Consultants with a passion for Salesforce
A Salesforce Partner Innovation Award winner 2020. A full-service Salesforce Platinum consulting, development & outsourcing partner delivering across the entire Salesforce platform. 500+ people, 11 offices, 8 countries, we think globally and delivery locally.
We have been 100% focused on helping transform businesses within the Salesforce ecosystem over the last 10 years. Clients love our flexible, nimble and cost-effective approach. It's why we receive an average customer satisfaction rating of 4.8 out of 5.
As a Platinum Consulting Partner, Expert PDO Navigator & Salesforce.org Expert, we are one of the few Salesforce partners to have the technical scale, expertise and experience to design and deliver Salesforce implementations and AppExchange apps.
You benefit from our industry knowledge and experience by implementing a best practice solution within your business. Quickly & efficiently. Our specialist certified consultants & developers have delivered over 1000 projects to more than 350 clients.
We work hand-in-hand with stakeholders to create achievable roadmaps, deliver benefits quickly & maximize Salesforce investments. We have the technical expertise & experience to deliver solutions across all Salesforce clouds, for all sizes of company, in many industries.
With 400+ Salesforce professionals located in our regional offices and central delivery hubs we utilize best practice Salesforce technology and dev ops, enabling our customers to realize the benefits quickly.
We have the scale to provide dedicated teams of developers and consultants to our GSI and ISV partners. Since 2013, Salesforce Services has used VRP’s development expertise on over 20 of their most strategic, enterprise accounts. As one of the few PDO experts, we have helped ISVs with ideation, design, development and support with AppExchange apps.
Our dedicated Managed Service team provides support, admin & small enhancements to clients via flexible, responsive & cost effective monthly packages of hours.
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Portfolio
Rolls Royce, Welk Resorts, BVT Sweden, Felm, Beyond Better Foods, Digital Genius
Accelerates Lightning App Development with VRP technical expertise
After entering the Salesforce ecosystem with three acquisitions to widen their offering of recruitment-based solutions, Bullhorn needed experts to accelerate the development of the apps. One of the apps was in the process of being fully re-developed for Lightning. In order to complete this project on time, Bullhorn looked to augment their internal resources to accelerate delivery.
After reviewing various options, Bullhorn turned to VRP Consulting based on a recommendation from one of the newly acquired product companies, JobScience which worked with VRP for 8 years. VRP conducted the app review, helped finish the development of the new Lightning App, passed it through the rigorous Salesforce Security Review, helped implemented the new solution within the Bullhorn’s client.
The project involved an initial review and technical analysis of the newly purchased apps on the AppExchange. This was followed by providing an outsourced team of expert technical App developers to create the new Lightning App.
Due to the rapid deployment of the VRP technical team and close collaboration in the Netherlands, ultimately resulting in the rapid delivery of a new Lightning App, a partnership was established between Bullhorn and VRP Consulting. Bullhorn can focus on their company roadmap with the knowledge they have a reliable partner in VRP Consulting to deliver expertise and capability as and when required.
In this partnership, both Bullhorn and VRP Consulting are now ideally placed to develop innovative new industry-leading products and agile implementation, thereby serving customers better. The relationship between Bullhorn and VRP Consulting has grown stronger over their combined 50+ client implementations. The combination of industry experience and Salesforce consulting, development, service delivery and support expertise provides a powerful offering for any recruiter looking to gain competitive advantage in their respective markets.
Introduced a new customer and partner portal to increase customer satisfaction and streamline collaboration
Due to rapid growth, PAYONE needed a convenient & secure way to provide support for their increasing partner and customer base. PAYONE required a solution that was scalable to meet their expanding business.
They wished to provide an online portal for their partners & customers giving effective support quickly, as well as easy access to relevant information & documentation. PAYONE wanted to achieve this by leveraging their existing Salesforce Service Cloud contact information and knowledge base to provide personalized experiences and streamline support.
VRP Consulting was selected to advise and then configure both a customer & partner portal built on Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) and integrate this with their existing Salesforce platform. The self-service customer portal provided tools to search PAYONE's knowledge base, create cases and upload necessary documents, while the partner portal adds additional communication channels and up-to-date partner documentation.
Thanks to VRP Consulting's work, PAYONE has raised its customer support standards and increased partner performance. Customers are now empowered to find answers regarding support queries on their own and raise cases when required, leading to a 41% increase in first case resolution. Partners can access further support documentation and communication channels resulting in a 25% increase in partner sales.
Becomes a connected nonprofit by moving to the Nonprofit Success Pack
Russian Red Cross Society is the Russian branch of Red Cross International, providing emergency assistance, disaster relief and education in Russia. With over 85,000 volunteers, managing donations of 3m swiss Franc in 2018, Russian Red Cross has a large set of responsibilities.
The Russian Red Cross Society wanted to gain a single source of truth to drive their digital transformation. Integrating systems and data would bring huge benefits, from time savings, through automated processes and workflows, to streamlining report generation and providing business insights. It would also deepen their understanding of donors as they transition from outsourced reports to in-house data. The Russian Red Cross reviewed implementation partners and were convinced of VRP Consulting's abilities and experience with the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) as the center of their new unified platform.
