Pwrteams

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the SVP of business operations at a news and media company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pwrteams?

We needed to build our website and apps.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pwrteams provides us with dedicated teams to build our websites and apps using React for the frontend and Java. The team has integrated into our company and provided us with developers, project managers, data specialists, and QA specialists. We’ve been working with them for over five years.

What is the team composition?

We have around 90 people on the team. They provide us with developers, project managers, data specialists, and QA specialists.

How did you come to work with Pwrteams?

We’d been looking for people with app development, frontend development, and data skills. We hired them because it was cheaper to get people in Sofia than in the UK.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested a large amount of money.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Pwrteams has helped us save time and money. They're bright and work hard. The team onboards quickly, and we start seeing results happening promptly.

How did Pwrteams perform from a project management standpoint?

Pwrteams communicates clearly. They're on top of the teams, actively address any issues, and update us on progress so we know when and what is happening. We mainly communicate via Slack and Jira, as well as emails, to a lesser degree.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I want to give a shout-out to Kristina. She's fantastic, works hard, understands the team, and wants them to be empowered to work as hard as they can. She always thinks about how to improve the team's situation so they can do their best work. She strongly focuses on ensuring people can work as effectively as possible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Pwrteams is a great team, and as much as we've been able to, we've moved roles from other areas because they're so good; they've learned how to work with us but haven't had specific training for our company.

Moreover, they're great at visualizing metrics around delivery, more so than other teams. They always have lots of charts and graphs to show and measure metrics. They're also easygoing and good to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend working with them. Take their advice because they know their market and industry. If you ask them for help, use their expertise.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I've been working for Logitech for around six years as part of the global team managing our online channels, which include our online and IT operations. As the head of global e-tail operations, I'm also responsible for coordinating the shared service centers that we created with Questers, now called Pwrteams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pwrteams?

We wanted to remove the operational workload from our global HQ to enable our team to focus more on our strategy, guidelines, mission, and added value. Therefore, we needed to reassign our operational tasks to a contingent worker agency. We hired Pwrteams to help us out, which at the time was called Questers. However, by November 2023, Questers was acquired by Pwrteams, and we simply continued working together.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We use Pwrteams as an agency for contingent workers. Their resources support our company's different teams in different departments and regions, so they have both local and global responsibilities. Currently, about 63 different workers from Pwrteams work for us across different departments, including marketing, finance, retail, e-tail, and global operations.

Pwrteams helps us manage all those workers, so they first take care of the talent acquisition. As the coordinator of our relationship with Pwrteams, I'm in charge of defining the rules of our engagement, the hiring process, the performance assessment, the bonuses granted, etcetera. Whenever we need new talent, we have an internal process to discuss the job description, salary range, responsibilities, and hiring process.

Then, we meet with Pwrteams's talent acquisition team to brief them and discuss the requirements and profiles of the candidates we need. Our goal is to ensure that Pwrteams is properly briefed and knows exactly what profile we want for each position.

Then, Pwrteams takes care of headhunting candidates, which includes placing ads and publishing the open positions. After some time, they send a list of fitting candidates to the hiring manager to review the resumes, conduct interviews, and perform tests or demo tasks if needed. Pwrteams is then in charge of doing the final proposals to the fitting candidates.

When a candidate is hired, Pwrteams' HR department manages them as employees and takes care of their payment, benefits, and other HR responsibilities. Basically, those workers work for us but are employed by Pwrteams.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we only had three workers from Questers working for us. Now, we have two main points of contact from Pwrteams, but depending on the number of open positions we have, there can be up to 4–5 teammates from Pwrteams working on talent acquisition tasks. Moreover, we currently have 63 resources from their team working for us. This also requires working with about 20 managers. Moreover, we've collaborated with other teammates in support functions.

How did you come to work with Pwrteams?

I was not part of the tender process to find Questers. At the time, my manager was in charge of identifying solutions to support our operations. He had some former colleagues or friends who were already using Questers to get some contingent workers. After comparing them to other companies, my manager decided to go with Questers.

Since Questers changed their name to Pwrteams, we've kept working with them. We haven't seen a lot of changes. Although there were legal reviews and a lot of paperwork initially, the most important thing for us was to secure business continuity to carry on with the great collaboration we had established with Questers. We had a meeting in December 2023 with one of the leaders at Pwrteams to express our wish to continue with a very good collaboration.

How much have you invested with them?

