unicrew

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a consulting company, and a relatively recent startup because I sold my previous company two years ago. I am the founder and CEO [Chief Executive Officer].

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Artelogic?

My work with Artelogic involved constructing the initial and present website for us, AdmanManagementPartners.com.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We used WordPress. I wanted to be in control, so I used a local designer for the look and the feel of the site. What Artelogic asked of me was three Photoshop pages of what I wanted for the front page and a couple of different back pages. Then, they constructed the site. Obviously, there were ongoing iterations we progressed through. The actual look in terms of colors, etc. was not done by Artelogic. I interfaced almost totally with Vuhar Mamedov, the CEO.

How did you come to work with Artelogic?

I have worked with outsourced companies mainly in India, but also in Ukraine. I was more impressed with Ukraine, so I looked there. I do travel to Ukraine anyway for personal reasons. I recognized that they tend to have a good understanding of the technology, and also a good understanding of the business goals, certainly more than my experience of working with Indian companies who I thought were good engineers but didn’t really have a holistic view of what we were trying to achieve.

How much have you invested with Artelogic?

A ballpark figure, $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Artelogic around August of last year. The site went live around about October 2015. I continue working with them on the site for tweaking and any formatting issues. I would certainly use them going forward with other sites that we have in mind.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We’ve had a lot of compliments on the site, claiming that it’s clean, easy to navigate, and responsive. We’re not trying to do anything complicated; it’s not a transactional site, so there’s limits to what one would expect. I’m a great believer in keeping it simple. In terms of business sites, people want them clean, fast, and want to find information easily. That’s what we focused on.

How did Artelogic perform from a project management standpoint?

Very good. They took the minimum amount of time. Outsourcing can have its issues, especially communication issues from my previous experience, but I would say it has been very easy with Artelogic. Their English is good. Their understanding of commercial goals and the aesthetics was good. I’ve very rarely had to explain something to them twice.

What did you find most impressive about Artelogic?

I think it is the communication and making sure they understand the objectives. They will give feedback, which is something that not always fits with cultures, given my experience with outsourcing. When I was trying to do something that was perhaps not the best solution, rather than just implement it anyway, they would say, “Well, are you sure you want to do this? We think this might work better.” I took that feedback and decided to go with their solutions. It’s nice; it feels like a joint project much more than just commissioning somebody to do what you’ve told them to do.

Are there any areas Artelogic could improve?

At this point, no. It was a relatively clean, simple website; a vanilla project. I do have something much more complicated down the pipeline, and I certainly intend to use them for it. This is very much our trial to see how the relationship works. I’ve been impressed. Communication is always the key issue when you’re doing stuff long distance, and if that works well, then it’s just like working with a local team of developers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a director of a company dealing mostly on UI/UX [user interface/user experience]. We do a lot of design for the financial industry, and some of it ad based. A lot of it is interfaces for banks or banking systems and things like that. Also, we do a bit of work for real estate. Basically, we've always been doing UI/UX design for the most part. We often sought and worked with development partners, and that's where Artelogic comes in. We have a relationship with them whereby they handle a lot of the departments, particularly when I’m overwhelmed with the work our own staff might have.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Artelogic?

To begin with, I really was just going out of house because I didn't have the capacity in-house for a job. It was really quite simple. I think it was for WordPress based work and they were very good. Really things sort of developed from there. I had reached out to one of the principals there who was working freelance at the time, since Artelogic was still in its infancy. I think I've been working with him now for about four or five years. Over time, they have grown and they've been able to suit us a lot more with the sort of work that needed to be done.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The work is becoming more intense and it’s taking a lot longer. One project, for example, has been ongoing for a year. A new one that I started with them, probably about three months ago, will go on for years I imagine.

How did you come to work with Artelogic?

I believe it was through an online freelancer platform; oDesk actually, which has now become upWork. The guy, Alex, who I guess is one of the principals, came up as being extremely highly recommended. I think he was five stars all the way. As you well know, it's not just about their skills. It's the ability to provide exceptional service and fast turnaround. He checked all the boxes. We started a relationship from there.

How much have you invested with Artelogic?

By now, it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, I suppose, not millions. We started out very small, but they've taken on a couple of rather large jobs for us which would be sitting close to $100,000 each.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I guess the best metric is to say the work that I've done with them has always led to repeat business. The clients which we have are continuing to work with us on an ongoing basis. It's not like our project starts and stops and we move on. There's a few like that. Our larger projects are continuous. Clients are continually investing in them. I'm absolutely happy with the outcome and the quality of the work that's being done.

How did Artelogic perform from a project management standpoint?

As they've grown, they've gotten better and better at that. They've always been very good at keeping me in the loop of what's going on. Now, I have a project manager who's pretty much dedicated to the work that we're doing. I have a relationship with her on a daily basis. It works out exceptionally well. She's very good in terms of keeping me abreast of where things are at on a weekly basis. We have reports and I fully understand where the hours are going, where the risks could be, and if the milestones are on track or not.