The VRP Consulting team configured a NPSP implementation that was adapted to match the Russian Red Cross's specific regional needs. This included custom objects for tax requirements, as well as design and usability changes such as currency and language. The new Salesforce platform was integrated with the various solutions already established within the Russian Red Cross Society, thereby enhancing functionality and increasing efficiency. The integration with Chronopay enabled real-time tracking of donations and fund forecasting. Thanks to importing the Russian Red Cross Society's historical data, they can monitor current fundraising effectiveness and compare with historical indicators rather than relying on data and reports from a third-party.
The Russian Red Cross society is now in control of its donor data and has a unified system which is scalable to meet future requirements.
Upgrade its donor site to provide an enhanced user experience, drive grantmaking and streamline site administration
Since 1986, Marin Community Foundation (MCF) has united the people of the Marin community and beyond in making a difference in the lives of others by empowering non-profits and the good work they do. Since its foundation, MCF has continuously strived to increase the magnitude and effectiveness of its grantmaking, including, since 2004, through its Online Giving Center.
The Giving Center is an online platform that allows MCF donors to seamlessly and securely support causes they believe in. In 2019 MCF decided that its site needed a ground-up refresh and assembled a team of experts to execute the project - with VRP participating as a core member of the team.
Over 16 years there have been many advancements in technology and significant growth in MCF’s donor base, which led to the organization deciding that an upgrade was necessary. This would enable an enhanced user experience and provide a foundation for future development by moving to the latest web technologies.
A cross-foundation team was assembled internally, and contracted with a Marin-based digital agency to provide the blueprint for an enhanced user experience. To complete the team, MCF selected VRP Consulting to bring essential programming and technical skills to the project.
The VRP Consulting team set about transforming the initial design mock-ups into a fully functional platform. Despite a series of changes during the project, the team met the project deadline and delivered the new solution in just 6 months, including development, testing and user-acceptance testing.
The initial results from the new site have justified the redevelopment. There has been a 34% increase in users compared to the previous year, despite the challenging climate for non-profits. In turn, this has led to an increase in grants towards the many organizations MCF supports. These additional funds are providing crucial help during this difficult time when there is an increased burden being placed on the non-profit sector.
Unlocks Nonprofit Cloud functionality to increase its fundraising effectiveness with VRP Consulting's help
Like many nonprofits, the Belarus Red Cross Society had moved to Salesforce's Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) in order to increase its impact and effectiveness. Even though the Belarus Red Cross Society was benefiting from their Salesforce platform, they were unable to extract the full benefits available to them.
They initially implemented a basic NPSP without following Salesforce best practices, resulting in missing powerful functionality, as staff were unable to utilize key features available in newer Salesforce releases. Further issues resulted in errors in donation management, with approximately 40% of missed recurring payments due to bad data. This was costing revenue that could help further its mission, requiring staff to manually update and correct the data to prevent the issue from occurring repeatedly. In order to resolve these issues and fully utilize the capabilities in their Salesforce platform, the Belarus Red Cross came to VRP Consulting for help.
Within five weeks, VRP reconfigured the Belarus Red Cross Society's implementation to realign the architecture according to NPSP best practices, by migrating to the Household Account Model and establishing new logic & workflows. The VRP team also fixed stability issues with the WebPay payment system integration. In addition to the pre-agreed work, VRP's Salesforce consultants noticed other issues during implementation which were discussed and fixed within the scope of the main statement of work. This included adjusting underlying logic and workflows, as well as creating new dashboards and reports.
The Belarus Red Cross Society already benefits from its reconfigured implementation with a boost in both productivity and effectiveness. With an increase in leads, automatic recurring donation payments being received and new reports and dashboards providing valuable data and insights, their targeted program management and fundraising efforts have increased.
Future plans are in place to further optimize their NPSP.
Charlie works overcomes Covid disruptions to transform its recruitment processes
Charlie works is a recruitment company which connects businesses in the Netherlands with candidates from Eastern Europe for temporary & seasonal work in the agricultural, logistics and food industries.
Through adoption of standardized practices & workflows on the Salesforce platform, the new owner seized the opportunity to optimize the business. They are now able to adapt this solution for use in other industry segments. This had previously been impossible, as their existing customized solution led to slower productivity, regionalized processes and data storage in multiple disparate sources.
The teams were ready to start the discovery workshops, however, the pandemic and subsequent global lockdowns halted the plans.
As soon as news of the lockdown came through, VRP's global team reacted very quickly to set up online discovery workshops. This involved teams from Minsk, Rotterdam & Krakow, alongside Salesforce in Dublin and, of course, the core Charlie works team in Den Haag.
Collaborating during various global lockdown schedules provided a few challenges which were easily overcome by all involved. Configuration and additional training sessions all lead to a seamless end-to-end remote implementation, made possible by VRP Consulting's hybrid delivery approach.
Their boldness paid off and user adoption was high. Thanks to their new ATS, standardized procedures and training, Charlie works saw an immediate improvement in key areas, such as reduction in time-to-fill positions and increase in vacancy fulfillment. Charlie works managed to optimize their business by cutting costs, increasing revenue and driving profitability. All in line with the business's long-term strategic goals.
