R/CS

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and chief information security officer of FitRankings, which is an organization on a mission to connect the world through fitness. Our platform allows different organizations to leverage connected devices such as wearables and better engage their audiences with challenges and healthy activities.

What challenge were you trying to address with R/CS?

We initially needed to build our iOS app. We’d become so dependent on the platform not needing changes that we forgot to make updates. We needed R/CS to update the app as soon as possible before new challenges occurred.  

What was the scope of their involvement?

R/CS used Swift to create our iOS app. They also communicated over Alamofire and built the backend using Python. We didn’t need to make any major updates to the app until recently when we pushed new security changes to our backend authentication system. Their team implemented a new authentication protocol using a more standard JWT (JSON Web Token) and refresh-token flow to update our frontend clients.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Cristina (Technical Delivery Manager, R/CS) on this project.

How did you come to work with R/CS?

When I came on board, our company already had a relationship with Raul (CEO, R/CS). It was natural to keep working with R/CS.

How much have you invested with them?

This specific collaboration cost under $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first contracted R/CS to create the app in 2017. Their team completed the latest project in January 2020. While the project’s complete, we’ll reach out to them for development work in the future.

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

We came to them in a moment of somewhat desperation and R/CS was extremely accommodating. They squeezed our project in between other big projects, working between holidays to get the project done quickly. There were a couple of releases to resolve bugs in the backend so overall, we’re extremely happy with the result.

How did R/CS perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, we held a brief video call to set up project specifications. We used Slack to communicate effectively and synchronously. Raul and Cristina were both extremely accommodating and communicated effectively throughout the whole process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

R/CS cultivated the partnership well. They maintain long-term relationships as important to their business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, it was all fantastic.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Rev.com helps freelancers seamlessly transcribe, caption, subtitle, and translate content through one simple interface. Our industry-leading speech recognition engine transcribes speech-to-text in minutes. We save individuals, enterprises, and developers countless hours and fundamentally change the way content is accessed, shared, and utilized. 

For what projects/services did your company hire R/CS?

We integrated the Salesforce Sales Cloud with our complex software platform, which presented extreme challenges. We relied on their knowledge and guidance to complete the project.

What were your goals for this project?

Since our customers pay for services through our online platform, we hired them to integrate it with Salesforce Sales Cloud. 

How did you select this vendor?

We sat down with a variety of local companies that were Salesforce partners. R/CS had a high degree of expertise and provided resources that met our evolving demands. They were a perfect fit.

Describe the project in detail.

They created a platform integration that pushes account, user, and order data from our web platform to the Salesforce Sales Cloud daily. 

What was the team composition?

R/CS is our Salesforce development team. We work with two full-time team members.

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

After delivering the initial integration, our sales operations team can see when customers place orders on our platform. R/CS was the backbone and glue of this project. 

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was great! Our in-person meetings tremendously improved our productivity and delivery success. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I'm extremely grateful to have R/CS as a partner. They always went above and beyond the initial scope to make our team happy. They were excellent stewards. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

They should continue improving their estimates, but measuring time and effort in software development is a constant work in progress. I truly can't say a bad thing about R/CS.

Please describe your company and your position there.

GoodTokens is an employee recognition and culture management platform that helps HR leaders turn data into thriving workplaces. I'm the CTO.

For what projects/services did your company hire Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

After closing on a big seed/angel round of funding back in 2015, we needed to evolve our initial MVP into a scalable B2B platform. Originally, we hired the Renovatio team to help us design and develop a native iOS app for our platform.

What were your goals for this project?

When we first started working with them, our overall goal was to achieve product/market fit. As we have recently achieved that, some of the new goals we've set include: prioritizing customer enhancement requests, optimizing the platform's performance, and effectively managing the its maintenance.

How did you select this vendor?

We had a terrible experience with the first vendor that built our MVP, so we were very diligent in our search process. We wanted to work with a local, Austin-based firm and wanted a vendor that gave us the confidence that they would a long-term partner. One of our CEO's connections introduced him to the CEO of Renovatio. We set up several in-person meetings to see how their team worked together and it became clear that they could deliver.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They first worked on the design and development of the B2B iOS mobile app and web platform, using Angular.js and Python for the backend and API. This included UI/UX design for both versions.

