Edvantis

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of the Swedish market of a hardware and software company specializing in public transport solutions all over Europe. Our headquarters are located in Germany, and we have different offices in Switzerland, Croatia, and Sweden.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

Since we were in various European markets, we were busy with development in our headquarters. We needed assistance developing a new ticketing system for the Swedish market because Sweden introduced a new nationwide ticketing standard.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Edvantis provides custom software development services. They’ve developed the ticketing system up to the new standard and helped us with online presentations for the new system backend.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Nazariy (Account Management).

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

We were cooperating with various companies in Sweden, especially in the payments sector. One of our clients told us they collaborated successfully with Edvantis, so I contacted them. Since our first contact, Edvantis showed that they were on a high professional level, so it was easy to decide to engage them.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent 441,000 Swedish Krona (approximately $43,000 USD) in 2023. From February–December 2022, we spent about 2.8 million Swedish Krona (approximately $271,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2022, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure them on time, quality, and money, and Edvantis has delivered according to our guidelines.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Zoom and have weekly contact with them to plan fixes and discuss the progress and challenges. Once a month, we have a meeting with the management team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We highlight how they’ve come into our business because public transport software isn’t easy to understand. However, Edvantis has been able to cope with our demands in a short time. They’ve also raised the right questions, which means they know what they’re talking about and they’ve spent time to get into the topic.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we haven’t found any weaknesses. Most of Edvantis’ employees come from Ukraine, and the Russian Invasion hasn’t had any impact on our project at all. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

In my experience, you should give them some space to breathe, even if you have a defined vision of what you want to develop. Edvantis comes up with good ideas, and sometimes it’s good to have new blood looking at your project from a different angle.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm serving as Head of Engineering for a Telehealth platform which focuses on providing more people with easy access to effective medical treatments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Edvantis supports us in developing frontend functionality for our web-based platform to improve the overall user experience as well as scalability of our growing platform.

SOLUTION

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

I've been working with Edvantis in the past on other projects and companies. Therefore I knew that Edvantis is a reliable partner for long-term engagements and being able to scale fast.

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

The scope is to add new features to the existing web-based UI, creating new products such as a dedicated user account as well as developing new functionality to connect third-party services. The team members are fully integrated into our Scrum teams along with on-site team members. As part of that they participate actively in all stages of planning, architectural decisions as implementation and testing. Deployment of all work results is aligned with the respective team member's Sprint goals. The technology focus is on React with TypeScript and MySQL databases all deployed using Docker Containers to AWS using Kubernetes.

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

The size of the team is rather dynamic for us and ranges between 1 to 6. Skills range from Frontend developer over FullStack developers to QA and different experience levels.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team regularly delivers their results as part of their Agile development team sprints. With their help we were able to provide significant usability improvements to our customers.

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

The team is embedded into the Agile team context attending all regular Agile meetings. Communication mostly takes place using our companies instant messaging service, email and video calls.

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

Edvantis listens to our needs and finds the best suitable team members that not only cater to the skills we are looking for, but also the right team fit.

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

We're continuously looking into opportunities of improvement collaboratively.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of SEMDATEX GmbH, a small e-health startup. We build telemonitor centers for cardiac patients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We needed web app development support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first came up with a draft for the UI/UX of the web app, which we handed over to Edvantis’s scrum master. They provided feedback and suggestions for it, and we moved into implementation once the design was solid. 

Together with Edvantis, we’ve built the backend of the web app with Node.js and the frontend with React. We’ve put together a medical platform that doctor offices and clinics can use to treat patients. 

As such, their team has created a functionality that enables the app to collect data from pacemakers, scales, electrocardiograms, and other internal or external medical devices. They’ve also fully integrated the platform with other telemedicine centers. 

Apart from development, Edvantis has also helped us produce certain forms that can be given to patients. The information we capture through these forms will be used to connect and exchange data with other systems and centers. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three developers, a scrum master, and another specialist. They also have a senior member that looks into the project and gives us advice from time to time.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

Edvantis is experienced with the special software that we use, so we decided to choose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested €200,000 (approximately $220,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2020, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We now have a special software that we can use to provide telemedical services in Germany. Edvantis has been really good at developing it. Though we’ve had to specify certain medical, telemedicine, and cardiology-related concepts, they’ve been fast at picking up on it. 