The next project planned with VRP Consulting involves integrating Sales Cloud and Pardot with Charlie work’s ATS. The aim is to provide an end-to-end lead generation process, instantly matching newly signed fulfillment contracts to candidates.
Brought their product to market on the Salesforce AppExchange to expand their Service Cloud customer base with VRP Consulting
DigitalGenius developed a powerful AI to improve the speed and performance of customer support teams. Unfortunately, its system wasn't integrated with Service Cloud, so potential customers who used Service Cloud couldn't use DigitalGenius's products.
DigitalGenius wished to get their products onto the Salesforce AppExchange so that it could enlarge its customer bases. In order to get on the AppExchange fast and without assembling their own inhouse Salesforce team, DigitalGenius choose VRP Consulting to design and build their AppExchange packages.
VRP Consulting developed a set of four packages to cover DigitalGenius's different services including Base, Live Chat and SocialHub, as well as an analytics package with machine learning to help train DigitalGenius's products over time. These packages included support for four languages - English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese - and SocialHub integrated with four different service channels: Facebook, Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp. All of these packages were built following Salesforce best practices so passed the AppExchange Security review.
DigitalGenius is now on the Salesforce AppExchange and can reach more customers than before. This was a key milestone for DigitalGenius and helped them to secure their series A funding. Now customer's aren't limited to choosing between using Service Cloud or DigitalGenius's products but instead can have the best of both worlds. Importantly, companies which use Salesforce and the DigitalGenius products have been able to increase the speed and quality of their customer service support.
Collaboration Platform and Market place
The R2 Data Labs division of Rolls-Royce wanted to spur innovation and collaboration in the aviation industry by enabling secure data sharing, analysis and incubation via a new platform. Delivering this type of solution rapidly utilising Salesforce technology required a partner with technical expertise, experience and creativity to turn their ideas into an enterprise grade product ready for market launch. VRP joined Rolls-Royce and their design and data partners as part of a multi-year program to make this happen. Yocova connects aviation companies, data specialists, OEM mainframers and aviation independent software vendors (ISVs) to work together to solve business problems. At the heart of the platform is the marketplace where ISVs list apps and APIs that can be trialed and then procured by aviation companies. Licenses and data plans are managed within the platform.
R2 Data Labs selected VRP Consulting as their technology partner to deliver Yocova. Built using Salesforce technologies, VRP designed, architected and delivered the Yocova platform rapidly against a roadmap of expected features and user journeys. VRP worked in harmony with Rolls-Royce's design and data partners and suppliers to achieve the desired outcomes at all stages of the program.
Rolls-Royce launched Yocova to the public on 10 February, 2020. Along with the existing companies, data specialists and aviation ISVs from the alpha and beta stages, Yocova has welcomed more users onto the platform to increase the levels of collaboration. While it is still to early to ascertain the full impact Yocova will bring to the aviation industry, it is likely new innovations and insights will spring from the data analysis that is powered by this platform.
Beyond Better Foods beats covid19 by optimizing their retail strategy with analytics
Beyond Better Foods are enjoying some of the fastest growth in the food & beverage industry, as consumers seek healthier lifestyles. With the additional surge in demand due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, brands, distributors and retailers need to increase efficiency and optimise supply. This presented new challenges; First, besides new products, the market demands a new way of working with retailers: a supply model in tight alignment with market data that operates in real-time. Second, consumers expect a brand that keeps increasing value as they increase their budgets.
VRP helped BBF move away from complex, time-consuming spreadsheets and on to Einstein Analytics providing unified data from discrete sources and the ability to manage data through automated workflows to provide detailed insights and predictive analytics capabilities. Business critical data is readily available in reports embedded visualizations and Einstein dashboards enabling them to make key strategic decisions directly from a Salesforce Object as they enter negotiations with their suppy chain and distribution channel. Optimizing commercial strategies by generating future model through Einstein capabilities enables them to rapidly adapt to market conditions, however unpredictable.
Beyond Better Foods were able to rapidly deploy their solution in a matter of weeks, due to close collaboration with the VRP Consulting team.
As a result, Beyond Better Foods were able to identify the most effective campaigns, and best scheduling options, based on process velocity and align this data to the performance of their supply chain. They could focus the analysis on profitability, price distribution or discount allocation and assess the potential impact of a specific segment, product item, channel or distributor name in a single dashboard accelerating the transparency and decision making.
Welk Resorts improve customer retention with integrated marketing platform
Welk Resorts were only using some of the capabilities within Marketing Cloud. Their marketing tools consisted of disparate systems, such as Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud and other third-party business insights tools. Having looked through additional features they became aware of the options available through integration.
The marketing team wished for extended features such as insightful data and the ability to effectively target segmented clients, through personalized messages in email campaigns to upsell and cross sell.
Welk Resorts asked VRP Consulting to review their Marketing Cloud implementation and provide seamless integration to their other tools, identifying any additional features that would be beneficial for their marketing team. The VRP team planned a two-stage release.
