OpsWay

BACKGROUND

Please provide us with a brief description of your company.

We are a marketplace of spare parts for passenger cars in India. Our website is boodmo.com

What is your role at the company?

I am the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached OpsWay?

Our goal was to create custom software for the spare parts market. Typical software does not exist for this niche. Data architecture is very specific. You can’t take just any e-commerce content management system [CMS] and improve it for your needs.

The core of this software is huge and requires detailed databases that offers compatibility for cars, replacements, and cross-links. Our database consists of approximately 40 million items with 800 million cross-links. Management systems for these items are very complicated. There aren’t organized record systems like in Europe and the US.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of the project, and can you describe the specific services they provided?

Initially we decided to give all IT work to an outsourced company and focus solely on our product and work. We were searching only for companies who could offer an all-in-one solution.

What was your process for selecting OpsWay to work with?

After several meetings with the CEO and CTO of OpsWay, we decided to work with them. We have found a deep understanding of our needs and specifications from OpsWay. We have never regretted our choice. Our first meeting was in the middle of 2014.

Can you give us a general estimate of the size of the project in dollar terms or personnel work hours?

We have invested about $150,000 with them.

What was the timeline of the project?

Initially, the project was divided in several milestones:

• Catalogue with compatibility and replacement parts (0-10 months).
• Price comparison (11-23 months).
• Marketplace (24 months).

Now we are on the second milestone and preparing to complete the third.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project, and are there any metrics you can share?

We have just started our monetization and can’t share any commercial metrics. We have a lot of internal metrics like active items quantity/quality in each brand, what we decided to improve, number of active suppliers, behavior of visitors, etc.

Local car producers are interested in our services. We have negotiations with some of them to provide services connected with catalogue organizing and building e-commerce based on our platform. It is not a success yet, but we are starting to see great results.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other partners you may have worked with?

It is the first time for me to outsource all our IT needs. It is a very positive experience for us. All IT questions are handled with professionals. We don’t have to worry about servers, back-up, and fault tolerance because Opsway does everything well. We just make the descriptions of the functionalities that we need and then we get it. We have to be in touch with OpsWay every day (minimum 2 hours on skype and hundreds of emails). We have to align goals with them.

Looking back on the project do you have any constructive criticism? Is there any area that they could improve or you would do differently?

No major improvements necessary.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is an e-commerce agency in New York City focusing on implementation and development of e-commerce websites for our clients.

What is your position?

I was the Senior Vice President of E-Commerce and Operations. I was in charge of e-commerce web projects and also managed our development partners, among which was OpsWay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with OpsWay?

We needed additional resources for our projects.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They worked as a support team and development partner for us, handling projects from design up to deployment. They also provided website maintenance services.

How did you come to work with OpsWay?

They had already been selected when I came to work with the agency. I was in charge of evaluating them and renewing their contract. I met with their Chief Executive Officer and liked that person very much.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This is confidential information.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We were very satisfied with OpsWay's work. They are highly-skilled people. I don't have access to specific metrics anymore.

How did OpsWay perform from a project management standpoint?

They were strong in pushing the project forward. They hit most of their deadlines but I wouldn't say they were absolutely perfect.

What distinguishes OpsWay from other providers?

Opsway provided strong value for the price. They also provided around the clock support which is very valuable. They are more reliable and dependable than other firms because they have over 60 highly skilled people working hard.

Is there anything OpsWay could have improved or done differently?

They're very strong in terms of maintenance, but they are not perfect. Another team was in charge of website development, so I couldn't say anything about their abilities in this regard. There is always room for improvement. 80% of the time, OpsWay was able to resolve our issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an e-commerce company running multiple websites. We sell spare parts for home appliances, remote controls for TVs, and various other devices.

What is your position?

I am the leader of the IT team. We have an in-house team of developers and designers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with OpsWay?

Web development is done in-house, but we rely on external help for hosting.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They provide web hosting management services for us. We use a third party: Amazon Web Services. OpsWay is in charge of configuration and monitoring for our hosting solution. They act as our technical team.

One of the main advantages of OpsWay is that they provide 24/7 services, which is very important for our type of business.

How did you come to work with OpsWay?