It's very hard to say how much we've invested in working with Pwrteams. We have to take into consideration their talent acquisition fees and the HR management fees. Obviously, some of those fees depend on how many new resources we require. For HR management alone, we pay Pwrteams approximately €100,000 (approximately $109,000 USD) per quarter. For talent acquisition, we pay them around €30,000–€40,000 (approximately $33,000–$44,000 USD) per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Questers in September 2018, but they were acquired by Nortal Group in November 2023. In February 2024, they officially changed their name to Pwrteams, and we've continued working with them since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're a very special client for Pwrteams. The majority of the roles they hire talent for are related to the IT industry, such as developers and programmers. Therefore, our open positions are very different for them. However, they've managed to hire great resources for those very different profiles.

Thanks to them, we now have a very versatile and diverse team. This team includes business analysts, designers, customer media analysts, a product manager, an operations specialist, a finance analyst, and a communication specialist.

In addition to that, our worker turnover isn't very high, so we've managed to have the same workers for a very long time. For example, some of our resources have over five years of experience working with Pwrteams, which is exceptional for contingent workers. This indicates that these workers find good reasons to stay working with Pwrteams for a long time.

We've even worked with Pwrteams to create some career paths and do some promotions for these workers. For example, last year, we did manager training, skills training, and certification courses. Overall, our engagement has been a success because we've managed to keep people motivated and loyal to Logitech and Pwrteams

How did Pwrteams perform from a project management standpoint?

Although we now work with Pwrteams, my experience is as if we had continued working with Questers. I'm even working with the same people. Still, their performance depends on the profile we're trying to hire for. For example, digital designers are easy to find, there are a lot of candidates on the market, and we don't require senior profiles, so the process of finding them is very quick and easy.

On the other hand, we might require a digital transformation senior manager, which is a profile of a very high caliber that's very hard to find. On those occasions, we might need to go through 20–30 different candidates to find the right one, which can take a lot of time. At times, we've even reached Pwrteams' limit due to the required level of seniority. Overall, Pwrteams has managed to meet our timelines for the job positions we've needed to fill.

We don't use project management tools. We mainly communicate via email and use a feedback tracker I've created. On this tracker, Pwrteams can input their feedback and information for the candidates, and other interviewers can also input their feedback.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I would like to give a shout-out to Polina (HR Business Partner), who has been recently promoted. I've been working with her from a business partnership standpoint since the very beginning of our engagement. Together, we've done a lot of great things for the employees regarding training, performance management, and process management. She has been a great partner to me.

On the talent acquisition side, I would also like to give a shout-out to Elena (Lead Talent Partner) and Radostina (Talent Partner), who have been working for us and providing us with a great service.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Thanks to Pwrteams, we've managed to massively extend our team throughout the years with pretty senior roles. That alone makes them stand out. Moreover, their partnership and collaboration are outstanding. From the HR perspective, they've been very supportive.

Their team has brought extra ideas to the table, and although I don't have an HR background, I appreciate receiving proposals and suggestions to make our goals happen. I've also been able to bring my own ideas to the table. For example, we completely remodeled our office's open space last year, and we received great support from Pwrteams' facility manager.

Overall, we've had a great collaboration, and in the end, our workers are very happy about being employed by Pwrteams. They've established a very good HR environment and done some activities to take care of the workers and ensure they're doing a good job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Something that Pwrteams could improve on is their innovation. We've been the ones who have implemented innovation in our processes, such as tests, video interviews, and feedback trackers. However, we understand that we've made their usual work more complicated, and we've been expanding their usual processes. From that point of view, we understand that they want to spend as little time as possible doing other things.

Additionally, we sometimes experience a bit of friction in the talent acquisition part of our engagement. We may look very demanding and require a very complex hiring process because we have some strict conditions. On those occasions, we expect a more proactive collaboration.

For example, it would be great if they were more proactive in shaping the role, the job description, and the ideal candidate profile. We sometimes expect an added consultancy service or a more collaborative approach to help us figure out how the position we require should be expressed in the market. However, this small friction occurs on very rare occasions.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I have no particular advice.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Tech Lead of March

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Accelerating commercial real estate brokerage by leveraging data and AI to advance the dealmaking process.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire pwrteams to accomplish?

• We were in need of a skilled backend developer-data engineer

SOLUTION

How did you find pwrteams?

• Previous Company

Why did you select pwrteams over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from pwrteams were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Developing an internal tool that uses predictive machine learning algorithms to match commercial real estate supply and demand.
• Developing a Web Application that consumes CRM data and Open Geo Data
• User interface that allows filtering on big geo datasets in realtime.
• Building a matching engine that suggest leads or organizations that have a high chance of buying or leasing a property
• Sending proactive mails

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The product definition, along with its features, had been pre-determined and delivered within the specified timeframe. We successfully measured the conversion ratios of proactive emails that were recommended by the AI, surpassing the market standards.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Thanks to his open communication, he was able to work efficiently and focus on the right priorities, resulting in timely delivery of the project. Additionally, he was flexible enough to make necessary adjustments or changes along the way without any issues.

