ITG Commerce

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Dear Readers, I am the leader and CEO of peakshop.hu and peakshop.eu. We have been selling and producing supplements and diet food, mainly in Hungary.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ITG Commerce?

ITEGRATION is our essential partner in IT projects, and in basic IT operational tasks as well. They are fast, understanding, and a great help to our company. If we run bigger project, which are challanges for all companies who want to keep on the smooth operation in the meantime.

SOLUTION

How did you select ITG Commerce and what were the deciding factors?

We selected them because I examined their partners. Usually it sais a lot, if a company has certain attached buyers. To say it most simple: Honest people do business only with honest people. This is so simple: check their partners. Are they good companies and people? This is how I choosed Itegration.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

We are having a system, which is coded by several programmers, and it has a past. Not easy to run a website with several attached system, if the provider do not know every aspect of it. Peakshop.hu has been running since 2005. So if the choosen partner, so here Itegration is able to run the site without bigger issues - they know their work.

How many resources from the ITG Commerce team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Depended on the certain issue's LEVEL, Itegration has contacted me on the CEO-s level, on the project management level and on the operational level as well, if it was neccessary. I think, this is a good way of customer care.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

- Smooth operation on the website. If any error appears, it is solved fastly, so Peakshop.hu does not loose customers. - Independent project management.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

This is the hardest with all of the partners and for all of the companies. For me, as a CEO we can say that it is the most difficult to find the right people onto the right position. At Itegration I do not see this kind of problem. Basically we work with the same Itegration collegues for years, and this makes these workflows much more efficient.

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

Their people's loyality. If the people feel fine at a partner, that makes the company succesful.

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

Monthly reports are important for keeping the trusts between the partners. As we are both in the same boat - these reports should be made from this viewpoint - we are connected.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager of an e-commerce cloud communication platform for B2C segments. My product revolves around plugins and the synchronization of data between the e-commerce platform and our company. That way, our customers don’t have to develop an extra connection and external data transfers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Itegration?

We needed consultation and help with our Magento plugin.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are consulting and helping us develop and improve the Magento extensions. Magento is a rather complex platform and there aren’t that many specialists available. Itegration is experienced in this area. In our ongoing relationship, we're addressing concrete challenges like improving our connector, bettering our plugin, developing, and creating new features.

The original task was to build the  Magento plugin. There are components that we own and built, but there are also components that we're collaborating on based on ad hoc needs. For instance, we were improving our plugin in order to synchronize more data from Magento to our company.

When our clients wanted to collect information about favorite brands, colors, or songs that they used for personalization and segmentation of their marketing messaging, it was impossible. Itegration helped us build this to improve the connector that allows our clients more flexibility. 

What is the team composition?

We have a long-term contract with them that allows us about 20 hours per month. It can be less or more than that depending on our needs. Tamás (Lead Developer, Itegration) is our main technical contact. There are 3-4 other resources working on the plugin.

How did you come to work with Itegration?

I wasn’t involved in the process of starting cooperation with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together at the beginning of 2018, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We see the value they add to our business. The quality of their work is really good. They really understand the topic, technology, and industry. The team turns around tasks quickly, offering solutions on tight deadlines. It’s all been positive.

How did Itegration perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re satisfied with their agile approach. They work in our office once per month, which helps us further collaborate. During that time, we can raise any questions or issues we have. They’re very responsive. Not ever waiting until the last minute, they provide timely consulting assistance.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're a smaller company, and I enjoy being familiar with the whole team. We can reach them anytime. They’re emphatic and passionate about their work. At this point, we genuinely know each other and can collaborate easily.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I’d have them improve. We have ongoing discussions about improvement, but there are no major issues at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Talk to them. Be open and honest about your challenges. With that, ask questions on how they’re planning to solve your problems. Agree on open, direct communication.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We sell outdoor and streatwear products from premium category brands in 22 offline and 7 online stores in Hungary and Romania. Founded in 1996, we have 89 emloyees. I am the head of the webshop department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Itegration?

We were looking for a good web developement company for some time, and tried out some companies, but didn’t work out in the end and finally we found Itegration. They provide web developement and devops work for us in a professional manner.

What were your goals for this project?

It’s an ongoing project, they make sure that our websites are stable and working perfectly, on the other hand we have a lot of new business ideas and new technologies we want to implement. They make those happen.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I knew one of the developers working for the company, and I knew he was really good, it begun from there. In that time we really wanted to leave our previous developement company, and after some failed attempts with others we were looking for a professional company with highly talented developers.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

At the beginning our websites weren’t stable and were slow, they fixed and optimised it really fast, so our biggest problems were fixed in matter of days. In the next couple of weeks we fixed all the actual problems and after that focused on implementing new features. They installed and set up some general moduls and they planned a lot of new and unique features.

What was the team composition?

There is a product owner for us who is the head of product delivery at the company, he is with us from the beginning. We work with 4-5 backend, 1-2 frontend developers, 2-3 testers, and 1 devops/IT guy. We have a good communication and we usually talk directly with the developers, so there is no confusion, and the task are done fast.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had big issues with stability and page speed for about 2-3 years before 2018, and the previous developement companies we worked with couldn’t provide a solution. With Itegration last summer, after optimasing the websites for ~10 hours, our load times nearly halved, and after a couple of days our website was stable and running always smooth. We ha a lot of smaller and some bigger jobs for them, they always performed with great profession and really fast, i can say their development speed is at least 2-3 times faster then our previous developement companies.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management is great, they really adapt to their customers' needs. I like to communicate directly with the developers to make sure the tasks are clear and there isn’t any miscommunication. We use Jira and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive about the company is the attitude towards the work and their clients, the professionalism in development and the flexibility.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is nothing right now I can really think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a live event ticketing platform that operates globally in EU, UK, and N. America

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to support and build new technology to support our growing company needs. We hired ITG to provide project managers, full stack and .NET developers to support the current platform, and also build our new modern e-commerce tool.

SOLUTION

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

We selected the vendor based on location, talent pool, cost, and availability to work in US time zone.

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

The scope of the work entailed discovery, planning, project management, development, QA, and launching of the product.

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

There were about 12-18 developers working for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

ITG's team is still supporting our platform successfully, and the products they build were launched on time and within budget.

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

The project management was excellent and English was very good. We used Slack, Jira, and Confluence to communicate.

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

ITG is willing to work overtime and bring on other resources as needed to complete the project on time.

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

None