We were initially in touch with the company's Chief Technology Officer, who worked as a senior developer for our company four or five years ago. He left the company and created OpsWay. We kept in touch and contacted him when we were looking for a host for one of our main websites. We inquired about the types of services they were providing, and started working together.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

OpsWay is about 30% more expensive, compared to the other provider which we use, but their services are 30% more engaged.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with OpsWay for two years. Our relationship is ongoing and we have no plans to stop. We've had a good collaboration ever since we've started working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There are areas of improvement for their services, but we're overall satisfied. Last week, we underwent a huge migration project, which involved getting the new version of a site live. The hosting support was very important in this case. They had to be present 24/7 and had to help us with very complex tasks. We've been very happy with their technical expertise. OpsWay helped us make this critical operation smooth for everyone. None of our customers were aware that the service had been disrupted.

How did OpsWay perform from a project management standpoint?

We can compare the hosting services provided by different companies for our websites. We've also worked with a French hosting company, but OpsWay has provided the best availability overall.

What distinguishes OpsWay from other providers?

There is a language barrier when dealing with technical issues, but their team has always answered quickly, which has been a big advantage to us. As I mentioned, they have the best project management and performance compared to the various providers we have tried.

Is there anything OpsWay could have improved or done differently?

There is nothing specific.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

OpsWay collaborated with me for a previous company at which I worked. We were a web and marketing agency with a strong focus on technology. We built and maintained e-commerce sites for large companies, one of them having around 800 stores around the United States.

What is your position?

I was the project manager and director of operations. I worked there for six years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with OpsWay?

I was looking for good development partners.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They were initially one of our web development partners. Then, they became one of our main support companies, handling 90 percent of our support activity. They were able to provide several key elements. The first one was 24/7 operations for customers in any location throughout the world. Our customers are located in Israel, Australia, as well as the United States. Offering continuous support was very important to us. OpsWay also have very strong technology teams. We needed our sites to have a 99.99 percent uptime and to come with scalability options. It was fortunate for us that their team consisted of a combination of developers and systems administrators. They have a modern technology team with strong 24/7 support and development.

They provided tech support for around nine of our sites. Basically, all of our customers at that time were handled by OpsWay.

Their services included development, testing, deployment, server, and call support, as well as continuous enhancement work for our sites. After a launch, we continuously work on making new features.

How did you come to work with OpsWay?

I had been working with them since their former incarnation as the Ukrainian office of a French development company. Since we had an established relationship, when they opened their new company, we naturally started working with them. 

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Work was per-project. There was no standard pricing.

What is the status of this engagement?

I am currently employed with a different company and have not worked with OpsWay for two years. I did use them as consultants for developed processes at my current company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I'm very happy with OpsWay's results. They are professional, their delivery of work was on time, on budget, of very good quality and their support work was fantastic. They had a very good escalation process. If, in the middle of the night, a customer from Australia had technical problems, we would not need to wake up. Their team took care of everything for us. This is why our trust in OpsWay was so high. They had a very good escalation process, which went all the way to their management. It provided us a lot of freedom in order to keep customers happy.

OpsWay developed the website for our large customer, which has 800 department stores. They initially did not have e-commerce capabilities at all but, only one year later, they were selling products in the range of 40 million dollars per year. It was a very large-scale site, which turned out beautifully.

How did OpsWay perform from a project management standpoint?

Their leadership is excellent and OpsWay have a very strong group of project managers. They were reliable, trustworthy, and provided us a very good experience.

What distinguishes OpsWay from other providers?

They have a very strong technical team and they keep up with technology changes in their field. I've worked with many offshore companies; OpsWay are the only ones I could trust.

Is there anything OpsWay could have improved or done differently?

The integration of new developers could have been done faster. It is possible that this was improved since last working with them. Also, it wasn't an overall bad performance on their part. If I had to rate them on this item, I'd give them a four out of five. I was very happy with OpsWay.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a novelties retailer based in Quebec, with a few stores in Ontario and The Maritimes. Our website has been active for about for years.

What is your position?

I am the director of e-commerce. I am in charge of any development as well as online marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with OpsWay?

We needed help with DevOps support within some critical projects. We engaged OpsWay at a time in which our platform was not very solid. There was much refactoring to be done, and we were in need of 24/7 support.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

OpsWay are working on critical integration for our platform and offer ongoing support for operational or site issues. With the new merger our company has undertaken, we needed some new email template designs and coding work. We tested OpsWay for this project and, if we're satisfied, we'll outsource graphic design to them as well.

