TemaBit

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We provide solutions and consultancy for retail/wholesale and logistic companies. Founded in 1991, we cover CEE region with our projects. I am responsible for new business development and strategy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TemaBit?

Bespoke development of new sofware product according our overall design and definitions.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to extend our development team capacity to be able to develop and introduce new product on the market. TemaBit provided us dedicated development team to achieve this target.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

There were three other possible vendors. We chose TemaBit due to the realistic approach and the ability to involve experienced team and to increase the capacity when needed by our project timeline that lowered the risk to delaying the project delivery.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We hold on our site the consultancy activities with the product definition, translation of business needs, functionality requirements, rules definition and final testing. Temabit was responsible of all technical related tasks including technical architecture and design, screen design, development, performance and unit/functional testing.

They provided high level skilled technical Solution Architect with the understanding of the retail specifics related with high-volume data processing. We combined phase-based delivery with agile approach for wide and effective communiation and close contact inside the common team.

What was the team composition?

The project team size varied during the project phases. Temabit was capable to add additional resources, developers and testers when it was crucial to meet the delivery. On our side the team was quite small covering 3 consultants, solution architect and project manager. Technical solution architect was delivered by TemaBit.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our solution was developed in the period when it was needed and we were able to satisfy our first client. Without TemaBit we would need to re-prioritise other our activities that could postpone their expected revenues or even loose some business opportunities.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management ran properly. We were informed about anomalies in advance having the chance to apply any corrective actions or rescheduling other tasks. We used remote communication tools - skype, share documentation and tasks on our JIRA/Confluence and source code was managed on BitBucket.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Technical skills, resource flexibility, quick adoption of our needs, and proactivity were all great. single point of contact and direct access to managerial level, progress by automated regression testing.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Always there is something to improve like plan and involve the automated testing in earlier project stages, moving issue register from Confluence to JIRA Service Desk, better classification of issues from testing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm was R&D (StrongPoint) manager was leading the s/w & h/w development for grocery lockers. Click & Collect Grocery locker offers convenient, fast and reliable online grocery shopping for your customers. With the refrigerated Click & Collect lockers your customers are offered more flexible pick-up slots, quicker pick-ups (no standing in line) and convenient pick-up locations. The lockers are a real time saver for today’s busy families and improve the retailer’s margins – a real win-win for all. Furthermore, in today’s society where the request for contactless deliveries are growing, both due to convenience and out of necessity, solutions that offers easy, safe and convenient transition of goods without human interaction provides a competitive edge to any retailer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TemaBit?

S/W development, testing. Scope of the work: Food lockers management software solution development. • We developed all functionality, UI, services and API • Terminal application • Win10, .NET framework 4.6.2 • UI: WPF 5.0 with Prism 6.1 framework • Steering controller service • .NET framework 4.6.2 • Persistence: Entity Framework 6.1 on Microsoft SQL Express • API: REST endpoints on Nancy 1.4.3 and SignalR 2.3

What were your goals for this project?

Market was demanding the mentioned solution, customers ordering a lot of customization, so, speed go to market and quick reaction for reasonable money were one of key goal to cooperate with TemaBit.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We already had good experience and even in parallel were working on other projects. Also TemaBit have big pool of resources with different skills, technologies and experience which quickly can be added to the development team, so, option to choose what You need, experience and possibility to start projects quickly were the key criteria. Also, reasonable and very competitive price.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

S/W development, testing. Scope of the work: Food lockers management software solution development. • We developed all functionality, UI, services and API • Terminal application • Win10, .NET framework 4.6.2 • UI: WPF 5.0 with Prism 6.1 framework • Steering controller service • .NET framework 4.6.2 • Persistence: Entity Framework 6.1 on Microsoft SQL Express • API: REST endpoints on Nancy 1.4.3 and SignalR 2.3

What was the team composition?

Team were about 5-6 people including senior, junior developers, architect, testers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As result we had all promises to customers fulfilled and delivered in time. As good references form those customers we opened new markets (other countries) and started to sell grocery click&collect lockers not only in Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, but in Norway, Italy and Spain. For the company it were cheaper than hire own developers and easy and quick development team adjustment in terms of expertise were needed.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was done by our project manager/scrum master. We were using GitHUB, testrail, Redmine. Skype.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

As we were doing solutions for retail, Temabit is the company related to big retail chain and they do a lot of s/w development for themselves incl. POS, SelfCheckouts, BO, HQ, warehouse, PC based scales and etc., so, additionally we got extra experience in retail and good support in solution architecture. Also, readiness to start project immediately. I was impressed that they had a big pool of different levels of specialists and expertise.

Are there any areas for improvement?

probably price? I saw other companies in this market, but those were not so prepared for international cooperation. Usually it was lack of foreign languages. With TemaBit we haven't such problems.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Fozzy Group is one of the biggest business groups in Ukraine. We’re mainly active in the retail industry with supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, and mobile phone shops. I’m the head of digital transformation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with TemaBit?

