Unimedia Technology

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Message My Customer, a startup based in Ireland. We provide communication services to small and medium enterprises over an omnichannel messaging platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Unimedia Technology?

When we started, we were looking to put together a software development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unimedia Technology is our primary development resource. Our engagement isn’t project-based; we have a dedicated team. Kubernetes and Go development are the two key resources for backend development. Unimedia Technology also uses Angular on the frontend and is involved in DevOps and testing.

I interviewed the resources before they were hired. Once we built out the core leadership within the team, we pretty much handed the reins over to them. However, we keep a gatekeeper role in the hiring of any individual.

What is the team composition?

We have a core team that is 100% dedicated to us. The team has grown to a size that we’re happy with. On top of that, we also get some elastic resources when we require them.

How did you come to work with Unimedia Technology?

We found them by searching online. Even though we didn’t intend to do our development out of Ireland, we looked at several locations, ranging from Eastern Europe, Spain, South America, and the Balkans. At the end of the process, we shortlisted various companies and spoke with them; one was Unimedia Technology. In the end, we settled on them for many reasons, including Jaume (CEO) and their location and time zone relationship with us. Unimedia Technology was located in Spain, and we felt their size relative to our size would be a good fit.

How much have you invested in them?

On average, we’ve spent between €40,000–€45,000 (approximately $44,000–$50,000 USD) a month with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2022, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re still our partners, so things have been going well. We’ve had some ups and downs, but the team was built effectively for us, so we knew from the get-go that there was a possibility that certain team members would be unknown to Unimedia Technology before we took them on.

Moreover, it’s been an engaging process and an open, healthy relationship. Unimedia Technology isn’t slow to tell us when they need more from us, and we can do the same thing. When there have been problems with the team, Unimedia Technology has been quick to facilitate new resources.

How did Unimedia Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re engaged with Unimedia Technology for the full agile lifecycle. We regularly communicate with Jaume and the leadership team and have a weekly status update call with the development team. I also attend the daily stand-ups with the team and have daily contact with them.

We communicate via Google Meet, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their openness is outstanding. Trust has never been an issue with Unimedia Technology in the slightest. They had difficulty finding developers for us in the beginning, but we were able to have a frank discussion when things were tricky. Due to these discussions and meetings, there’s a high degree of trust from our side. 

Moreover, we view Unimedia Technology as our development partner rather than a company providing development resources. Effectively, due to how the development team is built, we could say that we have an ongoing contract with no conclusion date with them. Even though the teammates are hired through Unimedia Technology, we view them as our development team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d tell Unimedia Technology to keep doing what they’re doing. I’m comfortable saying that there’s nothing to improve. Whenever we’ve had issues with the development resources, we’ve dealt with them and moved on. Moreover, the company's size works in our favor, so they’re the right fit for us. All in all, they provide us what we need in the way we need it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Establish a relationship with them and keep them engaged. We’ve chosen to engage them as a long-term trusted partner, and that model has worked very well for us. We’ve experienced different outsourcing models and are significantly more comfortable with this one.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Milbotix, a company based in the UK. We’re creating a product that uses smart socks to detect signs of distress in a person with dementia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Unimedia Technology?

We needed help with developing the software system around our smart socks. The socks are the hardware piece of our technology, but we needed an application that could interface with the hardware so that customers could use our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unimedia Technology developed the app we needed for our smart socks. Before they joined, one of our interns developed some wireframes. Thus, we initially provided Unimedia Technology with those wireframes for them to create the app.

This app has three different components to it that Unimedia Technology worked on. Firstly, they developed its backend using Raspberry Pi and Docker as the technology stack. Secondly, they built an API using ASP.NET Core. Thirdly, they developed its frontend so that the app would work both on browsers and mobile devices.

The API that Unimedia Technology built also connects to our own software, so we can use our technology through it. Moreover, the API also connects the frontend with the backend.

Our socks use machine learning to detect when someone is in distress — whether they’re in pain or anxious. Then, the app generates an alert for the caregiver to see and act upon. Through our app, the caregiver can also record observations of the person’s behavior within the care setting. For example, if the person becomes agitated, they can create a record on the app that can then be used to inform how that person will be cared for in the future. Moreover, users can download information through the app in the form of an Excel spreadsheet.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people from Unimedia Technology: Jaume (CTO & Founder), who acted as the solutions architect, and Adolfo (Senior Frontend Developer), who acted as a full stack developer. Jaume managed the entire project and identified the technologies needed.

How did you come to work with Unimedia Technology?

Someone on our team who had used them on several projects previously highly recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around €23,000 (approximately $25,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July–November 2022. However, there will be additional phases to the project, so we’ll continue working with them in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unimedia Technology did an excellent job. The person who originally developed the requirements for this project also prepared a test plan, so we tested the app against those and the user stories. We were able to cover all requirements and user stories, so we were very pleased to see that Unimedia Technology delivered the functionality detailed in the project scope.