When combined with Einstein AI and a series of custom reports, the Welk Resort team are now able to let the Salesforce AI make decisions on what path a customer should take based on their profile. These enhancements provide a more effective customer journey, by combining multi-channel marketing campaigns across email, SMS and targeted online ads. Essentially, they can now send a series of personalised and targeted messages customers via the appropriate channel that customer best responds to.
Welk Resorts now has a fully integrated multi-channel marketing platform. Where previously they were limited to a few simple customer journeys with very limited personalised emails, they now have the ability to personalize targeted messages across all client segments and channels, with adaptive response messages as required.
BVT Gets their business running on Salesforce in just 4 weeks with VRP Consulting Quick Start
BVT experienced a recent accelerated business growth. Their vast industry experience enabled them to gain market share and therefore increase their customer base. This rapid growth brought internal process challenges with it. Business critical customer information was being held is disparate systems, ranging from excel spreadsheets, emails and separate notes, inherently causing delays in data share amongst stakeholders as well as errors in their record keeping. They needed to deploy an agile solution in a short space of time to address this issue.
BVT wished for a streamlined system that would unify all their data and processes. With simple to enter data from opportunities and site visits along with proper procedures in place to take opportunities to purchase, as well as tools to manage site visits. The management team also wanted automatically generated reports that would let them evaluate the effectiveness of their systems without spending valuable time filling in excel spreadsheets with diverse and inconsistent data.
BVT discovered Salesforce Sales Cloud and Quick Starts; a program to help companies begine their Salesforce journey with basic functionality, scalable for any future needs. Salesforce sales team recommended VRP Consulting as BVT's implementation partner to ensure their new solution would be a perfect fit, meeting their specific needs. This included a new opportunity process, report generation, conversion tracking and a custom visit object for on-site visit planning, enabling notes and PDF generation.
In only a few weeks BVT was up and running, making day to day work easier and the company overall more productive. Their opportunity capture process has been simplified and unified, which has increased their ability to analyse performance through automated report creation and distribution. The additional functionality beyond the QuickStart specification has helped save even more time in completing minor daily tasks. With this foundation in place, they are now ready to expand and add extra functionality to help continue developing their business process as they grow.
FELM enhanced their fund management and distribution solution with project portfolios and forecasting
FELM receives funding from a wide-range of organisations and individuals. While some donations are for FELM to use as they see best, many come with conditions, obligation and requirements for their distribution. FELM's Salesforce platform was able to collect donations but it was difficult to effectively match and distribute funds to suitable projects as well as see accurate forecasting.
FELM wished to provide its staff with a simpler to use solution to automatically distribute donations to suitable projects, avoiding shortfalls while fulfilling any donation conditions. FELM wanted to provide greater transparency for their donors by revealing how funds were distributed to suitable projects. FELM sought to gain richer insights into funding forecasts for both individual project and overall funding levels. When combined with details of donor conditions, FELM would be able to more targeted its marketing activities to avoid shortfalls.
Now FELM has a system that with just a couple of clicks matches new donations to projects that comply with any conditions. With their enhanced dashboards, FELM now has a clear picture of project funding so they can focus fundraising and marketing efforts more effectively, avoiding any funding shortfalls. These features are helping FELM further mission by complying with regulations and focusing staff time more effectively as well as facilitating reporting to donors on the impact of their generosity. FELM is already preparing a complimentary community to provide greater transparency to their donors.
Reviews
the project
Custom Salesforce App Development for Real Estate Company
“They delivered what we asked them to, even when the requirements were difficult to understand at times.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m a business analyst in the IT department of a real estate company.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
A few of our Salesforce resources left the team, and we needed help with a backlog of work we had.
What was the scope of their involvement?
VRP helped deliver some key functionalities within two custom Salesforce apps that were for different areas of our business. One of the apps reported on different projects going on within the company, and the other had to do with data subject access requests as part of GDPR legislation.
What is the team composition?
We had one point of contact who helped project manage some of the items. We definitely had at least one developer, if not two.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I believe we had a previous engagement with them for Salesforce-related work, and we decided to go back to them because the quality of their work was good.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together from August–October 2019.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The reason for the engagement was that we were down to only one person on our in-house team. She was performing multiple roles, including project management, business analysis, and solution design. She also helped with testing. VRP Consulting eased some of that load and handled delivery of the work. The feedback from the end-user has been that it’s a really well-made system.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
They were very responsive. Their developers spoke directly to our developer. We added them to one of our Microsoft Teams channels. We managed the tasks on Kanban and a Jira sprint board, and we had weekly reviews of our Jira board. We delivered in sprints. We worked with their account manager, who was very good if there were any escalations or problems. If people were on holiday, he was good at finding other resources and getting questions answered.
What did you find most impressive about them?
VRP Consulting left a good impression. They delivered what we asked them to, even when the requirements were difficult to understand at times. They asked good questions, which helped to clarify the design of the solution. They took ownership of the work.
Are there any areas they could improve?
There was a change of personnel at some point, but that wasn’t a hindrance. They did a bit of a knowledge transfer amongst themselves. Overall, it was good.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Be upfront about why you’re going to them. Tell them the business problem, and be clear on the budgets and resources required.
the project
Salesforce Consultation for Sports Betting Company
“If you’re searching for an excellent developer, you’ll get good value for your money with VRP Consulting.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the project manager of Salesforce within a company based in Malta that focuses on the iGaming business, including sports betting and casinos.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
There’s a lot of divergent functionality available when it comes to Salesforce, but sometimes customization is needed. We didn’t have an in-house developer who had the Apex knowledge Salesforce was using, so we needed to outsource that work.
