Orases

Introduce your business and what you do there.

In American Kidney Fund, we provide grants to low-income patients, do research around kidney disease, and provide kidney education. We’ve also partnered with a number of organizations for clinical trials and research regarding emerging opportunities for assisting our patients. As director of IT project management and enterprise application, I manage a lot of our IT products and business initiatives.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We wanted to find a partner to help us implement an off-the-shelf solution for our grant management process, as well as a payment merchant service so that our payments could go out automatically.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Throughout our engagement, Orases has become a strategic partner for us. They’re responsible for developing and implementing our grant management application, one of the most important applications for our company. We adopted using their platform as part of our application, which got us an 80% off-the-shelf and 20% customized solution as a result.

Currently, Orases acts as our management and support team. They manage our application, support it, host it on AWS, and make changes and enhancements to it as needed.

On this application, users can create a profile and go through the process of submitting a grant application. Based on the financial and insurance information they fill in, we evaluate them and decide if they’re eligible for the benefit or not, according to our internal rules and requirements.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 1–3 people from Orases. We generally work with the same individuals, so the tenure at Orases has been very solid, preventing a lot of turnover situations and providing us with high expertise team members.

How did you come to work with Orases?

We went through an RFP process, looking for a vendor that could help us with our project. The companies to which we launched the RFP, including Orases, were a mixture of companies we found on Google, my own contacts, and referrals.

We shortlisted 6–8 vendors from the RFP process, narrowed them down to three, and ultimately selected Orases due to their great bid. From the moment we met, we really liked how they worked. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018, and our engagement is ongoing. We’ve had a tremendous partnership with Orases, and we’ve been using our new application since 2018.

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

The application we used before was extremely slow. However, the one implemented by Orases has improved speed, response time, usability, and interaction capabilities, making it very user-friendly and intuitive. Thanks to our new app, our internal staff also has more flexibility for handling certain procedures, such as sending things back to patients and providing them with responses to their questions. Overall, Orases’ work has increased our productivity and efficiency across the board, being very helpful for both our internal staff and outside parties accessing and submitting grants.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

Orases uses a mixture of agile and waterfall processes. Every year, we have a scheduled discovery time, where we do a discovery process on a number of enhancements that our business requires. Additionally, we schedule our launch plans. Thanks to their great work, all of our projects are usually on time.

We use Basecamp to manage the project, and we have Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet team meetings. Additionally, we use a tool to submit issues and requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Orases’ consistency, experience, knowledge, and skill sets are very solid. As I said, they’ve been a key strategic partner for us, both to take us where we are at and where we want to be in the long term. They’re very dependable and more than capable of handling our requests.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Orases can further improve their offering and become more than a custom software development company. It would be a great opportunity for them to expand on project management methodologies, showcasing best-in-class training offerings to their customers and adding value to their services.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an IT leadership and advisory firm that offers fractional CIO services. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

I work with Orases for our client in the highway transportation and maintenance service industry business. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our client needed a customized app that could help them identify issues in highway maintenance, such as broken guardrails, lines that needed to be paved, potholes that needed to be fixed, and others. Orases helped create an app where the client could enter those details — with pictures — into a database. Through it, the client could schedule services, personnel resources, and equipment to address problems. Upon completion, the client could then send everything to the Department of Transportation through the app. Ultimately, the team’s deliverables were a desktop app for the management team and a mobile app for the field people. 

When I came on board, we revamped the product development process, which was a little looser than what I would describe as best practice. We met with Orases and talked about the process we’d use going forward. At that time, Orases was in phase two of the development lifecycle. We then defined requirements, built a product roadmap, and broke the requirements into a release schedule. Based on the prioritized roadmap we built, we had four releases a year.

Orases also did integrations with our back-office systems. Since the app had to run for mobile devices, we integrated it with Samsung devices in the field. On top of that, the team also did performance testing. The app software was also connected to the weather app for us to know when the weather was good or bad. The app also had account upload and download functionality for invoices, documents, and pictures. It could categorize captured metadata into pictures so the client could be searched easily. For equipment management, the app lets us know through geo-location services where equipment was in the field at any given time. 

