InterVenture

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the support and operations manager for a payment and enterprise solutions provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InterVenture?

We were struggling to find good quality software engineers in the UK. We thought we’d try and spread our wings and find help elsewhere.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project they work on is a real-time payment product. It sits between a bank and a clearing house to enable those real-time payments to take place.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight engineers from their team.

How did you come to work with InterVenture?

Previously we had used a different company, but it was a large company and we weren’t getting the best talent for our project. I’d worked with Serbian partners in the past and wanted to work with another Serbian company. We found InterVenture and they looked like they’d be a similar size to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around €550,000 euros per year (approximately $618,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2019, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Every six months, all of our engineers get a peer review. Every one of them has received exceptional feedback.

How did InterVenture perform from a project management standpoint?

It all worked really well. We have standups every morning, and we connect via Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The best part about working together is the engineers. They feel like part of the team. They really buy into our company and to us. It’s seamless how perfectly well they fit in.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at the moment. Everything is working like clockwork.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to engage with the engineers on a regular basis. Incorporate them into your team and make them feel like part of your company; if you can do that, the process will be seamless and you’ll have a happy partnership.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Head of Engineering of renovero.ch, the leading swiss online platform for handyman with over 2000 companies listed and around 120M Gross Market Volume handled over the platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire InterVenture?

In the search of talent for extending our software development team, we cooperated with Interventure for gaining access to the Serbian developer market.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to extend the development team with top qualified members with the right mindset in order to keep evolving the online platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were very interested in the "extended team model" that Interventure offered, allowing us to find developers who fit our culture perfectly and quickly became first class citizens of our team. We were not interested in other more classic "service provider" oriented approaches from other vendors. Besides Serbia is in the same time zone with several flight connections every day.

Describe the project in detail.

First, we wanted to evolve the online platform into a modern technology stack, which would allow for a smoother maintenance and further development. When this was accomplished we aimed for a high performing agile team delivering business value with a minimal time to market.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of 6 developers (3 in Serbia and 3 in Switzerland), 2 Product Managers, 2 Marketing, 2 Support and the head of renovero. All of them collaborated closely to deliver best value to our customers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After the first half a year the team and software quality improved in such a way that it was possible to deliver business value to our customers within a very short period of time. The look and feel and usability of the platform improved a lot, and this lead to a steady increase of the KPIs we were aiming for. In a second stage the same team was able to deliver a new online platform built from scratch within few months, as a part of a turnaround project.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Developers were embedded in the team as any other on-site developer. All of them used the usual software development tools and processes: Jira, Confluence, git, etc...

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Thanks to Interventure we gained access to probably some of the best developers available in the Serbian market in a very easy and uncomplicated manner. They make sure that the collaboration works as smooth and seamless as possible, and relieve clients of the whole administrative burden.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is always room for improvement, but in this case nothing really worth mentioning. We were very satisfied with the people we found thanks to Interventure.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at tutti.ch, a Swiss classifieds website. We reach about 4 million people in Switzerland, which is about half of the population.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InterVenture?

We needed software development resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InterVenture provides us with software development support, hiring resources based on our needs. Their team works alongside our in-house team, working on our custom software. They built a platform in C#, and we’re now moving to Go for the backend. For the frontend of the software, the team uses React Native, as the apps are built natively for both iOS and Android.

We use Elasticsearch for our search technology, though we’re moving into more modern tools now.

What is the team composition?

They provide a team of six dedicated, remote resources. There are 1-2 frontend developers, iOS and Android developers, one backend, and one tester. 

How did you come to work with InterVenture?

tutti.ch belongs to a media group, the TX Group, which opted for InterVenture in 2016. After the successful launch of the cooperation with the central teams, InterVenture was introduced and recommended throughout the TX Group. We were one of the first subsidiary companies to participate immediately.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €600,000 (approximately $650,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We assess their quality by the quality of their resources. InterVenture has consistently delivered. We’ve promoted one of their developers, who has become a team lead to our team here. Their team works seamlessly alongside ours. We’re very happy with them.

How did InterVenture perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Google Office products mostly. We also use Slack, Jira, and GitHub. Everyone is working remotely now due to the virus, so we feel even less of a difference between their people and ours. Prior to the virus, we would go to their office or they’d come to ours at least once a month.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really go the extra mile. InterVenture doesn’t just provide candidates with the skills we want, they find ones who will fit within our culture. We haven’t had a single person leave the company since we’ve worked with them. They understand our business, so they can think about our success in the long-term.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from providing more short-term peak resources. Also, they’re fantastic software developers, but it would be nice if they could provide the same services in other disciplines, like accounting or customer services. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do it long-term. If you’re not aiming for a long-term solution, the whole effort isn’t worth it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an engineering manager in SMG (Swiss Marketplace Group) which is a major Switzerland digital hub, which consists of four main pillars: Real Estate, Automotive, General Marketplaces and Finance. I'm responsible for leading multifunctional team and developing process within the team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

SMG contains multiple real estate platforms, among which ImmoScout24 and Homegate are two main ones. In order to boost further development of new features and stabilising our services, InterVenture was contacted as a proven provider of good engineers.

SOLUTION

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

There was a good previous experience in other verticals of our company, which made the decision easier. Also, I've worked for InterVenture in the past, knowing the quality they put into finding talents and efforts they put into integrating people into client's teams.

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

Currently, we are maintaining and building services responsible for importing listings into our platforms. Technologies: AWS, Serverless, NodeJS, VueJS, .NET, Snowflake, Aurora DB, DynamoDB, Typescript

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

Three people in total are working in my team in the position of Software Engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the projects are still in progress, but already now we were able to implement new solution for our importing service that significantly reduced technical debt and helped us reach our goals towards DORA metrics.

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

InterVenture team is integrated in existing SMG team as a part of it, and we're functioning as one team, following agile methodologies.

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

They are very professional and flexible in the same time. People are very knowledgable and motivated to move our products to the next level.

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

Everything is ok for now.