LCloud Sp. z o.o.

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

The initial goal when we hired them was to set up the architecture and then basically take it over in-house. After a couple of months working with them, I saw absolutely no reason to replace them or hire someone internally. LCloud gave us quality work that was well thought out. They gave me feedback on ideas based on their experience. I liked their proactive approach. I can’t tell you exactly what I pay them, but it’s definitely less than I would pay for the same team here in the US. They do have some people who don’t speak the best English, but it hasn’t been an issue so far.

How did LCloud perform from a project management standpoint?

I have no problems. All the deadlines have been met. I’m also very aware of how to set deadlines right, so I don’t think I’ve ever given them a task they couldn’t achieve. They have their own ticketing system, which they use internally, and we also have our own internal system, so we had to sit together and make the two systems talk to each other. We sat down one afternoon and worked out how to do that. It comes down to using the right tools for the right job, and we haven’t had issues. I would even say it’s the other way around; if I give them until next Monday for certain task, it was set to ‘done’ in the ticketing system the next day. I’m sometimes surprised at how fast they are.

Their team is flexible at scaling to meet goals and demands. We had an initial discussion about setting up the system, and then a follow-up discussion. There’s a difference between administering a working system and making gradual extensions to it, of which we had a lot. We came to an agreement on the number of hours we generally needed them. If we would foresee a bigger system having to be deployed, then we would increase the number of hours. There was never a problem getting them to increase the hours on short notice.

What did you find most impressive about LCloud?

What I value the most about them is their proactivity in thinking things through for us. They’ve seen things that work and don’t work, and they apply that experience to our solution. They proactively tell us a better way to do things, and that’s a key reason I never replaced them.

Are there any areas LCloud could improve?

The only thing that sometimes annoys me is the communication challenge. We use Slack internally, and we have certain rooms connected to their chat system. Sometimes people pop up who you’ve never spoken to before, as their entire group is now in our chatroom. Some of these people don’t speak English very well. When they write something, you have to ask for clarification on what they mean. Those are not the key people assigned to our account, but more the 24/7 support people.