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

We use GitLab and a chat tool, through which we communicate. We also have several meetings a week since we are doing four projects with them. We appreciate their commitment and willingness to extra hours just to meet deadlines. That’s a trait that’s hard to find. They give good value for money. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

 I’ve been very impressed by how disciplined their team is when it comes to sticking to a workflow. Together with the scrum master, we have good, efficient, and precise communications. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s high pressure on the labor market right now. When people leave, companies lose know-how and have to onboard new people, which can be costly. I believe it’s common among companies, not just with Edvantis, to lose their people to competitors.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you plan on just hiring developers, I would advise you to also partner with a scrum master. It will make things go much more efficiently. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at TrustRadius, a review platform for vendors and clients in the field of business technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We needed their team’s staff augmentation services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Onboarding staff members in Austin, Texas can be both expensive and challenging, so we needed a different approach to address this business issue. Our company has then thought of hiring an offshore team to augment our staff operations.

Edvantis has assigned different IT resources to work with our internal engineering team. Their staff produces code work and takes on several development-related tasks to support our product development pipeline. As the workload increases, we go through a vetting process to onboard more team members from their end who can work with us.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is their account manager, while 14 QA and engineers make up our offshore team.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

I worked with Edvantis on different projects under the previous companies I was employed in. I was already familiar with the quality of their resources and their thorough hiring process, so I didn’t hesitate to hire them again for this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off the engagement in September 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Edvantis unfailingly meets our standards with their dedicated pool of resources. Each engineer has a keen understanding of our products and the complexity of each coding task they commit to. Their seamless integration into our internal team has doubled our pipeline efforts, which rapidly advances our overall productivity. The fact that we haven’t turned over a single resource over the course of our partnership is already enough proof of their commitment and expertise.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate via Slack and rely on Jira and GitHub for project management. Edvantis is a highly supportive and professional team — they adapt well to our own processes without compromising their own, which results in an orderly workflow.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Edvantis doesn’t just work to complete deliverables, but they do so to respect our partnership and help us meet our goals. It’s hard to find a staffing company that’s willing to deliver a smooth partnership on top of assuring that you always work with high-quality resources.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve encountered some minor hiccups because of the pandemic, which partially impeded our teamwork. While this is something that’s out of everyone’s control, Edvantis can benefit from an optimized scoping and project management approach, especially if they focus more on predicting possible solutions to address these situations.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Determine a clear picture of what you want to achieve from the start. Having this vision in mind will help their team to understand your needs more, which will allow them to deliver tailored solutions for your business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Alturos Destinations GmbH. We conduct marketing for the tourist industry, mainly in central Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We needed software development resources to support us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Edvantis helps with software development and QA processes. We gave them all the specs for building out a system. Their team works on the system, which allows users to buy food online and make a reservation for custom service. For example, if you went skiing and wanted to eat later, you could order food on your phone. That order would be sent to the kitchen that would cook it for you and then save a table to serve your dish.

What is the team composition?

We work with 7–8 people, mostly senior software engineers, from Edvantis.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

I receive many requests for resources. After contacting me, Edvantis offered to meet me in person. They were the first resourcing company that wanted to meet in person.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2019, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been surprised by Edvantis. Their team has performed much better than other resources. My teams have given great feedback on them. They don’t charge to fix issues, and everything’s good.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, we faced a language barrier. After 4–6 weeks, we found people in our company who spoke Russian. That has made collaboration much easier. As soon as that was resolved, their team quickly understood us.

We use Microsoft Teams for daily communication as well as Jira and Confluence. The time difference is only an hour, which makes it easy to work together. When there were problems with estimations, they didn't always meet deadlines. Their team has met deadlines since we started estimating together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The CEO accompanied his sales representative during the sales process. We have quarterly meetings with him. Their CEO is awesome and really cares for his clients.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, we had challenges with communication but that was straightened out. They also need to be aware of assigning resources to projects. Edvantis is quick with long-term and maintenance projects. When it comes to a project problem, they aren’t as quick.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Build a positive relationship with the CEO. That will make it quite easy if a problem shows up.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director SW & controls development at Kardex Remstar, an automated storage and retrieval system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We needed help with the discovery phase for developing a new version of the software for one of our products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Edvantis did a discovery phase with the objective of clarifying development requirements. In the beginning, we defined what was expected in an SOW. They organized workshops with our team so that they could extract knowledge on the current product and expectations for the new development. 

We agreed to organize online workshops because of COVID-19. Our team did an online demonstration of the current product. Then, we did 2–3-hour workshops, during which Edvantis gathered documentation on the product. They asked about another product we’d gone through a software renewal with. 

We provided feedback throughout the process, and they established a mind map of the requirements. We had 3–4 workshops each week for two months. In the end, they delivered a written document with the outcome of those workshops.

What is the team composition?

We worked with five people. There were both full- and part-time resources. I had a main point of contact who sent the requests.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

I did research for a potential partner in nearshore countries that could help us develop such a product. I was looking for a company with at least a few hundred people and was established for at least five years. I looked at more than 60 companies. 

