Qoderoom (Out of Business)

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Pro Pharma is one of the leading Ukrainian pharmaceutical wholesalers, my position is CIO of ProPharma - I am responsible for the whole IT infrastructure and services, including business applications of Sales Force

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Qoderoom? 

The challenge of the project was to develop a distributed mobile Sales Force Automation system, serving for inspection and ordering of the pharmaceutical products in the field - drugstores etc.

What were your goals for this project?

Emerging mobile technologies would let the info to be collected online, without delays and lead times for consolidation. Also, the stock levels could be decreased because of the more precise ordering process.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have found the company through the referral sites. There was a mini-tender and Qoderoom has got the project.

Describe the project in detail.

Solution was to build the front-end app on the Android platform with a small integration back-end using .Net technology. Cool part of the setup was GPS tracking control as a pre-condition for Sales Reps to fill out the forms - they could not do it remotely from home, and only at POS they were able to do the job.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Qoderoom has done a great job in this project. It was not easy to build proper app, that has been used in unpredictible difficult conditions of the field in Ukraine.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There was a lot of learnings for both ProPharma and Qoderoom.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Additional complication was the amount of users: there were a lot of service and support requests, we have learned to handle them.

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder of the company. We have created a marketplace through which people in the United Kingdom are able to book GP [General Practitioner] appointments with NHS [National Health Service] doctors. We aim to provide more appointment availability based on a fee.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Qoderoom?

We needed resources for building our platform based on UX/UI [user experience/user interface] designs we created through a UK firm.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Qoderoom developed our platform. Our team consisted of 2-3 resources typically, reaching as many as 5-6 when we needed to complete a task quickly. We interacted with them through our project manager. Qoderoom was in charge of putting the team together.

How did you come to work with Qoderoom?

We reached out to around 3 agencies and decided that Qoderoom was the best one for building our platform.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Qoderoom one year ago. Our project is ongoing. The product is fully-developed, but we're still making improvements to it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Usability is largely attributed to how the solution was designed. The project was largely designed in the UK and Qoderoom was asked to build based on those specifications. We've received great feedback from users so far, so Qoderoom has done a good job in developing it. Qoderoom is just as good, if not better than other developers we've used in the past.

How did Qoderoom perform from a project management standpoint?

Qoderoom was usually on-time, but we did exceed our budget due to inaccurate estimations and scope increases. We tried to remedy this fault, but we ended up spending more money. This is usually the case for development projects, but we spent a lot more than anticipated, sadly.

We used Basecamp for our collaboration with Qoderoom. I had no direct line with the developers, largely because of the language barrier. I communicated through the project manager from Qoderoom, which slowed down our project. This is how Qoderoom operates and it's probably how they're able to make a profit. Project managers charge a higher hourly rate than developers, so I don't imagine that this system will change. I did bring this up, but the developers don't speak English well-enough.

What distinguishes Qoderoom from other providers?

For our particular project, it was handy to have a project manager with clinical experience. She is a qualified doctor herself, which came as a useful benefit, and it's something that we wouldn't have found with another agency.

Is there anything Qoderoom could have improved or done differently?

More transparency in terms of costs would be appreciated on Qoderoom's part.

BACKGROUND

Please briefly describe what your company does and the role that you play there?

We are a Ukrainian professional football [soccer] club from the city of Donetsk. I am the chief information officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I was looking for a company who could help keep our football club up-to-date with latest IT [information technology] trends and features. We wanted to create an application, which would meet the demands of our Ukrainian and European football fans.

Can you tell me about the scope of the project, what were the exact services or methodologies QodeRoom provided or implemented?  

QodeRoom provided everything from the vision behind the app, main features, brilliant UI/UX [user interface/user experience], and all of the coding.

SOLUTION

How did you choose QodeRoom as your partner?

We thoroughly researched the app developers market with a focus on companies in Ukraine. We needed an international and highly experienced team of developers. Once we received feedback from our fans and their expectations for the new application, QodeRoom was a natural first choice among others candidates.

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

Our project was more than $50,000, QodeRoom continues to provide us with support and maintenance.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics or metrics that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

After our app’s official launch in the App Store and Google Play the application has been downloaded by more than 50,000 fans.

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

QodeRoom’s involvement, high initiative, and honesty are their distinctive features. QodeRoom uses an Agile project approach. We highly appreciated this approach because it gave us the ability to stay involved and help control the product development cycle. I find the QodeRoom team extremely helpful. Despite the fact that this was their first sport mobile application, QodeRoom specialists offered great user-friendly features. In my opinion, they’re technically competent with a very cooperative team. I highly recommend QodeRoom to others.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve upon or that you would have them do differently?  

No. I am confident in QodeRoom’s skills and the quality of their services, so I certainly would recommend them to my colleagues.