Sigma Infosolutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I run a retail online fossil sales business. I’m the owner and pretty much the entire operation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sigma Infosolutions?

We’ve done several major updates of Magento.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their most recent project was an update to the latest version of Magento. In 2016, we did some major revisions and modifications of the prior Magento site. They also modified several special catalog pages for me. In this most recent round, we didn’t do any major changes. We just made it compliant with the last version.

What is the team composition?

I have an assigned representative.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $13,000–$15,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since September 2016. Aside from projects, we have an annual maintenance project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Getting the latest version of Magento to work well in 2016 caused my website and online business to grow immensely. The look and feel and SEO capabilities of the latest Magento projects have helped a lot as well. Another vendor does my SEO, but they’ve given me a website that my SEO team can get into the top five results on the first page of Google.

How did Sigma Infosolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

During the last project, there were minimal daily updates but when we were at decision points there were multiple communications day-to-day. We did a phone call at the beginning and the end of this recent round. If anything breaks down or stops working, Sigma normally fixes it within a day.

For this latest major project, they came with a schedule and the steps of what they were going to do all laid out on a timetable. We had daily communication to talk about what transpired and whether there were any needs from them or issues that came up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their competence, timeliness, communication, and product value stand out to me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any issues at the moment. When things break it has to be all on hands on deck because there’s no revenue coming in if the site goes down. They’ve been very reactive, though, and we haven’t had a breakdown for a couple of years. And the cause is usually with my server or software and not with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Going into any project, you have to have good insights into what you want done. You also have to know what the look and feel is and have any required images and descriptions ready.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the creative director of Flashing Blinky Lights. We’re an online retailer of a variety of light-up products, including toys, home decor, and party supplies. I run the art department and the development side of the website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sigma Infosolutions?

We were looking for a developer who would be capable of handling our e-commerce development project, which was a fairly large undertaking.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our engagement originally began with our Magento 1 platform. Sigma Infosolutions would work on various optimizations, custom extensions, and modules. When we decided to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2, Sigma Infosolutions took over that project as well. 

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, a lead developer, and several other team members.

How did you come to work with Sigma Infosolutions?

I found them on UpWork. We found Sigma Infosolutions to be a very trustworthy, positive team. We were confident in their ability to handle our projects, so we decided to partner with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in April 2018 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On the development side, we definitely see a lot more productivity with them. We’ve also experienced a lot of improvements on our platform with the features they’re responsible for implementing. Overall, Sigma Infosolutions has increased both the quality of our website and our sales. We’re very happy. 

How did Sigma Infosolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m extremely happy with their project management. Sigma Infosolutions runs their own ticketing system on Jira; however, I’m in touch with their project manager to coordinate as well. We use Trello, which aligns with their system. They provide daily status updates on the ticket they receive, which is shared with our entire team.

Their lead developer has been very helpful—he’s very skilled at planning and communicating, so we have a better idea of how to budget our time. He’s in each of our calls, which we usually hold twice a week, though recently we’ve had almost daily meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their skills in project management are outstanding. We always know the status of our website. We have very little to worry about thanks to their communication and organization. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from developing more things, rather than relying on third-party resources.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have availability at night. They’re on the other side of the world, so it can be hard for our working hours to overlap, but our nightly meetings have been a tremendous help to our project. However, if you can’t make nightly meetings work, they do a fantastic job of keeping the client updated through emails and Jira.