How did Unimedia Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

Unimedia Technology’s project management was excellent. They delivered three different demos at different stages of development, so we were able to see what they were doing early on. Moreover, they were extremely helpful in supporting the integration of our software with the app’s API.

Throughout the project, Unimedia Technology set up regular meetings with us, and they also jumped on a call whenever we needed something from them. As for collaboration tools, we used Jira for project management, Slack for communication, and Xray for testing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In the early stages of the project, Unimedia Technology was very helpful in advising us regarding an appropriate architecture for our product. Although my background is in software engineering, I hadn’t been involved in the architectural side of projects until now, so having their expertise was very valuable.

Throughout the project, we were very impressed with Unimedia Technology’s communication and willingness to meet with us to discuss any changes. They were very flexible and accommodating as we were still figuring out what the product needed to do, which was very helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One of our main challenges was that Adolfo was a native Spanish speaker, not English. So our communication was somewhat difficult at times. It took us a bit longer than desired to communicate our needs and required changes.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear idea of your expected outcomes from the start, and develop the requirements as much as you can before working with them. Doing this will prevent you from challenges regarding going back and redoing things. Still, Unimedia Technology is very accommodating in those circumstances.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of Know What's Loved, a data analytics company that provides data services and SaaS tools for the music and entertainment industries. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Unimedia Technology?

An offshore company was developing our UI, and we found that we weren't getting the quality and speed we wanted for the team. We engaged Unimedia Technology to take over and transition that development work away from the existing team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unimedia Technology has taken over all of our UI development. Initially, they spent a couple of months re-engineering all client frameworks. Now, they're integrated into our development, design, and QA processes. Their responsibilities include building all the user fronts and the UI across our product set. Although another team does most of the design work, Unimedia Technology contributes significantly to the UX design.

We haven't provided much documentation; instead, the team works closely with our CTO and me. They work on a SaaS responsive web application and a SaaS mobile application. Both apps are used primarily by music industry professionals. Unimedia Technology works with Angular, interfacing with our native APIs on the frontend while everything is on AWS.

What is the team composition?

We work with two senior developers and two entry-level developers, and Jaume (CEO) oversees the process. Additionally, we've worked with two QA engineers. 

How did you come to work with Unimedia Technology?

A friend who had worked with Unimedia Technology recommended Jaume and the team. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around €25,000 (approximately $26,000 USD) a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unimedia Technology is fast and delivers solid work. They're very responsive and flexible, often going beyond the scope of work. 

Before we engaged them, we had problems rolling out new features; whenever we changed the UI, it would break other parts of the interface, which was a nightmare. Now, we can roll out new features almost instantly. The team's work has enabled us to deploy significant changes to the UI within a day, which has made a huge difference in our ability to react to customer feedback and rapidly enact enhancements and fixes. Overall, working with Unimedia Technology is like having another internal team — it's seamless. 

How did Unimedia Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

They're probably more disciplined than we are, and since they've integrated with us, the team has helped us become more disciplined. Unimedia Technology has implemented more robust automated testing and test frameworks, helping us build more rigor into our development processes.

We use Confluence and Jira for project management, and most of our internal communication is via Slack. The team has set up our environment so that things get automatically pulled from Jira into Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm impressed with Unimedia Technology's ability to understand the technical aspects of music metadata. They've been able to get up to speed and take over the development, moving it beyond where it was initially. 

We appreciate that Jaume has a lot of experience working with other music business services because that domain knowledge has been really useful for us. He's also a really solid engineer, and he hires good people. We don't have to worry about the hiring because we know he'll find the people we need. We've had no complaints about the quality of the developers Unimedia Technology brings into a project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they've been supportive of us as an organization; I'm really happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Even with limited documentation, you can tell Unimedia Technology what you need. They'll feel in the blanks and get that done. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Chief Operating Officer of Zellar, a company that produces software for sustainability companies, and a complete sustainability solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 
 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Unimedia Technology?

When I joined the company, the development team had been trying to develop a product solution for about two years but faced setbacks in developing a releasable product. The company needed to get to a product in nine months, and I felt that the development team needed external assistance. I chose to bring in Unimedia Technology, a very experienced development team, to meet our objective.
 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unimedia Technology offered a complete development environment, beginning by taking input from the owner of the company and myself directly on the proposition that we needed to implement. Once this discovery phase was complete, they took the information and then did everything required to create a product. It was a complete end-to-end process.

We did have our own UI designer and some levels of project management as well, but the Unimedia Technology team did a fair amount of the project management.

What is the team composition?

Around eight people, on average, worked with us.

How did you come to work with Unimedia Technology?

I have a history of very successful project development with Unimedia Technology and its staff. I've worked with Unimedia Technology, and with Jaume (Founder & Chief Technology Officer), for 25 years on various different projects with many different companies. In fact, I employed Jaume more than 20 years ago for a project building a home infrastructure platform for digital music that was deployed into the products of many major companies.