We’ve worked with another Salesforce provider before, but they were very Agile based which meant Sprints needed to be created and assigned. This isn’t a flexible system, and if something urgent came up, it was difficult to change priorities because the schedule was set in stone.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We’ve worked with VRP Consulting for multiple Salesforce projects. Initially, we did the technical audit where they had a chance to see our implementation and integration up to that point. When they were onboarded, we did some manage transfers and demos to give them an idea of our current structure and projects. Then, we went into more specific requirements, including server and Google Maps integration, as well as UI customization and loading logic. They’ve worked on a variety of projects for our business.
What is the team dynamic?
We have flexible resources assigned to us ranging from developers, QA, and solutions architects. We can shift priorities as needed, and we have a designated resource who we can contact if something urgent comes up.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
We were looking for a long-term partner who could help us with customization and development within Salesforce. VRP Consulting had competitive prices, so we chose them.
How much have you invested with them?
We spend 50,000 Euros [$59,397] yearly, and individual projects range between 200-10,000 Euros [$237-$11,879].
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in May 2016, and the relationship is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We were able to cut some data integration time in half on a daily basis. In general, the speed of production has been very good, and they’ve handled our requests quickly.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
Initially, we had regular calls on GoToMeeting and Skype. Currently, we use Skype daily if there is anything that comes up, and we have weekly calls to get project updates. We also use email for invoices and documentation that has to be shared. JIRA has always proven handy for us because we have access to our project and can create stories and bugs, communicate, upload files, and track progress.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They have a different model than the previous Salesforce partner we worked with. We don’t have to commit to a long-term contract, which is good from a business perspective. VRP Consulting is very flexible, which is a reason we were attracted to them.
Their quality of work and proactivity sets them apart from the previous vendor. Since we don’t have in-house Salesforce developers, and I only have limited knowledge, VRP Consulting comes up with suggestions and they’re vocal if our suggestions aren’t ideal. Once they understood our business and goals with Salesforce, they came up with quite a few good solutions we wouldn’t have thought of. They follow best practices better than the previous company we worked with.
If you’re searching for an excellent developer, you’ll get good value for your money with VRP Consulting. They have different models to choose from, including dedicated resources who work with Agile methodologies.There’s flexibility in trying something out, and there’s no obligation if it doesn’t fit, which makes for a low-risk investment from a business perspective. You can work for a month or a quarter, and if it’s not what you expect, the cooperation can be ended. With other partners, we had to work with them for a year and there wasn’t an option to end the contract.
Are there any areas they could improve?
We had one developer change where the knowledge transfer was rushed and inaccurate. It was very short notice, and the handoff could have been improved. This was corrected within a few weeks when the new developer was up to speed.
They are responsive and deliver good quality work, so we’re happy with them.
the project
Sports Media CRM for IT Consultancy
"The team has been proactive, taking the time to understand everything and coming back with questions."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We are an IT consultancy specializing in WordPress projects on behalf of worldwide clients. I work for the UK branch of the company, which focuses on Salesforce CRM [customer relationship management] projects.
One of our clients is a sports media company that publishes games, streaming videos, paid content, and so on. They decided to launch their own Netflix-like subscription service, but with a focus on sports. They use a bespoke platform based on Amazon Web Services, through which they publish content on mobile devices, TV operating systems, and so on. Salesforce comes into the picture for customer reviews, case management, and article management. There is also a self-service area for each customer, which is also hosted within Salesforce. They can change their names, account details, and so on.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
When we started working with VRP Consulting, we were integrating with a Japanese telecommunications giant.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We sent them the design, user journey, and requirements documents, and gave the team access to the environments they’d be using during development as well as to JIRA, which we use for story and defect tracking, and to the internal messengers we use for talking across teams and with clients. The system was already in place and there was a lot of background information relating to it, which VRP Consulting would be building on top of.
I didn’t follow any specific development formats — the work was mostly common sense. We communicate with our contact from CodeSWAT almost daily and let her know of anything we require. The team has been proactive, taking the time to understand everything and coming back with questions while advancing with the work.
How did you come to work with CodeSWAT?
I wasn’t involved in the selection process. They had an existing contract with our company for our CRM work. There had been a project previous to that and the feedback for it was very positive. I spoke to one of our principals that had directly interacted with CodeSWAT’s team. He gave good feedback on them and told me that I wouldn’t have any problems. We monitored CodeSWAT a bit more closely for the first assignments, compared to how we do it now, but I found them to be productive from day one.
How much have you invested with CodeSWAT?
I don’t deal with financials, but I believe that the overall cost of their work has been $150,000 per year.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with CodeSWAT in November 2016. We started with an initial 3-month contract and have been extending it ever since.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
The functionality and reliability of our portal have been good. We have performed 3–4 major enhancements with VRP Consulting, all of them big successes with the clients.
