Shinetech

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Kaiwhakangau

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a small outdoor apparel and eCommerce business based in New Zealand. Our website is the primary channel for selling our products online and managing customer orders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Shinetech Software Inc. to accomplish?

• We initially engaged Shinetech to help us migrate our existing WordPress-based eCommerce platform away from our previous local vendor. Our previous provider controlled all of our infrastructure, source code, and hosting access, which created operational risks and limited our ability to manage the platform independently. We wanted to regain ownership of our website, cloud infrastructure, and technical assets while also reducing ongoing maintenance costs and improving responsiveness.

SOLUTION

How did you find Shinetech Software Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Shinetech Software Inc. over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Shinetech Software Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The primary scope of work involved migrating our eCommerce website and infrastructure away from our previous vendor into accounts fully owned and controlled by our company. Before the migration, our hosting environment, source code, and infrastructure access were all controlled externally. During the transition process, our previous provider became unresponsive during a website outage, which created an urgent situation for our business. Shinetech reacted quickly and completed an emergency migration to our own AWS environment within just a few hours, successfully restoring website operations and helping us regain full ownership of the platform. After the migration, they also helped optimize several integration and synchronization processes, including inventory and pricing synchronization with another third-party system. These improvements significantly reduced recurring bugs and improved system stability.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project delivered several meaningful operational improvements for our business. One of the biggest outcomes was that we regained full ownership and control of our website infrastructure, source code, and cloud accounts, which significantly reduced our dependency on third-party vendors and lowered operational risk. Shinetech also helped stabilize several existing system integrations, reducing recurring synchronization issues and improving the reliability of inventory and pricing updates. In addition, the migration resulted in a noticeable reduction in our ongoing infrastructure and maintenance costs. Before working with Shinetech, our monthly hosting-related expenses with the previous vendor were typically several hundred NZD per month. After the migration to our own AWS environment, those costs were reduced to approximately around 100 NZD per month. During an unexpected outage situation, Shinetech also responded quickly and successfully restored website operations within a short timeframe, which helped minimize disruption to our business.

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

Shinetech managed the project efficiently and responded quickly whenever urgent support was needed. During a critical outage situation caused during the migration process, their team reacted immediately and completed the emergency transition work within a few hours, which helped minimize business disruption. Communication was clear throughout the process, and they were flexible in responding to changing requirements and support requests.

What was your primary form of communication with Shinetech Software Inc.?

Virtual Meeting

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

What impressed us most was their responsiveness and their practical, business-oriented approach. Instead of simply maintaining the existing setup, they proactively recommended a better infrastructure ownership model that gave us more control, lower operating costs, and reduced dependency on third parties. Their support during the emergency migration situation was especially valuable.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Shinetech Software Inc. could have done differently?

So far, we have been satisfied with the collaboration and support provided by Shinetech.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a company specializing in imports and exports. We have three offices, including our headquarters, that are based in the UK, and one office in Germany. We also have an office in China.

There are three main parts to our business. The first is imports/exports and logistical operations. The second is personalized manufacture, where we take orders from clients and make them in the factory. Then, the third part is the UK export to China. We also do cross-border e-commerce.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Shinetech Europe?

The project was complex, and we didn’t think we were capable of doing this level of work, even with my extensive experience with similar development. We wouldn’t be able to manage the dynamics of that kind of team, which is why we decided to outsource the work.

Importing and exporting are both daunting processes. There are many documentation requests, including those from stocking and finding products, to exporting them and make declarations. There’s are entire set of money flow, information flow, and physical goods flow. We have to align these three processes, which is what complicates our business logic.

Software development requirements are also constantly changing, so what works in the beginning of the month, may not be feasible by the end. This leads to a whole spectrum of issues, and although any software development company will face this problem, it was especially bad for us in conjunction with our business logic.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped in the design and development of the UI and UX for multiple industry level software projects.  

What is the team dynamic?

We started out working with only one person from Shinetech, then after we added more projects, we worked with anywhere from 18–26 people.

Shinetech is a large company, so it never took longer than a week to put a team together. I primarily communicated with a project manager, and also with a testing manager in order to ensure the software would perform effectively.

How did you come to work with Shinetech Europe?

We had a vendor selection manager at the time, and we were considering four different companies. Initially, we had a small project, and Shinetech offered a flexible engagement to us. We wanted to start with only one project because we weren’t sure if the relationship would work.

Shinetech later came to my office and proposed a guarantee of project execution, which offered us the comfort of knowing we had some protection. They were also an experienced as a well established company, so we decided to work with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from March 2015–June 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sometimes, I would have a project manager who was familiar with the industry, which afforded me the luxury of not having to deal with the design. Other times, I had to expel a great deal of effort to help the project manager understand what needed to be done.

Industrial software isn’t heavily focused on UI or UX design because the function of the software is what’s most important. Shinetech developed functional software and delivered great value incrementally to our business for the past 3 years. 

How did Shinetech Europe perform from a project management standpoint?

We had our own project management structure, and we let them integrate into our online process instead of allowing them to manage projects independently. We used Agile and Scrum methodologies, and they had developers who were familiar with both. We used VersionOne as our project management tool. We also had strict data control.

They are an offshore company, so there were time differences, which is a big problem. Sometimes, this only allowed for 2–3 hours during our working days when we could discuss the work. However, I’m happy with them because they offered me a good price, and I wouldn’t have been able to find an onshore team within the same budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team consists of very nice people. We’d previously worked with teams who actually used open source code without notifying us. Shinetech is quite different, and I actually ran a few independent code tests which yielded solid results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to improve their design and management teams. They are very nice people, and they offered me a fair price, but they’re not a high-end development company. However, they’re still one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Director of application development at Encore, a global event production company. We provide event technology, rigging, production, and creative services for over 350,000 events annually across 20 countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Shinetech Software Inc. to accomplish for your company?

We hired Shinetech Software Inc. for software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Shinetech Software Inc. was responsible for designing, analyzing, developing, and delivering applications.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April 2015-March 2026.

How did you come to work with Shinetech Software Inc.?

We found them through a referral. We chose them because their pricing fit our budget, they were a great culture fit, and they offered good value for the cost.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Shinetech Software Inc. has successfully developed the application, and we've seen an increase in the usage of the features.

How did Shinetech Software Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven't had any issues with delivery time. We communicate through virtual meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed by their culture and the extra effort they put into making things happen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's nothing we can come up with at this point.