What was your primary form of communication with pwrteams?

• Virtual Meeting

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

The expertise in existing technologies, coupled with their eagerness to adopt and master emerging innovations, significantly contributed to the success.

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

No, there were no areas for improvement or any notable changes that PwrTeams could have done differently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

SweepBright is a PropTech startup working in Belgium and France. We offer a B2B solution to Real Estate agents so they can focus on what's important. I'm CTO at SweepBright.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We asked Skelia to help us find the best candidate to expand our development team. We needed a solid and trustworthy partner with expertise in HR and outsourcing. The goal was and still is build the right team for the job.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

When I started, Skelia was already a partner. They took the time to understand the critical needs of our company and they provided extremely solid and strong engineers. We then decided to continue our collaboration.

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

It's a continuous collaboration. We meet and define the requirements. Then they screen the candidates and usually they involve one of our team members to technically interview them. We then proceed with an internal interview and eventually hire. After, Skelia keeps an active role as HR for all engineers.

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

Currently, we have 4 engineers working full-time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're still building a product so it's difficult to evaluate a continuous project but since we started working with Skelia's engineers, we are improving and consolidating our development process and we released many stable features to our customers.

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

We work using two different models: monthly rate and hourly rate, depending on the flexibility we and the engineers need. We also work remotely. In both models, engineers are usually present at all required meetings and available through Slack during our business hours. In addition to the hourly rate model, the engineers must fill in time sheets to invoice the right amount. Communication between Skelia and us is done using emails and tasks created using Teamwork.

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

They are very practical and honest. Transparency is, without any doubt, a value we both shared. Also, they take the time to learn our way of working and adapt their proposal accordingly when needed. Flexibility is clearly at the core of their business model.

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

None that I can think of

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of an HR consulting company, providing candidate assessments, but mainly focusing on providing insights on the application process itself to employees and employers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed a completely new platform to be built, including a web application for our backoffice and reporting to companies, and a web application and mobile app for job applicants and employees to provide their feedback. This platform needed to be built flexible and expandable, since the business itself was new and not 100% defined yet.

SOLUTION

How did you select Skelia and what were the deciding factors?

I had some good experience with Skelia previously in my career, and we were not happy with the local development companies that we were working on for this project. So we compared a few local companies with Skelia, and they provided us with the best value-for-money offer.

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

The initial design (data model) was done by us, and from there on, the Skelia team did the complete development in different stages:

All was developed on Azure,

using Azure SQL database, .Net c# backend and React frontend.

First stage:

1. development of backoffice webapp;
2. API and frontend

Second stage:

1. Mobile app development;
2. API and Xamarin for the mobile

Third stage: Web app, using API developed for mobile with React frontend.

We then went into maintenance for a number of months, and entered a new stage for an additional web application in React. So in total, 3 web applications were built, supporting our backoffice, our business customers, and job applicants.

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

7 people in total. We started with a team of 4 developers, including 1 team lead/leade developer. That included frontend, mobile and backend developers. We then ramped down to 2 people, full stack + mobile, followed by a maintenance phase where we had 1 full stack developer. Then ramped up again to 2 full stack developers for a next phase in the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since the initial launch of the platform, we have been able to accommodate for all our customer's request regarding the collection of applicants feedback, without the need for any additional development.

We now have a fully configurable solution in place, which allowed us to quickly ramp up a new service offering, adding a B2C solution to our existing B2B offering.

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

Depending on the phase of the project, we had weekly or daily stand-ups for project follow-up. Additionally, a (bi-)weekly planning meeting with supervising staff to make sure proper resources were available. Very clear and direct lines of communication, either directly via Skype/Zoom/Meet/Teams or via project documentation platform used by Skelia (documentation and timesheet follow-up)

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

Flexibility is definitely a strong point. We asked for a lot of changes during the course of this project, both in functionality and in capacity, and they went out of their way to deliver for us. Their development team is highly motivated and was always available, even after we had ramped the team down to go into maintenance mode.

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

Nothing comes to mind. They are not the cheapest, but deliver very good value for money.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of software for a software management company. We have roughly 12 employees, which includes a mix of development, engineering, and sales resources. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed more development resources to make applications more scalable. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle recruiting and manage everything related to employment. We relied on them to source the developers upfront, and they’ve delivered five developers to us.
 The development done is for web apps, using a React framework.

What is the team composition?

