ITMAGINATION

Please describe your company and your position there.

Livingstone Group is trusted by some of the world’s largest companies and public sector organisations to control and optimize their investments in software and cloud services. Its independent expertise and technology-enabled managed services deliver successful outcomes across the entire investment lifecycle, accurately forecasting demand, mitigating compliance risks, negotiating contracts, and managing and optimising consumption.

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

We hired ITMAGINATION to be our advisor and implementation partner for our new web-based application. Our application helps our customers, some of the world’s largest companies and public sector organisations, keep track of, easily manage, and optimize their investments in software and cloud services. We needed to move to a new technology stack based on microservices architecture in a way that ensures that the app is scalable, supports cloud solutions on AWS, and makes new feature development and deployment easier.

The goals of the project are to make sure that our new platform will be better aligned with customer expectations, will allow a better settlement model, and enable us to implement a new pay-as-you-go pricing option which can help customers onboard and get value faster from our products. We also want to operate on a more flexible modern tech stack that is cloud-native on AWS and move from a monolithic architecture to microservices that will be more scalable as we grow.

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

We were looking for a partner experienced in building applications in AWS and that would be able to kick off our cooperation quickly with the right skillset. ITMAGINATION impressed us with their expertise, portfolio of projects, and their ability to assemble a team with the required knowhow within two weeks. From the beginning, they were very responsive, which makes our communication incredibly smooth.

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

ITMAGINATION assembled a full-stack development team quickly with all the required roles for our development. Their work on the project includes full-stack development with .NET and Angular, DevOps engineering to prepare robust CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure management, end-to-end testing through automated test pipelines to supplement any minimal manual testing, and a data & business intelligence layer for our reporting & visualizations that are essential features of our platform.

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

Currently, the development team includes six people. Their roles vary between Full-stack Developers, DevOps Engineers, BI Engineers, and Quality Auditors (Software Development Engineer in Test).

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

We were able to kick off the project quite quickly, within less than a month thanks to ITMAGINATION’s flexibility and the availability of their consultants. Throughout the collaboration, we can see that they have the required expertise and are able to hit the ground running with new feature development.

Their ability to implement our solution on AWS and also bring forward great communication skills has been very valuable to us and enabled a very smooth cooperation thus far. They are not afraid of communicating their opinion based on their experience and to bring new ideas to the table. We have a true partner relationship, and we trust their expertise. They efficiently support work on our platform and help us release new features quickly and reliably.

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

The project management is primarily done on our side. We wanted the team to integrate well with our in-house team and this also fit well into ITMAGINATION’s delivery model.

On ITMAGINATION’s side, we have a Delivery Center Manager who acts as the main liaison between the teams for day-to-day activities and is responsible for facilitating any new requirements, changes, and updates from our side. Our Account Manager helps deal with all the business-related formalities and contractual documents as well as address any immediate needs or issues.

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

The speed by which talent has been found. Hiring for tech roles in the UK have been both a slow and challenging task. Brexit has most definitely had two consequences- a reduction in the local talent pool for a number of roles, coupled with a significant increase in cost for some positions. When demand surpasses supply, the challenge becomes a lot harder. We hear the very same narrative from recruiters that we deal with. ITMAGINATION’s ability to source experienced and reliable resources has been impressive.

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

As we are working in collaboration, I think improvements are also shared. There are always going to be teething issues .. the hardest part is that we have a very niche application with numerous components- getting up to speed and accelerating knowledge share with minimal risk is the hardest part of the equation.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are one of the world's leading companies in packaging solutions and are renowned throughout the world for producing plastic packaging of the highest quality.

For what projects/services did your company hire ITMAGINATION?

We hired ITMAGINATION to help us with the organization and choice of the most relevant data from our Data Warehouse move to Azure and to build the Business Intelligence layer using Power BI.

Their team was involved in the analysis, design, and implementation of the project. This included: Data migration, MDM tools reverse engineering and re-implementation, Business processes analysis and architecture review, Data warehouse re-building based on current business needs, BI reports development.

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

ITMAGINATION was invited to participate in our RFP process. They won after showing that they understand our needs well and have excellent and proven expertise both in our sector (Manufacturing), as well as the technologies used (BI and Data Warehousing).

