OANDER Development

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Established in 2005, iSTYLE Apple Premium Reseller operates one of the biggest chain of Apple stores in CEMEA (Central Europe Middle East & Africa) running more than 50 dedicated Apple points of sale. iSTYLE is part of Midis Group. With more than 5000 professionals, over 50 of the world’s leading IT suppliers, and a solid 50-year track record of performance and reliability, Midis Group is an international organization comprised of over 170 companies across the emerging markets of Europe, the Middle East & Africa. My position at iSTYLE Middle East is E-Commerce and Online Marketing Manager (as it was at iSTYLE Hungary before). I am responsible for the E-Commerce in the region from A-Z including the operations, business development, technical solutions and developments, integrations between our system and the online marketing. The department was created at the time I moved to Dubai with the purpose of develop the strong retail presence into an omni-channel business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire OANDER Development?

Anything related to our website engine Magento and its integration with our other systems is developed by Oander.

What were your goals for this project?

My goal was at the beginning to develop the system (e-commerce and automation on every level it's possible) in the Middle East by adapting the generic modules from iSTYLE CEE and find and develop specific, regional solutions.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We are working with Oander since years in Europe, it was not a question to work with them in the Middle East regardless the time difference. They are professional, flexible and supportive on every level.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project includes the design and functionality of our website. From basic Magento tools to customized modules, integration with our POS through their own middleware called OanderConnect, general project management and technical support.

What was the team composition?

My project manager who is aware of both the general backend/frontend and integration tasks and responsible to allocate the resources effectively. It shows their competence that however the number of the tasks are increased in the last year but the capacity was always well allocated with the right team members and knowledge. So instead of changing the size of my team they always dedicated the right persons to specific tasks and managed the projects smoothly and well prioritised.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We started with the upgrade of the engine from Magento 1.9 to 2, and at the same time was working on the integration. Finished the upgrade, design, basic, customised modules and integration at the same time to launch a brand new website in iSTYLE UAE. Since then we are continuously working on integrations with other services and system we are using, monitoring and developing the customer journey. Our goal was an eligible e-commerce website in a very competitive region and with Oander we did a great job in a very short time which is very important for us in general. This is one of the main reason we love to work with them and willing to renew our contract. Our numbers are increasing traffic and conversion wise and we adapt solutions quickly to keep up with the market.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

As a client I would like to use one interface to see all the tickets and tasks we have so I am very satisfied with the ticketing system (easyredmine) we are using. Other than that we have scheduled weekly calls over Skype and backlog for the follow up and transparency.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

As I mentioned they are very effective and professional which saves time and money for both parties. This is the most important factor in a business like ours with continues changes and needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I do believe they know better where they can improve and they do. The proof for that is they are always up-to-date and aware of new solutions.