The next initiative was the redesign and development of the frontend of the web app. After that, they helped with the development and integration of a subscription management platform into our overall platform. The payment integration is through Stripe and the platform is built using Chargebee. As of today, they continue to help with maintenance, required development tasks, and in providing valuable guidance on the product roadmap.

What was the team composition?

I act as the overall technical and product lead. Their team has consisted of a UI/UX Designer, an iOS developer, a couple of frontend web developers, including an Angular expert, a backend developer, a QA engineer, and recently, a part-time product manager.

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

We wouldn't have been able to achieve the product/market fit without their long-term commitment to our success. When we first began, we were in way over our heads—we had a never ending design and development pipeline that was unmanageable. If it wasn't for their experience, work-ethic, and passion for building amazing products, we wouldn't have a platform we have or the sales it generates.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We reached our scheduled milestones under budget, which is a huge accomplishment. They don't deliver throwaway work—everything they build has a place in the long-term roadmap. We originally intended for our relationship to last 6-9 months back in 2015, but it's gone so well that we've solidified a long-term partnership.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We appreciate how well their team works with us; it really feels like we're one big team. They're excited about what they’re building with us. They’re just as passionate about being successful in this as we are.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

No, nothing that come to mind. They've been extremely responsive to all of our feedback.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product for an event ticketing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

We needed a firm to support our iOS app and develop new features.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our app’s primary function is to assess payments and validate tickets by scanning QR codes. This required us to integrate a multitude of third-party services into the software. Renovatio Cloud Solutions worked to ensure the integration process went smoothly. They’ve also made a lot of small improvements to the app and provide bug fixes when needed. They’re essentially our full-time development resource and have completed multiple projects for us.

What is the team composition?

We interact with Raul (CEO, Renovatio Cloud Solutions) and Carlos (software developer, Renovatio Cloud Solutions).

How did you come to work with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

They were referred to us by a friend of our founder. The recommendation noted their high-quality output and how easy they are to work with. We decided to hire them after looking at their portfolio and having a positive interview.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Their efforts significantly improved our ability to track bugs and user behavior. Overall, they’ve reduced the number of app crashes and bugs by 70%. We’re confident in the platform’s stability during high-traffic events.

How did Renovatio Cloud Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven’t experienced their project management capabilities. I oversee our projects and directly manage their development staff. This includes answering questions, dictating their priorities, and providing our requirements. We hold monthly reviews with their team to reflect on challenges and give feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Raul is cognizant of our satisfaction and keeps the channels of communication open. Carlos is responsive and focused. He often takes the project into his own hands by suggesting new features or more optimized procedures. Overall, I don’t have any criticisms of them. The staff is knowledgeable and offers a great service. They’re capable of scaling up or down in response to our requirements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Nyansa is an innovator of advanced IT analytics software technology for enterprises and managed service providers. I collaborate with the executive team on finding ways to make our front-office business processes more efficient and I help build a data-driven team culture.

For what projects/services did your company hire Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

We had to move away from running our business on numerous spreadsheets and disparate software tools and implement a custom enterprise-grade CRM platform. We chose Salesforce Sales Cloud as our CRM platform. We did not have the in-house talent for a project of this magnitude. We decided to hire Renovatio Cloud Solutions to guide us through the initial strategy, implementation, configuration, custom development and end-user training of Salesforce.

What were your goals for this project?

We set various goals tied to specific phases of our plan. Our mission was to centralize the system and move away from traditional methods of data tracking. In general, we wanted to increase revenue, improve customer experience, and grow the operating margin.

How did you select this vendor?

They were highly recommended by our VP of sales, who worked with them at a previous company.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They are fully responsible for the design, development, support, and implantation of the ongoing solutions. They centralized the system of records for the sales and marketing teams and allowed us to track leads for our direct and partner sales channels. They built reporting capabilities to analyze our most important sales and marketing key performance indicators.

What was the team composition?

Renovatio Cloud Solutions assigned a technical architect, Salesforce developer, and admin for our project. They worked directly with our executive management team and end-users.