At present, Orases hosts the app and is responsible for database administration. They also handle the care and maintenance of the app. 

What is the team composition?

We work with an account manager, who has been with us from the start of the development phase. Meanwhile, the team is composed of one architect and an average of three developers depending on the size of the release. The architect is responsible for the overall app design, while the developers write code and test the app.

How did you come to work with Orases?

Orases was already selected by my client before I came on board. They went through a standard RFP process, and the client vetted a couple of other vendors while looking for a partner. Orases had the willingness to change and adapt to new processes. They were also collaborative and flexible, plus the quality of their work was excellent. Those were the reasons the client continued working with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our client has invested over $1.25 million dollars in this initiative. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in June 2017, and the partnership is ongoing.

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

The digitization of the work process has made a tremendous impact on our client’s business in terms of the size of staff it takes to run the initiative. The efficiency, quality, and timeliness of our customer’s work also improved. 

Moreover, we haven’t had any catastrophic outages. For context, we’ve picked a scenario that benefited both the client and Orases in terms of bug fixes. Specifically, we’ve agreed that if we discover a bug within 60 days of release, Orases will fix it for free. As a result, they’re incentivized to improve the quality of the release so bugs don’t emerge and we get a better product.

Qualitatively, Orases is highly collaborative in their approach in that they integrate and fashion their solutions to the platforms that we already use. They’re mindful of such things and work with us in architecting solutions to ensure that the client’s requirements are met from a platform and testing perspective. 

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

Orases has managed the project well. We have weekly scrum and check-in meetings where we get information on our progress, budget, and target completion dates. Simply put, we get everything we need for project management on a regular basis. Apart from that, our team has great communication with project managers, and we know what’s going on in our process. We also know what issues are being addressed and what obstacles we’re running into so that the team can address them quickly. Overall, I’m truly pleased with the project management processes. 

In terms of tools, Orases uses Redmine as their project tracking tool, requirements gathering solution, and bug notification system. Then, they give us access to their Jira board so that we can enter tickets and check on project status. Overall, we approach the project as a team composed of both Orases staff and our internal IT staff. Redmine is our primary communication channel. We also use video meetings and occasional emails back and forth to clarify things if they have questions. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

From a technical perspective, they’re great. On top of that, they’re willing to adapt and work with clients to modify financial arrangements to meet those clients’ specific needs. Overall, I’ve been in the software development industry for about 30 years, and I rank Orases in the top 10 organizations that I’ve worked with in my career. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Orases was the one that convinced our client that they needed firms like ours to help them with product management; they didn’t have one when I came on board. In retrospect, Orases could have done that sooner. 

At the same time, I understood that they were in a tough spot as they tried to help the client, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic happened. They knew the client had to bring in a product manager, though it took a while for the client to realize that.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and honest, and tell Orases what you’re trying to solve. Think about and agree around KPIs that will benefit both your companies. They’re in the business of writing software, and they want to do it as efficiently and effectively as possible. Meanwhile, you want quality code that is extensible. There’s a middle ground between those things, and you should have an agreement with Orases in terms of how you’re going to measure success as a team. They’re highly adaptable and open to those kinds of conversations. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

National Public Radio (NPR) is the head-end of the public radio system for the US. We provide nationally broadcasted content and support a thousand or so public radio stations. I am the director of content production systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We have a news production system called NewsFlex. It is used by producers and editors to write and collaborate on stories as well as work across divisional teams for editing, preparing, and planning these stories. On that platform, they could also link to our audio playout system. 

We’d recently extended NewsFlex to a number of stations as a web platform working off of our on-premise server infrastructure. However, we decided that we wanted to build a version of it that could provide better support and scalability as we expand over time. It was going to take 2–3 years for our internal software development team to build it out, so we hired Orases to speed up that process of moving NewsFlex to the cloud.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our goal was to make the story creation going on in these hub stations transparent and visible to other stations. We mostly worked in Node.js and Orases took on some modular work that our internal development team handed to them week after week. 

Orases tended to what we call “tenancy”, which allows multiple stations to be live at the same time on the same software platform. Their team helped us build a custom set of permissions that let users either see or not see what other stations are doing, depending on their contractual relationship with those other stations. These permissions also defined what they could see from NPR’s headquarters team and what ours can see from theirs. 