Secondly, the velocity at which they work is excellent. We sometimes struggle to give them work on a weekly basis and keep the team busy.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
We’ve established a very good working relationship with VRP Consulting, mainly because their team is really good. The turnaround time was quick and we were given functional demos which we could review and perfect ourselves. In the last few months, VRP Consulting has gained a lot of knowledge around overall applications, so we can go to them for big issues related to production.
Things becoming lost in translation is a typical challenge with geographically-distributed collaborations, but the experience with VRP Consulting has been positive so far. If someone goes on holiday, or if there is another change in their team, the transition is seamless. They make sure among themselves that the knowledge is transferred.
We have our own team in India, with which VRP Consulting has worked really well. There have been various knowledge transfer sessions, given that our projects are partly based on managed services, which involve the Indian teams being on call over the weekend for production issues. We have asked them to work long hours and weekends.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
They are passionate about what they do and have their own input on items. We may provide incorrect or incomplete designs, but VRP Consulting always does a second check and comes back to us with feedback. It’s always good to have a second set of eyes on things.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
When we started out, we had some small communication challenges, but because we’ve worked more and more together, they’ve been sorted out. We understand each other a lot more than we did on the first day.
What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with VRP Consulting?
The main thing in order to get the max out of VRP Consulting is steady communication. Daily updates and making sure that everything they do is reviewed will ensure that, at the end of the development cycle, the client receives what they want. The responsibility is theirs to make sure that all deliverables are reviewed.
the project
Salesforce Integration for Resort
"They are a competent group."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We are a timeshare and vacation ownership and resort operations company located in California. Our resorts are in the US and Mexico. We’re a small to mid-sized company with fewer than 5,000 employees.
I’m the senior director of the program management office. I’m responsible for program and project governance and management, including the identification of development partners.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
We needed help with Saleforce for our team.
What was the scope of their involvement?
VRP Consulting is doing Salesforce architecture, Salesforce development, and Salesforce administration.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I received an internal email introducing me to their team. During our initial screening, they demonstrated sufficient technical expertise in Salesforce and process expertise in Agile. When we factored that in to their availability to assist and their rates, we moved forward in hiring VRP Consulting.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
We have spent less than $1 million with VRP Consulting.
What is the status of this engagement?
We are currently working with them.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We don’t have anything to share.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
We practice SCRUM. VRP Consulting typically meets their commitments within each sprint.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
They are a competent group. From an account management perspective, they’ve been very willing to find terms and an execution structure that was mutually agreeable.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
None.
the project
CRM Data Migration for Building Materials Company
"They [VRP Consulting] were professional in providing us with a project plan."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m a systems analyst for a distributor of construction material.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
We had created a new system in Salesforce and migrated all the data from our old property system to the new one. We did the migration ourselves. The problem was we didn’t have any more support for our old system.
What was the scope of their involvement?
VRP Consulting migrated all the fields, principals, and functionality from the old system to the new one. We provided them with the extracts from the old system, then they did data migration on the rate Excel sheets. Initially, we booked a few days for the team who worked with the old system. They stopped working for a few days so that VRP Consulting could use the live data and move it to the new system. I was the one responsible for the data migration on our side.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I knew that they could help us since we’ve been working with them for a while. We already did some projects with VRP Consulting before, small ones. That gave us a sense of how they work and what they do. From the very beginning, I could tell they knew what they were talking about. They made me believe in their ability and we could trust that they would deliver. So far, we haven’t regretted that.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
We have paid around $10,000 for their services.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in November or December of 2015. VRP Consulting still provides support for the property system they developed for us. We plan to involve them in other projects.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
Everything went perfectly and we didn’t have any major issues while migrating the data. There were a few minor mistakes on our side and their side, but we corrected them all afterward. Since I was the only contact point for developers, I haven’t received any specific feedback on them.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
They [VRP Consulting] were professional in providing us with a project plan. We provided them with a task and they would send us the whole plan with deadlines for each task. We also had follow-up calls several times a week and they provided reports before those calls. They met the deadlines we set and we didn’t have any delays. They did their job quite professionally in terms of deadlines. We felt like our project was under control.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
The best thing I liked about the service was that they were available at any time, especially when we had the data migrations. They used to work late into the evening. They didn’t mind working overtime and staying longer in order to finish their work.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
We had discussions in both Russian and English, however, those in Russian were more productive. In general, we have no complaints on our collaboration. There was nothing in particular we didn’t like about them.
the project
Salesforce Integration for Digital Agency
"They [VRP Consulting] are very professional, process oriented, and have been extremely flexible and adaptive to our needs and our processes, which has been very helpful."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
My company is a mobile app development and management company. We primarily do a lot of enterprise software and mobile app development right now. I’m a project lead here. My responsibility is to liaise between developers, designers, and the clients. I essentially translate the client's business requirements, specifications, and work with the design and development team to make those a reality.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
We needed a resource with expertise in Salesforce and database management, but with a focus on UX to partner with us in delivering a complex enterprise software solution.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Initially, the scope was strictly on the development side – to provide consultation on Salesforce and develop the user interface and backend data management tools to store and sync data with various systems.