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

Our lead and opportunity pipeline grew fivefold and it is easier to track, manage, and analyze. Our year-over-year revenue growth also experienced drastic improvement. Our financial planning process also increased from more pipeline visibility and revenue recognition data.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their performance is excellent. We are making improvements and meeting on a weekly basis to address changes that our management, sales and marketing teams request. We communicate during in-person meetings, through the JIRA ticketing system, and mainly via Zoom video calls.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their overall knowledge of all the systems and processes that truly enable an enterprise SaaS company to scale is remarkable. It is rare that you find a consulting company that brings a healthy balance of business and technical acumen. They truly understood our SaaS business and not just the technology that supports it. For example, there were times where they added value to our product and pricing strategies.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

No company is perfect and there is always room for improvement. They can improve on the project timeline management. There were a couple of times that we missed our timeline estimates. Although most of the fault rests on our shoulders since we kept changing the requirements.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Datafiniti helps develop data-driven market research. I am in charge of lead generation, marketing, and business development.

What challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

Our CEO [Chief Executive Officer] had been conducting a series of Ad Words experiments in order to determine what keywords people were typing in to be directed to our site. Some of the keywords associated with our site were "UPC [universal product code] lookup," as well as variations like "UPC database," "product database," and so on. A part of our bread and butter is selling product data, so we wanted to implement another lead generation channel utilizing a landing page which would hook up to our product database. People could use it to type in any product number and find out if it existed in our database, or matched anything similar. In short, we wanted to develop a UPC database landing page which could be used as a lead generation tool.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Renovatio Cloud Solutions was primarily tasked with our landing page development. Most of the work was technical, requiring an interface with our database and API [application programming interface]. Renovatio Cloud Solutions also performed any cosmetic changes that we requested.

Renovatio Cloud Solutions didn't handle Ad Words and lead generation setup, but they created email automation for Salesforce.

How did you come to work with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

We initially contacted another company which had a connection to our CEO and was specialized in this type of project. We went through a proposal process, and they came up with an obscene price, for something which we knew shouldn't cost that much after taking into account the necessary man-work. Since we'd had a great experience with Renovatio Cloud Solutions in the past, we went back to them to determine if this was something they could do. I sent them the same proposal that we'd sent other companies. We had a close relationship with Renovatio Cloud Solutions already but didn't know if they had the capabilities. Renovatio Cloud Solutions came up with a reasonable price and timeline.

How much have you invested with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

The total cost of our project with Renovatio Cloud Solutions was above $9,000. By comparison, the proposal we received from the initial company was $27,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first sent a proposal to Renovatio Cloud Solutions in early June 2016. The final confirmation was signed the same month and set the completion time for July 14th. Unfortunately, someone in Renovatio Cloud Solutions' team became unavailable, so we didn't finish the project until August 23rd. We haven't reached out to Renovatio Cloud Solutions for any additional changes or adjustments since then.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We haven't started testing our page yet because we weren't able to work into the main planning. On a personal note, the page has a high-quality look. Our competitors' pages look terrible and outdated. Our goal was to make our page be seamless, and have it intertwine with lead generation capabilities. We're happy with how the site looks and how it functions. Renovatio Cloud Solutions fixed any bugs discovered during testing, and the page was good-to-go. We definitely plan to reach out to Renovatio Cloud Solutions for any similar projects.

How did Renovatio Cloud Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

The updates we received from Renovatio Cloud Solutions were very clear. We communicated through a mixture of email and Jira, which was our project management platform. Whenever we had an issue or a delay, Renovatio Cloud Solutions was communicative about it. The final result was delivered a month and a half later than we intended, but this was due to outside factors, and there was nothing that we could do about it.

What did you find most impressive about Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

Many times, when working with third-party providers, it's very clear that they're the agency, and you're the client. The strong point for Renovatio Cloud Solutions is that the process never felt so cut-and-dry. We felt that we had a collaboration with Renovatio Cloud Solutions, instead of simply contracting them. We were kept updated and got to know the team. We're a smaller company, and we appreciate open collaboration and communication.