We had a number of challenges related to digital transformation. Our loyalty programs in our retail networks were mostly paper-based. That was the primary activity in our digital transformation. With the help of TemaBit, we designed mobile applications for two major retail networks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

TemaBit provided development based on our requirements. First of all, we wanted to give easy access to the loyalty program for both existing and new members. We wanted the applications to support all the features we had, including bonus points, discounts, coupons, and personalized special offers.

They would feature all our sales promos, product searching, bar code scanning, and checking the availability of goods in specific stores and their pricing. Users would have purchase histories, including details for each check. It was quite a comprehensive exercise, and they did it well.

It was native development with Swift for iOS and Java for Android. The backend of the mobile app utilizes RabbitMQ middleware. The whole development was based on continuous integration. This is something I learned with them.

What is the team composition?

For the major retail application, we had three iOS, three Android, and two backend developers. We also had one designer, two QA specialists that tested everything, a part-time architect, and some other part-time resources for integration with different systems.

How did you come to work with TemaBit?

TemaBit is a part of our business group. Before them, we’d tried to build a mobile application using an external company, and it was a complete failure. TemaBit’s services aren’t free of charge. The businesses within the group have commercial relationships, so we’ve paid them for the development of this application.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with TemaBit in January 2018, and we had a working prototype around May 2018. We had internal testing until July. After that, we launched it to the app stores and started promoting it in August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We successfully launched the products. One of those already has more than one million unique users—300,000 new loyalty program members and 700,000 members who migrated from the paper form. We’ve had a lot of good business impact from cost savings in printing and sending coupons.

Secondly, we have much better personalization now. We’ve moved from the household level to the personal level. Thirdly, because we’re now able to generate special offers anytime—and not once per quarter, as we were doing before—there’s been a very good impact on our financials. People are using the offers, increasing their spending, and giving us more money.

How did TemaBit perform from a project management standpoint?

They had a professional approach. The development was done using agile scrum methodology. It was a very flexible and fast approach. We had a part-time project manager from TemaBit, who helped us with some cross-functional and resource-related tasks. The rest ran under scrum with two-week sprints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very emotional and don’t approach the work like robots. They’re good people, they really like what they do, and they put a part of themselves in the product. That was really nice, and it doesn’t happen often. They have a very good culture and motivation in the company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think we’ll get a much better understanding of the whole process in the future. After the first application, we launched another one for another retailer. That was much faster and easier as it relied on existing technologies and blocks of code. It was important that we got to know each other, as we had a newly-formed team for the first project, so it took some time to get everybody together and start working as a good team.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I think you should have an interesting, challenging project. This is what drives these guys. That will motivate them, and they’ll do amazing things.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of retail for Bizerba. Our company provides solutions for everything from farm-to-fork-related to pre-packaged products; this includes labeling, weighing, inspections, scales, etc. We have subsidiaries in other countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with TemaBit?

We needed to develop software that’d increase capabilities for our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

TemaBit developed a module for us. They handled all the stages of work, starting with an operating system. This operating system included functions for security, compatibility, and more. Their team created system management software as well as handled frontend retail development. They assisted in the transition from the old software to the newly developed one.

What is the team composition?

I had direct communication with the project managers as well as business management and system architects. There were different teams formed based on different aspects of the project including operating systems and application.

How did you come to work with TemaBit?

When my former software was unable to do what it needed to, I started looking for help to address the challenges I faced.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $200,000–$999,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in June 2013, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In regards to the retail industry, TemaBit’s quality is very good.

How did TemaBit perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is one of their strong suits. TemaBit uses an agile approach and is very pragmatic. They’re self-motivated and self-dynamic toward improvement. When presented with a task, they look for ways to improve on it rather than just getting it done. We use Jira and Trello to communicate and track project status.

What did you find most impressive about them?

TemaBit has a great deal of intrinsic know-how within their industry. Their speed, dynamics, and innovative mindset are hallmarks of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve on modern project management procedures, specifically in KPI and overall reporting.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Depending on the scope of your project, I’d advise working with them. For a long-term project, I suggest having a sponsor inside their company for direct relationship purposes. Sometimes you have to be careful and watchful that they don’t become too pragmatic.

Ensure there’s communication on both sides. Sometimes certain people want to prove their skill and in so doing, they do things you don’t necessarily want. Make sure to have a good project manager to stay on top of the processes.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Integrator and solutions provider for Payment Card Industry and Retail. I am the CEO for Cedar Silicon.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TemaBit?

We hired TemaBit for app development for iOS and Android handheld devices.

What were your goals for this project?

We had an objective to develop an in-store application for price checking and shelf replenishment.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have known the CEO of this company and was familiar with their extensive experience in the retail industry. I checked their previous works, interviewed the team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

TemaBit helped me with my technical task, worked with me on the workflow scenario. Developed applications, tested it, provided full project management.

What was the team composition?

business task workflow manager->project manager->senior developers-> testers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We always seek to provide our customers with a full range of solutions. Software products are the core of any solution. They helped us to build mobility solutions.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I don’t remember the arrangement exactly but usually we had a call once a week. It was effective mainly because the PMs were easy to reach even outside the scheduled calls.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their experience, work ethic, and the most important - the price to quality ratio were impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can’t recall any.