What is the team composition?

All of the developers that were brought on were senior developers. For the bulk of the time, we were working with three people but that number varied throughout the project. We also had a QA early on in the engagement whom we swapped out for a software engineer midway through. 

How did you come to work with Orases?

This predates me, but we contracted them for a similar project years earlier. Orases helped us build an enterprise-level asset management system that currently runs live in the background and is connected to all of this work. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our budget was $375,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project lasted from January–September 2021. We completed everything in that very fixed, focused timeline.

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

Orases consistently hit their targets, helping accelerate the pace of our internal software developers. They integrated well with our team, our Slack channel, and our daily stand-up meetings. 

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

Apart from Slack, we used Jira and Confluence. Orases worked in our ticketing system. 

Their project manager and I would connect multiple times a week to check in on how things were going. We also held a formal meeting every two weeks to do budget burn rate and project check-in. That sequence helped us feel that we had enough eyes on the project 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility was the biggest thing for us. They weren’t super comfortable with embedding their staff into ours at first since it would cause them to lose a bit of visibility into what their contractors are doing. However, after working closely with Larissa (Director of Client Engagement) and Kat (Director of Operations Logistics) to define how we would need to work, they came around eventually. In the end, all of us could say it was a really successful model. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everyone was super happy with how this project turned out. There wasn’t any point where we felt that we weren’t getting what we needed from Orases. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Understand what you want as an organization and state it clearly before going into the project. As it was in our situation, agreeing to a certain work model beforehand will help you avoid communication missteps and frustrations. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and one of the co-founders of a software startup. We combine advances in machine learning with materials science.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We needed to build a backend platform that would allow clients to interface with our hosted neural network.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In general, most of the project involved building a standard SaaS platform. We needed to be able to create different organizations and users within those organizations and allow the users and organizations to have different levels of access to our products. On our end, we needed our team to be able to perform administrative functions on the platform and to be able to access all the machine learning data from our clients to help us continue to optimize our solution. One of the more nuanced parts of the project was enabling users to interact with our neural network through the platform. This network was built in Python, while the platform was built in PHP.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with one project manager, two software developers, two scrum masters, and one quality assurance professional. They also helped us build a WordPress website. For this end of the project, I worked with another member of their team.

How did you come to work with Orases?

I did extensive research on potential companies for this project, combing through reviews and reaching out to several firms. When I spoke directly with Nick (President), he clearly understood exactly what we needed. His team was happy to work within our tight timeline and budget, acknowledging the future value of the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000 with them to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2020. We just finished this project and now have a monthly contract with them to make any software improvements we need.

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

We needed them to deliver a product that works properly and interacts easily with our neural network. They did this with relative ease. We also wanted to see some of the other functionality of the platform built out to our liking. They kept us in the loop for the entirety of the project so that the end product would meet our exact specifications. Thanks to them, our clients can upload files to pass information to our neural network and then get a response displayed in a user-friendly format. I really enjoyed working with their team, which is why we chose to continue to work with them.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very clear and put together timelines well in advance. Their team is proactive in flagging any potential delays, even if they end up overcoming them. Communication was really important to us as well, and they’ve been extremely responsive. They provide instant feedback at all important junctures. During the initial project, we had meetings twice a week with their entire team, which kept the engagement on track. We used Redmine and Basecamp as project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They prioritize development skills and communication skills equally to ensure their solution meets your needs. Right when I submitted an inquiry on their website, Nick reached out to me. Their project managers maintained constant communication with us as well to make sure we stayed on track.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Within the confines of our project, they had difficulty providing a clearly defined scope early on in the engagement. We went through the master service agreement and statement of work at the beginning, but more clarity in this stage would have helped us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about exactly what you want to be delivered from early on in the engagement. You’ll probably be working with Nick at that point, but make sure the message is translated to the project manager you end up working with. With their communication skills, this clarity should help you avoid any budget-related headaches later on.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the accounting manager for NextDayDumpsters. We rent open-top, roll-off dumpsters and trash containers that you see on construction sites, but we mostly focus on residential and small- to mid-size contracting environments.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

