INGIC

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of 241IRE, a startup company based in the UAE.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

We enlisted INGIC to develop a mobile application for us.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to go live with our mobile application in 95 days and launch our startup.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected INGIC based on their promise of a dedicated team of app developers in the United States and a one-on-one account manager, who would liaise with our Dubai office throughout the 95-day build. We believed they’d be able to complete the build in our time frame, and that we’d have access to all their services, including their legal team.

Describe the project in detail.

Once we signed with INGIC in September 2017, we received timely phone calls from their finance office asking for payments to be made before they could begin or move onto the next stage of development. The account manager we were assigned to, Muhammed, apparently was no longer with the company, so we were passed to another resource. We continued to receive phone calls from their finance department until our final installment was paid in December 2017.

Fast-forward to May 2019: after a workflow agreement of 95 days, we do not have a completed application. We’ve endured employee changes and canvassed for senior management to get in contact with, which we succeeded at in December 2018. After informing us that ours was a unique, unfortunate case of poor service, they stopped replying to any form of communication, seemingly resigning or leaving overnight. Most recently, in March 2019, they promised a comprehensive review of our build, but that ended in them accusing us of refusing to communicate with them.

INGIC has admitted to us in writing that, to date, they haven’t completed any work on the project. Further, they’ve lost our contract, the logo we signed off on, and our stationery, all while assuring us they were working on the build and would forward parts for approval soon. We’ve asked for a full refund of our money and began legal proceedings against them via the Dubai authorities.

What was the team composition?

We’ve had over 10 account managers at this point. A new one is assigned every eight weeks and promises to finish the build in a matter of days or weeks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were a startup business that incurred financial losses and failed to start because of INGIC’s incompetence.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was great, up until we made our final payment. They initially agreed to a 95-day workflow, but 600 days later we have nothing to show for the partnership, except a string of account managers who all said the app would be launched soon.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They certainly were quick to ensure payments were made on time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No comprehensive hand-offs were done when one of our account managers left or disappeared. Every new resource started with little to no knowledge of what needed to be done on our build.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a co-founder of V Corp Ltd. We’ve launched a social networking app in the UAE.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

We hired INGIC to build our native iOS app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build an enterprise-level native iOS app with a backend that matched our initial demo concept.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected INGIC based on their proposal to deliver a high-quality app. They'd shown us that they were an international agency and had worked with several recognizable brands. Also, because we had the designs and a demo already made, they gave us a reduced price.

Describe the project in detail.

They took the designs and demo that we had created and developed an initial prototype.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned a project manager who was with us for about five months. He left the company halfway through our project. After that happened, we didn’t have a point of contact and had to call generic numbers to get a hold of the people who were handling our project.

We eventually came to learn that a team of ten developers in Pakistan had worked on our app. This came as an absolute shock to us because INGIC had told us that their developers were in the US.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

After an excruciating eight months, we had our first demo from INGIC, and it was a complete mess. They proceeded with development, and the entire project took a whopping 14 months to complete. We wanted an external agency to review the source code before we made the final payment, but INGIC refused.

We ended up making the payment before having four different agencies review the code. Each firm was shocked to learn that the app was built by what was allegedly a top international agency. They found more than 200 critical Swift code errors in the app, and the entire backend framework was the same quality as a basic demo. Also, the product couldn’t be scaled and had several security flaws.

As a result of these problems, we were unable to publish our product on The App Store and had to hire another developer to fix the remaining issues. The developer ended up building the backend from scratch because INGIC hadn’t done anything that we asked.

INGIC promised a high-quality native iOS app built by experienced Swift developers, and what we got was a total disaster. This partnership has almost ruined our startup, and we’re currently pursuing legal proceedings against INGIC as we seek reimbursement.

How was project management handled?

Project management started off really well. In the beginning, we had a dedicated account manager who would call us every week to discuss and finalize the initial designs. When we reached the development stage, things took a turn for the worse.

We no longer had weekly calls with our project manager, and we weren’t allowed to speak to the developers. We would provide feedback via email and would have to wait for 2–3 weeks before hearing back. This would happen with the most basic corrections, and, to our annoyance, most of our emails would get ignored. There was no particular workflow, and INGIC didn’t use any project management tools.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

To be honest, there was nothing that we would consider a strength. Our startup suffered greatly as a result of working with INGIC.

In what specific areas can they improve?

There are several areas where they can improve. They could work on communicating more regularly and being transparent about the composition of their team.

They could also benefit from hiring more experienced developers. Although we were never able to speak with them, it seems that our app was beyond the abilities of their developers.

