iTexico

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Order My Gear. We provide online stores for groups, apparel, decoration, and distribution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with itexico?

We have multiple distributors of apparel blanks in the team sports industry and promotional products distribution (PPD) industry. We had a need to take raw product data as inventory and get that mapped into our system.

We needed dedicated development engineers for what we call inbound data processing. We also needed a team for outbound data processing. This is when a store closes and there are orders that have been taken that would then need to be transported to an ERP or shop management system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

itexico used our technology, specifically Go, React, and Node.js to carry out the project. Three of their engineers did the proof of concept (POC).

What is the team composition?

We work with three full-time engineers on the integration teams, and we are going to have three engineers that will support our development efforts. We also work with a technical manager and an account manager.

How did you come to work with itexico?

I knew some people who had relationships with other companies in Guadalajara, so I went down there to interview several companies, including itexico. Out of all the companies we interviewed, itexico impressed us the most.

How much have you invested with them?

Our budget for this year is around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the project in May 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

itexico has been able to satisfy our needs. The quality of their work has been fantastic, and we’ve had very few issues if any.

How did itexico perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a lot of communication tools internally, and itexico has jumped on those tools, including Slack and email. We hold biweekly meetings with our account and technical managers. They’ve been fantastic to work with because they’ve been great across the board.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how proficient the engineers are in the English language. One of our team members speaks fluent Spanish, but he didn’t even need to use Spanish when working with the integration engineers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We could’ve been a little more specific in terms of the types of engineers, whether it would be full-stack, frontend, or backend because we’ve had some starts and stops in our interview process with the candidates they brought forward. 

However, we realized that a lot of that was on us because we didn't provide them enough direction, so the candidates that came forward were just not the ones we were looking for. Another positive aspect on their side is that they worked to source another candidate that was the right fit. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of MOGAS Industries. We engineer products to custom orders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with itexico?

We needed a vendor to develop a custom application for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have to provide test certifications to our end customers for everything we produce. itexico developed an app that allows us to generate test certifications. We can use the application during the engineering and assembly process, as well as for the final document production. They mostly used .NET and SQL for development. We're also planning to use itexico to help us with biometric authentication on our time clock.

What is the team composition?

We mostly work with three of their developers.

How did you come to work with itexico?

The relationship had started before I joined the company.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $175,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2017, and it's an ongoing project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new application is more user-friendly than our old system and has a comprehensive interface that fits better into the multiple points during the process. While productivity is about the same, usability and interaction have improved significantly.

How did itexico perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily calls to check on the status of the project, and they use an agile methodology for project management. We also use Jira and video calls. I met them in person at the end of last year, and I felt like I knew them already because of our regular communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're great communicators. Also, they do an excellent job keeping things on track and following up.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we've had a very positive experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the engineering partner manager for a platform that provides listings for self-storage units.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire itexico?

We engaged itexico to build two websites and corresponding gateways that can access microservices through a RESTful contract.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve our conversion rates from AB testing on our sites.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

itexico’s rates matched our budget. They also demonstrated a focus on service.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The team provided coding and scum work to help us implement AB experiments. 

What was the team composition?

We work with three developers and a scrum master.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Thanks to itexico’s efforts, our AB testing efforts allow us to help improve our platform’s conversion rates, adding revenue to our bottom line.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team delivers using scrums and agile methodology, so we haven’t used long-term project management. The agile approach enables us to be more predictive and adaptable.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

itexico can easily adapt to changing needs. They’re willing to work with us to solve problems as they arise.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We’d love more consistent and accessible options for remote work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO at a health tech manufacturing company. We make mobile workstations that are used in acute care facilities mostly by nurses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTexico?

We have a lot of projects going on at the same time, but we don't have enough resources to handle all of them. We were looking for a development team to work alongside our in-house team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We're essentially an embedded system. Our core product is an SQL backend, while our user interface is web-based. iTexico primarily works on frontend development, but they've also helped us with our backend.

What is the team composition?

We mostly work with two members of their team.

How did you come to work with iTexico?

I had a previous business relationship with Phil (Director of Business Development, iTexico). We looked the resources they had available and decided they were a good fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a very collaborative process, and they worked closely with our in-house team as well as some other remote resources. They have excellent developers who helped us hit our milestones and move into a deployment phase.

How did iTexico perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack internally, so they joined our channel. They also took part in our scrum boards. We're used to dealing with remote resources (they're based in Mexico), so we didn’t have any issues with communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were in constant communication with us and quickly integrated into our team. They gave us a senior and a junior developer, which worked out very well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything. They have a strong team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I currently work for the number one privately held sports nutrition company in the world. We distribute pre- and post-workout sports nutrition products to all countries. I’m the vice president of information technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with itexico?

We’ve used them for multiple projects at two companies, but the main drive of each product and portal we work on together is to improve our customers’ user experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Prior to this position, I worked for a large garage door manufacturer. We worked with itexico to build an iPad app and customer portal to help customers get the information they needed. When I switched companies, I brought them with me to work on similar issues. Customers had difficulty paying their bills online or looking up prior invoices or purchase orders. We worked with them to improve communication with our customers on both the distribution side and our direct sales.