Are there any areas Renovatio Cloud Solutions could improve?

Our main developer became injured but really wanted to complete the project. As a result, the project was delivered a month and a half late. Some more wiggle room would be something to consider on Renovatio Cloud Solutions' part. We were lenient because of our relationship with their company, but other clients may not have been so understanding.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I have developed a Slack plug-in which lets people post their own GIFs to chat channels. It was a way of creating funny, entertaining GIFs which could be shared internally, for communication and amusement.

I’m the founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

I needed to find a developer for my project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Renovatio Cloud Solutions developed my plug-in and provided minimal designs. It was a bare-bones piece of software that needed to be submitted to the Slack application directory.

How did you come to work with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

I had had previous experience with Renovatio Cloud Solutions. I created a specification document which they reviewed before putting together the project.

How much have you invested with Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

The total cost of my project was around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was started 3 months ago, and has been completed.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Everything has been fully functional and built according to my specifications. There are some minor issues, but they were resolved quickly by Renovatio Cloud Solutions.

How did Renovatio Cloud Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was delivered on time and within budget.

What did you find most impressive about Renovatio Cloud Solutions?

Renovatio Cloud Solutions did research for submitting work to the Slack application directory, and helped me manage the process. I was hands-off during the approval process, which was nice.

Are there any areas Renovatio Cloud Solutions could improve?

No, it all went smoothly.

Please describe your organization.

Our company creates audio codecs. Our goal is to create a lightning headphone.

What is your position?

I am the Vice President of Engineering.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio Cloud?

We needed to create an app for our external device.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Renovatio Cloud built our app for iOS, handling design and development. Even though Renovatio Cloud didn't have prior experience with building an app for an external device, they helped us take the right steps.

Renovatio Cloud set up a web server where firmware updates for our device would be posted. They would then be retrieved by our app and sent to the headphones.

How did you come to work with Renovatio Cloud?

We used a local marketing site, looking for developers in our area. We found around 8 companies and asked them to either come in or give us a quote. We selected Renovatio Cloud from that.

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

The total cost of the project with Renovatio Cloud was around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Renovatio Cloud in May 2016. Most of the work is done.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our app doesn't have any special features. Its only role is to update the headphones' firmware.

How did Renovatio Cloud perform from a project management standpoint?

Keeping timelines was a bit tough for Renovatio Cloud, given that most of their developers had no idea what the structure and commands were for sending information to an accessory device. None of the candidate companies had ever worked on something similar. It's a new format from Apple which doesn't even have full methodologies for testing yet. From that perspective, Renovatio Cloud performed pretty well.

What distinguishes Renovatio Cloud from other providers?

The proposal from Renovatio Cloud was very detailed and they understood enough about app development in order to ask the right questions, as opposed to the other agencies we talked to.

Is there anything Renovatio Cloud could have improved or done differently?

No. Renovatio Cloud did a pretty good job. Our app wasn't very complicated, so there wasn't much to be changed.

Please describe your organization.

Titan Software is an SAP-based enterprise resource planning solution provider. Our solutions focus on innovative front-ends, user experience, and process improvements for SAP.

What is your position?

I am a principal within the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio?

We were looking to find a way of streamlining business processes and get some of the manual activity out of purchase order creation and entry. We provide solutions to clients who receive orders for computer parts, chemicals, and so on. Although some forms of electronic data interchange exist on web-based portals, a lot of orders come in through email stacks and phone calls, representing up to 70% of all orders. We're trying to eliminate a lot of the delays in order processing times: re-keying, fumbling, incorrect actions, and so on. We presented this challenge to Renovatio, asking them what they could do to help us improve this process. The aim was to achieve an automatic scanning and transcription service which could read orders, digitize them, and translate them to a ready-to-work format on our company's ERP systems.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We were kind of a rough client in the sense that the scope evolved constantly at the nuts-and-bolts level. We had an Agile project, and Renovatio was very helpful and understanding in terms of working with us to shape the product. We had some initial ideas, but their company also has some business experience. We put our heads together and came to a conclusion at the end. The general scope remained the same throughout though.

How did you come to work with Renovatio?