Our biggest struggle was that the software systems available to onboard customers and developing our routing information didn’t fit our needs. When I started seven years ago, we had six drivers on the road, which was manageable, but now we have 18 drivers, and we need a more complex system. The solution had to distribute orders amongst the drivers and contain routing capabilities, which will allow us to take on more customers, routes, and deliveries.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Phase one started with removing us from our current system while still collecting the necessary information from customers. Essentially, we wanted to get rid of the fluff in our process. A big issue was moving us away from physical paper. Initially, we had one person dedicated to entering paper orders into the electronic system — they moved screen by screen through a customer’s first name, last name, billing address, and site address. It wasn’t as simple as it should have been. This phase also included devising a way to send the information we input down into our routing platform.

We launched the Phase One product in July 2020.

The question for phase two was: how do we use this information to generate more business? The beginning of phase two involved clean-up and bug fixes, as well as implementing changes our service representatives asked for. Additionally, we devised a system to reach back out to our customers. Until this point, we hadn’t done any sort of remarketing. Now, we’re reaching out to customers with questions about their experience, what aspects of the interaction we could have improved, and any next steps that they want to take.

We’re at the beginning of phase three right now, establishing what its focus will be moving forward.

What is the team composition?

We started out with three people, and then we brought on a new project manager because our initial resource had to transition off. The switch was easy; our previous manager ensured their replacement was on the same page as we were. The remaining team filled in any other blanks. There’s also been another addition, so that brings the total to five people.

How did you come to work with Orases?

Our owner would have a better idea than I do, but I believe we found them through a business entrepreneur group. They connected at a time when we’d already gone through a couple of CRM systems and none of them had worked. We realized we’d have to do so much custom work, even with the existing platforms, that starting from scratch with a company like Orases would be easier.

How much have you invested with them?

If I had to give a number I’d say it was around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March 2019–July 2020.

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

Because everything used to be on paper, our customer service representatives now joke with me that I can take the printer away. The transaction between the customer and our service representatives is much easier than it used to be. By the time we’re off the phone, we’ve charged their card and input all their information into the system. We’ve removed the need to call people back and correct information.

Now, if we ever have to pull customer information from our old system, no one understands how we put up with it for so long. Our former data entry resource has an entirely new set of responsibilities because our representatives can handle all that work while they were on the phone with customers.

We expected some transitional pains, as everyone was used to the old way of doing things, but what we expected to be large issues didn’t materialize. In fact, those aspects turned out to bring the most relief.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

We set up our meetings at the beginning of every week, as well as what we would be discussing: early in the week we talked about possible issues with their imminent deployment, and later in the week we discussed the content of the next sprint.

Communication took place over a number of systems, including Basecamp, where we sent general messages to everything, and Redmine, which we used post-launch to log any bugs or feature requests. At most, they took 24 hours to respond to messages.

They also set up a priority system, and they respond quickly to urgent requests.

In terms of being on the same page, we never felt like they didn’t understand us. Even when we changed project managers, the experience was seamless. There was no starting from the beginning there.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Nick (President) and everyone on his team care deeply. We have a standing monthly call with him to touch base on how things are doing. He asks for feedback to funnel down to his team as well. Nick isn’t just worried about the transaction, he and everyone at Orases is invested in what they're working through with their clients.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We communicated any bumps in the road to Nick and his team, and they addressed everything, even some lacking communication at the outset. There isn’t anything we haven’t addressed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t get caught up in how you believe the software needs to function.

When we went through our billing system, Orases presented a solution that was three steps where the old process was ten steps. When we objected, saying that they couldn’t cut certain parts out, they explained how their improvements would simplify our work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO and CTO of a feed analysis company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We had a legacy application that was built decades ago. We needed help building a new solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a complete application rebuild. The team started off with interviews with end-users, managers, and our executive team. They asked what we wanted and what our clients needed.

It’s a cloud-based agile web application. The application will be foundational for automated processes. The way we gather data will be refreshed for the 21st century. We’ll be entering phase two for this project next quarter.

What is the team composition?

I work with five people from their team.

How did you come to work with Orases?