Based on some of their reviews on Clutch, it appears that others have had similar experiences with INGIC. They should stop advertising themselves as a leading mobile app development agency, as this is not the case.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the business development manager for a startup focused on smartphone applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INGIC?

We hired them to develop our ride-hailing application. We wanted to be the leading ride-hailing app in our market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We signed a contract with the expectation of having a fully functional app from them within 110 days.

How did you come to work with INGIC?

I found INGIC online through reviews on Clutch and other review platforms.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $23,000, which is about $7,000 more than the market price. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in June 2018 and terminated the partnership in March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

We stopped working with them on March 9th. Because they failed to deliver the project within the contracted timeline—110 days from June 20th, we are taking them to court. Additionally, they provided a written statement claiming that their team is based in the US, but we have reason to believe they're actually working out of Pakistan. We're suing them for this as well. 

How was project management handled?

In late June 2018, we called INGIC’s Dubai office and signed a contract with them to develop our ride-hailing mobile app. Before the start of the project, we were passed between a few different people then told that we would get a call from a salesman. Later that month, we got in contact with a salesman who promised our project would be delivered on time (about 110 days) by his team based in the US, which is why we were paying about 40% more than other vendors we had looked at.

However, once he collected the first payment, everything changed. They assigned a new project manager. He was unprofessional, had little knowledge about mobile apps, took up to 20 days to respond to our emails, and would only respond after we filed a complaint to the Dubai office. After two months of this, we got a new, third, project manager. He was no different from the first two. We had the same delays, and our project saw no real progress. At this time, we decided to terminate our project with INGIC.

We then received a call from a senior project manager at the Dubai office who promised the project would be better handled. He invited someone from our team to the Dubai office, promised a local project manager would also be assigned, and that we would experience more professionalism moving forward. Based on this conversation, we decided to keep the project going with INGIC. However, we soon saw the same delays, lack of professionalism, and lack of progress. It was clear that INGIC lacked the resources and knowledge to develop our app for us. We have a strong belief that we were given fake names and locations of everyone we worked with.

INGIC did not stick to our project scope, our timeline, or any of the promises they made. We would wait for updates on progress, and upon finally receiving it, only a portion of our requirements were met. Our feedback and requests for iterations were mostly ignored.

We then heard that INGIC was developing a similar application to the one we had contracted out to them. They denied it and pointed out that nowhere in our contract did it say they couldn’t develop a similar app. They essentially slowed down our project and started developing a direct competitor. We didn’t ask for that in the contract because we didn’t think we had to, as it’s unethical by industry standard.

This month we sent an email officially ending our business with them and informed them that we'd be taking the matter to the Dubai court. INGIC then started sending updated project files and claimed they delivered our project already.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

No, I can't name anything.

In what specific areas can they improve?

They could start by being honest about the names and locations of their team members.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Stay safe and avoid hiring INGIC.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

REVOOLVE works in the field of high-quality extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). Our company provides technical, branding, and marketing support to producers of EVOO worldwide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

The primary service we needed from INGIC was logo design. We wanted to create a logo that would lend our business more visibility.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to enhance our customers’ visual experience through a visually compelling logo that expresses our company’s mission and values.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

INGIC had done previous work to support other projects for us in the past.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

INGIC collaborated closely with us to develop the logo. The majority of the project focused on the design. We were in constant communication.

What was the team composition?

Henry (Project Manager, INGIC) was very helpful in all of our interactions. He afforded care to our project and constantly engaged me, even when I was very busy. His patience and ability to liaise between the INGIC design team and me resulted in top quality work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

INGIC produced a deliverable that’s available for public view. Our new logo is quite visually compelling. It beautifully conveys our company's core mission and principals.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

INGIC maintained a flexible and sustained workflow. Project management was very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I most appreciated INGIC’s patience and flexibility. They accommodated my whims by making modifications whenever I needed.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Perhaps they could allow clients to have direct contact with the designers rather than always communicating through the project manager.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior project manager of Cugic, a provider of online chat support.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INGIC?

We needed to develop new technology to run our business. We wanted a chat software that would connect to our clients’ websites so that our team could provide chat support to their end users. We needed a partner to development and design the software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

INGIC built a chat software with various functionalities. It’s a proactive program, meaning users automatically receive a greeting from the chat server when they come onto the site. The chat support providers can see what the users are typing in real-time, helping them better understand and meet the end customers’ needs. The software also features parallel chat, so our agents can work with multiple site visitors at once. Along with those functionalities, the program provides real-time access to user profiles. We use the software to provide analytics and reporting to our clients, such as what’s working and chat transcripts to ensure our agents are meeting their expectations. The chat software is a white label solution, so our clients can market it as their own.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two project managers, and there was a team of about ten people assigned to them.

