Thinkport GmbH

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a product manager in a big international agricultural company. We use human ingenuity to pursue products, services, and ideas that can shape the future of agriculture.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Thinkport GmbH?

We face the issue, that within R&D processes we have a lot of manual data transfers and manual human-based screenings. Our aim is, to use AI algorithms in the cloud to screen new modes of action, and to find more sustainable and better-working products to serve our purpose of hunger for none.

SOLUTION

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

We are already working on another project together with Thinkport, and they proved to be experts in cloud migration and cloud development. The young but very experienced team provides excellent consulting qualities and productive meetings

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We started off with a proof of concept to verify, that our solution would be suitable for our needs. Therefore Thinkport provided a complete consulting service. Ranging from AWS-based cloud architectural infrastructure planning, CI/CD integration from external into internal cloud environments, custom development of serverless applications, database evaluation, and data mapping as well as onboarding of different stakeholders necessary for the project to ensure seamless integration of data sources to data consumers. After PoC we decided to deploy the solution and scaled it to a product we use internally and rolled it out to different entities.

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

The team consists of one cloud architect responsible for infrastructure planning tasks, 9 cloud engineers, and one project owner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We did win an award for digital leadership in 2021 together. 

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our communication and integration are really effective. We communicate in normal Scrum ceremonies, as well as Slack and Teams.

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

They're a young team with a good working culture and a spirit of providing the best cloud solutions and understanding our needs in a fast and reliable way. In the end, a good relationship is displayed in situations that are not easy to handle, and which will always occur in innovative projects. There we always stayed in one boat and found the best solutions for everyone, which is unique and builds a good and trustful relationship.

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

For me, every upside comes with downsides - so the very flexible and agile way of working, which appeals to me, also comes with the other side, that there is no waterfall planning or fixed timelines. Sometimes zooming out would nevertheless support keeping the overview - this is what we together improved for the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a co-founder and chief executive of a small startup in Frankfurt. We're working to are compile different data sources to better understand firms, especially small and medium-sized firms that do not publish any turnover figures. We're investors at heart, so we're building a tool that is allowing us to detect and find targets easier.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Thinkport GmbH?

We bring more of the business intelligence perspective and needed help with programming skills. The biggest challenge was to get clean database and a working model and algorithm. From there, we needed to deploy all that in the cloud.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They have expertise in modeling as well as developing a clean data set. Their main expertise is in cloud structure and cloud development. They are doing a good job for us in setting up the AWS cloud infrastructure plus the frontend, allowing a good connection between backend data and frontend connectivity.

What is the team composition?

In peak times, we had about four people from their team helping us out. The core team is basically one or two people.

How did you come to work with Thinkport GmbH?

They were recommended to us by an expert in the field. We liked their approach and felt that they had an entrepreneurial spirit. They're a relatively young team with a proven track record with what they are doing. Those were the reasons we considered working with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent roughly $20,000, but the project will end up costing $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It officially began in April 2020, and it is currently still ongoing. We plan on working together for a few more months, but that depends on whether they have the total skill set we require to complete the project. We are very happy to have them on board but are also evaluating options along with them on how we can expand our work with other partners.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality is definitely good. They're particularly strong in providing corporate services as opposed to developing products. We feel that there are some limitations when it comes to providing out-of-the-box solutions. The overall quality is very good, and clients seeking the use cases described will be very happy with them.

How did Thinkport GmbH perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is very good, and they're generally on time. If there is a need to move faster, they can make this happen. They use Asana, which has been great for organizing tasks. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a good mix of entrepreneurial spirit and corporate expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The people we have been working with were sometimes very junior. I think they could consider engaging more senior people. However, their juniors also did a good job. It would also be impressive to see them continue to think creatively about their current process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you brainstorm and scope the project with them to ensure that all parties are on the same page. They're experts are corporate cloud services. Even though they couldn’t support us with everything directly, they were always helpful and tried to provide links to other companies, expand on their network, and those sorts of things.