How did you come to work with OpsWay?

The key criteria for selection was being able to get 24/7 support. We have a lean team with a heavy dependency on vendor services. We needed Magento and general IT [information technology] experts who could do our job in an efficient way. OpsWay was a fit for our needs.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost of their services for our first 12 months will be between $35,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We don't have a permanent agreement with OpsWay yet because we still have a contractual agreement with our current systems integrator. We were not fully satisfied with that company and will be phasing out the collaboration soon. We plan to get a one- or two-year contract with OpsWay in order to have a fixed, monthly collaboration with them. We've been working with OpsWay since October 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've been very satisfied with their work. I like OpsWay's testing process, and I've seen fewer bugs compared to our current systems integrator. Whenever OpsWay come up with a fix, it will address the issue effectively without breaking any workflow. This is one of their strengths as well as testing. We maintain a log of their opened and closed tickets within Redmine.

How did OpsWay perform from a project management standpoint?

Our communication is done primarily with our project manager. I'm very satisfied with him. Whenever he sees that I need to speak to someone, he facilitates contact with me. They understand the urgency of our work.

What distinguishes OpsWay from other providers?

Clients in North America want everything done yesterday. OpsWay has understood this and has remained reactive to us. I've worked with multiple offshore settings in the past. Communication was always a barrier, but I haven't seen this with OpsWay. They're streamlined in their organization. 

Is there anything OpsWay could have improved or done differently?

They have the right approach, but one thing I've noticed about their team is that they're not Magento-certified. Getting this certification would help them get clients and would act as a badge on the shoulder. I come from a technical background and was able to understand where they're coming from, but many businesspeople don't normally to talk to noncertified companies. It would be a big plus for OpsWay. Other than this, they have the necessary speed and quality. If they continue like this, they can grow even bigger.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We provide support, maintenance, and optimization for existing Magento sites. We deal with non-Magento technology as well, such as other e-commerce PHP-based systems. We also have a Ruby on Rails development team which is not directly connected to our work with OpsWay. We've been in business for two and a half years.

What is your position?

I am the Chief Executive Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with OpsWay?

They acted as a provider of support and maintenance of Magento, WooCommerce, and WordPress sites for us.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

OpsWay's primary role was development of new products. We create a lot of extensions for our existing clients, and also offer 24/7 support.

How did you come to work with OpsWay?

We approached companies that were referred to us through our network. At the time, we were looking at Ukraine resources because of their cost-effective and professional pool of resources. They continue to be the best offshore location possible in terms of qualification level. Developers are highly trained and easy to communicate with, culturally.

Once we identified a company which could provide the right services for us, we had an interview process, going through a sample of selected scenarios, seeing how they would solve particular problems. We receive profiles of the developers which will be working with us, usually developers with three years of experience in Magento. We start with smaller projects until we're sure about their reliability, response time, and the quality of their work.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Pricing depends on the project. In the past, a typical project could run from $15-20,000 up to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I've worked with OpsWay within two different companies over the course of six years. I have no plans to stop the work. I consider them a valuable resource.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Their support team is comprised of systems administrators, as well as front and backend developers. There was never a situation in which something fell through the cracks because of their code and server configurations. They've been 100% reliable for all the tasks we've sent to them.

How did OpsWay perform from a project management standpoint?

I can communicate with OpsWay on all levels, from the project manager to any specific programmers. They've been extremely responsive, and all our clients have been satisfied. They resolve issues quickly and have the right knowledge in setting up their own infrastructure, including Amazon network configurations. OpsWay is experienced in every aspect of the work.

What distinguishes OpsWay from other providers?

When working with an offshore team, a client can have a general idea of how long a task will take or how fast they'll receive support, but they have no hands-on control over the work. I found OpsWay to be honest and reliable in their way of working with us. Their pricing has always been in the lower ends of our estimations. At times, they charged us for less than what they'd actually logged because of mistakes they perceived in their work. A lot of external resources have to be closely monitored in terms of time, but OpsWay has been trustworthy.

Is there anything OpsWay could have improved or done differently?

They have the typical developer mentality of imposing to the client what the "right" way of doing something should be. The client should have the final say, but OpsWay tends to be too adamant in their view because it may be professionally right. They need to be a bit more flexible in this sense.