What was the scope of their involvement?
Intellias mainly worked with us in the Geographic Information System (GIS) space. They helped us develop mapping and data compilers for GIS systems.
What is the team composition?
We worked with around 20 people from Intellias. They were an extended partner for us, and we concentrated on building a process that was scalable and would render high quality. I believe that the rest of the company took that model and expanded upon it. I can’t speak for the other parts of the business at the time, but I think it grew to about 800 people.
Where did you find Intellias and why were they the best fit for this particular project?
We were looking for a partner rather than a subcontractor or supplier of human resources, and we did a very broad survey that lasted about eight months and included practical development.
Of the companies we shortlisted, Intellias was the one that came out on top. There was a good compromise of price and skills. Company culture helped a lot, since we wanted engineers that were motivated to work with us; we’d had cases of partner companies with internal cultures that weren’t as good. We needed to have that extra motivation, and Intellias proved to have a very good internal culture. They still cultivate that, bringing high value for whomever they work with, internally and externally.
It was a bit of a gamble, since we’d never worked with them before, but the results we got from the survey were very accurate. I think they’re a very trustworthy partner.
How many companies did you look at on this shortlist?
We shortlisted six companies.
Were you the main person involved in choosing them for this project?
I was the executive in charge of the process. I was the main sponsor, and I was on top of the process very actively.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started discussions in 2014 and commenced the project in 2015. The work is ongoing.
Intellias came up to speed quickly, delivering cost-effective and high-quality development support while enabling the internal team to focus on other core business objectives. They instituted a process that other parts of the company have leveraged. The team follows industry best practices.