Grinteq

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Global Resourcing Manager, COEx Tech of MRM

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Deliver Tech implementations, specialized on web and eCommerce, together with Digital Creative agencies in the network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• increase team of senior eCommerce developers with consulting skills
• scale web and eCommerce projects for priority one staffing needs
• create a strong partnership for new business in new platforms outside our company's main partnerships

SOLUTION

How did you find Grinteq?

Referral

Why did you select Grinteq over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Other

How many teammates from Grinteq were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Tech delivery of web and eCommerce implementations for international brands, including of but not limited to development and QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• On-time quality delivery for most of the engagement, where the set-up was a fit for success. Proper seniority for all presented Tech profiles on all open needs. High-level account management with impeccable communication, response time, empathy and understanding of any business and new project situation.

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

Working with people to develop Tech in Digital Creative world and not being fair in saying there were no minor issues, is not what I would like to highlight, but what I like about Grinteq is that anything is addressed instantly with the Tech team and area to improve are having visible results fast. In general, our feeling is that Grinteq team is really cool and fit easily into our organizational culture and project way of working.

What was your primary form of communication with Grinteq?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Grinteq has the ability to properly turn into a long-term trustworthy partner for a lot of areas in any business or industry. We have recently seen change and new technology stacks being discussed in business development and sales efforts, so Grinteq has never said no to any kind of skillset combination we started looking for, and has always presented several options/solutions for any new potential opportunity together.

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

Continue building strong relationships with everyone, at least as well as you are doing it right now!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Recruitment.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We implement Commerce Platform Solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Testing
• Application Development
• Project Management

SOLUTION

How did you find Grinteq?

Referral

Why did you select Grinteq over others?

Pricing first our budget

What was the size of Grinteq’s team?

1 Employee

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

Implementing SF Commerce Cloud Solutions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Efficiency
• Launch

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

From my experience with Grinteq's resources, they were always very responsive and able to articulate the progress being made or what issues were that really helped our team to be able to understand where things were and how progress needed to be made. Also, while I cannot qualify the quality of the work they did from a technical standpoint I can say that he was always very efficient with his work and seemed like he was able to turn things around quickly without sacrificing quality.

I do think that there were some issues with the solution on the B2B Commerce side but as I understand it, that was more so due to a lack of an articulation of requirements properly from vendors and that once we had new leadership, was able to provide guidance for the resource that helped get things sorted. Not sure if this helps.

What was your primary form of communication with Grinteq?

Virtual Meeting

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

Efficient, responsive, malleable.

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

None. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m VP of Operations & Finance at a US-based startup developing driverless electric vehicles

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Grinteq to build a website and develop the first version of our mobile app.

SOLUTION

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

Among other candidates, Grinteq offered us high-quality expertise for a reasonable price and estimated they could complete the projects within our timelines.

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

Grinteq helped us to build a website on Webflow with immersive design, scroll-triggered animation, and 3D visualization of the objects. Based on the website design, they developed the MVP of the mobile app.

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

There were 4 staff members involved: an account manager, a designer, two developers. The account manager was our primary point of contact.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Grinteq’s deliverables met our expectations and requirements. The website and mobile app supported our pilot launch, helped visualize the brand and communicated our vision. We validated the initial concept and developed a brand-new image for potential customers and investors - all as per the initial plan.

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

The development was organized in 2-week sprints using Agile methodology in Jira. We had regular communications via Slack and email channels. Their account manager was professional, taking care of all our questions timely.

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

The project was completed on agreed terms, and the team was responsive and resourceful, with plenty of initiatives and ideas coming our way. We enjoyed working with Grinteq.

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

For our project, I haven’t noticed anything in particular. We resolved any issues timely..

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a European scale up fintech company in the BNPL sector. We provide our clients with a but now pay later solution that allows customers to make purchases, online and instore, and pay for them in interests free installments. In the company I am responsible for leading the Integration team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We chose Grinteq to develop a new Salesforce SFCC cartridge (Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform). The goal was to be able to enlarge the suite of products offered by the cartridge to allow our clients to activate all of our available products through the cartridge.

SOLUTION

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

We chose Grinteq for several reasons:

• Salesforce expertise
• cost proposition
• project management procedures

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

We had a kickoff meeting to discuss our needs and objectives. Grinteq team asked all relevant technical information and details to evaluate the project specificities and define roadmap. Grinteq team shared with us the SOW and VSA to allow us to evaluate their proposal. After accepting, a kick off call was scheduled.

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

3 people - Dedicated developer 2 - Client manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The plugin developed by Grinteq has been installed and currently in use on several clients: the product proved resilient, all feedbacks collected are positive.

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

Clear and flexible communication. Availability to adjust to different time zones and use of communication tools. Complete requirements request and detailed project timeline.

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

We were impressed with the human touch in keeping smooth and qualitative communication throughout the project. The responsiveness of the dev team.

