Valtech

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Blue Badge parking scheme service owner for the Department for Transport in the UK government.

What challenge were you trying to address with Valtech?

The Blue Badge parking service was previously online for members of the UK public to apply for. It was the most complained about online service from the Department for Transport, and we needed to deliver a service that completely met the user’s needs.

The “user” means both the members of the public who need a blue badge and the 206 councils dotted around the UK (so they could administer and enforce the scheme). 

We are looking to actually improve the efficiency of UK councils and ultimately save them money and generate benefits.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They delivered it in partnership with us at the Department for Transport. There were central government standards and criteria that needed to be met, and Valtech has been key in that area.

In terms of technology and software, the service was completely developed based on user-centric design. It was also a complete service based in the cloud. We use AWS where we host all the environments associated with this service. 

The other important feature that Valtech supported was their knowledge and expertise in designing an open-source and open-code API integration. 

What is the team composition?

It changed over time, but there were about 24 people who worked on the project.

How did you come to work with Valtech?

Since we are a UK central government department, we have strict procurement and commercial guidelines to follow. We didn’t award the work to Valtech as a direct award — we had to use a framework. That framework went out to the wide market, and then it was up to third-party suppliers to actually submit the bid. 

I had the overall responsibility of choosing, but I had to ensure that we adhered to guidelines. There were four members on the evaluation panel where we scored and critiqued the responses we received from a number of suppliers. 

We did that independently and then moderated together to discuss each of the scores for every supplier that submitted a bid. Then, a selection was made, and we drilled down and progressed to the next stage of suppliers.

Bringing on Valtech was a result of us collectively agreeing to award the contract based on the quality of the bid that they submitted. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Valtech in August 2017, and we are still working with them.

The original contract with them lasted around 14 weeks, and then to align with the procurement guidelines and the government, we then went back to the market.  Valtech was successful in that tender process again. 

At the beginning of this year, the scope changed to where we needed a supplier to provide digital expertise, continued software development, and also technical support. We went back to the market, and Valtech won that contract once again.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Valtech allowed us, as a department, to deliver something of value that remained within cost. 

They have really supported the department in delivering and designing a service that is now a multi-award-winning service (which we were never looking for as a government department). The service has won awards for collaboration because we had to onboard 206 local authorities and educate them about how the online services are designed. 

We’ve been able to back that up with real facts and figures in terms of performance. Digital take-up has increased from 33% to 58%. The online completion rate of application for members of the public in the UK has increased from 31% to an average of about 70%. Processing time, where local authority or councils have to process an application, has reduced from 29 days to about 19 days. 

Also, their support with the API integration was really key in terms of onboarding a number of councils across the UK to ensure they were fully integrated with the central service that the government was offering. 

How did Valtech perform from a project management standpoint?

The Blue Badge digital service was the first digital service at the Department for Transport, so there was a lot of learning involved. Valtech helped by nurturing us as a customer. They did a lot of work to instill the culture of agile delivery within myself, and they also helped me gain needed buy-in from the ministerial level.

They were very open, very honest, and extremely transparent about what needed to be done. It was helpful that Valtech understood what our objective was as a department and worked hard to understand the blockers. The delivery team from Valtech and I worked quite hard in the early stages to identify those blockers and look at actions of how we could overcome them.

For project management, we purchased licenses with Atlassian, we used Confluence as our knowledge hub. We used Jira as our backlog management tool to move ideas, features, and improvements from a ticket into development (this worked well). Valtech was really helpful in ensuring that this software was embedded as a collaboration tool between us.

The other thing that is worth highlighting is that we use Slack as a communications tool, and we rolled out Slack to all councils in the UK. Now, we now have nearly 900 members on the Slack channel. Valtech supported the Department for Transport in administering Slack and keeping it working.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A key strength of Valtech is their ability to share knowledge and transfer skills. They worked very closely with me and my team from the department to build our knowledge and expertise in digital services. 

They were really good at engaging with other government departments as well. They also supported me when I had to look for data-sharing opportunities with other government departments. 

Describe your business and what you do there.

We are a healthcare company made up of different hospitals, a traveler assistance company, and a life and work insurance service.

What challenges were you trying to address with Valtech?

We hired them to develop three platforms—one for patient management on our website, one for digital sales, and one for our partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built platforms in .NET, C Sharp, and React.

What is the team composition?

We worked with around 15 people.

How did you come to work with Valtech? 

We started working with them through another company with whom we had developed different kinds of projects. Later on, that company was acquired by Valtech, and we continued working with them under that name.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent about 24 million Argentine pesos (about $400,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them about three years ago and continue working together.

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

Some of the platforms worked well immediately and others required some adjustments to reach the expected results. The sales and hospitals platforms have performed well from the start; however, the app for administrative attention required some extra work.

How did Valtech perform from a project management standpoint?

We had some issues with meeting deadlines, although these issues always have different causes. Some of the issues were employee rotation in Valtech and their project management skills. They are great at the technical aspect, but for project management, we had to make some changes. They have to improve their skills in that area.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The UX has improved a lot and that has given us great added value. The quality of the final product is very good.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the general manager at a flagship airline.

What challenges were you trying to address with Valtech?

We have a project for digitizing our company, so they were hired to create a new website and app for us. We also have a couple of systems that are managed by another company that we're replacing with our own, so that is something Valtech will also be helping with.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They used Java, Azure’s cloud and other trending technologies to create a website and app for us. They're also assisting in replacing and updating our systems. 