Orases is a well known entity in our neck of the woods. We had an offshore developer working with our legacy application and decided we wanted a vendor that was closer to our shop. As we were interviewing, we felt Orases would be our best partner in the long run.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $1 million–$10 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and our work is ongoing.

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

We’re satisfied with the relationship and the quality of the work so far. We’ll have more tangible metrics in the next month or so.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly huddles to make sure the project is staying on track. There are more upper-level management meetings on a regular basis. Orases does a great job of taking phone calls and verbal communication and documenting them in an email.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to come up with unique solutions for the niche industry that we serve stands out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re not the cheapest option, but we knew that going into the project. It’s been a challenging year from a COVID-19 perspective. I believe the process would’ve been a bit different if they were able to come on-site.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to provide as much information at the beginning of your work together.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a project management company that essentially works with the biopharma industry. I’m the project manager. What we typically do is different from the software side, our focus is on the owner’s representation, project management, project controls, and more. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

As we became a bigger company, we started to realize that we needed software to keep track of all our projects and other stuff. As such, we hired Orases to provide a project brief of the tool we were set to create. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had our end product in mind, and we described what our main components would be to Orases. We also shared the idea we had with our MVP and our options when it comes to the commercialization of the product. Essentially, we divided everything into phases.

They identified the estimated cost of our ideal platform. They also assisted in determining the man-hours and other deliverables of the project. Additionally, they submitted a report of the user requirements and how many people they could provide once the project kickstarts.

We’re in the process of developing the software right now since we have the final cost. We’re also doing some research and internal discussion on how we want to proceed. The market research involves identifying who our potential customers would be, the existing products that are already in the market and if it’s really worth it to continue to develop the software.

What is the team composition?

We worked with five people, but we collaborated with three main people including a project manager and two developers. Every once in a while, we also talked to their head of development and business development. 

How did you come to work with Orases?

My boss who started this handed the project over to me, so I’m not exactly sure how we found them. They do have an office where our main clients are, so maybe we found them through our mutual sources.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$50,000 for the project brief. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project happened between August–November 2020, but I got involved around September. 

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

We were very pleased with their work. The project was exactly as they mentioned in their statement of work and they also presented pricing that was in the range of our expectations. 

We had a couple of revisions, but any comments that we provided to them were quickly addressed. Overall, the final revision ended up fine. 

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

They updated all their progress and maintained good communication. Furthermore, after every meeting, they would give us a note of the items that we needed to conduct on our own. The team had an excellent project management process.

We communicated through email and Basecamp. At that project management platform, we uploaded documents including templates we wanted to reference. After that, they would upload a project brief with additional information. We also had a message board there. 

Since this was a project we do during the week, we often would get sidetracked and lose focus. However, Orases would always send out reminders before meetings and encouraged us to gather information. As a result, we came to the meetings prepared and that helped us to hit the ground running instead of circling back to what we talked about the week before.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very easy to work with. Their communication was huge. The team's timeliness, quick work, and efficiency were impressive. When we asked them for something, they get things done. 

With others, you never know what the final products would look like, even if you already put all your effort into things. However, with Orases, everything turned out exactly as we were expecting. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think they could improve. We had a very great experience with them and the only thing that’s holding us back from engaging with them again is if we really need to proceed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Share your plans about the project and how you want to proceed with it. For us, we wanted the project brief and right now we’re still waiting if we will continue to develop our software. Perhaps, you can have all the information beforehand before partnering with them. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m partner and president of a creative and strategy agency based in the Washington D.C. area. My role typically revolves around governing the work products and relationships we have at the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We’ve done several projects with them over the years. In this case, we needed to create a learning environment as well as a brand for the internet security space. They needed to use intellectual and legal research to create an entity that could help govern occurrences in internet security and privacy. The product would help inform and educate around the ever-changing rules in privacy. In a world where companies are sharing personal data digitally,  they helped us create a space that defines where that dominance in the rule is.

What was the scope of their involvement?

This project spans one very large site and more than one additional microsite. This was a collaborative effort in crafting messaging for the market and organizing around that messaging through user testing. They also collaborated with my team to facilitate an attractive design that reflected the research they did to inform their decisions. 

