InFinIT Partners

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m responsible for one of the business units in Fortech SRL. It’s a Romanian software outsourcing service. My title is vice president of engineering and I have a technical background, but at the moment I’m doing most of the business management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InFinIT Partners?

We wanted to have them involved in some consultancy services for us to help us grow the business unit management team, as well as form up, grow, and expand our team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InFinIT Partners created a customized program for us and they ran that program for one year and one month. Since then, they follow up and are more of an on-demand consultancy. They delivered a map with the key skills of each individual who is part of the business management team, which is the size of about 14 people. At the moment, we’re discussing the continuation of the program.

What is the team composition?

There was one consultant most of the time, but there was also an assistant that helped out sometimes.

How did you come to work with InFinIT Partners?

We were recommended to work with them by previous colleagues.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2018 to October 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of their work, we were able to achieve a stronger team. We measured success through an engagement survey, as well as a questionnaire of feedback about this management team from other people that were working with the team members.

How did InFinIT Partners perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was running according to a schedule and the project management organization was totally fine. The program was initially scheduled for 12 months but ended up being 13 because we added some additional scope. We mostly met in the office, but there were a few times where we used Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They came in with a different approach than we had in the past. We saw this completely different perspective; the approach we had in the past was more focused on theoretical aspects. They focused on our strengths, so they identified the strengths of each individual and made them known well by the others and that helped us know each other better.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are none.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that from the very beginning, people are available for the program because it requires some time spent for it from all of the managers. General managers are very busy and tend to skip meetings and that’s something we had to deal with. If I did it again, I would do it better for our team and I recommend other companies do the same from the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager of innovation and technology at BigBrother International, a manufacturer of security equipment for retail locations. We implement camera security systems for petrol stations. and supply large retail outlets like supermarkets, grocery stores, department stores, etc. Our systems are often placed in logistics hubs and hotels, too. We’re headquartered in the Netherlands, and we have offices in Belgium and Romania.

We make standard products we have onsite and the products surrounding it like mobile applications and cloud platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InFinIT Partners?

We’re always trying to strike a balance between developing what the market wants quickly and building up our team’s capacity and knowledge. At the start of the pandemic, we realized our mobile application was lacking. It functioned, but it wasn’t what it should be for our customers. When we looked at our roadmap for 2020 — the plans and people we had — we realized that we couldn’t speed up the development by ourselves. We needed a partner to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were fully in charge of the design and functional aspects of the application, and they spearheaded the technical design and implementation. We began with 2–3 weeks of workshops between the teams that clearly determined our functional approach and whole technical design. InFinIT Partners used that information to come up with a one-project quotation, assuming the risk themselves by offering a single price for the multi-phase engagement. We’re currently working on phase two with them.

One of the reasons we wanted to partner with a company was to leverage specific knowledge of mobile applications and cloud APIs. InFinIT Partners gave us 2–3 choices for the technologies, and we considered all the pros and cons for our customers, as well as what InFinIT thought regarding time-to-market and technical scalability. We’ve had discussions about everything, from the individual APIs (authentication, streaming, etc.) to the technical language of the app.

It’s a cross-platform hybrid web app with Angular as the technical basis and an Ionic framework to make it into a mobile app. It’s built for iOS and Android, and, currently, we’re in phase two of the project — making iPad and Android tablet versions; we extended the contract after phase one.

What is the team composition?

I worked with the solutions architect, a lead on the streaming side, and a lead on the mobile app side for the first phase. Each person had colleagues supporting them where needed.

How did you come to work with InFinIT Partners?

I was sitting on a terrace in Romania in 2019 and I suddenly walked into a friend of mine and asked what he was doing there — that’s how I found out he was starting InFinIT Partners. We got together for dinner to discuss this opportunity, and I spoke to him about the challenge we had and the capacities and skills he had on his team. We did a few small projects together, and then, in March 2020, we started this project. It was pure coincidence and a personal connection.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €75,000 euros (approximately $90,900 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on the first phase from March—December 2020, and we’re currently in the second phase, as well as discussing another project with them

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We did a public beta launch in December and a full commercial release in January, and I’m getting emails from customers with enthusiastic results and feedback. Sometimes they also send in ideas that I really like. Having customers propose functionalities to us is a sweet spot for us. The result of phase one has brought us here, although I would have liked it a few months earlier.

Every January, we do year-start meetings with our big customers — we work for a lot of large oil companies’ European brands — and, this year, we let them know that we’d made accounts for them in the application. We’ve seen 60%–70% subscription by these customers, which is very high, and almost 80% of those who’ve adopted use it weekly.

I like their approach because it gives us the opportunity to choose explicitly between spending more time for a better result or less time for a worse result — they show us the balance. Even though I’m not happy that the first phase took too long, I’m very happy with how our companies worked together and combined their knowledge and skills. I can forgive them for being late on phase one because it’s very manageable because all the ingredients are on the table.

How did InFinIT Partners perform from a project management standpoint?

Between phases one and two, we told them that we really needed project management from their side. There was a project manager on their side, but they were running 20 projects at once, so, halfway through the project, we started doing it ourselves to get a grip on the project again. This was a big learning moment for everyone; no matter how senior or high-quality the resources are, management is needed to be led in the right direction.

The plan was to deliver phase one in August because we were celebrating our 25th birthday as a company in September. We wanted to announce the product to the market on our birthday but there were quite a few setbacks, and it didn’t get finished until December. InFinIT Partners never let go of the project, however, or said it wasn’t their problem. They really wanted to finish it and bring it to a good end —that’s why we decided to do phase two with them.

Now that we’re in phase two, we’ve modified our approach — we’ve learned from it. That same mistake won’t overcome us again.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with a lot of other providers as well over 10 years, and what sets InFinIT apart is the seniority of their developers. The expertise level they can put into a project is far higher than we experienced with other partners and suppliers. This is the reason, for the first time, we’re going to do a second project with the same supplier. All our other vendors were a one-time flyby that we weren’t happy enough with to continue on together.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They were late in delivery, and it could have partially been prevented by better project management. Also, if you’re late in delivery, you need to communicate that as soon as possible, as then the client can manage it within the organization and with their customers. We discussed it with them during the retrospective of phase one — they’re doing a better job in phase two.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with them. Everyone is very senior, and they have very nicely organized top management. They’re good, experienced people — if you do the project management, the developers have a better time because then they know what is expected of them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and managing director of NewU

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire InFinIT Partners?

I am the co-founder of NewU and worked with InFinIT Partners as a partner on the development of our unique health application.

What were your goals for this project?

To develop a never-before-seen health application that would disrupt the health and app market.

SOLUTION

How did you select InFinIT Partners?

With their extensive experience in IT, software development, management and financials, the choice for InFinIT PArters was easy.

Describe the project in detail.

We started with just an idea and a rough design. Together with InFInIT Partners, we shaped the vision of NewU in an actual web application. InFinIT Partners developed the framework, front-end, the back-end of the application and set-up the analytics.

What was the team composition?

One front-end developer, one back-end developer and one Product Owner. If needed we received a lot of assistance from the management, software architect and other team members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They made every deadline and the NewU application was successfully launched and we’re to this day very happy with the continuous improvements we are making.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The developers of InFinIT Partners are friendly and professional. The development team speaks fluent English, is detail-oriented, and makes the deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

If you are looking for multidisciplinary consultancy and IT-implementation that delivers massive value, we would highly recommend InFinIT Partners.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None.