What is the team composition?

I am directly in touch with 4–5 people but they have more than 30 people working on the project.

How did you come to work with Valtech? 

Valtech was already working with the company when I arrived. They only thing I did was assign them this new project, but they were hired by the previous administration.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in February 2018 and they continue working on the project.

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

To me, this was the first time in all my years working that we established a deadline to launch a digital project and it was met. That was a great success for the company. We already launched the web and the app and have an integration project on payment and fraud prevention that is wrapping up, which is great for us. They have been meeting all deadlines and expectations.

How did Valtech perform from a project management standpoint?

They used Jira for project management, we are happy with that. I talk to them personally for follow-ups and haven’t had any issues. All of our deadlines have been met, so far. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their managers are very available and flexible. Whenever we ask them to make any adjustments, they do it eagerly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

As always, I would always like to have everything ready faster and have more people working on it, but it has still gone smoothly.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of OneAssist, a consumer services company providing insurance backed services to consumers. We assist in cases of misused bank cards, damaged mobile phones, and broken-down appliances.

For what projects/services did your company hire Valtech?

We needed help with software development, specifically to develop a chat system.

What were your goals for this project?

To implement a high-performance chat system that is extendable and scalable with our growth.

How did you select this vendor?

We’d worked with them on another assignment during which their customer focus and work was good, so we chose to partner with them again.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They studied and implemented an open-source chat system called Live Helper Chat. Our in-house team developed the consumer-facing systems, then the backend chat framework was implemented by Valtech. They provided engineering, QA and project management services.

What was the team composition?

The team was comprised of a project manager, a QA and three software engineers.

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

The main idea behind a chat system was to deliver a better consumer experience than we can over phone calls. In that aim, the chat system met its objectives as consumer feedback on chat is far better than it is on call. More widely, it’s improved the cost of our operations.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They arranged the project management and provided a very effective manager who planned things to the finest detail. The project was tracked well, and they highlighted risks throughout the lifecycle. The project manager was probably the best performer in the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

There’s not much to differentiate teams in the Indian IT services landscape as the talent pool is same. However, in case of Valtech, their management’s focus and the importance they placed on client issues really stood out.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They should improve the quality of their engineers and their coding standards.

Could you briefly describe your company?

It’s the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation. We are basically an extension of the governments Newfoundland and Labrador, so managing their retail liquor stores for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

What is your position?

I’m a project lead with the IT department.

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the projects?

Back in 2011, we initiated a project to implement a CMS. The CMS that was selected was Sitecore. We did the actual implementation of the content management solution along with a redesign of the website with a local company here in Saint John’s. It was the first time that they had ever deployed or worked with Sitecore. We wanted a company with a little more experience to take us to the next level.

Could you describe the scope of the project? For instance, did it include custom design, development, training, and support?

We actually have a Sitecore developer on staff. Nonlinear came in and not only conducted specialized trainings, they were also heavily involved in each aspect of the Sitecore implementation and rollout. There was custom visual design for the website, backend development, UI/UX testing, systems integration, and ongoing support.

How did you select nonlinear digital as your service provider?

We initially engaged nonlinear on a number of smaller and unrelated projects, which didn’t require a formal hiring process. However, by the time we were preparing for the Sitecore implementation, we did distribute several RFPs to potential solution partners. nonlinear was selected based on their preexisting relationship with us, not to mention their demonstrated expertise.

How much did this initiative cost?

Our initial work was approximately $50,000, but in total, we’ve moved well into the $100,000-plus range.

When was the initial project completed?

It was completed in December of 2012.

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or statistics that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work?

We have seen a considerable increase in the amount of traffic in our website. The capability we now have is actually seeing how our traffic translates into people purchasing in our stores. The conversion rates have greatly improved. We’ve also received very positive feedback from our internal and external users, which isn’t always the case when you transition to a new platform.

In retrospect, do you still believe that Sitecore was the correct platform for your business needs?

Yes, It’s easy to use. I mean, there’s always going to be issues with any system, but the capabilities that it’s given us have been impressive. The one thing that we did do that we might would do differently would be implementing a content management system, and redesigning our website at different times, rather than simultaneously. I only say this because both tasks require significant attention to detail and process oversight. We spent a lot of time on our Sitecore development and configuration, which resulted in partial neglect of our website. In the end, we’re very happy with our products, but our redesign might have been more valuable to us had it been accomplished independently of the Sitecore implementation.

When working with nonlinear digital, is there anything you would consider unique or special about them compared to other service provided you’ve worked with?

For one thing, there are a lot of project members that work in different time zones, and in different locations. We never had difficulties interfacing with them during our normal operating hours. They were also willing to accommodate and work around our schedule. In terms of support, they’re very responsive. We’ve been quite pleased with all of the team members that we’ve been dealing with. There was some initial friction when we transitioned from requirements gathering to actual execution and management, but nothing out of the ordinary. There were some changes in staff, which concerned me at first, but never amounted to anything detrimental. I must say we never had any issues at all. Projects were successful in many cases. They went above and beyond the statement of work, and they always met our demands. Sometimes, they’re more experienced than us, too. They understand our business. We were leaning on them to give us guidance in terms of recommendations on, for example, mobile site and website and so on. They were definitely able to lead us in the right direction. They have been great to work with in comparison to a lot of other vendors.