S-PRO

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company provides an all-in-one solution wrapping all financial services a fintech might need.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

We wanted to build a white label / templated mobile app we could then distribute to our B2B clients. The main target behind this project was to shorten all implementation processes by providing both back-end and front-end solutions. Meaning our clients' only remaining concern is to build and advertise their product

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

Availability / Friendliness / Costs

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

We needed to build the whole project together with S-PRO since my company had no prior experience in building mobile solutions. Daily (then becoming weekly) meetings were held by S-PRO to guide us through what they thought was the best approach for our needs

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

At least 2 project managers, 1 UI/UX designer, and quite a few mobile and web developers

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

Unfortunately, we have not launched the product just yet. We are anticipating a significant improvement when it comes to user acquisition, but no figures are yet available

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

Pretty straightforward Agile style. Everything was exactly as you would expect from such company

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

They were flexible and accommodating of scope changes.

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

I'd say some physical meetings would have helped quite a lot, but considering the overall lockdowns and restrictions due to Covid19, I'd say they've handled the case fairly well

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a startup that’s developing a mobile app for digital nutrition plans.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We needed help with our app development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO has helped us plan and develop our app. We initially went through the discovery phase to plan the application in detail. One of our team members had originally come up with the idea for this app, but this person failed to complete the project due to their lack of technical knowledge. Thus, S-PRO also assessed what we already had and collaborated with us to make it function. Currently, we’re in the final steps of the development process.

S-PRO has developed our app using Python as the programming language, and it uses AWS’s server. This app is focused on diet and nutrition, but it also has social functions. Its complex algorithm calculates users’ nutritional needs. Additionally, it includes an administration panel.

What is the team composition?

We started working with four people from S-PRO, but we’ve seen more people working in the background throughout the project. Their current team includes three developers, a business analyst, and a project manager. Overall, we’ve worked with 10–15 people from S-PRO.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

We found S-PRO via online research. We found their website and got in touch with them. Although I saw that they specialized in fintech, they had other great projects, so I sent them an email. They did a great job at providing us with excellent information before making a decision, so we ultimately hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €135,000 (approximately $143,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2021, and our engagement is ongoing. We’re in the final stages, and we plan to launch the app at the beginning of June 2022.

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

We’ve beta tested the app using TestFlight from Apple, and it has worked very well. Additionally, we’ve done some user testing for its UI/UX design, and the feedback we’ve gotten for our app’s design and the idea behind it has been great.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m very impressed with S-PRO’s work. They’re very professional, detailed, and helpful, always thinking about everything. Initially, we had about three video calls per week to have updates, but we currently meet only once per week via Google Meet. We’ve also had some phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What makes S-PRO stand out from the rest is their professionalism. They always keep us updated and ensure that we know what they’re doing — they’re one of the most professional companies I’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve only had two issues regarding our payments to S-PRO, but they were caused due to the differences between Germany and Ukraine. In Germany, when we receive an invoice, we have 2–4 weeks to pay it, but people in Ukraine pay them within a few days. On those two occasions, we weren’t able to pay them right away, but they were very kind about it, and we’ve already fixed the issue.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be involved in your project. Whenever the customer is involved and does their part of the work, the projects have successful results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Hubspring Health. We’re a healthcare IT company that manages a mobile and desktop platform for healthcare firms. 

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We wanted to create an app that would solve the frustrations and inefficiencies present in the modern healthcare system with regard to healthcare team members’ access to information — such as clinical protocols, guidelines, and schedules — and their ability to communicate securely with other team members. Solutions either didn’t exist or existed in many disparate and separate apps. Our goal was to develop a single app that brought together access to resources and communications all in one platform. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our team initially built the alpha version of the app, and then we decided to use S-PRO to develop a more scalable and robust version. From there, we built the mobile app and the web version of the product. 

At present, the app is available for iOS and Android devices; it also has a browser version.

What is the team composition?

The team composition has changed over time, but we’ve had one project manager, one mobile developer, one web developer, and one backend developer that handles our database and infrastructure. These people make up the full-time team. 

When necessary, we pull in either a graphic designer to do UI/UX updates. On occasion, we also need a DevOps person to work on the product’s database and AWS infrastructure.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

We searched online on different sites where development companies promoted and advertised their services. One of them was Upwork, and that was where we found S-PRO. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2014, and the engagement is ongoing. 

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

We’ve experienced significant user growth over the years. From having only a handful of users, we now have approximately 10,000 different healthcare workers using the app. Our team also tracks the number of times the app is used on a daily basis, and the number has increased steadily over time. 

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

S-PRO has been excellent in terms of project management. They have thorough and excellent communication. Even when I’m not clear on what their task is, they can still communicate with me. 