They delivered five developers to our team.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

They approached us, and we were impressed with them. They had other clients in Scandinavia, and we felt the risks were minimal in working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $20,000 each month with them on average. So far, we’ve spent more than $700,000 overall.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2019, and it’s an ongoing engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The developers are doing well. They’re integrated into our organization and treated as our own employees.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform excellently regarding hiring, invoicing, and follow-up. We have planned meetings; they are always prepared and on time. They use our internal project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been great at recruiting candidates and doing follow up. They deliver everything we need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be extremely clear about the specific type of resource you want for the best chance of getting the right candidates.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Alpega we developped, maintained and innovated software products for the transportation industry. This with a distributed team headquartered in Brussels. As VP IT I headed the R&D & Product teams in a distributed setup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Skelia augmented our QA/QC teams with a group of high quality engineers focussing on manual & autimated testing processes. This with the clear goal to improve quality of our software products.

SOLUTION

How did you select Skelia and what were the deciding factors?

Via a referral and direct connections in the nearshore area we ended up with Skelia, a mid sized nearshore service company led by west european management. Both were a good fit to our company culture, pragmatism & west european mgt styles.

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

Skelia plugged in remote manual, automation QA teams into our Alpega QA teamstructure. Alpega QA project managers were in constant contact with tthe Skelia teams and discussed execution & improvements.

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

About 15 to 20 fte. Half on automation, half on manual QA and a limited number of QA lead roles.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Skelia teams in collaboration with Alpega QA teams helped us evolving from chaotic QA processes to a structured, documented QA approach. Based on this we were able to improve the software development quality for our products.

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

Pragmatic but structured management style that starts with an intake and as from that a pragmatic plan is set up.

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

In the majority of the cases, they deliver what they promise + their pragmatic but structured approach.

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

Speed of recruiting could be increased but the focus is on more on quality than on qyuantity so I understand.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the R&D director for Indian product development at Televic. We manufacture care communication systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed to build a server for our new platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia developed a server for our new platform, helping to create the solution from scratch. We worked together to design the server architecture.

We have a complete .NET backend that generates workflows and produces the alarms for our products. All of our devices come together in the server architecture.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight people from Skelia including a team lead, QA teammates, a UI designer, and developers.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

One of Skelia's owners contacted our company to have a discussion about a potential partnership. Then, they joined the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €2 million euros (approximately $2.2 million USD) on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with the most recent team around July 2015, and our contract’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re satisfied with their work. They’re a highly effective team.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly track their activities in Jira and Confluence where we're able to see how much time they spend on different tasks. They’re open communicators and share their thoughts about potential issues with us. It makes collaboration much easier.

Skelia has a professional approach across the board. When someone a team member left, it was easy for them to find another one to fill the gap. They have a highly competent HR team that makes sure we have all of the necessary resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Usually, there’s a gap between outsourced teams and internal teams. We don’t have that with Skelia, which is unique. They’re well integrated, so we work together as one team.

Communication is crucial to an outsourced partnership. Skelia’s communication is fluid, making our discussions easier and more efficient. We don’t have misunderstandings.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They currently focus on .NET, but they may have to broaden their scope.  It could be interesting for them to join embedded software development in addition to .NET projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a good partner.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of a company that builds translation software for larger organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We hired them to join our development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia works on different tasks. Their involvement has evolved over time. For example, they’ve worked on custom development requests from our clients and bug fixes. For the past two months, they’ve been working on a web-based translation interface. The team is doing frontend development.

What is the team composition?

We work with four teammates including two developers and two QA specialists.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Somebody in Luxembourg, where we are based, recommended Skelia. We did interviews with the two developers on their team and we were impressed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $160,000–$215,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Skelia about one year ago. Our contract will be terminated at the end of April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been extremely satisfied with their work, both that of the developers and the QA teammates. They are one of the best teams our company has worked with. They provide test-driven development, proper documentation, consistent creation of uni-testing, and consistent refactoring of code when required. 

The team is also able to produce high-quality code. We are a small company and Skelia is used to working with big corporations. So, they actually helped us to improve the overall quality of our operations. We learned a lot from them.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We assigned them tasks every 2–4 weeks. What was special about Skelia’s team is that they are extremely professional. They understood how to work with deadlines in mind. The team had very strong communication skills, so we had no problem integrating them with our customer success team. They did a good job of informing us of anything that prevented them from coming to work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with other development companies and it was quite difficult. However, with Skelia, the process was very smooth even though they are an outsourced company. They were really part of our team and were honest.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At one point in time, we wanted to consolidate our teams, moving from four to three companies. We also wanted to scale up at Skelia. When it came to hiring new people with Skelia, we did some interviews. 

However, some of the candidates we met didn’t meet the requirements we had provided in advance. The pre-screening of candidates could’ve been improved, which I talked to them about. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Getting in contact with Skelia, in my experience, will guarantee your success. Their management was very professional and flexible. The team was also very open to discussion and transparency when it came to cost. Their business and pricing models were very good.