How much have you invested with them?

The average cost was around £300 (approximately $400 USD) a day per person, so the total cost was between £200,000-£300,000 (approximately $275,000-$412,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We brought on Unimedia Technology full-time in January of 2021, ramped up their involvement during February, and then they became a full team replacing the existing team from March moving forward.
 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unimedia Technology has taken the project from ground zero, designed and developed it, and brought it to market. The product only recently went to market, so we can't talk about sales numbers yet — we are getting customers on board, but it's small numbers at this early stage.
 
How did Unimedia Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

Unimedia Technology performed exceptionally well. They communicated with the scrum master or with the project manager every morning, which was a very effective process.

We used Jira and Confluence to manage the delivery progress of two-week sprints. I was involved in every approval and sign-off of every sprint process because we were running so quickly.

Unimedia Technology communicated extremely effectively and went above and beyond. On a weekly basis, they presented us with information about implementing QA infrastructures and management processes so we could manage and track it all. 

In terms of delivery of the project, we delivered exactly on the schedule that I was committed to nine months ago. We built the whole product and got it out to market as the company needed it to be deployed.
 
What did you find most impressive about them?

Their clarity of what we were trying to deliver was very impressive. When I talked to them about what we wanted, they made sure that they completely understood what I was asking them to do.

If there were any ambiguities in the discussion about the deliverables of what they were expected to produce, they had that discussion upfront and made sure that they properly understood everything — then they developed it completely to specifications.
 
Are there any areas they could improve?

To be honest, I'm struggling to find anything they could improve. There are things that I would have liked to do more of, but we were short on time and resources.
 
Any advice for potential customers?

Work with them closely from a very senior level. Give them clear instructions on what to do and involve them in the project from a company perspective. I have a weekly meeting with everybody in the company, and I explain what we're doing, what we're trying to achieve, where we're going, and what each team is doing, so the whole company is fully aware of everything that we're trying to do.
 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an Out of Home Specialist an advice advertisers in the best possible (D)OOH campaigns. Tooling and data are crucial in our opinion to deliver the best performance for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to develop a system that allows our customers to visualise the performance of their advertising campaigns in real time.

SOLUTION

How did you select Unimedia Technology and what were the deciding factors?

They were highly recommended to us by a mutual contact, who had been impressed when working with them in another advertising related project. When we first met with Jaume, the CEO, his talent and technical skills were obvious.

He could immediately understand and help define our needs and they have since taken it from there. The whole process has been very easy.

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

Unimedia handled the full architectural requirements of this project from design through to implementation. They began by creating a client library to capture the events. They then developed a full back end in AWS that could not only process thousands of play events per second, but process and save them without data loss, and was even capable of scaling quickly with the traffic.

They also built a Kibana dashboard for MVP and eventually a nifty Angular-based dashboard for the end users to visualise in real time their campaigns.

How many people from the Unimedia Technology team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A Project Manager, an AWS Solutions Architect, a BackEnd developer for AWS and ElasticSearch integrations, as well as an Angular Developer for the Dashboarding work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Unimedia Technology team developed in a very short time an MVP to fulfil the basic functionality we wanted for our customer. This, in turn, has given us the time and opportunity to improve the product with customer feedback. In fact, the team has recently delivered a fully functional web-based dashboard that beautifully displays all the stats we need for our customers to monitor their campaigns in realtime.

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

They were professional and efficient so it has been a smooth journey to date.

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

Their commitment inspired a lot of trusts, which is important in the collaboration. They felt like a part of our team rather than just a supplier, and that really took the working relationship up a level.

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

None that I can think of at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chief Operating Office of an independent company of creators building global payment pipelines to increase royalty flow, working with select partners ensuring this critical problem is solved end-to-end forever.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Stage won an enterprise sized project in the music industry space and we needed to rapidly scale our Front End development capacity so we approached Unimedia Technology which had an experienced Angular development team.

SOLUTION

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

We worked with the Founder, Jaume, in our previous company prior to its acquisition.

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

Unimedia Technology involved in the analysis, team leading and development parts of the front end system of the project. Their engineers worked seamlessly with the rest of the team, including the customer, ourselves and back end engineers as a single integrated team.

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

One Project Leader and up to 6 Front End ( Angular ) developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unimedia Technology delivered the front end user stories often helping to define them and to identify missing server or wider system gaps. They helped to clarify the requirements with the customer. The system is a private admin tool so it’s not a publicly available.

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

We worked with Unimedia Technology’s team using scrum methodology via Jira and daily scrums. They are a self-starter and easy to work with, taking care and coordinating very well themselves internally and communicating efficiently with the other team members. They deliver what's required from them on time.

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

Their skills and can do attitude and willingness to help filling in any gaps and engaging with the end customer to help clarify the requirements. They made sure they delivered all the tasks assigned to them within the sprints.

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