Doing sync-up calls with them isn’t always easy because they’re in a different timezone, so we don’t often have long conversations. However, we use project management tools to make sure everyone’s on the same page and questions are answered. 

We use Jira and Trello to manage individual tasks, while Google Drive serves as our repository for various items. To communicate, we mainly use emails. If we want to have live conversations, we do them on Skype or Google Meet. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

S-PRO is well-established; they have a long track record of successful projects. On top of that, they have a deep team — if we need someone with a specific specialty or skillset, S-PRO always has a resource that fits our requirements on their team. 

More recently, they’ve shown us how incredibly professional they are. Considering the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, the team has been brave in coordinating and creating contingency plans to avoid disruptions. They make sure that our company doesn’t suffer or experience any setbacks. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of their team members’ English isn’t strong, so their communication is a little less efficient than others. To be fair, this is minor and doesn’t have much impact because their members can quickly improve their language skills and adapt. They’re on top of these things.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know that S-PRO is an excellent company with a lot of resources that do great work. Working with them is great.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of a SaaS company that primarily caters to the real estate sector. We’re currently developing software for the property management space.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We needed to find a partner that could help us build our software products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We partnered with S-PRO to develop two software products  Their team is helping us build out mobile and web-based applications. 

What is the team composition?

The team size initially ran the gamut of their head of sales and head of business development. Once we started with the actual development, they brought in around 3–4 more people. Including a project manager, business analysts, and a solutions architect.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I shortlisted 3–4 vendors when I started to get proposals and bids for the project. S-PRO really stood out because of their Clutch reviews and because of the use cases and press releases on their website. I also saw that most of the companies they had developed software for were able to go on and get funding, which is what we’re after as well. That was a huge selling point for us, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re coming in at around $200,000 for two products.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first engaged them in August 2021, and our collaboration is ongoing.

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

We don’t have any quantitative data to share, since we’re still in development. Anecdotally, however, S-PRO’s speed of delivery has been really impressive. The products that we’re building have a lot of integration points, and their team has been very willing to take the lead, talk to our integration partners, and provide me with their insight on whether we should move forward or not with those partners. That’s something that I definitely appreciate, and it’s been a very key thing for the progress of this project. 

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

Our first project manager was fantastic, and the person who replaced him has been pretty good at picking up on the schedules, deliverables, and budget. I have no complaints. 

S-PRO definitely sticks to their two-week cadence of releases, which is great. They’re always on point and on time, and the applications they’re developing are without fault. We work pretty closely to flush out the requirements, and we’re now constantly chatting through Telegram. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re highly communicative and collaborative. I think that’s key for any type of business partnership. I also highly value how they’re able to answer my questions quickly. If they don’t have the answers at hand, they always get back to me right away.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t fault them for anything right now. They’re firing on all cylinders, and I can’t ask for anything more.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go and engage with S-PRO. They’re a fantastic team, and their delivery is on-point. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of GoBeauty. Company develops an application for individual beauty professionals to manage appointments and business activities

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

We hired S-PRO to develop a service app for the beauty industry that would help beauty professionals with their business activities to focus more on their service. We wanted to make running business for them easier by automating management tasks.

Our second goal was to allow customers to quickly find a suitable beauty professional near him and book an appointment. First, with S-Pro team we've done a market research and built a roadmap and estimated the scope of work. After that we've started development, always working on updating the scope and roadmap, learning on user's feedback and releasing a better product.

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

S-Pro offered us the most suitable development plan and approach. We liked that S-Pro team was focusing on the product's goals and demonstrated product ownership

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

Services we received:

• Business analysis
• Project management
• Front- and backend development
• Testing & maintenance support ​​​​​​

The work is structured according to the Scrum methodology, with two-week sprints. We form a prioritised backlog and a list of requirements. The application is live now, so the team also reacted quickly to requests and feedback from end-users to provide good service and remove blockers.

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

We worked with six specialists in five positions: project manager over the course of the project, a business analyst, a backend developer (Python), a mobile developer (React Native / JavaScript), front-end developer (next.js) and a quality assurance specialist

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

During the development we've managed to build an application that is recognized by our users as constantly improving in terms of functionality, and transforming their work style into more effective. We have positive reviews and a growing user base successfully.

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

We have a weekly meeting about the project status and other open questions. We also have grooming, demo, and sprint planning meetings along with additional meetings if required. We communicate daily through the common Slack channel.

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

• A systematic approach to the project.
• Professionalism of the team and the involvement of all participants in the development process
• Their project manager was very flexible, proactive, and innovative.

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

We are in close cooperation exactly because we are satisfied with the results.