How did you come to work with INGIC?

We found them through an online search.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership lasted from January–April 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

INGIC added features that have improved the system and made it more efficient. Our clients appreciate the increased productivity and are happy with the work. The software’s currently in beta testing, but it works well.

How did INGIC perform from a project management standpoint?

They understood our issues and problems, making them a reliable partner. We mainly communicated via phone and email, and we could always get in contact with them. They were more than willing to look into any of our concerns.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their project management and dev skills are impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should have 24-hour availability.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be open about your project goals; they’ll help you meet them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the digital engagement specialist at the US Consulate General in Dubai.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

We needed to develop a mobile app for our network, EducationUSA.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted the app to provide information to students looking to complete their higher education in the US.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We chose them based on a comprehensive, creative proposal they sent us.

Describe the project in detail.

Initially, we had several calls with their team about the project. We then had a meeting to discuss the details and different sections of the app. We also gave them the specific data they’d need to incorporate to the app. From there, they began the development process.

What was the team composition?

We initially worked with the business development manager, and then he introduced us to the account manager and development team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Though we haven’t completed the app yet, the project is going well and is on track.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The process improved when INGIC replaced our first account manager. The process has been much smoother.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their high-quality work stands out to us, and we’re satisfied with how we’ve worked together.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Though we’re pleased with the flow and turnaround from their team, it would benefit us if the project could be completed faster.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager at Autorod Co, Ltd. and I’m also involved in our marketing and sales efforts. We export used cars from Japan to different parts of the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INGIC?

Originally, the website had a cluttered user journey. Our customers had to search through different links to find a specific car, then filter through various options to make a purchase. It wasn’t a clear process. We looked to INGIC for web development assistance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

INGIC developed a high-quality e-commerce platform with a fluid interface using a .NET framework and ASP.NET technology. They also built iOS and Android mobile apps and integrated them with the website’s backend. Across all of the platforms, they implemented a Japanese to English translation software.

The updated platform included a customer login and user dashboard to help our buyers search through the various car auctions in Japan. INGIC also designed a better search and payment system that facilitates selection and invoicing operations. Lastly, the team set up a notification feature that sends email alerts to our users.

What is the team composition?

We had one main point of contact, but we worked closely with about four different team members. There were other staff members involved in the background.

How did you come to work with INGIC?

During our search project, we received a referral for INGIC. We did some research online and decided that they’d be a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $85,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them for four months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The finished system is user-friendly. We’re able to offer a faster, more accessible alternative to the traditional car buying process. Additionally, the translation software improved our user’s experience. Now, they can more clearly understand auction sheets and other documentation.

How did INGIC perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. We used Jira to track the project, but most of our communication was via phone call and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by the final delivery. The platform adds value to our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything was fine. There weren’t any issues. If we ever had a concern, the INGIC team took care of it right away.

Any advice for potential customers?

Clients shouldn’t just explain the type of software they want but describe their broader vision and the end goal. INGIC has a valuable perspective, so their input is valuable when looking at the big picture. They offer alternatives that result in better products.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

business development manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

for delivery app development

SOLUTION

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

on line search and reviews

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

started the project mobilisation phase and submitted the artwork and nothing since! despite payment!

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

two project managers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have delivered nothing and received the money!

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

unfortunately, first were punctual after hey received the money No Replies as this moment, not even an answer

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

nothing, unfortunately all lies!

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

they should be honest and speak the truth, deliver their work that they are paid to do!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of SpikeIT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

We hired them for mobile app development, server hosting, and digital marketing. 

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to increase downloads. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them via a Google search. 

Describe the project in detail.

The app is designed to assist in decision-making. It polls and collects votes from other participants around the world on any topic the user is conflicted on. 

What was the team composition?

The team was very helpful and cooperative.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

INGIC proactively offered ideas and solutions.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Thanks to a supportive and professional account manager, working with INGIC has been a wonderful experience. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are eager to provide feedback and results are delivered quickly. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would like to see more competitive prices.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work at a marketing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INGIC?

We hired them for web and mobile development. 

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to build a mobile application and website. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them through comparison and research.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

In the beginning, INGIC assigned an account manager in the U.S. who I could only reach through phone calls or WhatsApp. The distance caused miscommunication. Then they understood the problem and assigned an account manager in the U.A.E.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

My account manager works effectively, answers my questions, and solves my problems anytime, even during the weekend. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

Every project needs an account manager who is physically present. At the beginning, the logo designs weren't acceptable. I hired a third party to design the logo. I would advise them to work more on design.