Order Group

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company delivers IT solutions and business consulting to Small and Medium Enterprises, mostly focusing on FMCG industry. We have the opportunity to work with wholesalers, retailers, as well as manufacturers. I am a CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire Order Group ?

We have found an opportunity to enter a tobacco industry by creating comprehensive solution for tracking tobacco products in order to meet European Union directive requirements. My company took care of business analysis and testing while Order Group was involved in developing IT system.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to create a system which has a mobile app fot the end users and a backend layer which will be connected with European Union repository and will allow system administrators to manage company data and all the request. The solution had to be reliable and fast since end users will be conducting hundreds of operations daily and this led us to choosing Django as a backend platform and android for mobile app. It is worth to mention that we had less than 2 months to roll out the MVP for production.

How did you select this vendor?

Order Group was recommended by a friend of mine. I considered other 2 vendors, but since the deadline to go production was very strict and I had a strong testimonials, I decided to go with Order Group. It is worth to mention that we had very professional and promising contact since the beginning, and this also helped me to make my decision quick.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Based on business and functional analysis prepared by my company, Order Group designed mockups of frontend which we tweaked in. That in a short period of time(1.5 months) the group of programmers developed MVP which, after some iterations of fixes was rolled out into production. Than we focused on adding some other functionalities in next sprints and implement changes based on end users feedback.

What was the team composition?

The project had about 5 people, including project manager, full stack developers, analysts and graphic designers.

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

We successfully managed to implement my product to more that 10 companies and already received a very positive feedback. This resulted in requests for some additional modules which we are already implementing together with Order Group.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Since the team was working in scrum, I had the reports after each sprint. We also had a calls and face to face meetings set in order to discuss core aspects of the solution. I feel that the team was highly motivated to meet the deadlines and deliver each part of the solution on time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their ability to meet the deadline was impressive, even if they are extremely short is outstanding in Order Group. They seem to be specialists in delivering projects in a short period of time. I would also mention good communication with project manager so that I was monitored about the progress. I rate the programming skills of the team which is working on my project very highly. Having a programmer background myself, I feel I could easily recognise the quality of the code which in my case resulted in only a few minor bugs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is very little they can improve. Pricing seems to be competitive and the communication in the project was more than satisfactory. The only thing I should mention was the deadlines for delivering the next stages of the app which could be a little shorter, but comparing to other software houses which I had the opportunity to work with, Order Group is still on pole position so the overall experience is great.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of business developments at Monetor Companies; we have operations in Sweden, Holland, Norway, and Poland. Our company is a decision making consultant for Forex (Foreign Exchange Market) — we help various segments make the right decisions and strategies. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We needed a web app that consumers could use to connect with our business. The app should allow end users to access market data, banks, and different things related to finance.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our engagement started with building the platform and we're still working together. We came in with a backend for an oil company and we needed to transform that into a fintech backend.

The team works with Python and React for the frontend, and mostly working in Javascript. They also currently handle updates and maintenance for the MVP. 

What is the team composition?

We work with 10 people from Order Group.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

The Order Group was recommended by a partner from Oslo.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve already invested roughly €200,000–€250,000 (approximately $230,000–$300,000 USD) for this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started around July 2018.

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

The team is doing a tremendously good job and they are evolving with us throughout the process. We feel like they’re already part of our company. The team produces great outputs that makes the investment worth it.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We like that they are good with communication and organization. Perhaps those are some of the main reasons why we chose to stay with them because we appreciate their professionalism.

The team has a great set up — they often give follow-ups on the demos and on the current project that we're working on. Order Group’s team is also always there for us and very responsive to our needs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to adapt and move forward with us is impressive. They accommodate us throughout the process which makes a huge difference for our collaboration. The group teaches us how to work more efficiently.

Order Group also gives us their insights — they put their best foot forward and tell us why we should do this. Of course, the final decision is up to us, but just having a team that gives their feedback is valuable to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We can’t think of anything right now, they should just continue on with what they’re doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We recommend them because their services are a great value for your money.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a digital commerce and marketing platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

When we brought them on, it was to do user interaction and graphical design for a mobile app and website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The work expanded a little bit from the design to them, actually doing a lot of project management and project development directly with some of our clients.

Order Group has joined us in our customer meetings. They have been helping us scope the needs of the customers.