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

ITMAGINATION implemented the Data Warehouse & Business Intelligence project in the outsourcing model where their team provided their technical expertise and handled a major part of the implementation as our technology partner. The overall project timeline took around 6 months from the preparation workshop to the final hand-off of the deliverables.

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

Throughout our cooperation, we worked with 4 people at ITMAGINATION, 3 of whom were on the core project team. Their roles varied from Delivery Center Manager, Project Manager, Data Engineer and Business Intelligence Developer.

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

Thanks to the implementation of the project, it is now much easier for our controlling team to have a broad overview of the sales and to slice & dice data to dig in deeper into specific topics of interest. Our management team is also able to report on sales, have all the relevant data in a single view with granular access control, and make decisions faster and more accurately.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Project management was arranged quite good. Sometimes more coordination would have solved some later problems earlier: We were at the beginning not very well included into the development. This should be part of the Project Manager to arrange here some alignment meetings. Most of the communication was done by documents with comments, that is good for documentation but not as effective as to talk with each other.

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

Their technical competency was very impressive. Questions were answered professional and quickly. During error handling and bug fixing meetings no big talks, just focusing on solution finding.

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

A more detailed analysis at the beginning of the project would lead to a more realistic cost and time estimate. More collaboration with the customer in the development of the back-end would be desirable.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Luma Financial Technologies provides a platform that has been used by broker-dealers and their advisors nationwide for nearly a decade to more efficiently source, configure, compare and price structured products and annuities that meet their customer’s specific investment needs.

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

The goal of the project was to ensure that our new platform will be more responsive and easier to scale than our current solution. We wanted to release a Minimum Viable Product that ultimately will replace our current platform. In the meantime, we had to make sure that the products our clients are currently using are up to date and there won’t be any breakdowns. We were looking for a reliable software development partner who could rewrite our application and support the internal development team's daily work on our digital products.

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

We were looking for a vendor experienced in Fintech. ITMAGINATION impressed us with their portfolio of clients in our industry who are located in the US, their expertise, and their professionalism. From the beginning, they were very responsive, which makes our communication incredibly smooth.

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

They quickly created a development team with all roles required and started to work on our brand-new platform. Also, as an embedded team with expertise in working on similar products, they work on maintaining and improving our current application which is in use by our clients.

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

Currently, the development team includes nine people. Their roles vary between Software Architect, Full-stack Developers, Java Developers, Angular Developers, React Developers and Project Manager.

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

Thanks to ITMAGINATION’s flexibility and professionalism, we were able to onboard their developers quickly and start cooperation within only a few weeks after we reached out to them. Throughout the collaboration, we can see that they always address our concerns and respond fast. We have a true partner relationship, and we trust their expertise. They efficiently support work on our current platform and help us release new features quickly and reliably. Currently the ITMAGINATION development team, in collaboration with our developers from USA, Europe, and India, are working on the MVP release.

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

The project is managed jointly between the Luma and ITMAGINATION team, which ensured everyone was aligned and full transparency achieved.

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

ITMAGINATION we able to understand our business needs and set up a development team quickly and to a high quality. The team has integrated well with our developers and became productive quickly. When we found certain resources that were not optimal, ITMAGINATION were supported and adjusted the team stricture to help resolve the problems.

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

Some of the full stack developers we have onboard are not truly full stack and could do with more training and experience to be classed as full stack.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Pricing Manager in Hochland Polska. Hochland is a family-owned cheese manufacturer since 1927. It has its production facilities in Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Romania, Russia, and the USA. Hochland delivers its products to more than 30 countries. Hochland Groups has 5,843 employees.

For what projects/services did your company hire ITMAGINATION?

We hired ITMAGINATION to help us with the design and development of the database/data warehouse, data modelling, and implementation of the Business Intelligence layer using Microsoft Power BI. The business goal of the project was to create a modern, highly available reporting system serving as a single source of objective and up-to-date information for the whole organization.

An additional goal was also to have this serve as a decision-support system by enabling monitoring of the ongoing achievement of goals, trends and performance.