A big part of the effort was leaning into their technical acumen and creative strategy background to determine how the solution would materialize. The initial ask was that this resource would serve as a content hub, but the product grew into so much more due to our collaboration.

The site’s features included voting functionality, translations in over a dozen languages, portal features, and a membership component. We had the ability to change content and communications to accommodate the ever-changing space.   

What is the team composition?

There were two key people and about three others that would be present for calls. There were definitely others contributing to the work that we didn’t get to speak with on a daily basis. 

How did you come to work with Orases?

We wanted someone that was local for interconnectivity and collaboration. Additionally, it was important for our partner to be innovative, on the cutting edge of technology, and able to dig deeper into client needs. Because this is a very technical field, we wanted our partner to match the client’s tech expertise.

Unlike most website development projects, we didn’t want a company that solely does websites. The technical space calls for people to imagine the full spectrum of developmental potential for the product. We knew that our client would likely be adding features and functionalities to the product well after the build, so we wanted a team that could create that opportunity for them. 

To find them, a colleague first recommended them to us. Then, we did some homework online about their brand and team. They seemed like a very good fit. While they weren’t the cheapest company, we realize that you get what you pay for. Our budget accommodated their prices as well. The priority was that they were able to roll with the ever-changing environment of working with a Fortune 100 company in a highly technical space. They definitely seemed like they could provide that.

Aside from them, there were about 2–3 other options that seemed like a good fit. We didn’t want a giant company or a company that was too small. They fell somewhere in between, which was good and encouraged us to work with them.    

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $750,000–$800,000 on their work. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2012–2018.

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

We had people for the tech community, clients, and even people overseas talking about how solid the functionality was. Early in the process, we even had people commending our relationship because we didn’t have any technical problems. We were able to establish confidence in their tech skills very easily, so we could move on to do great things with the build.  

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

We developed a deeper relationship because of our frequent face-to-face communication. When things were changing, they were able to move quickly and pivot in a new direction. Because they understood tech context, they were brought deeper into the fold of the client. Their comprehensive recommendations and ability to be a team player in that space allowed all of our teams to work very collaboratively together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to respond quickly and intelligently without being reactionary was impressive. They remained cool-headed and confident, so there was never any hesitation about what was going to happen next.

Typically, in these types of relationships, a challenge will shake the foundations of the development somewhere along the line. That never happened. When working with sensitive, global material with leaders in the industry, sometimes we had to move on certain tasks within hours. They were a decisive partner. I could call them at any time and have complex situations dealt with pretty quickly. That was one of the strongholds of our relationship.  

They brought ideas to the table that was well beyond what we were planning. That’s been recognized now by several groups. The components they added and suggested have allowed for a much grander audience for the site. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It took some time to ramp up. However, this was a complex project, so that may just be the nature of the beast. They contributed to conversations well and never oversold themselves. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come to the table with enough of a plan for them to react to. They have the capacity to build things up from scratch, but all good creative and strategy need borders. Without some direction, their creative thinkers might take a project in a different direction than you wanted. Come to the table with a clear vision and information about your audience. They’re going to be able to build on that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of a regional music company. With nine locations across the Midwest, we provide rental band and orchestra instruments for grade school students. We work with a lot of directors, and usually, go to schools so students can pick out their instruments.  

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We had a couple of different issues. Our information was siloed in different ERP and CMS tools. In order to coordinate between our internal staff and sales reps, our sales reps had to duplicate their actions in each tool.

There were a lot of disparate parts that needed to come together, and one of the biggest challenges was that the ERP running our company business was based on FoxPro, which is an outdated flat file system.

We needed a partner that could integrate all those tools, build new workflows, and create calendaring software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orases developed an information processing software that connects with our ERP. Then they created the whole workflow piece of the software. It ensures that our pricing is always accurate, taking into account different tax rates in different locations.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about six people from their team. The project manager was our primary contact at the start of the project, but we also worked with senior developers and a UX designer. As the project went on, they introduced us to other workers.

How did you come to work with Orases?

Our IT partner helped guide us through the RFP process. They brought about a dozen companies to us, including Orases. Then I read through each candidate’s Clutch reviews and narrowed it down to three choices. Our committee assessed each candidate and gave a strong go-ahead for Orases.