Introduce your business and what you do there? 

I’m the co-founder of a physical & digital identity platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We needed some consultation about Blockchain.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO provided consulting and advisory services regarding Blockchain. They also helped with UI/UX and wireframes for the functionality and aesthetics of an app.

What is the team composition?

We worked with six people from their team, including a Blockchain database architect and full-stack developer, a business analyst, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

We found S-PRO on Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $9,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October–December 2021.

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

The S-PRO team was professional, and we achieved our goals. They over-delivered; we were quite satisfied with them. As a result, we would be hiring them to do multi-level Blockchain development soon.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management perspective?

They had a good project management process. They delivered within budget and were roughly a week late. We met twice per week via Google Meet and communicated via Telegram, too.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were willing to work hard and push themselves to provide quality products for their clients.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their project management could be better. The project manager seemed unaware of different things and didn’t keep the team on task very well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Negotiate terms to your satisfaction and comfortability.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a delivery & takeout focused restaurant. I'm the co-founder and CTO.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

We selected S-PRO to build our custom e-commerce/kitchen/delivery/takeout platform from scratch due to their expertise with Node.js/React.js back in 2016. The goal was to build the full vertical software platform to run the entire restaurant operation.

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

React was a very new technology in 2016, and S-PRO was the only competent contractor we found when interviewing software firms. They did not suggest that we build a Wordpress site which is what most suggested to us, and was not what we wanted.

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

Build a single platform that seamlessly integrates:

• An e-commerce frontend and backend
• Kitchen operations workflows
• Delivery logistics
• Customer support React.js Node.js

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

We started with 1 PM, 1 full stack dev, 1 QA. We currently have 1 PM, 2 FSD, 2 QA.

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

We launched in 2017 and immediately gained traction and resulted in a significant amount of sales.

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

We always have weekly calls for updates. We use JIRA, Confluence, and Slack. We utilize Agile via scrum.

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

My team understands that we want to build a software platform team and not a single project designed to be handed off to the client. That means approaching problems with long-term sustainable solutions that address root cause issues, as opposed to fixing problems symptomatically.

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

It took a while to transition from a waterfall "begin a project" approach to a post-launch scrum approach. Bugs always happen - we needed a better strategy for on-call developer support when emergencies occur.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the process and project manager for Janado, an e-commerce company. We sell new and used smartphones and tablets on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and our own website. We refurbish the used phones in order to sell them.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

They’ve solved two big challenges so far. The first challenge was finding a way to put new stock into our stock management system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO built a tool for our inventory purposes. The new stock amount was too big and wasn’t working properly with our previous platform.  It took forever to charge and it wasn’t really professional, so we built our own software with S-PRO from scratch. With the help of the tool, we were able to scan all of our devices and put them into the stock management system.

We’re also using it to manage all of our returns. When the customer returns the item to us, we scan it on the system and it decides what will happen. It’s been quite a big improvement in our work process because we were previously doing everything by hand. Our employee had to decide what would happen, and now anyone can create returns for us. We don’t have to train someone specifically to do that, which is quite cost-efficient, helpful, and faster.

Additionally, S-PRO has developed another tool that changes all of our prices on the different marketplaces. We just put in one price there and it automatically calculates all the others for the other marketplaces so we don’t have to do that by hand anymore.

That tool solves two problems at once because it’s obviously faster to just type in one price, but it also eliminates problems with typos. In the past, we’ve wanted to sell an item for €500 (approximately $600 US) but sold it for €50 (approximately $60 USD) instead because there was a typo. This doesn’t happen anymore because the system already checks that the price is reasonable, and if it’s not, you can’t upload it.

What is the team composition?

There have been some switches, especially with the project manager, who’s been changed 4–5 times already. It hasn’t been ideal, but the transition is always pretty good and flawless. In the end, it hasn’t altered the results.

We’ve had 2–3 programmers working with us in total; we had one at the beginning, and then he switched at some point, so we got a new one. There’s always someone checking to see that everything is working properly, but I don’t really know them.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

One of the members of our team was pretty good friends with their CEO. They had gone to kindergarten together and stayed in contact. At some point, we knew we needed a solution, and he said he knew a company in Ukraine. That was how we found them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started developing the tool with S-PRO in July 2017, and we started using it in 2018. That project is currently finished, but we’re doing some bug fixes and so on, so our relationship is ongoing.

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

We started off doing everything manually and now it has completely switched to fully working with the tool. It’s quite an obvious improvement for us — everything has been more efficient. Everyone in the company has worked with the tool, and we use it on a daily basis. We’ve been very happy, and if we weren’t, they would change anything immediately.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

For me, they’ve been really good from a project management perspective. To be honest, I was quite inexperienced when I started working with them, but it has been really easy. Everything has worked out really well; the feedback we’ve gotten from them has been easy to navigate.