We have a technology platform and build websites and mobile apps, so they have been scoping the needs of the customers, helping them define features, and then delivering the user interaction design and then delivering several iterations of graphical design, as well as communicating directly with the customer until they get the final approval in the design.

That is when they hand it over to us, and we do the development.

For the first project we had together, we brought them on later. We met the client, and then we gave them instructions on how we wanted the UX and graphical design. Then we found that they were skilled enough actually to handle the whole process. We upgraded our cooperation with them from just coming on for the design work to onboarding at the start of the process.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working directly with three people, including a project manager and graphic designers. There is a lot of work they do in the background, and I’m not sure how many people are working on it in total.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

We found them online. We were testing many design agencies, so we ended up finding Order Group to be the most skilled and motivated companies we were testing.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, over that time, it would be around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started our engagement with Order Group in February 2018.

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

Our clients have felt very safe. We work with international clients, and they’re able to communicate very well with English-speaking clients. Order Group understands their needs and translates them into a product.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I would give them a top rating from a project management standpoint. They’re integrated into the dedicated Slack channel for the project with our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Order Group is a skilled team that understands products. While the output I am getting from them is the graphical design and user interaction design, I can actually put them in a place where they need to understand the project’s needs and scope.

I can put them there, while with other agencies we have worked with, someone from our team has had to do the first part themselves when it comes to the scope of the project, understand the user’s needs, start working with the designer and get the UX, and we would do the iterations ourselves, but with Order Group, we can give them full control.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve been very happy. There isn’t anything I can think of straight away.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If they’re looking for design work like we were doing, I would consider letting them handle as much of the project as possible and not limiting what you are giving them too much.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of VRKTOY AS, a Norwegian-based construction technology startup. We specialize in technologies that support the supply chain for prefabricated and modular construction.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We wanted to improve the UX of our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

My partner and I have thought of having our website remodeled to resolve the tracking and progress reporting issues reported by our customers. We’ve tasked Order Group with implementing an RFID-enabled solution into our website to optimize information building and modeling, which allows our customers to track the progress of any construction project. Additionally, the new functionality can present information regarding the quality of the construction materials being utilized in a project.

We’ve already approved Order Group’s prototype for the RFID product, and they’re still in the process of developing the system, which is set to undergo various testings before we finally introduce it to our clients.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with at least three resources from Order Group’s team, including two software developers and the design head, who’s our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

Order Group was highly recommended to us by a good friend who already worked with their team in the past. I was convinced that they were the right fit for us because I heard about the quality of assistance they provide to clients in need of product and software development.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €50,000 (approximately $59,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off the engagement in January 2021, and it’s ongoing.

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

We’ve introduced Order Group’s prototype to some of our customers through a product demonstration, and we’ve already secured commitments from three of them through letters of intent. I think this is a great success metric to start with — we’re able to gauge the market acceptance of this product, which has shown great potential.

It matters to us to have customers who are willing to invest in the rapid development of our product, and that shows Order Group’s capacity to deliver excellent results. We’re confident that we’ll reach more business milestones through this tremendous partnership.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We typically communicate with Order Group via Zoom and Google Meet. They’re a very time-sensitive and responsive team, and they’re also mindful of our budget. They commit to providing us prompt updates and additional services, depending on the project phase. We always feel that we’re getting the best value for our money through their services.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Order Group’s holistic product development process definitely sets them apart from other providers. They’ve been absolutely instrumental in bringing our product vision to life.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t see anything that requires improvement — they’re a very productive and well-minded team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Order Group is a collaborative team, and you only have to match that productive energy to flesh out the results you need.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital transformation lead of a B2B furniture manufacturer.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We had a website in WordPress but it wasn’t great.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They rebuilt our website from scratch. Their team also helps us with digital linking from the customer-facing website to production. They’re implementing solutions that allow us to take the data and use it for production. Our website was built in Django, and I also had a lot of help with JavaScript for online 3D applications as well as Python.

What is the team composition?

The number of team members has changed depending on the project stage but it’s always between 1–10 people. We work with a UX designer, front- and backend developers, a project manager, and the founder.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

They were recommended to us through a friend.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in January 2016.

