Isotoma

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director of advanced technology at NBC Universal. We’re a global media content production and distribution company. I’m responsible for examining the impact of new technologies on the business and how to maximize the opportunities they present.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Isotoma?

We wanted to develop a way of monetizing U.S. exclusive content to highly niche markets without having to utilize a traditional B2C approach.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially approached Isotoma with relatively high-level and somewhat vague requirements regarding the products and solutions we were trying to build. We then worked closely with them to define what that solution would eventually look like. The goal was to distribute video content to non-traditional locations where internet connectivity and bandwidth is very low. We needed to reliability provide content to facilitate a product resembling a television service. Ultimately, they designed and developed the front- and backend of our platform, complete with a cloud-based content delivery mechanism.

What is the team composition?

The team consists of a project manager, a lead developer, QA developer, and a UX lead. They also had access to other experts that came in and out of the project as needed.

How did you come to work with Isotoma?

I’ve known about Isotoma for a long time just through word of mouth. We’d been talking about working on projects together for probably around a year before anything suitable came up. This project was the perfect opportunity to enlist their services, so we were straightforward when selecting them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a proof of concept project that we’re rolling out gradually, but regarding metrics of success, Isotoma made all the deadlines we’ve set and managed to over-deliver on requirements. They completed the previous two sprints ahead of schedule, so we were able to incorporate additional work. Product reception has been very positive so far. Potential customers who’ve seen the platform say it’s exactly what they’re looking for.

How did Isotoma perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project manager is proactive and always available when needed. We haven’t delivered many Scrum/agile projects, but the project manager made us feel confident when reporting to stakeholders who are used to the waterfall model. Their whole team is excellent. Although they’re in a remote location, we’ve visited each other a couple of times and were able to build a good level of communication and collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to adapt, pivot, and reconfigure their time to match our changing goals is brilliant. They represent the standard we would expect from our best suppliers in terms of delivery, communication, and collaboration. We're currently working with about 4­–5 different development agencies and they’re by far the most transparent in the reporting, planning, and delivery of projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. If anything, we needed to improve how we interacted with them initially. They steered us back on track.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Pebble is a financial management company. We want to develop a finance and fundraising software for schools. I’m the managing director. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Isotoma?

We were consolidating our platform to fewer servers. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They scoped and reviewed our platform then gave a presentation with feedback. They were looking at system performance such as integrity of the code and test scripts. They reported back and then created recommendations, an action plan, and a quotation based on what they could deliver. We then agreed to second phase of work where they did the implementation. They’ve been liaising with our internal development team throughout that course to migrate from 22 servers down to 2.

They write code and set up servers and operational infrastructure needed to do the migration. 

We had a variety of code using Amazon Web Services, EC2 [elastic compute cloud], and RDS [relational database service], but using dedicated servers. We consolidated it down to just 2 Amazon servers. Our platform is written in Python and we use Django. The database we use is PostgreSQL.

It’s not a website, but a SaaS-based application. It’s far more complicated than a website; it’s a finance system. They weren’t working on the features, but the backend infrastructure that underpins the platform. They were looking at server optimization, performance, processing, memory, caching, and all the technical aspects.

What is the team composition? 

There’s a couple of people I interacted with, but Doug [Founder & Director, Isotoma] was the main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Isotoma?

I found them coincidentally. We chose them over other providers because they were one of the UK’s leading companies for using open source platforms. 

How much have you invested with them?

$200,000–$999,999. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early 2011 and the work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The migration is complete and we’re finishing the bug fixing. We’re getting a high level of performance and have cut our annual server bills by about 70%. The early work that they did with the revision of the platform extended our business life by 5 years at least because we had a dying product. The code is always excellent and well tested. They run a lot of test scripts. Not a lot of coders like writing test scripts, but they are very passionate about testing and ensuring the quality of their code. 

How did Isotoma perform from a project management standpoint?

They always give a range for the projects. We went slightly over the top part of their range for what they estimated the project was going to come in at. We use Skype, Hangouts, in-person visits, email, or whatever is the preferred channel of choice. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a quality team. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to sharing what your business is because that’s one of the great things of working with Doug and Andy [Creative Technologist, Director & Founder, Isotoma], the directors. If they understand what your business is, they will help you use technology to deliver your business. Don’t hold back. Help them understand how your business works, how you want to interact with your customers, what your customers are like, what you’re trying to do, and if you’re trying to exit or to grow a lifetime business. If you let them know all of that, they will make sure they fold that business strategy into the technology delivery.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are one of the UK’s largest managed service providers in the cloud industry. We provide consultancy around cloud-based projects and hosting infrastructure. We have 10 data centers in the UK, with 30,000–35,000 physical servers, all connected by a private network. I’m the commercial director, and am responsible for the self-managed division, which accounts for about one third of our overall revenue.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Isotoma?

Our market has some massive corporations with public clouds which enable customers to log in, view a catalog of services, and pay for the services they choose. We wanted to bring that look and feel to the technical side of the market, and allow individuals to buy services without the traditional account managers and vendors.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We marked out the problems in the industry, namely a lack of self-serve options, instant pricing, or the ability to procure goods and services without extensive lead time. The application we set out to build fills many of those market gaps. They delivered an intuitive interface, hosted on AWS [Amazon Web Services]. They drew on best-of-breed technology with React and some JavaScript, which has spawned a number of similar projects with their other clients.

The app incorporates a catalog of services, including hosting, internet lines, servers, switches, firewalls, virtual machines, and other infrastructure. All of these can be combined and connected by virtual network, or hardwired for clients in the UK. This is all traditionally done through big vendors, but we’re able to provide live pricing in a drag-and-drop environment that gives customers the services they want. It’s a more efficient, and doesn’t require an account manager.