However, in listening to the types of solutions and recommendations VRP Consulting brought to the table - it quickly became evident they were very experienced in managing projects with this degree of complexity, integration, and user considerations. As a result, our scope continued to expand to leverage a wide range of skill sets they were able to lend to the project.
Ultimately, we extended our scope to include design, project management, and QA. To me, that was the best solution because it allowed them to work through a lot of the business cases and requirements in their own internal meetings, face to face, and streamline communication back to me via a project manager. Moreover, the quality assurance team was very familiar with the project and thorough in their review and testing. In the end, this allowed me to focus more on the client.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
We are partners with Salesforce in the US. One of their teams suggested that we work with VRP Consulting.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
The project was between $50,000 and $200,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our scope has been fully delivered and the client is currently rolling it out to users.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
On the development side, I can’t, because this hasn’t launched yet. We’re still waiting for this to be deployed into the sales team for our client to see how well it’s adopted. I think the product has definitely exceeded expectations and impressed our client. The true test will be how well it’s adopted and whether it achieves their objectives for scalability. I am confident it will. From a design perspective, the clients’ marketing team was so pleased that they adopted many design and UI elements from our product into their company-wide style guidelines.
The team’s knowledge of Salesforce and Heroku was so extensive and so senior that even their internal team ended looking to us for a lot of guidance and support. So our scope definitely increased as a result of the level of support that they were able to give.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
They [VRP Consulting] are very professional, process oriented, and have been extremely flexible and adaptive to our needs and our processes, which has been very helpful. This type of project was new for me. I didn’t have a specific model I wanted to follow. There was a huge collaboration between our teams in terms of matching our styles, so we could deliver what my company is used to delivering to clients. I felt they were a great partner; the communication was always there. They made themselves very available both on my business hours and our client’s business hours even if it meant hopping on meetings that were at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night. Their quality assurance team is excellent. They not only did great quality control but also brought new solutions to the table. If I had additional needs for the project manager in terms of what he was communicating or how he was organizing our weekly calls, he was very adaptive to that and very responsive. They’ve been a real pleasure to work with and I think where our styles didn’t always match, they were very accommodating to get up to speed on a process that I had and match that. We would talk at least weekly. They were very proactive in terms of trying to get things up and running, looking ahead at the timeline we had and making sure that they were going to be able to meet their commitment.
What did you find more impressive about VRP Consulting?
I would say that for me, I felt very much a part of their internal team even though there is an eight-hour time difference between us. I found it very easy to work directly with all members of their team. They do a really great job of segmenting the roles and responsibilities based on the project. We had a project manager, a designer, someone responsible for front end development, someone for backend development, and someone consulting from Salesforce side. Our account manager oversaw to make sure that at the end of the day I was happy with the results and the team’s performance.
I developed an individual relationship with everybody on the team because they were all so collaborative in working with me. I never felt like, from a project management perspective, that I was blocked from working directly with the owners of each area. That made me feel even more collaborative as a project manager myself.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
Given the project, there was a lot of learning collectively as there always is because it’s easier to go back in hindsight. That being said, I think that we, including the client, all would’ve gone back and approached certain things differently. Based on everything we delivered to VRP Consulting, I thought they were the perfect extension of our team and the partner for especially this type of project. They did a great job in training me.
the project
Web & App Management Support at IT Consulting Firm
"What they [VRP Consulting] can do is incredibly impressive... They’re incredibly responsive."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
My company is an independent developer with platinum Salesforce authentication. In the past, we’ve used multiple organizations, but in the time I’ve been in this position, I’ve narrowed it down to VRP Consulting. I am the Director of Delivery.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
Our business is up and down in nature. VRP Consulting worked for us to help manage our web and app development.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We had a mixed bag of development around Salesforce and Apttus integration.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I inherited them from my predecessor. But in the course of review between VRP Consulting and five other suppliers, it ended up that VRP Consulting was the best option. They were incredibly responsive. We told them we had a need for an additional five people. We had a call with them and they came back with a series of CVs at the same time the next day. We had people working the next week. That shows you how responsive they are.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
That is confidential.
What is the status of this engagement?
It is ongoing. We started around 12 - 18 months ago.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
It’s a consistently high level of work. The guys have adapted themselves to our work practices. They have been happy to help us with needed improvements.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
Their management of their own staff is good. They let us know their availability and how we can access them. We get updates from them, so I have no complaints there.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
Their depth and breadth of talent distinguishes them. What they can do is incredibly impressive. They’re also incredibly responsive.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
No. I’ll ask them to spread some work out over the next ten weeks. They’ll tell me it’s too simple and they’ll finish it fast. They get things done ahead of schedule. I consider them part of my team.
the project
Salesforce Integration for Refrigeration & AC Company
"They’re very fast at responding to any queries we have."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Our company is a refrigeration and air conditioning contracting company. We’re the largest in our area. I am the Managing Director.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
We’ve been Salesforce users for the past two years and also use an accounting software package and a fee-for-service solution for our technicians on the field. We were doing integration work between the three systems and also doing some development work in Salesforce.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Currently, we work on Salesforce maintenance work. We have 75 users of Salesforce and maybe 40 users of accounting. VRP Consulting continually has to update their systems. We draw up a list each month, and at the end of the month we give them tasks to do for the following month. At first, we had a number of projects we wanted to work on.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
We searched on Facebook partners. They have done a lot of projects for Salesforce use in the States, and we found them through the Salesforce channels. Additionally, our Salesforce account manager mentioned them. We went to a couple reference sites and we found the sites were very happy with them and we found them very good to deal with, very efficient, and very professional.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
Our first project was more than $10,000. Moving forward from that project, it is about $2,000 to $3,000 a month.