We usually communicate through Skype, and we’ve used Trello when we’ve been actively developing new tasks. Since we plan on having some new projects with them in the future, we’ll probably use Skype and Trello again.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results we’ve had so far have been great; we haven't bothered to look for a different company. Their pricing is really fair, and the communication is on a professional level, but they’re still friendly and easy to talk to.

In my opinion, the time they need to develop something is pretty good, but I don’t have a comparison for that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that comes to mind is the switching of project managers. It wasn’t ideal, but there wasn’t much they could do in that sense because people were leaving the company or transferring to different projects.

I guess it just happens, but having five different project managers in the span of 3–4 years is a bit too much. That’s the only thing that wasn’t great, but all in all, the transitions were really good and went on without any problems.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This isn’t specific to S-PRO, but you should tell them exactly what you want in order to receive it. In the past, we had some problems when we roughly described what we needed because then it didn’t match our needs 100%, so we had to fix it again.

With S-PRO, we told them precisely what we needed from the beginning, so we got exactly what we wanted, and it worked flawlessly. If you give them input, they work with that input, but if you don’t, then they work with their own ideas. Therefore, you need to have a clear idea of what you want, and if you don’t have it clear, you should talk to them first.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of OMNIFOX GmbH. We offer consultancy services to Amazon on one side and handle logistics operations on the other for our customers from the US, UK, and Germany.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

Since our company doesn’t have in-house knowledge about software development or IT services, we contacted S-PRO to develop a system that could allow our customers to see their inventory in real-time and manage inbound and outbound logistics.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO is currently developing a warehouse management system that connects our logistics facility centers directly with Amazon, Shopify, and other relevant marketplaces. The solution is a web application that can be accessed through mobile devices, but it’s not a mobile app per se.

We provided them with wireframes that our team had created during our planning process. S-PRO has been building and designing the software from scratch, hosting it on AWS, and programming it using Python and monolithic architecture. 

We’re still in the testing phase; the staff is working on the software’s product upload and sales platform connection management functionalities.

What is the team composition?

We communicate mostly with Victoria (Project Manager), and we are in direct contact with two solution architects. We also work with four backend engineers, two frontend developers, and two business analysts. 

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I knew the CEO of the company through a business partner I had worked with. We considered a couple of providers just to get some quotes, but we decided pretty fast on S-PRO. 

How much have you invested in them?

The estimated cost of the project so far has been between €100,000–€120,000 (approximately $122,000–$147,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project around March 2021, and it’s ongoing.

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

S-PRO has been able to deliver everything as planned, despite our tight schedule. We haven’t had any delays, and the team has made great progress. The deliverables so far have been excellent, and we haven’t found any bugs or errors. 

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

So far, we are very happy with Victoria, and our communication with the team has been great. They respond immediately and are available 24/7 in case something comes up.

We typically communicate through WhatsApp and email. We have weekly update calls on Mondays and Fridays and set up meetings if needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is very hardworking, proactive, and is always motivated to get the work done — one of their highlights is the strength of their employees. S-PRO guides their customer throughout the whole process — I’d definitely recommend them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The staff could improve on communication. There have been times when we've had to set up another call with the team because we didn’t have all the required information to proceed. We’ve suggested having a prior call to gather all the needed information and get a more complete agenda to make sure we have everything ready for the meeting. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any advice for potential customers besides talking to the team about what I just mentioned about the calls. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the product owner of the project GetphY from the foundation Siel Bleu. Getphy.com is a web platform providing Adapted Physical Activity sessions online.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

We hired S-Pro team in order to develop and maintain our platform.

How did you select S-PRO and what were the deciding factors?

We chose S-Pro resources based on their skills, their experience and cost estimate.

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

A big work has been done first in order to refactor our existing functionalities. Then we achieved to deliver a dashboard for our clients and a group of functionalities that required PHP, React JS technologies and UX/UI skills too.

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

Our technical team was made of one technical leader and two developers (one dedicated to frontend tasks and one to backend). We also worked with one UX/UI designer.

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

Our clients are really satisfied about the new functionnalities provided by our technical team. They renewed their contracts and trust.

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

We work with 2-weeks sprints using the Scrum methodology. The technical team has daily meeting carried out by the tech lead and at the end of each sprint, we have several meetings as sprint planning and sprint review. We used Slack, Jira and GitHub as communication and project tools.

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

They plan and deliver the functionalities we need on time. Plus, we're impressed by the skills of their developers.

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

The communication issues with english at the beginning and the difficulty to popularise some technical informations.