How much have you invested with them?

The quote was $200,000–$240,000, and they stayed in budget. They weren’t the lowest quote, but they definitely weren’t the highest.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Orases in April, and they finished the product in July 2018.

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

The product has resolved a number of the recurring issues we’ve had. The pricing functionalities of the software have really increased our efficiency. They under-promised and over delivered. We don’t have to correct much.

We’ve brought in a couple of staff members since implementing the software, and they’ve said that the software is wonderful. This kind of feedback reinforces our belief that this was a good investment.

They didn’t just build what we were asking for, but actually took the time to understand the workflows and culture within our business. They consistently listened and asked questions. In the end, they built what we needed, not necessarily what we thought we wanted.

When the stay-at-home orders began in March 2020, we were able to continue without dropping a beat because we had all of this infrastructure and it was all in the cloud. All our reps could use the software from home.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

Orases was very responsive. In addition to my project manager, there were two other people I could contact when I had questions. I always had someone I could go to.

Their communication was very strong, and they used Redmine and Basecamp to provide transparency. We met every week, so I always had a handle on what was going on within the project. As a result, I was able to provide updates to our principals.

At the beginning of the project, they provided a sprint schedule, and they hit all the deliverables within time and budget. Whenever we hit a bump in the road, we discussed it, figured out the best course of action, and solved the problem.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Orases was wonderful to work with. They were a good fit for us culturally and were very supportive. We had around 170 employees who’d never gone through custom software development before, so there was a learning curve. Orases helped us throughout the project to ensure the process went smoothly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Given the parameters of the project, they really pulled off a great project. We’ve been really happy.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions and have discussions. Orases fit with our company culture and got to know our internal processes, so they understood why we asked for certain things. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of philanthropy for the NFL, as well as the Executive Director of the NFL Foundation which is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of the NFL that focuses on charitable giving. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Orases?

We offer grant programs to current and former NFL players and our NFL club foundations. We also work with other national nonprofit organizations and we get thousands of applications each year. 

We were initially running a paper process for those applications, so we purchased some software that had an existing grant management system. It didn’t meet our needs, so we hired Orases to build something that could meet our needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orases created an online grant application management system. There is a communications thread within it that allows us to go back and forth with applicants regarding any missing information or if they need to answer questions. It’s in the cloud.

They created different grant applications for us based on our needs and based on each of the different grant programs. They also built a grant report application that allows us to track exactly how each of these nonprofit organizations was utilizing the grant. 

There is a backend that allows the application to talk with our finance department’s PeopleSoft modules. We're able to process checks instead of manually submitting each and every one through an electronic gateway. On top of that, they built a reporting system that holds various grant reports that we can present to our board, clubs, and players.

What is the team composition?

We talk to three teammates regularly, including project managers.

How did you come to work with Orases?

We were working with a very large nonprofit organization that was working with Orases and another firm. We talked to that firm about how we could improve or efficiency with grantmaking, and they recommend Orases. We have an in-house IT department, but at the time, they couldn’t handle this aspect of our business.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Before the NFL Foundation, we had two separate nonprofits that we wound up merging, and they did work for that. Orases began doing work for the NFL Foundation beginning in 2011. 

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

The quality is great, and it’s made our staff’s job easier. The system has reduced the number of personnel needed to process grants. It allowed us to create more of a synergy between our applicants and our staff. 

It's also helped to streamline the overall business process. The integration with the enterprise accounting system has been incredibly helpful. We’ve been pleased with their work. We also survey our grantees, and we’ve always received positive feedback.

How did Orases perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent. They’re always on top of everything and having dedicated project managers is helpful. If we need something done, the team moves quickly to make it happen. We talk to them at least every other day. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Orases is really in tune with what the NFL Foundation does. They understand what we’re trying to do and what our pain points are. Not every company takes the time to understand that, so it’s been tremendously helpful. 

When we’re launching something new within the application management system, we communicate regularly. The team has been great at keeping us up to date on new technologies and advancements. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time to sit down with Orases and explain your business and what you do on a daily basis so that the team can take that into consideration when coming up with a solution.