Adressed challenges:

•  One of the challenges was to save time for the marketing, sales, and controlling departments while searching for and combining data from various files and sources.
• Standardized data and reporting delivery system for whole company • Personalized data access

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

ITMAGINATION was invited to participate in the RFP process which they won after showing that they clearly understand our needs, have top notch expertise both in our sector (FMCG), as well as the technologies used (BI and Data Warehousing) and their pricing mode is optimal. They had very persuasive way of communicating proposed solutions.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

ITMAGINATION provided support in the form of technical expertise and outsourcing services for the project we were working on together: the implementation of the Data Warehouse & BI reporting system. Their team members integrated with our internal team as part of the project team to advise on, design, and develop the solutions needed.

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

Throughout our cooperation, we worked with over 6 software developers and data engineers at ITMAGINATION. Their roles varied from Developers, Data Architects to Data Analysts.

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

During first three months around 100 employees switched to Power BI from excel. Faster data processing positively impacts all analytical teams in company – fewer individual inquiries. Data integration created new reporting and knowledge possibilities.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As expected and quite effective, despite not achieving initial deadline.

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

Big and motivated team with extensive experience.

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

Better and more accurate preliminary analysis.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Commercial Director of a leading franchise

For what projects/services did your company hire ITMAGINATION?

My company decided to pursue a multi channel sales strategy. We had to built e-commerce platform and associated services for our clients.

We first contracted another company to help us define patients journey and key functionalities. But it proved a failure due mainly to this vendor's lack of professionalism.

With the project already delayed we contracted ITMAGINATION to consult and prepare project technical specification and high-level architecture. They proved very professional and competent.

We managed to regain some lost time and prepare the needed documentation with only a marginal delay. They project became then a global initiative for my company and the ITMAGINATION consultants continue to work on it and greatly contribute to project's progress.

What were your goals for this project?

The ultimate goal of the project was to drive sales revenues and market share by launching a multi-channel sales strategy.

How did you select ITMAGINATION?

We met ITMAGINATION representatives on a conference for multi-channel marketing and then invited them to a vendor selection process.

They didn't make it at first but made a good impression and we reached to them after the initial project's failure.

Describe the project in detail.

Building from scratch an e-commerce platform, integrated with a few company's and external IT systems.

What was the team composition?

Project Leader, 2 Business Analysts, UX Designer.

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

The project is sill in workings so now business KPIs can be shared. But our local initiative was well received by company management and transferred into a global strategic project.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was very effective. We had regular meetings and updates. Every other week a status was held with the project leader. All issues were quickly addressed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their broad knowledge and experience impress me a lot, as well as the quality of documentation they prepare.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I see no areas for improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an insurance technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with ITMAGINATION?

We provide a life and health insurance sales platform, and our needs constantly change and evolve. So, we hired them to enhance and modify the product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Most recently, ITMAGINATION consumed a new piece of third-party data we use to make decisions at the POS. The team also works on the capture of beneficiary information and capture of photo ID.

They use three different databases including DynamoDB, MySQL, and ElastiCache. It’s a .NET backend on the cloud side and JavaScript on the client side. The team also uses Swift and Java for mobile.

What is the team composition?

Right now, we’re working with nine teammates, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with ITMAGINATION?

We were with another offshore provider who didn’t have an automated tester, which we wanted. We then found our own automated tester, who worked with ITMAGINATION. When we weren’t getting the desired results from our other provider, we moved to ITMAGINATION.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in May 2019.

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

The unit test coverage for our cloud side code went from 0% to 14% in the last 14 months. Our average web service requests went from 1.8 seconds to under 200 milliseconds. In addition, in the last three months, we reduced our bugs by nine and we haven’t added any new bugs since then. 

How did ITMAGINATION perform from a project management standpoint?

Generally, the team meets its deadlines. Their project manager is awesome, and he’s taught me a lot about project management and software development.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The owners of ITMAGINATION take ownership of the projects they do. They are always aware of what’s going on. There’s also a layer of technical management between the owners and the technical leads. Additionally, the team’s knowledge, work ethic, and professionalism are all very impressive and different than I’ve seen before. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We could continue to be better technically. We’ve made mistakes as a team in our deployment of the code and in the management of the codebase. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend that potential customers test everyone they hire. We use our own third-party tests and it’s worked well. Additionally, make sure you’re briefed at least weekly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company provides and supports large corporations in business travel. We’re working to offer a platform that makes booking and expense management painless for these larger companies. The app offers solutions for the whole value chain.