They came to our attention through a personal reference. We were made familiar with their work through a colleague, who though that they might have the right abilities for doing this type of work. I travelled to Austin a couple of times and had a look at their operations.

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

The total development cost has been around $40,000. We had a relatively low budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project started in late September of 2015. The main production phase was completed in January and we tweaked the work a couple of times, wrapping up the initiative in early March, 2016. The minimum viable product version will leave our doors soon, we will market it and start a phase-two, looking at the next capability set that we can work on.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Renovatio delivered our core minimum viable product. We're very pleased with it in terms of timeline and complexity. They beat the initial estimated time, even though we added additional features. Quantitatively, in terms of task coverage, we were also excited with their performance. There were a couple of bugs which came as part of the standard development process, but I would say that those were 60% fewer in number, compared to our other experiences.

The optical character recognition and transcription logic scanning performance that we expected was fulfilled with 99% accuracy. It was way above what we expected. Our experience with Renovatio was very good at the end of the day. We'd definitely use them over other lower-cost providers.

How did Renovatio perform from a project management standpoint?

We've had a lot of documentation and communication sessions throughout the project. In terms of project tracking and keeping us on top of what's going on, Renovatio performed very well. We met every week with their team in Austin. They always stuck to the budget and timelines.

What distinguishes Renovatio from other providers?

They did a good job of crafting our general concept. They had a very good idea of the business scenario and came to the table with other innovative ideas and extensions that helped enhance the final deliverable. We were going to adopt a parse.com solution, but one of their team members suggested putting the software on Heroku because of scalability.

Is there anything Renovatio could have improved or done differently?

I can't think of anything. It was one of the better development experiences we've had in a while. Timelines, documentation, deliverables, and training were all good.

Please describe your organization.

We are an agency providing professional liability products to healthcare institutions such as hospitals, home health agencies, long-term care facilities, as well as to physicians.

What is your position?

I am an operations manager.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Renovatio Cloud?

We had started using SalesForce as our rating model for the products that we offer. We were challenged with being able to tailor it to our needs. When we were initially sold the product, we were told that it would fit any organization for any purpose. It ended up being a great solution for tracking our clientele and generating specific reports, but when it came to actually crunching numbers and providing quotes, we ran into a hurdle. A previous vendor we'd used wasn't able to help us, so we came to Renovatio Cloud, who stepped in and saved the day.

How did you come to work with Renovatio Cloud?

Someone referred them to our Chief Executive Officer [CEO]. Even though they're based in Austin, Texas, they made the trip to Houston and had a couple of meetings with us, in which we explained our needs. They were able to jump in and help right away.

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

The average cost of a project with Renovatio Cloud was around $400-500. Support was offered at no additional cost. They were very reasonable in terms of hourly rates.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them at the beginning of 2015. We've since developed a proprietary rating model through another company. We would still be using Renovatio Cloud if our company had stuck with that project. We still have a couple of SalesForce licenses, and we continue to keep in touch with Renovatio Cloud whenever updates come around, but we don't use the platform for rating purposes anymore.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Given that we were in a dire situation when Renovatio Cloud was approached, they were able to jump in and give us results right away. I was very happy with the results of the projects they helped us with.

Because of the growth of our company, we simply reached a turning point. Our CEO had to decide between sticking to SalesForce or moving on to another rating model, created specifically for our needs. We'd still be their client on a daily basis, had this not happened. I was very pleased with the results and wish we'd had more time to see where Renovatio Cloud could take us. I'm sure the relationship would have been even more successful.

How did Renovatio Cloud perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always available when we had a question and were very accommodating. Renovatio Cloud listened to what we needed and provided the appropriate products.

What distinguishes Renovatio Cloud from other providers?

Their approach to the client is specialized. Renovatio Cloud listened to our needs and didn't try and fit us into a cookie-cutter project they may have used for previous clients. If they have to start from scratch, they start from scratch, which is what they did for us. What sets them apart is that they treat each client uniquely and listens to their needs.

Is there anything Renovatio Cloud could have improved or done differently?

Not that I can think of. Renovatio Cloud met every single deadline and went above and beyond for us.