We're doing a lot of PHP type stuff. We've done animation work, too, which I think went well from that [project management] perspective. They did it extremely well. The latest job is basically .NET. [Historically,] I've had quite a few touch points with a number of their staff. Now, I'm just dealing through the project manager rather than with their quality assurance specialists and all of that sort of stuff. Generally, it's a better way of working.

Was that .NET work more on the enterprise application side?

Yeah, it's a really technical development. The project requires being able to sift through data from sensors that are through a whole lot of farm type devices, and be able to create dashboards, and visualize what's coming in, and create alerts, which are both visual and also like SMS. It's really technical and these guys have done really well, actually, with getting up to speed quickly with us and being able to put solutions in place that are solid and are working.

What did you find most impressive about Artelogic?

Really using their initiative is something that I appreciate. Again, this is coming back to the project manager who is basically starting to really come back with a lot of thoughts on, "Hey, I think this could be done better. What about instead of going down this path, why don't we look at this?"

I'm quite used to developers, in particular, not necessarily having a lot of initiative. People are just like, "Here's the framework. Here's what we've got to do." They just do it. Often there are a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications coming in. I think what's setting these guys apart is that they really are getting involved and seeing the project as something that's important to them and looking at new ways to solve problems and putting us forward. You never want to leave people that do that sort of stuff.

Are there any areas Artelogic could improve?

I honestly cannot think of anything. We've obviously had bumps. We've had challenges as we've moved through, but they are absolutely dedicated to solving those problems and making sure they don't repeat. They are constantly improving the way we work together. They have a real keenness to be the best I guess. They are always saying, "How do we sort this out? How do we fix these issues so that they don't happen again?"

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated on June 6, 2018 by the client. New content is below.

How has the scope of their involvement expanded in the past two years?

Over the course of our engagement, have built different microsites, as well as sites that they have built on PHP, EDM creation and all sorts of ongoing projects for the same client.

Has the team composition changed?

I’ve worked with two different project managers. They assign us different teams whenever we have multiple concurrent projects. I’ve met some of their newer hires and am still working with teammates who’ve been there from the start.

Artelogic seems to have a strong retention rate. We haven’t had to constantly bring new resources up to speed on our projects. Having a long-term ongoing relationship with the same employees is just one the things I’ve really enjoyed about working with them.

How much have you invested with Artelogic in total at this point?

We’ve spent about another $200,000 over the last two years.

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

We’ve gained continuous value from working together in the long-term rather than switching to a different team. I can see our work flowing more seamlessly together as we build trust and realize the extent of our capacity as partners. Lately, Artelogic has started using some of our UI services, as well. We have a nice relationship going, and they always confirm that our work method is effective.

For example, our .NET project is for a startup client who just received a significant investment. Millions of dollars came into this project as we were working through it. Although this wasn’t just our doing, our in-depth involvement in developing their platform gave this client the time to solicit substantial investors. In fact, they’re still raising more capital right now.

How did Artelogic perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re in constant contact. Last year in Hong Kong, we actually got to meet up a couple of the owners and face to face. They’re based in Ukraine and we’re in Singapore. Our three core communication methods are through email, Skype, and Google Hangouts. We’ve also used Basecamp, Jira, and their own software extensively.

They’re a youthful team. Two of the project managers just graduated when they first began working with us. Clearly, they’re strongly supported and well-trained based on their problem-solving skills and best-practice methods. The team is dedicated to finding new ways to improve productivity and find a smoother workflow. Working with Artelogic feels more and more comfortable as we go along, almost like breaking in a good pair of shoes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Commitment, dedication, and talent are their greatest strengths. The team definitely puts the client’s requirements and needs first and foremost. They really care, and I always get the impression our work together is more than just a job for them. We speak regularly outside of their working hours. Artelogic has the depth of talent to deliver extremely good service for any client request.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We work in dual roles within our partnership to consistently improve our working relationship.

Do you have any new advice for potential customers?

Staying on top of the project and prioritizing communication are both keys to success. Artelogic’s brilliant project managers take a lot of work off my shoulders, but it’s critical to stay in touch and be kept up to date. Holding regular Skype calls will help ensure that is everything is working. While the team speaks strong English, confirm that they understand your explanations since it’s not their native language.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Managing Director of quattro research GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We develop data solutions for pharmaceutical R&D data management and analysis

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Artelogic to accomplish?

• UI implementation using React to support the internal backend team

SOLUTION

How did you find Artelogic?

Online Search

Why did you select Artelogic over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Artelogic were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Implementation of a REACT based UI for the management of large chemical molecules.
• Configurable framework to display scientific information in grids and forms
• Authentication and authorization based on OAuth and JWT
• Visualization services for large molecules

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All project milestones were met in time and budget

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

All resources were available as promised. All work packages are delivered on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Artelogic?

Virtual Meeting

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

• Very high quality of the developers assigned to our project
• Very good communication skills, no language barrier
• Availability and reliabilty of the developers

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

There aren't any areas improvement is needed

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Development of GIATA GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

IT partner for hotel content and distribution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Artelogic to accomplish?