What challenge were you trying to address with ITMAGINATION?

They support various teams, particularly our sourcing team. They’re our development partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided DevOps resources and took over the programming component of this project. Their team primarily worked on the backend of our app, but they contributed to the front-end of the sourcing development project. They also handled API integration for the sourcing product. In terms of DevOps, they provided AWS migration and monitoring.   

What is the team composition?

At times, a large portion of my developers is from their team. However, Natalia (Senior Client Success Manager) was my primary point of contact. We work with about five of their developers. 

How did you come to work with ITMAGINATION?

This engagement started before my time at my company. They’ve been partners here for about two years. 

How much have you invested with them?

Over this period, we’ve spent about €500,000 (approximately $544,942 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in July 2018, and the work wrapped up in March 2020.

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

They’re a big part of our team with a major impact on the quality of our products. Their developers are committed and strong in communication. The services are truly end-to-end, and they’re keen to deliver strong work.  

How did ITMAGINATION perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been working on-site in our office, so we didn’t need a designated project manager on their end. It was convenient to have them working alongside my team, and there was a minimal effort that went into managing them. With them, we always communicated through email or face-to-face.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their commitment to our company and mission has really impressed us throughout our engagement. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything went very well. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take time to onboard their developers. That’s a core part of the engagement and will help you treat them as part of the team.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Moneytrans is a company dedicated to cross-border payments and financial services for migrants. As CTO, my role it to manage IT in their different aspects: security and infrastructure, IT product & services, development and delivery.

For what projects/services did your company hire ITMAGINATION?

We hired ITIMAGINATION looking for talented professionals in Angular >= 7 and web technologies, for our Multi-Services project. Multi-Services is web based platform that delivers consumer products through out our retail agent network.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal was bringing our Multi-Services platform to the next level, improving in architecure, stability, componentization.

How did you select this vendor?

We start having conversations in Linkedin.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They are helping us on restructuring and improving our Multi-Services platform. The project is about two different working lines running in paralel: on one hand they are helping us in developing our customer products, and on the other hand, they are helping us on rebuilding the architecture and refactoring our web platform. We count of them for receiving expert advise on using the technology better.

What was the team composition?

We have right now 2 hired developers from ITIMAGINATION. They work in a team composed of 10 people.

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

It is too early to compute the results because the project is still on-going, but they look promising. The stability of the platform is much better, the code readability in general has improved.

Architectural wise the platform is much well constructed, more robust, well organised than it was before. We expect to: speed-up the development time, reducing the number of errors and bugs related to copy-paste operations, and at the end, improving the customer experience.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

As we are hiring only two developers, we do the project management on our own, but, obviously, we are in contact with their PM for follow-up, comment out project progression.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The professionals we hired have the knowledge and expertise we were looking for.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't see any areas for improvements at this moment.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former CEO of a financial services company.

What challenge were you trying to address with ITMAGINATION?

We needed help with custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the entire custom IT solution for the company. The system houses operations, sales, and everything else within the company. While I came up with the initial idea and concept, the details and systems were designed and developed by ITMAGINATION entirely.

I’m no longer with the company, but I know the team still performs some system development and other work.

What is the team composition?

We worked with between 8-10 people. There was a main point of contact who communicated our needs to the architect and IT developers.

How did you come to work with ITMAGINATION?

I’d partnered with them on a project in a previous role, and was pleased with their service. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2015 and although I left the company in December 2017, the work is ongoing.

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

We were very satisfied with their work, as were our customers. The project went smoothly, and the team was always able to translate our vision into a real, working system. 

In terms of design, the system is both visually appealing and intuitive. 

How did ITMAGINATION perform from a project management standpoint?

ITMAGINATION managed the project very well. We had weekly updates, as well as daily phone and video calls to maintain our workflow.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team understood our business very well, which was both impressive and important. ITMAGINATION is a growing company with skilled developers, and I was pleased with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clarify your goals at the beginning of the engagement.