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

We’re very pleased with the collaboration. We have very complicated and demanding projects, and Order Group has exceeded all of our expectations.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate on a regular basis as well as hold meetings and weekly updates. Our teams have developed an efficient project management process that fits well. Usually, we start with project suggestions, ask for an estimate, and then receive a rough estimate. Then, Order Group completes the project within the timeline and by the deadlines. If there are any changes, they take care of it. Their team is flexible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

My favorite part about working with them is I have a feeling that everything’s possible. Whatever solution we need, I can ask Order Group, and they can make it come true.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any areas that need improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Start by having a discussion with them and see what’s possible.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a co-founder and the COO of AP-Tech.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We needed help developing a navigation app for an ambulance organization and their helicopters.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were responsible for the entire development, UI design, and some analysis on how to apply certain requirements we gave them. We provided some wireframes and documentation, and the app was built natively for iOS and Windows devices. We don’t have an Android version at this point. The app is available on PC as well, but it’s mainly used on tablets. It can be used in the field for air navigation.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with as many as ten and as few as four people, including a dedicated project manager, depending on changing project requirements.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

I was referred to them by a friend.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July 2016 until December 2016.

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

The best feedback I can give is that our client extended their license for the application for 2018. Our model is to sell the application and provide updates for a one-year period. After that time, the user needs to buy the product again. I’m very happy about the fact that our client extended the license. The app is also being used by the Polish air force as well, for their own goals and missions.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated over email, but we also scheduled weekly or biweekly meetings, during which we explained our requirements and discussed results. We participated in Skype sessions and they gave us a tool that allowed us to track the cost, time, and effort being spent on the project. They reported each and every hour of their work, linking it to the specific tasks they were working on. We had deep insight into their allocation and chief control over how they were spending their time.

We’ve generally worked in a time-and-materials and Agile manner, discussing requirements, mockups, and designs. Rather than providing a whole specification in the beginning, we discussed each function sprint-by-sprint, in terms of what needed to be delivered.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated the fact that they didn’t blindly agree to all the requirements we gave them. They tried to provide their own ideas on what we could improve and how we would do it. If they felt that one of our choices wasn’t optimal, they pointed that out.

They had to adapt to a market they hadn’t worked in before, one with specific regulations and requirements. They had to adapt to this quickly, given that we had some hard timelines for this project. We’re very happy that they followed our direction. We also deal with the aviation and airports markets, so they will be working on additional projects for us. They are great in terms of cost, and I was amazed by their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s a need for constant learning in our area. Even we—as the investors in this project—learned a lot. Had they been as experienced in the beginning of the project as they are now, we may have done some things differently.

We’re very happy in general though, since we also had a lack of knowledge in some areas. Right now, we’re giving them another piece of work for improving our product, based on customer feedback. We’re both more experienced, so we can now produce higher-quality work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of BizBot, a B2B technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We're creating a platform to automate a lot of the administration processes inherent to running a company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to build a web application that’s optimized for mobile use. We provided them some simple sketches in Microsoft Paint and in our own words. Then, they designed a clickable, live version in InVision that we could show to investors. They focused on the UI/UX while we had other people doing the front- and backend. They also helped us plan new features, and narrow down the scope of the project, which let us work efficiently, as a cohesive team.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two designers.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

They were referred to us by other companies here in Norway.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2017.

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

We’ve gotten great feedback regarding the design. We had a very nice clickable demo that didn’t just look like a PowerPoint presentation.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated using Slack and Skype, and they managed the project using Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understand what we’re doing, and if they don’t, they ask. We’re able to avoid unnecessary costs and lost time because of the sketching and scoping we did in the beginning.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would have been easier to work together if they were in our office.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to be specific with and help them to understand what you want. Just telling them to build something isn’t helpful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Cage, a company that helps customers develop products to reduce development time. We work from the initiation of an idea through the concept phase and into the building of the technology.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We needed a team to help us develop a control system for a renewable energy power plant for one of our customers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Based on the workshops we did with our customer, the Order Group team collaboratively created a custom control system. They developed the Cloud backend, as well as the frontend. They created graphical, and user design.

The team used AWS with multiple accounts. For the backend, they used Python and Go Language. React was used for the frontend.

They also developed some services for the Linux-run gateway. They used libraries from AWS to read the AWS backend, and developed the services in C++ and Python, primarily.

What is the team composition?

The team consists of three people: Karol (Co-Owner & Head of Development), who worked on the UI and the customer journey; Arek (Backend Developer); and Maciej (CTO & Co-Founder), who is part of the team as a full-stack developer. We also worked with Dmitri (Backend Developer) for a bit.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

I’ve known them for a long time, and they were the best fit out of the companies we considered. They grasped the scope of the project and were willing to do a more flexible payment arrangement. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $150,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in June 2017, and the work is ongoing.

