JAVEO

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

It’s a communication and media company. It’s one of the telecommunication operators in Poland.

I’m responsible for IT and specifically the CRM [customer relationship management] system. I manage 100 developers and programmers. That’s why we work with vendors like JAVEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JAVEO?

They are responsible for some parts of the application like the business process engine. They also worked on another product in this area. It’s some type of framework to model business processes. For example, when we have some campaign management process and we want to change some steps of this project and add some other steps and connect with web-based systems on the perimeter, they are responsible for maintenance and give us other features from this area. We have an application like that. There’s another application we have for customer service. For example, when we have a marketing campaign, the interaction with the client is recorded in a database. When a customer calls us, we have an application that pops up all the information about the client. It’s something like a full view of customers, with their activities, interactions, and so on. So we needed a workflow management system and CRM for customer service.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

90% of the application is Java Enterprise Edition. We use Spring Hibernate JPA, JavaScript, and the database solution is Microsoft SQL.

How much have you invested with JAVEO?

It’s about $100,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Javeo about 10 years ago on a hosting center. This [CRM] project brings us to 20 modules for this one big project. We’ve worked together on more than 100 projects over the last 10 years. This was a big project, building it from end to end. It has maybe 700,000 lines of code. It was more than 1,000 man hours.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have some metrics to measure the quality in every project. At the end of the project, when we finish, there’s a tabulation part. We have some protocols when we discuss the project, and try to measure on a scale from 1 to 5. On average, it’s 4 and 4.5.

How did JAVEO perform from a project management standpoint?

We use JIRA. They have their own JIRA instance on which we could verify how the project goes. They also used typical tools like MS [Microsoft] Project or something like that. We have a dedicated team [supplied by Javeo], but it’s very hard to keep programmers. That’s why the people change. But they had some core professionals and there were some which were there for a long time. That’s why they give us some assurance that the new project will be on time. 

What did you find most impressive about JAVEO?

I think they’re good Java specialists. I know that they have some specialists in other languages, but we are not working with them much for other things.

Are there any areas JAVEO could improve?

Maybe they have a bit of a problem with maintenance. The capacity and the number of products are changing, and when they don’t a have programmer, we might sometimes face a problem, for example, in production. It’s happened time to time, and it’s something they could potentially improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company sells auto and property insurance directly to consumers through phone and Internet communications. I am the director of the department of customer retention.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JAVEO?

Our goal was to improve the efficiency of our call center. The tool we use to handle telephone traffic had errors that needed repairing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project required modernizing our call routing tool because there were errors in the routing software that needed to handle the telephone traffic. The project primarily required Java development.

The team consisted of two people from our side – an IT [information technology] analyst and me – and 3 people from JAVEO. One JAVEO member worked full time in our offices and communicated with a remote JAVEO employee. A project manager from JAVEO regularly visited our office and communicated with me, too. As a result, work on the project ran very smoothly and without complication. We had daily meetings to discuss progress.

How did you come to work with JAVEO?

JAVEO had already done other projects for us. Additionally, they were already familiar with our call platform and the tool that handles telephone traffic.

How much have you invested with JAVEO?

The project was around $200,000 and involved 5 people.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted about 4 months from May through August of 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don't have metrics on hand but, once the project was completed, we were left with a fully operational system to handle our phone calls without errors. In addition, JAVEO made a set of recommendations to our team on how we could improve the tool's efficiency further.

What did you find most impressive about JAVEO?

This was my first project related to IT, so it hard for me to relate to this question.

Are there any areas JAVEO could improve?

I have no criticism. We cooperated well together, and the project progressed very well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a provider of a new service for secure communication. It is a very sophisticated open source project that is SaaS-based. Our service provides state-of-the-art security for companies and private citizens. I’m a board member and one of the initiators of the project. I was responsible for the technical solution and preparing the software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Javeo?

We needed a company that could provide us support for sophisticated software in the security area. Specifically, we needed someone with experience in using open source technology and state-of-the-art technology like the next generation of Java, Scala.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The number of people involved in the project varied. During the most intense phase, Javeo assigned 10 developers to our project. We were using Scala as well as a bunch of different security standards. No information is encrypted with one technology, so the main assumption was to combine at least 2 technologies in the product. That way, the vulnerability of one technology will not unveil our customers’ secrets to the public. We ended up using 6 different technologies in total, with at least 2 of them in each part of the system.

How did you come to work with Javeo?

Initially, we chose 3 companies. From these 3 companies, we chose Javeo as the main software development company for our project.

How much have you invested with Javeo?

We have paid $300,000 so far for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in 2013 and is already finished. It was quite successful and we are quite happy with the service and the quality which they provided us. We have an additional agreement for the next round of changes in the system. Javeo continuous to provide services for preparing the new version of the software.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are 2 main factors that show the quality of Javeo’s work. One of them is that we can develop the system within a given timeframe. It’s quite rare in IT that you provide projects on-time. We have additional financing from the European Union because our product was so well-designed, but that came with strict time and money constraints. Javeo could meet those requirements without delays. This is one of the basic metrics for us.

The second thing, which in my opinion is very important, is that they are working using an Agile methodology. They can provide us changes to the system on ongoing projects without delays or without pitfalls. There are always changes, but with Javeo we can make these changes to the project without trouble, problems, or delays.

How did Javeo perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Scrum. We have daily stand-up meetings . Also, they provide us new functionality and a demo in sprints every 2 weeks. We discuss the demo and then prepare the next version of the system.

What did you find most impressive about Javeo?

They are quite excellent in the technology and always know what’s new. There hasn’t been a problem where there’s new technology on the market and they don’t know it. For this project, that was quite essential. We needed to make a project which was state-of-the-art, and they provided that.

Are there any areas Javeo could improve?

We can always improve our communication. When you are using Agile methods, it’s difficult to communicate all changes and the consequences of the changes. For example, I sometimes struggle to provide all the information to our customer when representing the company. That information is known within the Scrum team. Outside the team, we don’t provide this information in written form that frequently. This is probably more a problem with the Agile method itself.