Flexi IT

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior SEO manager at Paessler AG, a data monitoring company. We specialize in developing software solutions for large- and medium-sized IT infrastructures. An outage of a server can cost millions of dollars in a few seconds. Our software helps alert if the resources on a given server are running low, and it signals our users to take measures to get their devices run smoothly.

What challenge were you trying to address with Flexi IT?

In late 2020, we wanted to start a huge market with various solutions rather than just one product. To do so, we needed to create a content portal. It needed to be an English, German, Brazilian, and Portuguese website dedicated to the latest developments. It had to come across to the user as a very trustworthy resource, so it couldn’t look like another satellite site full of keywords.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first few months of our engagement, Flexi IT focused on developing our web portal. We provided them with the design, and they built everything else. We gave them access to our hosting service, and they developed all of the functionalities to create a more complex content portal for the three different languages required.

The website went live in April 2021. As we were so satisfied with everything we got from them, we signed a full-year contract. They’re now our official webmasters, so they help us with our website’s needs. They continue to help us with adjustments and functionalities.

What is the team composition?

I only work with their project managers.

How did you come to work with Flexi IT?

We posted an offer on Upwork, and we received many responses. Flexi IT wasn’t the most affordable company, but they came across as with high credibility. We ended up considering four companies and one freelancer who seemed to be very good. However, when I compared Flexi IT to the other freelancers and companies that contacted us, we could tell that the others didn’t have what it took.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $9,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

I can’t stress enough how satisfied I am with Flexi IT. Our portal is still in a very early stage. However, from the corporate levels to the salespeople, we adore this project. Everybody likes what they see. The portal is strategically very interesting and functional, and the feedback has been great.

We now have ads running on the website, but our main goal isn’t making money with them. In one year, we want to be ranked as number one on very specific keywords.

How did Flexi IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We understand that everything has a process, so we’re not hurrying it. In the first week of each month, we set up the issues and tickets that Flexi IT needs to work on during that specific month. We do this over a spreadsheet that they made available to us.

We also have a shared Slack channel where we communicate; they’re online all the time. When we need something, we go to the spreadsheet, insert our ticket, and explain what it’s all about. Within one hour, we have feedback from them — our collaboration is very organized.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Flexi IT is incredibly fast and reliable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing that Flexi IT could improve on; they have offered the best value for the money that I’ve experienced so far. Although their English level isn’t great, they deliver outstanding work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take your time before you set up the tickets, and explain to them exactly what you want. They have different types of knowledge within their team, so if you’re not very precise, it may cause some confusion. Be an involved client, and you’ll have a great service provider.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a company in Denmark offering a dynamic pricing solution for e-commerce businesses. We offer them an overview of their competitors’ prices, along with how they could change their own prices to get more sales.

What challenge were you trying to address with Flexi IT?

We knew the market was very competitive here in Denmark and we knew people were using Google Shopping to compare prices when searching for a new product. We wanted Flexi IT to help us develop a dynamic pricing tool to help businesses adapt their prices automatically every day. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, we developed an MVP with Flexi IT, which just showed businesses where their competitors’ prices were, product for product. Now, it’s developed into a dynamic pricing tool with automated functionalities. It’s a web-based application, and it was mainly built on Laravel PHP.

One of the key features is for setting prices dynamically based on competitor prices and on dynamic pricing rules. We have a rule engine with different options for setting prices based on how competitors act on the market. The engine has different rules and combinations. It delivers multiple million data points for competitor prices. 

They were also responsible for building a scraper MVP for us. We’d been using an external company but it was becoming too expensive and didn’t adapt to our set up. Over the years, we’ve focused more on security and launching new features. We’ve created different development environments along with the live application.

What is the team composition?

We had one developer on their team when we started, but we have a whole team now. Right now, we have two primary points of contact on Flexi IT’s side, whom we speak with daily. There’s currently a team of five developers behind them, and we’re looking to expand. We’ve also hired an external consultancy through them.

How did you come to work with Flexi IT?

One of our early co-founders had worked with them on another project and recommended them. We had a discussion with Flexi IT, and we chose them to build the MVP. We were very satisfied, so we continued working with them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Flexi IT around June 2018 and our engagement is ongoing.  