• Extend capacities in software development

SOLUTION

How did you find Artelogic?

• Referral

Why did you select Artelogic over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Artelogic were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Artelogic help us leveraging projects that exceed inhouse development capacities but are demanded by internal and external stakeholders and customers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Shippable and well received web GUI for previously API only application.

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

• The whole team is highly dedicated to the success of the project and delivers the planned artefacts on time.
• Great understanding of domain specific requirements.
• Very good reaction times and feedback even short-term requests.

What was your primary form of communication with Artelogic?

• Virtual Meeting

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

• Great team spirit
• very supportive
• good sense of humor

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

We are very happy to have chosen Artelogic. Their process of communicating with us as a customer includes regular retrospective meetings to discuss possible improvements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO and Lead Architect of Logic Screen Solutions

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

As the leader in specialized automotive aftermarket software solutions we strive for best-in class digitalization of business and market processes by collaborating closely with our business partners.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Artelogic to accomplish?

• Expanding our team on demand
• Complementing our skillset

SOLUTION

How did you find Artelogic?

Direct contact

Why did you select Artelogic over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Artelogic were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Developing a project database for a customer, including:

• Automatic project import using dynamic Excel templates (position of data in Excel changes)
• Make uploaded documents fully searchable using Elasticsearch
• Multi-party role system

Backend:

• ASPNET.Core
• nHibernate
• MSSQL

Frontend:

• Vue.js
• Typescript

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• High code quality
• Great flexibility / adjustments always delivered
• Customer is very satisfied with the current development and progress

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

• Weekly sprints
• Tight schedule always matched
• Additional ideas and alternative pathways always brought to the table for discussion
• Very flexible and always somebody at hand when additional skills are required

What was your primary form of communication with Artelogic?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They always seem to have a suitable developer on standby when we require an additional skillset and they always respond very quickly and help to work out a solution if e.g. the project requirements are suddenly changing.

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

Not until now

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive at Interone GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We offer digital services around experience, creativity and technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Artelogic to accomplish?

• Provide successful members of a Scrum team

SOLUTION

How did you find Artelogic?

inbound mail from Artelogic

Why did you select Artelogic over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Artelogic were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Java and JavaScript code.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Meeting our deadlines as well as achieving the story points committed to the (end-)client

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

They had no own project management, but their team members were fully integrated into our scum team.

What was your primary form of communication with Artelogic?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

great technologist, dedication and resilience during moments of crisis (russian invasion)

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

no, we were very happy with the contribution and work of Artelogic

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Goldn GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Goldn builds a platform for streamlining the process of creating formulation based products as cosmetics, personal care products, etc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Artelogic to accomplish?

• Extend the existing frontend development team
• Extend the existing backend development team

SOLUTION

How did you find Artelogic?

Referral, Other

Why did you select Artelogic over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

What was the size of Artelogic’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Work as integral part of our internal development teams. Refine stories, define solution architecture, implement and test. Document and share knowledge.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Number of stories/epics implemented and deployed into production

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

Single point of contact. Very clear in communications and finding solutions as a team. Flexible when requirements changed.

What was your primary form of communication with Artelogic?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

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

They deliver in a highly professional way while being in a volatile and insecure situation.

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

While pre-screening and selection of project members was overall good, a more thorough evaluation of motivation of candidates would have made the experience even better.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Global On Media is an internet company with several online assets. I'm the company COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Artelogic, and what were your goals?

Transforming legacy code and infrastructure to new technology.

SOLUTION

How did you select Artelogic and what were the deciding factors?

Complete re-write and implementation in .NET core.

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

Complete re-write and migration of both servers and code using the most advanced technology including .NET core, React, and Stencil.js.

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

Five people in total, CTO, project manager, and three full stack developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Site was migrated and re-written, the new system is much more stable, and performance highly improved.

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

Communication tools are Slack, Git, Jira, working in sprints, and managed by the project manager.

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

Excellent technological level. highly responsive and communicative. They are highly committed to the project and business goals.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a CTO at digital advertising agency comany

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Artelogic?

We hired Artelogic to develop module that will be used in our internal systems.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of the project from our side was to outsource part of the work we had at this time.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We've interviewed couple of companies from Linkedin.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

I can't provide too many details but the general idea was to develop smart crawler the will be able to classify any website by different parameters.

What was the team composition?

The team was two developers and project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The module was integrated in our systems and almost doesn't requires any maintenance till now.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project was managed in Jira in very effective way.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive part of this company is people. It was a great pleasure to communicate with every person in this company.

Are there any areas for improvement?

All was perfect

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a biometric company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Artelogic?

We need help expediting the development of the platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to enhance the performance of the platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We assessed their ability to perform and found it to be satisfactory.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

We scoped out the workflow for the platform. Using this foundation, Artelogic's executing our requirements and developing the platform.

What was the team composition?

The team is made up of a mix of developers and project managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Artelogic executed flawlessly according to our plan thus far.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our project management is very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their work ethic is impressive.