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

No suggestions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work at a public American financial services and digital payments company based in San Francisco and lead the Solutions Partner Engineering team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Grinteq to help with an ongoing initiative to develop and support payment plugins in various ERP and CRM systems in order to pursue enterprise merchants running their businesses on these systems. Grinteq was chosen to develop plugins, specifically in the Salesforce ecosystem.

SOLUTION

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

We evaluated several different Salesforce agencies but ultimately decided to go with Grinteq due to their strong project team that included a tech lead, project manager, and account manager.

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

They designed and developed several lightning components that integrated with Salesforce Billing in order to facilitate in person and online payments with our companies payment technology. The project began with a robust wire-framing process where we scoped out the requirements and limitations of our platform with Salesforce and then subsequently met weekly for project updates where progress could be reviewed and any feedback discussed.

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

There were 3 people in the core team - a tech lead, project manager, and account manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have just completed the project and are looking to begin the go to market process.

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

Their project management was good, with regular communication over Slack and email. We typically received answers within 24 hours.

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

Our tech lead, Alex, regularly made himself available and made flow charts, videos, and diagrams to illustrate his proposed technical design and made sure we had alignment on the integration architecture.

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

Better documentation would be great, especially as we ramp up the go to market process for this integration.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering of a sneaker and streetwear marketplace.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Grinteq?

We were having a hard time sourcing Ruby on Rails web engineers, so we needed someone to support our web development efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Grinteq is our primary outsourcing partner for staff augmentation. We started the engagement with a discussion of our requirements regarding the skills of their engineers and once we narrowed down the candidates, we proceeded with a take-home programming challenge which they initially passed.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact has only been their account manager. 

How did you come to work with Grinteq?

They were already on board when I joined the company two years ago.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably invested around $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in May 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure the success based on the team’s output, and they’ve been consistently adding value to our development. Based on our performance evaluations, we’ve been getting very good feedback from our peers all over the world.

How did Grinteq perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good from a project management perspective, as some of their employees have successfully integrated into full leadership roles.

Furthermore, they’ve been consistent with their communications and effective with running the development process.

We use JIRA and GitHub to manage the project and interact through Zoom and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re very impressed with the quality of the candidates they provide us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on because working with them has been extremely easy. We also like that they’re very proactive and reach out to us for regular feedback — they really demonstrate the commitment to making our company and the partnership successful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to commit to being a good partner and provide them with the necessary information about what you want to achieve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Head Of Technology and Director. We are a multidisciplinary agency building digital products web/mobile with a focus on eCommerce

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

In Italy Digital is growing very fast and had a strong acceleration during the pandemic. It is very hard to grow the team organically in order to sustain the potential business growth. Grinteq helps us extending our team with skilled professionals.

SOLUTION

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

The vendor has been selected based on some interviews and the availability of required profiles. The deciding factors were: - flexibility - availability of senior profiles on specific technology - collaboration

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

The scope of work depends on the specific persons involved on different e-commerce and mobile app projects. The process is:

• we ask to Grinteq for specific profiles
• Grinteq makes some proposal by sharing the matching and available profiles and their CVs
• we review the profiles
• Grinteq schedules the interviews
• we do the interviews
• Grinteq provides the contracts for profiles who have passed the interview
• we sign the contracts - we onboard Grinteq people
• Grinteq regularly ask us for feedback on their people

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

2 backend eCommerce (Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud) developer 2 frontend eCommerce (Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud) developer 1 mobile app (React Native) developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don't have a measurable outcome because Grinteq people are working along with our employees in our project teams. Generally speaking, the overall quality of Grinteq people is very high and the profiles and CVs shared in the selection phase are very real and represent the real experience of the person.

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

Grinteq people adopt the tools used by our company or the specific team for the day-to-day work. The time spent on the projects is tracked using http://track.toggle.com/

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

I find always a great collaboration, Grinteq really works as a partner who always tries to help us to reach our objectives.

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

No, actually everything is working great!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company provides ride-sharing platforms and software development services. I run our e-commerce projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GrinTeq?

We needed a strong partner to help us implement a Magento 2 platform that was a legacy project from our business partner.

What were your goals for this project?

To deliver a scalable e-commerce platform for a customer based in Africa.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We made a list of seven service providers based in the US but with offices in Europe as we wanted to be sure they are aligned with local development services. Our main criteria were to have a team of certified Magento developers with good soft skills.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project was pretty straightforward: they developed, tested, and deployed our e-commerce platform, which had to perform well under high loads.

What was the team composition?

