he acts as a project manager as well as a business manager. Then there are two other specialists: one is an architect and the other one is the mobile app designer or engineer. There are two managers who work for him. I did not want to deal with all the team members, so we had one focal point. Then, there are two others who might be managers that people in my organization work with. One of the mobile app teams was relatively young and weak for the project, so the cost was a lot higher than I would have expected. It was mainly due to the inexperience of the team.

What did you find most impressive about Digicorp?

I personally think the website design team is very strong. They are meticulous in their approach.

Are there any areas Digicorp could improve?

I would say when we were working on the mobile app, the group was not particularly strong. Over the time period, they became a little better, but that was one of their relatively weaker spots.