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

They are senior software developers with a good concept of professional system development. For example, we said that we wanted to increase test coverage of the code produced, and they did just that with no further explanation. 

They helped us develop and establish an Agile method working in two-week sprints for our customer. Order Group is supportive and flexible, delivering high-quality results. The system is still in proof of concept, so there is no actual user feedback, but the internal feedback has been positive.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We set quarterly milestones, broken down into smaller epics, and further broken down into stories to be taken into sprints. We worked in an Agile mindset, with Scrum sprints. They have a very high completion grade consistently delivering what they take on. It’s impressive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are above average in their flexibility, trying out a business model that was unknown to them, supporting our way of working, and delivering efficiently. We trust them, and we have open communication.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Dronistics. We’re a startup that develops drones for delivery and software that controls the drones.

What challenge were you trying to address with Order Group?

We were looking to speed up the development process and introduce new features to the software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our internal team had been developing the software. They helped us merge additional systems from other startups we collaborate with and integrated additional features to simplify the delivery process.

They also worked on improving the graphic interface, procedure, testing, and debugging the entire software after the changes were introduced.

The software is a web application that can be used with any portable device for people to use drones for delivery.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with a software engineer and a project manager daily. There were 2–3 people who helped with consulting on aspects of the project, including the graphic interface.

How did you come to work with Order Group?

I knew the founders from university, and I was aware that they started the company. I knew that they were good at what they do and that their services were a fit for our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested €25,000 (approximately $31,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July–November 2020 daily. The collaboration is still ongoing due to testing and updates.

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

The team was professional and on time. They worked in a timely fashion, achieving all the tasks and goals we set for them. They did quite well at solving all the problems we needed to be addressed. I’m satisfied with their work and plan to hire them again.

How did Order Group perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, they did a good job. They reported the progress of tasks, so everyone knew where we stood and what the next steps were. Communication was also good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was surprised how smoothly the entire collaboration was, and that we had no problems. They also worked quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were some small things, but when we communicated with them, it was fixed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you want to do, including goals and deliverables. The collaboration can work smoothly if you stick to that, and don’t continuously change your mind and make changes.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CTO at Elk, a Swedish IT company that offers embedded solutions for professional audio like the Elk Audio Operating System. Recently, we introduced Aloha (https://alohabyelk.com/), a product that allows musicians to play together with almost no noticeable latency over the Internet.

For what projects/services did your company hire Order Group, and what were your goals?

We needed to complete quickly a web GUI used to control our hardware products (that are almost without any display), after the previous developer ended the collaboration. The task was not easy as it involves a modern UI with many custom components and, especially, a complex communication infrastructure with both backends in the cloud and the IoT device on the local network

How did you select Order Group and what were the deciding factors?

I was contacted by their CEO on LinkedIn and we had a good feeling about their pragmatism and internal structure during the introductory calls.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Initial phase: * Get an existing incomplete codebase to a working state Ongoing: * UX/UI redesign * Improvements & fixes on the current webapp Key technologies: JS, React, JSON-RPC, Python, WebRTC

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At the beginning, we started our collaboration with just one frontend developer. We were very happy that Order Group was able to provide us not only with an exceptional developer but also someone who was an amateur musician and so understood very well the domain-specific knowledge.

We then expanded our collaboration including UX/UI designers and project management support for the next iteration and were also very happy with them, too.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The frontend developer was faster than expected to get an existing codebase to a working state and he even had a great initiative in proposing and implementing valuable improvements.

For a project like ours where there are many things that can vary depending on users' setup, bugs are expected during first releases. Order was very fast in fixing them as soon as possible. They also contributed with excellent development & debugging tools to speed up the process.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The approach was perfectly suited for the size of the projects and the number of people involved. In our case, Order Group was complementing our internal development team and thus the interaction between different parties was crucial.

Communication has been good and efficient. We used Slack and JIRA mostly and people at Order have been excellent at adapting to our internal conventions.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What we particularly liked from people at Order is their pragmatism and efficiency. They get good results in a very short time and without spending many hours on unproductive meetings.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We only had a minor issue with one person but it was totally due to some personal issues going on in his life and Order was very honest in not billing us for those hours.