Horato

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a chief of digital and media relations for Turkish Aerospace. Our company have ranked one of the best defense companies out of 100 biggest companies in the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Since 1990s we were using the same intranet portal for our colleagues. They were working on most of the erp systems, or any other human resources activities throughout the portal. Main thing is what portal works for the company personal who can reach daily routine activities from it.

What we we were trying to achieve that we wanted to change all traditionalistic user activities to digital activities such as customizing their pages and reduce the slowness of the pages. Horato, basically helped us to achieve these needs successfully.

SOLUTION

How did you select Horato and what were the deciding factors?

I have heard the company throughout my friends who works for IT companies. My main deciding factors were that understanding the digital trends and the implementation of these digital trends.

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

First of all we had a kick off meeting with our departments and with them. They show us and they gave us a clear schedule in order to finish the project.

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

I have worked with the vice president of the IT department manager of the IT department mainly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our company have 10,000 people who works for us and 95% are happy with the new system.

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

On a weekly basis we had a meeting with all departments including us it department and their company. On a daily basis, we have talked about project outcomes and software implementations to not miss any forms of Intranet.

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

Horato's biggest strength was their quick response in solving a crisis.

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

I don't think any improvement for the company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a professor and computer engineering department chair at TOBB University of Economics and Technology, a Turkish university. I’m in charge of strategic planning which involves the design of our website and social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Horato?

We wanted to have a new web page for our university and wanted to show some technology on it. Since it’s a university for economics and technology, it needed to be cutting-edge technology.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Horato developed our new website. They also designed some custom web-based software for our student activities. There are student groups at the university. In order to publicize their events, we prepared a custom social media website. It was a closed circuit for our members only.

Their team also designed some of our scholarship application website. The application process is pretty detailed. The candidates have to upload some videos and also submit a lot of information in regard to documents. Horato prepared that website for us. They’re handling all of our web-based application websites from custom web-based technologies on our web page.

We first started with the website. Then they designed full-custom social media accounts for our university. We also have an e-commerce website that they designed so we can sell university products. It’s not online yet, but it’s ready. When the projects came, we created the schedules together and have been working together since then.

They also helped us with our social media from time to time including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We’re active on all the platforms.

What is the team composition?

We’ve consistently worked together with the owners of Horato; they’re a smaller company. We also work with some of the people on their team. There are 4–5 individuals working with us. We never knew how many people coded behind the scenes. It was easier for us this way. We didn’t need to know all the members of the company. We don’t care who is coding, we just want to see the results.

How did you come to work with Horato?

At the time, we were working together with an advising company for all our institutional identity purposes, design, logo, colors, etc. That company searched for a good web development company when we expressed we needed a new website. We told them we wanted to work with the best and that we wanted something extraordinary. They searched through vendors and brought Horato to our attention.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2015, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After the website was designed and operational, we entered a well-known website competition in Turkey. Our website was ranked the top among all education websites in Turkey. This was an indication that the people liked the website and ours was better than the other universities.

After this website was designed, it set an example for other universities, and they made some similar web pages. We like the website very much. Currently, Horato is designing a new UI for our website. They deliver good, quality work.

How did Horato perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is perfect, and they’re really efficient. The Horato team always estimates time correctly. We sit down together, and they listen to us. It’s clear they understand us. Then they create a timeline, plan, and budget for the project. They’re really effective in managing the project. Their success comes from this.

We’ve had some stressful times. At one point, we had to collect a lot of applications in a short period of time. Our team had to design a website and correct the applications, and Horato was very effective within the time constraints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know new technologies. Horato listens to and understands us. I got a PhD from New York State and when I talk to people and tell them what I want, they struggle to understand what our vision is. This is the major difference between Horato and other companies. Some other companies are small-minded. They don’t understand what we’re saying or know the current technologies in web design.

When I say I want a dynamic web page that has to be changing when I resize the windows, Horato understands immediately and they implement it. All our websites are compatible with mobile phones and tablets. When I tell them I want it responsive, they understand immediately.

They always bring something better. They’re skilled in design and have good design taste. Their team always comes back with good design choices that we like. What distinguishes them from others is their knowledge of technology and good taste in design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re happy with them. With the social media management efforts, sometimes they weren’t very effective but then they agreed on that and didn’t manage our social media accounts anymore. They’re better in web-based development. They’re quite perfect for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to them. They have good ideas and know their business. Everybody has an idea about a web page. Horato listens to the customer and sometimes tells us our idea isn’t the best way to do it. We usually listen to their advice because they know better. They’re very experienced. Listen to their suggestions. It’s a more efficient way to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and Managing Director Informascope

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We worked with Horato for a custom web and cloud based ebook portal development project. We have a B2B portal for libraries and instituions and B2C portal for retail market. Our goals were to have a well structured and highly secure system for our ebooks to be delivered to the end users.

SOLUTION

How did you select Horato and what were the deciding factors?

We had meetings with several web development companies and evaluated these companies within several criterias. Decision of working with Horato was mostly with their vast experience in software development and their deep knowledge on their fied with a well organized professional team.

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

Developing a custom portal based on our requirements which includes B2B, B2C and ecommerce solutions coded by Horato and integrated with 3rd party platforms. The technology used on our project was PHP hosted on a cloud environment.

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

5 team members worked on our projects. Their positions are listed below: *1 Project Manager *2 Software Developers *1 System Engineer *1 UI and UX Developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since the launch of our project; it has received very positive feedback from our end users and publishing partners. Our platform is being used by over 1m users monthly.

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

They are using in-house project management tools to let us see the progress and that tools allows us interactivity for the planning and adding new requests for the project. They are sensitive with the timelines for delivery of the projects which was also appreciated from our side.

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

Their vast experience for software development and customer relations management.

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

They are a well structured team around 10 members which they act as boutique company. They can extend their team and increase the number of projects that they are involved.