What is the status of this engagement?
It’s ongoing. We started nine months ago.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
No, we can’t get feedback of that nature. We’re just making ourselves more efficient.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
They did excellently. We ask for a weekly update and they never fail to provide that.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
We’ve had no issues at all. We find them extremely professional and straight forward to deal with. They’re very fast at responding to any queries we have.
the project
App Development For Salesforce Consultants
"They do good quality work. That can’t be overstated."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We offer Salesforce apps on the app exchange and also consulting services. Whether it is development, training, or configuration, we work on anything related to Salesforce.
I am the owner.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
I had a development partner that I was trying to offload. I wanted to give all their work to VRP Consulting so I could eliminate their role in my company.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They’ve been doing revisions to some of the documentation on my apps, as well as developing code for some of my clients, and rewriting and consolidating some code.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I was considering other agencies. One of the reasons why I chose them was their time zone. They’re only 7 hours ahead of the east coast. Some of the other offshore partners were 13 hours. That was too difficult to manage. I also chose them because they were flexible with some of the arrangements I needed. I was up front with them and told them my plan to offload the existing partner. We worked out an arrangement for a certain number of hours that would be used in 2016. They showed me some flexibility there. That helped me decide to go with them.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
It cost $50,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started at the beginning of 2016. It’s ongoing.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
I was having some issues in 2015 with the other partner’s code quality. That was causing issues that I had to manage. I ran the risk of losing a few clients. I proactively switched to VRP Consulting and was able to keep all those clients. That was a success in itself. I’ve added a few new clients as well, and they’ve been pretty happy. They don’t know everything behind the scenes but I’ve been able to continue those relationships as well as transition all of my existing clients in the past 6 to 8 months.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
Sometimes with offshore companies, accents can be a problem, but I don’t have that problem. I think that’s a bonus for them. The time zone is a pretty big factor. They do good quality work. That can’t be overstated. The other companies I worked with didn’t always have the highest level of quality. I would quote a project for 10 hours and then it ended up being 20 hours, and I’d have to bite the bullet because of the quote. I don’t have those issues with VRP Consulting. They do a good job of managing. If someone goes on vacation they put in another developer.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
With the other company, if someone went on vacation or wanted to leave the company, it became a huge production just to do an information transfer. Sometimes it wasn’t even possible. VRP Consulting does really well with that. I can’t think of any constructive criticism. Things have been going well. We have weekly meetings and that’s a huge advantage for me. I tried to get other partners to do that, but they weren’t agreeable. I’m able to solve problems quickly.
the project
Various Web Development Projects For Salesforce Implementer
"They think fast and are always one step ahead of things."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We're a Salesforce implementer, handling everything related to the platform. We have clients across the US, in a variety of industries. I am the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of the company.
What challenge were you trying to address with VRP Consulting?
We utilize companies like VRP Consulting in order to get help on larger projects. A big client came to us, so we needed quite a few extra resources.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We engaged with VRP Consulting on a few different projects. One of the notable ones was an online submission form for patients and doctors, through which they could request enrollment in a drug adherence support program. It was meant to ensure that patients were taking their drugs and that they had all the necessary support. VRP Consulting also set up an integration with an external service. This was all done within one phase, which was great.
How did you come to work with VRP Consulting?
I had received a few emails from VRP Consulting through their marketing channels. We had light email contact, and when I had a need for them, I reached out to VRP Consulting and saw what they had to offer.
How much have you invested with VRP Consulting?
The total cost of VRP Consulting's services has been in the $50,000 to $200,000 range for a few projects combined.
What is the status of this engagement?
We're still working with VRP Consulting on different projects.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
VRP Consulting has been able to consistently deliver before deadlines. We don't have any metrics at this point, given that our projects aren't measurable in this way. We've received really good feedback for our deployments. The VRP Consulting team has been awesome to work with.
Typically, with companies like VRP Consulting, we won't know what we're getting. I haven't had this issue with VRP Consulting. They think fast and are always one step ahead of things. VRP Consulting asks us really deep, good questions, sometimes even making the client consider new options.
How did VRP Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?
VRP Consulting met all the proposed timelines, so it's been good.
What did you find most impressive about VRP Consulting?
I like being able to contact our developers directly. I'm a technically-savvy person, so this ability is very helpful. VRP Consulting has kept open communication lines through Skype, so I'm satisfied.
Are there any areas VRP Consulting could improve?
I'm sure I will have something a year from now, but not at the moment.
VRP Consulting’s involvement eased the in-house developer’s workload, and the revamped apps garnered high praise from the end-user. The responsive team took ownership of their work. They delivered in sprints and provided an account manager to facilitate the work.