There were two backend developers, two frontend developers, and a QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This was the project of our client, so we can’t disclose any details.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They offered us a project manager from their team, but we ended up doing the management on our side in order to have a better grasp of the processes.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed by the responsiveness of the team and their management, their attention to detail, and most importantly, their adherence to a structured process with clear thinking.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The whole cooperation was very smooth, so we wouldn’t change anything really. The only issue was when they moved the deadline, but it stayed within the pessimistic estimate and the reasons were well explained.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO a platform where users can buy, sell, or trade pre-owned luxury watches at wholesale.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GrinTeq?

I needed a technical team of app and web developers to help bring my concept to life.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, GrinTeq reviewed our initial designs for the app and website. They followed up with questions to better understand our company and business problem. Then they defined their timeline, technology, and team structure. The team offered feedback and alternate designs to improve the site’s efficiency. 

GrinTeq used Swift and Firebase to construct the iOS app. They originally used React for the website, but switched over to Node.js later on in the process. 

Their team completed the app and website but continues to help them grow, adding new features. 

What is the team composition?

We work with one mobile developer, a senior web developer, and a back-end developer. There is also a project manager who acts as a liaison. The team pulls in junior resources to meet deadlines as needed. 

How did you come to work with GrinTeq?

I originally connected with one of their founders on a Slack channel for entrepreneurs. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent roughly $65,000–$70,000 to date. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The bulk of the work lasted from July 2018–March 2019, but they still provide maintenance services. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Users are happy with the app and we have received good feedback early on. The app is easy to use and we haven’t had any crashes or errors that would be cause for concern. 

How did GrinTeq perform from a project management standpoint?

Working with an offshore team, I was initially worried about having efficient communication. They ended up being very good communicators, but they don’t always hit deadlines in the way we anticipated.   

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re economical. Although they weren’t the cheapest option, they are a great provider for what they bring to the table. They ask thoughtful questions and are interested in understanding our business. Their team really wants to use their expertise to provide recommendations. That gives them value and makes them competitive with bigger, more expensive vendors.   

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been nice to have tighter project management. I would have liked a more structured project plan and regular check-ins.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you’re proactively reaching out, asking for updates, and overcommunicating more than you would with other vendors.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Svefi Academy is one of 250 Liberal Adult Education Institutions in Sweden. Svefi's staff consists of 20 teachers and trainers, and we have about 700 students from Sweden and abroad who attend our long-term courses in all types of learning environments. 

I'm one of the project managers responsible for coordinating with other schools, developing new content for Svefi's courses, finding new ways of teaching content, and interacting with students.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GrinTeq?

We were participating in an international project together with other educational institutions from three European countries. For the project, we needed a testing platform to test the students' knowledge before, during, and after completing courses. 

The learning platforms that we were using at the time had in-built testing modules that always came with certain limitations. These were often very frustrating for teachers trying to customize them. That’s why we decided to create a customized solution that would be easy to use for both teachers and students while having all of the functionalities that we needed. 

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to have a testing solution that would work on all kinds of platforms, from phones to desktops. It had to have an attractive and intuitive design/audio-visual experience, and we wanted to be able to add increased functionality as appropriate. It also needed to be easy to use for both teachers and students. We expected it to become a motivating tool for students to test their knowledge and to start or proceed with their studies.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Since none of the participating organizations in the project had adequate developers, we chose from a pool of vendors that we’d worked with before. Out of the three considered, GrinTeq offered the best in terms of quality and cost. We also liked their attitude during the negotiation stage, and our team felt that they were the most reliable partner that we could trust.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

GrinTeq designed and developed a web-based testing platform for the educational organizations that we cooperate with. The project started with the development of the technical specification based on user stories. GrinTeq produced the specs, and we and our partnering organizations approved it. 

After we agreed on the workflows and approved the mockups, we went on to the production phase, which consisted of two-week sprints. After each release, we would test the functionality of the platform, provide feedback, and suggest improvements. With every sprint, new functionality and features were added, and they implemented all of our suggestions until the testing platform was fully operational.

What was the team composition?

From the vendor’s side, there were five staff members involved: a project manager, a designer, two developers, and a tester. The project manager was our primary point of contact. That person was good at channeling communication to the other team members and provided us with feedback.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As a result of the project, we have received a customized solution for testing students. It was launched on time and met our expectations (e.g., design, intuitive interface, feature set, and functionality). Our teachers now have access to a tool that they are 100% happy with.

In addition, our students are motivated to use it. It is no longer boring to do tests, and the platform can be easily adjusted to meet different needs and learning environments.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We were happy with the project management since we met all of our goals on time. We used Jira to plan and implement project activities as well as monitoring the progress of the project. We used Skype for daily/weekly communication, getting updates and solving minor issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Even though we never met, we were still able to plan and successfully implement a rather big web development project using online communication tools. This proves that the GrinTeq’s team is experienced in doing these kinds of projects remotely. We were impressed that all of the project stages were completed in due time, and I appreciated how smoothly the implementation went.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We have no complaints—it was just a positive experience in all the areas, and it feels like we had a perfect project.