We’re currently building a portal that will improve the point of sale process. The new portal will come with a touchscreen monitor that allows customers to review products and make selections based on their individual needs. We’re also working with them on a bill of materials program to improve the cost model with our contract manufacturers.

Other projects include improvements to our new product releases, customer surveys for more relevant products to develop, work on our Shopify platforms to help our frontend developers, and tradeshow simulations for beverage distribution. We’ve essentially eliminated our web development team in favor of itexico, and they support Java, .NET, Xamarin, iOS, Android, Ruby on Rails, and a number of other technologies.

What is the team composition?

I currently work with a team of 14–15 people across various projects, but the team size varied over my relationship with them.

How did you come to work with itexico?

I was looking for a nearshore provider in 2010 and interviewed several companies. itexico was very small at the time, but they were efficient and professional. I worked with them on a daily basis, and, as I mentioned, I brought them with me when I changed companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $800,000 with them at my last company. Between all the projects we have lined up, we will likely spend between $600,000–$800,000 here.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together at the other company around 2010. They were very small in the beginning, but we ramped up with them until they became a part of our IT department. When I changed companies, they joined me here in October 2018. The project is ongoing, and we hope to launch in March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At the last company, we won awards for the development they provided. They made a significant difference to our purchasing, product development, sales department, and customer relations. We started small, with only a few people using it, and it eventually became the main function of the entire company. Ultimately, we had 8,000 customer logins every day. We haven’t launched the new product at this company yet, but we hope that it will become as integral here.

How did itexico perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m very pleased with their communication. We use Jira for a ticketing system, and they’re happy to communicate through any channel that works for us. We used Skype at my previous company, but we switched to Glip here. We have a daily scrum call, and they’re very adaptive.

They always deliver on time and are very good about noting anything out of scope. We can change timelines or move things to different phases, and they always stay focused and deliver.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a bona fide partner, and we consider them a part of our IT team. I can go to their offices in Guadalajara and work with them, or I can bring them to me. They orient around a long-term relationship and are a reliable asset.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. They have a customer council each year, and they invite customer input on things they could improve. Year over year, they take those suggestions to heart and make changes. They fix whatever we bring up.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Genesis Path, Inc., a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with itexico?

We were looking for a vendor that could help us with staff augmentation for various software projects for clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

itexico provides developers for client projects based on specific software needs. They work on many different frameworks, including .NET, SQL, jQery, and Anjular.

What is the team composition?

Over the course of different projects, we've worked with about 20 developers.

How did you come to work with itexico?

We found them through our search for vendors in North and Central America. We ultimately chose to work with them because they were able to offer multiple skill sets, allowing us to meet specific software needs of clients as needed.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2014 and they continue to work on various projects for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They've successfully enabled us to deliver high quality technology and business projects to our customers at a reasonable price.

How did itexico perform from a project management standpoint?

Although we tend to use our own project management teams for most projects, itexico does have an excellent project management team as well that helps oversee the different teams and projects. We use a suite of tools for communications for project tracking, time keeping, and task management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, they're highly professional and adept in their field of work. They've got a great team of talented people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I just highly recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of engineering for a digital advertising technology company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTexico?

We were a reasonably funded startup without any resources. We saw an opportunity to close the gap on our resource needs. Initially, it was short-term, but they’re rapidly becoming a long-term element of our plans.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, a lot of the work was .NET Windows Web Services in the Microsoft stack. Subsequently, we moved away from that and we’re working with a more general web stack, Java NodeJS, Angular, and we settled on Amazon Web Services. We use a lot of S3 Buckets. We use Java, Redshift, and Dynamo.

What is the team dynamic?

Our relationship was initially a project based one. Subsequently, I converted it to staff augmentation. I defined the need for developing the team. We have 12 in the team now. Most of them are full time and a couple are part-time.

How did you come to work with iTexico?

Our COO [Chief Operating Officer] had previously worked with them at previous organization. He had selected them to redo some code and other elements. I inherited that relationship. I wasn’t sure if I was interested or not, or if I liked the work they’d done. The problem was that the ask was unclear. We restructured the relationship and the ask. Since then things have been pretty good. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have a world-class design team. I’ve worked with a number of design teams across the world and I’d say they’re right up there. In terms of their capacity as a software shop, if it's frontend, UI/UX [user interface/user experience], mobile, basic applications, or relatively low volume data, they’re perfectly adequate and could probably service your entire needs. 

If you have very large, very high-volume transactions, very large data issues, then they’re probably not up to the job. Although, by the time our company is finished with them, they might be. At the moment, it’s a collaborative effort between their frontend developers and our onboard backend developers. 

How did iTexico perform from a project management standpoint?

We use The Atlassian Stack for ticketing. It works very well. Our original project had project managers. When I restructured, I took that away. We primarily manage the project from here. It’s not because they weren’t capable, but because the complexity around our product offering is such that it was beyond the reasonable capacity of a non-full-time employee. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was predisposed to dismiss them, but I found value that I hadn’t expected. The language barrier is not nearly as insurmountable as people might guess. They speak remarkably good English. The people working in iTexico understand our business’ issues well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they’re encouraged to avoid saying no, and yet that should be an important part of expectation management. I always make a big deal out of making sure they should tell me no because if it comes up later, I’m going to be really upset. They need to include no in their vocabulary.