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

Within two months of launching the scraper MVP, it was working 10x better than the one we had been using which was a big achievement, and we weren’t sure that they’d manage to pull it off. It eliminated our dependency on an external company. The MVP scraper they built is some of the best work they’ve done.

Overall, it’s been great — even when the work needs to be tweaked it isn’t their fault. We don’t push anything live before testing it thoroughly. 

How did Flexi IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re really good at managing the project and deliver everything within the promised timeframes. I talk to my main points of contact daily on Slack, all the time. He assigns jobs to the five developers, each of which has their own responsibility area. The manager is doing a very good job of assigning tasks.

We have a setup by which they do small tasks right away, and they give us time estimates for bigger ones, which I approve beforehand. I haven’t had many instances where it took longer than they promised. If they’re behind schedule, they also do evening and weekend work to catch up. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m very impressed with the scraper MVP. We weren’t expecting it to be so good that quickly. We were expecting it to be working, but not to compare with the external one we were using. Within a couple of months, it was better than the one we’d had before, and we could say goodbye to that one. It also cut costs significantly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing a great job. I don’t know what other companies might be doing differently, but we’ve never considered changing.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They can think for themselves, but we need to make sure we’re clear about functionalities and designs, and not just give Flexi IT a headline. This is the same for every development company; they won’t know what we want if we don’t tell them anything.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of Mega-School, a teaching and practice platform that enables collaborative content creation and provides digital learning through Learning Management and Learning Content Management Systems.

For what projects/services did your company hire Flexi IT ?

Our platform was in need of a massive upgrade, including some elementary bug fixes, rewriting some parts of the existing code, and new design implementation. 

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to make the platform more stable by reducing bugs, more intuitive and user friendly with additional features, and improve the overall performance. 

How did you select this vendor?

We selected this vendor after an Internet search, web recommendations, and both virtual and phone interviews. 

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They assisted with the server management and architecture and PHP development, as well as cropping and implementing Adobe Photoshop images. 

What was the team composition?

The company manager and co-manager were only involved for initial communication. The project manager handled the frequent, almost daily, conversations about milestones, tasks, and work completed or pending. The past three months, and for the next period of time, have been a full time job for the primary PHP developer. On occasion, there may be assigned an additional PHP developer or an expert in server architecture and management. In general, they all work in a professional, synchronized manner, both individually and as a team.  

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

I can honestly say that Flexi IT upgraded each and every aspect of my project, including, but not limited to, the look and feel of the platform, the UI and UX, stability, and performance.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The relationships originally began between Eugenia (Head of Sales & Marketing, Flexi IT) and myself with a mutual decision to work together. From there, she assigned us a project manager. Most, if not all, conversations and correspondence regarding the project were held with the PM, who was extremely talented, responsible, and quickly understood the project. The milestones were divided into tasks and sub-tasks and managed by a corresponding expert. At the end of each working day, I received a report on what tasks were completed and which were still pending.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are dedicated, extremely professional, and demonstrate immense trust and honesty. 

Are there any areas where they can improve?

There are no areas they need to improve with respect to all issues and services I required. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a senior consultant working for a recruitment company focused on investment banks. My role is essentially that of headhunter. I identify candidates, see whether they fit vacant positions, and present them to clients, who make the decision on whether to interview the person or not. I advise companies on their recruitment strategies. Our target markets are major banks and corporates in Europe, focusing on Germany and the UK. We have more than 30 years of experience.

What challenge were you trying to address with Flexi IT?

We needed to re-develop our entire IT infrastructure. This included a new website, a new database and a full update to our career/jobs platform.

Our old database was from the 1990s and it couldn't really be fixed. We decided to redevelop it in order to increase our efficiency and workflow. The database should hold around 50,000 detailed candidate profiles, several thousand company profiles and track our interaction with all relevant parties. It should also include functionality for efficiencies, such as a diary, a reminder system and a tool to manage our deal flow.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Flexi IT developed our recruitment website. We have developed a separate database for internal use, through which we can track different projects, and organize the interaction between clients and candidates. Our system for this was also a bit old, so we pitched the idea to Flexi IT, and they made a reasonable offer to take on that project upon the completion of the recruitment website. This particular CMS is much more important for us. It stores more personal data, and we need to be careful around its protection and archiving.