I found Edvantis through a Google search. We started working with two companies; however, the other company was so slow that they never started, and we found a replacement. We did the discovery phase with Edvantis and the other company.

How much have you invested with them?

My company spent €35,000 (approximately $42,500 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t really have metrics because it wasn’t development — the output was a document. Compared to other companies involved, we got very fast feedback from Edvantis, and their documentation was higher-quality. They were very proactive in the workshops and asked the right questions. They understood our problems and reacted to them. The team was very engaged in the discussions.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

Edvantis was well-organized. They were very structured with their work, and the interaction was very good. We had a weekly call between two people from our side and two from theirs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What set them apart from other involved companies was that they were very engaged in the discussion and proactive in the workshops. They asked the right questions and understood our problems. 

Edvantis gave the impression that they were engaged and wanted to solve our problems. They were also very reactive and fast in providing documents and inputs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any advice. It was a short project and it went well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at a digital insurance advisor marketplace. We initially focused on auto and home and have expanded to other areas. We’re a product and engineering tech organization, driven to provide education and support for consumers and connect them with the right insurance carriers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We hired Edvantis to help support our QA efforts and our automation QA.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

On the manual side, because we’re a consumer site and need to support multiple browsers and also verify visual defects, they helped confirm general end-to-end workflows and use cases. They did visual regression and visual acceptance testing. The team also did smoke testing.

On the automation side, they helped automate the standard flows for end-to-end testing via Selenium in order to help increase the speed and quality of our deployments.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a team of four people. There may have been some account management support as well. 

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

I had actually worked with Edvantis at a previous company from 2006–2010. Prior to that in the early 2000s, I was at a company that was working with SoftServe, which Edvantis came out of.

How much have you invested with them?

My company spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2016, and the project ended around February or March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We tracked their work qualitatively and subjectively. The quality of the work they did was good, and they understood QA. The problems we had on our side were that, up until late in the relationship, we didn’t have anyone from our team dedicated to working with them, providing context, or helping to guide and manage the relationship. Instead, it was done by committee. Where we had shortcomings was typically in our communication to them and providing context. However, they understood and were able to capably automate flows that we communicated to them. 

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

They were adequate, but there was room for improvement. They were very communicative about updates, changes, or anything that came up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This may be specific to us since I’ve had a relationship with them for many years now, but the personal care and attention set them apart. It felt like they cared about our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the time, their knowledge of the English language could’ve been better. Some of our communication struggles occurred due to language barrier issues.

Any advice for potential customers?

Invest in the time to provide them with the context and communication to set them up for success. Auto insurance is different everywhere, but it’s completely different in Ukraine versus the US. That was an important lesson for us to learn. We needed to teach and communicate auto insurance but also other things, such as American culture. Expect to invest in that communication and context; that’s information they won’t know otherwise.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the global head of an engineering company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We needed to scale our own activities externally.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Edvantis scaled our team with several developers and completed a number of different projects for us. For one project, they helped to develop control software for the renewable energy sector.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with four resources on their team.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

We contacted them a couple of years ago. Before we started this project, we collaborated on a couple of minor projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in May 2017, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m proud of the project’s execution. They have educated and proactive developers. Their technical level allows us to collaborate well. It’s been easy to discuss the problems and find good solutions along the way.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Microsoft Teams and follow an Agile methodology to run projects. We have in-person meetings and daily standups. They’ve integrated with us to become a part of our team. Their response time is great. They respond professionally and honestly, so nothing is hidden.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They share the same professional attitude towards their customers as we do. We have a cultural match.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had communication issues and a question that involved a specific individual. They could work on communication with a few of their employees.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the former VP of software operations for an asset performance software company. Our company provides services and software in the domain of asset performance management. We deliver a solution for  asset-intensive industries that need to manage complex assets. These are industries like oil and gas, food and beverage, metals and mining, and utilities.

We provide services and software so they can improve on the performance of their installation like production assets or other assets, but these are not to be confused with financial assets.

My role as vice president of software operations was to manage the software development departments. We have several software solutions, and I am responsible as a manager for these applications, from an R&D perspective, as well as customer support, assisting customers with all kinds of questions and organizations. I am also responsible for the delivery organization of our software which are the projects we do, implementing our software on the customer side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Edvantis?

We made a strategic decision to invest in a new series of applications. At that time, the existing application became more like the legacy system so we decided to not add new functionality to that software and keep it as is, and invest in our resources into new applications. Because of that strategic decision, we also started to think about outsourcing the maintenance activities to an offshore company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We dismantled our own team, and Edvantis took over all research and development (R&D) activities. They worked on one of the software solutions that our company brings to the market. In the first year and a half, they only resolved defects in the system and added minor features. More than a year ago, they started to work on a new project for the same system to build a web-based UI for the existing optimizer plus system. They used VB.NET, C++, and C#.