What is the team composition?

My day-to-day contact is our project manager, Richard. I’m also in touch with David, one of their lead developers, who has a team under him. He changes the composition of that team as required. Rob heads our QA [quality assurance] testing and another portion of the development team, while Sharon works with the backend admin interface.

How did you come to work with Isotoma?

They were originally a client of ours, and I knew their work was high quality. They had worked with one of the massive corporations in the market, and already had some infrastructure with us. We knew they were good with end users and how they interact with software applications.

We considered a few companies, but Isotoma really understood our actual user problems. They got to the point where they could finish our sentences. We knew that would add a lot of value to our team, because they could come up with ideas themselves with very little fine-tuning required from us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $500,000–$600,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on the application near the end of 2015, and went live in summer 2016. It’s a hosted app, so we still liaise with them for development, fixes, and other support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Customer signups are growing, and we’re approaching 1000 new users. Several key clients have reported a very positive application experience. It’s fast, slick, and we haven’t heard of any issues with the app itself. We field requests for tutorials, which we’ve added to our YouTube channel. We can also talk to users through the live chat function.

The app is 100% reliable. It’s built in completely redundant architecture, and we’ve never seen it freeze. They are a high-end agency, and their QA and testing are very rigorous. We haven’t encountered any problems to date. It is something we can build upon, and has the potential to be white-labelled or spun into other projects.

How did Isotoma perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very agile. We have regular sprint meetings to catch up, review testing, and move through production. We have Google Hangout meetings, as well as some in-person visits. Once we have an initial meeting to set priorities, they build the sprints, and we queue up our resources and estimates in Jira. Their estimates match the actuals, and they deliver on time. Whenever we change the scope, they factor in the change and provide us with new estimates. It’s a tight process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very self-sufficient, and don’t require a lot of handholding. They really understood our problem, and came up with their own ideas to fix it. They are more than just coders who will meet the requirements, they find solutions and give us exactly what we need.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Though they’re more expensive than other options on the market, make sure you are choosing the right partner who understands your needs. That’s more important that the price or simple coding ability.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m in charge of student experience at a higher education institution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Isotoma?

We needed a bespoke tool that would help us be more transparent about our curriculum.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The tool is fundamentally a database with a tree-based structure that is common across curriculum mapping tools. It includes two overlays to visualize the curriculum in different ways. We describe it as a kaleidoscope.

They came in to do a scoping exercise with us because we didn't know entirely what we wanted. We had some very nebulous ideas and they helped to turn them into proper user and technical requirements. Then they worked with us to build it. They essentially turned some shaky PowerPoint diagrams into a tool that works great.

We liked the tool so much that we decided to expand it. That work is ongoing. We signed an agreement with them to commercialize the tool, which is our IP. They will be almost partners in the effort.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager and around 7 team members. There were 1-2 people in the background that did QA for us that we didn't meet.

How did you come to work with Isotoma?

A friend of a friend had worked with them before and recommended them. We were speaking to 4 other companies and received bids from a number of them. Isotoma was up front with the fact that they didn’t know anything about this field. When we met with them again they had really done their homework. They were now telling us things about the field that we didn’t know, which was really impressive.

We liked Isotoma because they didn’t have their own agenda. The other companies were more focused on telling us what our problem was and proposing a solution. Isotoma didn’t try to force a solution on us. They asked us questions that made us think about what we needed and wanted. At no point did they try to tell us what the issue was and solve it before we got there ourselves. It felt very much like a partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

Around $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May or June 2014. Our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The tool was primarily built for students but we’ve found it useful for teachers who are based across lots of different sites. They use it to situate their teaching in the context of the entire curriculum. It has also been useful as a learning management tool. From an administrative point of view, senior faculty are able to use it to identify areas to change.

Quantitatively we know that approximately 2/3 of our students use the software on a regular basis. That’s unheard of for the kinds of systems that we use. Normally we struggle to get more than 20% engagement. We have about 68% engagement. One of the things students can do is stores notes in it. We have 1800 students and over 150,000 notes stored. It shows that they use the system properly.

We love it. We’ve had lots of direct positive feedback from students. For example, every year graduates across the UK are asked about their university experience. The system has been mentioned by name by students who left us. Our survey feedback in that particular area, in terms of learning resources, went up by 18 points this year. For us that’s a massive success.

How did Isotoma perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager is absolutely incredible. I’ve worked with the same project manager since we’ve started working with them. I think he’s taken on more projects since we started because they have grown and expanded. We haven’t felt any less loved by them for that.

We have a regular weekly phone call and use tools like Jira, Slack and Google Hangouts. They're based about three hours away from us but they come here quite regularly. We've had several face-to-face meetings. While they were doing discovery, I think they spent about 10 days with us identifying what it was that we wanted. I find academics like to have facetime and we’ve never had a problem getting them to do that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have worked with technical people before who tend to be very good at solving a particular technical problem but can lack the social skills to understand what it is that you're doing. I find that a lot of technically-minded people hear a problem and instantly jump to the technical solution. Isotoma never do that. They're much more creative. They want to understand the problem and then they try to solve the problem or identify solutions to the problem before they even start thinking about the technical side of it. I think that is incredibly valuable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have a small London office. I think they would benefit from more of a presence in London as that’s where all the big players are.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

One of the mistakes that we made, that Isotoma helped us solve, was that we did a lot of end-gaming. We went running down a particular path thinking that that was the solution and then we belatedly realized that that was the wrong choice, that we wanted to do something else. Isotoma rescued us from overspending in the wrong direction. If we had let ourselves be guided more by Isotoma rather than arrogantly assuming we knew what we wanted, it would probably have been cheaper overall. Let them do it, they know what they're doing.