We can track the interactions between clients and candidates from first contact. We have a sales system in place which looks at the cost of each deal. Moving on from this, we can take the information to a project site which adds candidates and tracks each one, whether they are still interested, have different location preferences, and so on. At the same time, we have a log for everything, and don’t have to use any other systems for the purpose.

I believe that Flexi IT has a 15 or 20-person developer team. I’m not entirely sure how many worked on our project, but there was always a project leader communicating with me around any questions I might have, and to whom I provide ideas and changes. She has remained constant throughout the project, and is very experienced in the area. She can also develop small items without going to the developer. This has saved us a lot of time. She also provided many good ideas for the website.

There is one key developer who programmed most of the platform, but I’m not sure how many others worked on the background. Based on the speed of work, I cannot conclude that there is only one person doing it. The tasks are too complicated, and there are too many of them.

How did you come to work with Flexi IT?

They initially approached us to see if we would be interested in a web development project, while we were rebuilding our platform. Flexi IT made a reasonable offer and got the job done quickly. Especially for the database, we looked at 20-30 providers over the past 2 years. They all had well-developed systems, but either lacked some of the features we wanted, or had designs similar to our 20-year-old system. We decided to build our own system, and started working on wireframing. We sent those to Flexi IT, and they got working on it. I’m glad that we did it this way because we now have a unique system which no one can copy.

How much have you invested with Flexi IT?

We have invested between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Redeveloping the entire database took around 6 months. We are currently in the final stages of development for our internal database, which was started in November 2016.

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

Our data has been transferred to the new system, but we’ve just started working with it two weeks ago. It’s working fine, but I don’t have any info around outputs. Our efficiency hasn’t increased because of it yet, but I am certain that it will in the long-term. We have never come across a more efficient and cheaper firm. The results are always very satisfying!

How did Flexi IT perform from a project management standpoint?

All costs and deliverables were either within the schedule and budget or below. We had no costs that increased beyond reasonable limits.

They are by far the best third-party developers we’ve worked with. They always delivered on time, and even faster than estimated. Whenever I had a question, they answered using different channels like email, phone and Skype. I use email mainly when travelling, but Skype is the most-used tool. I’ve always been able to call them directly for issues which required more ample explanations. Most of the work is tracked through Upwork, which allows us to see what Flexi IT’s team is actually doing. The team was always forthcoming and friendly.

I’ve never had an issue with them in the one-year period we’ve been working together. I can absolutely recommend Flexi IT to anyone looking for a developer. SAP SE would have charged us $100,000 for a system which Flexi IT developed for $10,000.

What did you find most impressive about Flexi IT?

The work is cost-effective and is delivered in a timely manner, which are two of the most important things. We can always discuss the quality of an item, or smaller design issues. As long as it’s reasonably-priced and delivered on time, it’s no big deal.

Are there any areas Flexi IT could improve?

I’m very satisfied. Based on the complexity of the work, Flexi IT has been doing a good job, but recruitment systems are never as complex as other tools for areas like risk-modelling or evaluation. I’m not entirely sure what they could do in that area, but, for my level, the process was straightforward. Flexi IT has experience with other financial companies, so they know what they’re doing.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work as a digital director at Marketsquare - a danish full service agency with 40 employees

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

i have used Flexi on various builds. I love their approach - they know how I like my code to be and they are also friendly and very pro active.

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

I had been working with one of the employees on a previous project

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

We always do the first couple of steps ourselves: insights and strategy, UX, web design and then we include Flexi on the following process. It is usually Wordpress with ACF

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

5 (Project managers and dev team, front and backend)

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

We have much more appealing websites now, for instance marketsquare.dk and the quality of code is really high

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

Very detailed and pro active with cost control, delivery dates, questions and suggestions.

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

Everything about it. We were impressed with their spirit, members, friendliness, and the quality of outputs.

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

I would love for them to be able to do other CMS's too like Shopify or Magento.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Marketing and advertising company

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

We engaged Flexi IT with help on WordPress development projects

How did you select Flexi IT and what were the deciding factors?

Great communication, timely execution and great quality of work

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

Flexi IT helped us with website development and maintenance of several WordPress websites.

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

One-three

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

We are very satisfied with the quality of their work and timeliness.

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

Communication was great, even being in different time zones. Always clear and concise.

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

Providing excellent estimates on time and cost for the projects and always staying within the estimates.

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

Not that I can think of