What is the team composition?

We have a team of two developers and one project manager.

How did you come to work with Edvantis?

After we made the strategic decision, we did research possible companies that could take over the R&D activities. We selected three or four companies and invited them to our office. I believe that Edvantis was one of the companies that had sent us an email that they were visiting our country and wanted to make an appointment. The CEO came with either the CTO, and after a very careful selection process, we chose to start working with them.

We had multiple representatives of outsourcing companies from India, Ukraine, from Romania as well as a company with Dutch presence and developers abroad. I populated a list of qualifications such as continuity, confidentiality, years of experience, and other things. I benchmarked all of those and also called references that were provided by these companies. All together with the benchmarking and reference phone calls made me decide to choose Edvantis.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began in August 2017, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

If I can compare them to my own team, they are way more proactive. They also consider the quality of the software and scalability and performance a lot more. For us, Edvantis is a pair of hands and I am very happy with them.

They just do what we tell them to do. There are initiatives to refactor or seriously improve the legacy codes, and it is basically what we tell them to do. Sometimes when they raise an issue, if they come across a piece of code that is awful, they will suggest refactoring that, but it is very limited.

How did Edvantis perform from a project management standpoint?

Productivity is one metric that is pretty tangible. We have an agile development process where we follow the scrum methodology. At the start of every sprint, a plan is made for that sprint, and story points are calculated. Based on the story points, we can measure velocity so we can keep track of the overall productivity of the team.

The project is basically managed via the development workflow as we now work in two weeks sprints. We manage the project, but they have a project lead who takes care of the financial parts. If they want to discuss increasing the fees, we will have a conversation with him. If we discuss extending the team, he was the go-to person.

It isn’t expressed in a metric, but we also internally discuss the quality of the communication which is very important especially when we need to talk in a language that isn't our native language, English. It has gone very well. With outsource teams, there is a lot of difference in the quality of the communication, and we have experienced that with Edvantis as well. KPIs are productivity and the money that we spend. We keep track of all their hours and also the way that we collaborate

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do what we tell them to do, they never complain, and we can always reach them. They never refuse anything, which is very comfortable for us. They are really nice guys, although I am not the one who works with them on a daily basis. There is a product owner and two other people from our side that work with them on a daily basis and I think we are doing quite well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s not really their problem, but rather ours. By making the strategic decision to fully outsource, we became completely dependent on the quality of this team, and we had no second opinion. They started working and the work that they delivered was approved by us and also by our customers. The quality of the software, if you look at it from the outside, we and also our customers, are happy with the quality, but as we parted from our own team and we have no developers to check the quality of the code, it has become a black box for us. It works, but I don’t know if it is very stable or shaky so that is a risk. It would have been pretty difficult to prevent that. We don’t have the resources within our company to really review what they are doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It depends on what you want. If you want an extra pair of hands, they are very good to go. If you want to seriously collaborate in a big project where they need to take a lot of initiative, it becomes a little more difficult, although I must say that these two developers that we work with are okay.

They comply with everything that we want, but if a company wants to do a completely new build of an application, I wouldn’t recommend to fully outsource it to any company. I would choose to have some of your own people as a senior developer, or an architect on-premise to constantly be able to judge the quality of the software base.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We create software and hardware for creative people. As Head of Development Services I was responsible for the continued development and maintenance of all shared software components used by all products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Edvantis?

Edvantis provided support and development services for new functionality for the key company products.

What were your goals for this project?

We had to scale development and maintenance of shared software components, in preparation of the transition to an Agile environment. Ensure the continued maintenance of shared software components by extending functionality and improve the quality for existing features.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We conducted a thorough assessment of multiple vendors considering factors such as technical skills, flexibility, communication and shared values, while offering competitive cost options.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Edvantis provided support and development services for new functionality for the key company products as well as maintenance and quality improvements of existing functionality.

What was the team composition?

Organization and planning were supported by a Business Analyst who served as my primary contact. Each development team consisted of 2-4 Developers and a QA Engineer. We later added a Product Designer for one of the teams working on User-facing functionality.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The teams allowed us to implement a variety of functionliaty and improve quality in a field of expertise that was hard for us to find talent for. It also allowed internal teams to migrate to an Agile way of working while development of essential functionality continued.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Concrete Project Management of the team was facilitated by our Project Managers. Our Business Analyst at Edvantis was available for strategic planning and reporting and served as a bridge to facilitate the later Agile transition of the Edvantis team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The flexibility to change fast and cater to our needs with low bureaucratic hurdles, as well as the shared values fit and spirit to get stuff done.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The speed of adding additional staff to the team with special skills was suitable to our needs, but could've been faster, for our liking.