Do you have any advice for potential clients of iTexico?

The idea of having people that are working in the same time zone, but for considerably less than those which would be in the U.S. is extraordinarily appealing. The advantages being close is that one gets more out of one’s staff if one spends time with them and learns about them. Taking a quick flight to Mexico is very easy and could even be a day trip. I go down on a regular basis and spend time with the team there. This produces high productivity.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I am the CEO of a software and business consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with iTexico?

We needed to find a way to augment our software development teams. We were looking for a robust partner that had access to personnel with a wide set of skills. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We’ve had iTexico’s developers work on a lot of different projects. Resource numbers range from a few people to a dozen. We primarily use .NET, SQL, Angular, and Knockout. We’ve also done projects with their staff in PHP and different UNIX database platforms.

How did you come to work with iTexico?

We’d tried outsourcing once before, and it did not go well. I swore I would never do it again. A friend of mine was an executive at a high-level financial company. He recommended that I reach out to iTexico and look into their capabilities.

We chose iTexico over other companies because they were a near-shore opportunity, located in our time zone with no language barrier. They speak English very well. They were also well-aligned with what we do. iTexico has a large resource base with a diverse set of business, technical, and analytical skills.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We’ve spent a lot… and it was worth every penny.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2013 and have been partners since. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

For the team leads, having iTexico on board is a huge benefit. They’re very professional and easy to work with. From a personal standpoint, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to be part of our team. That spills over to increased client happiness because they’re so responsive. If somebody has an idea for an enhancement or a tweak, they’ll jump right on it. Even if a customer has a difficult request, iTexico has been really good about helping us achieve that goal.

How did iTexico perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a project management team and a testing team in place, among others. We use our own project management, but they use another system with most of their other customers. Because we’re an IT company too, we’ve already got an infrastructure in place. We use our own ticketing system, and they were willing to use that to manage the teams.

What distinguishes iTexico from other providers?

We’ve been working with them for a long time and interacted with everyone from the front-line staff to the managing partners. Everyone has shown us repeatedly how committed they are to helping us and our clients succeed. iTexico really cares about their customers, and they’ve proven it again and again. Sometimes, we need people on short notice to help us with an urgent fix or change. Without fail, iTexico has always been there to support us when we needed them.

Is there anything iTexico could have improved or done differently?

No. If you offered me $100,000 to come up with something that they could improve, I still couldn’t think of a single thing that they could do better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of quality engineering at a software company focused on end-point cybersecurity.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTexico?

They provide high-quality engineers to help us release products faster. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve done web development for 1 of our portals, and we recently engaged them for business automation. We’ve had anywhere from 3–10 resources from iTexico working on our projects. We are currently adding 5 more, so there will be a total of 15 people working with us. They have used JavaScript framework, Python, and Shell scripting for automation.

How did you come to work with iTexico?

The engagement started before I was here. I know someone from our company in the Austin area met them at a conference. We appreciate their startup feel. They’re very passionate, and their service is personal. They match the speed at which we’re trying to move as a company.

How much have you invested with iTexico?

We have spent over $1 million on our current project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement that I’m part of now has been going on for 2 years. We started this project in June 2015. The previous engagement involving web development was in September 2014. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

The web development piece gave our developers the freedom to focus on other areas of our business while making sure the UI is in good hands. We were able to ship the first major release of the product on time, without optimizing anything internally. That helped the company tremendously from a resource-management perspective.

We have multiple customer-facing products now. For 1 of the products, part of the iTexico team handles all the hot fixes and patches. Currently, we put out a hot fix or patch every 2 or 3 weeks. The work has been perfectly on target, on time, and well managed. We’ve had no problems. One of the hard things about measuring quality is that as long as we don’t have issues, we know we’re good. I can’t put an absolute measure on our results. Not having issues is how we measure that everything is going well.

How did iTexico perform from a project management standpoint?

Since we’re a security company, we use our own tools to make sure everything is locked down on our side. We worked with iTexico for 2 main products. For the first product, we’re actually embedding their team members within our own team. Together, they’re using our project management systems—JIRA, Confluence, etc. For the second model, we actually hired a project manager to make sure that we stay on top of things.

What did you find most impressive about iTexico?

This is probably the third company I’ve worked with in the past 4 or 5 years. One of the most impressive things is the quality of the people to whom we’re assigned. They’re responsive to any feedback we give. They immediately get on top of things and fix any issues we have. They provide a tremendous amount of training for their team, which is more than what we can do for our teams. Sometimes, they’re even ahead of us when it comes to training and certifications. iTexico is willing to invest in our relationship, which makes it easy for us to continue together.

Are there any areas iTexico could improve?

Other providers offer an internship engagement where they would provide a service as a “try it before you buy it” deal. I don’t think iTexico is at that maturity level, but I’d be interested to see if they could bring young people who could work with us in that manner. Of course, these resources require a lot of management, and that commitment would be helpful.