ZANZARRA

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the E-commerce Manager of Olsson & Gerthel

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Retailer for high-end designer furniture and lighting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Develop our webshop
• Maintenance

SOLUTION

How did you find ZANZARRA?

Online Search

Why did you select ZANZARRA over others?

High ratings, Pricing first our budget, Good value for cost

What was your primary form of communication with ZANZARRA?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

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

Zanzarra have helped us with everything from implementing new payment and delivery options to product feeds, pixels, price matching and a variety of new functions such as CSV-imports, filtering and the ability to show/hide stock items on product pages.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Everything worked as intended
• New functions increased sales
• Quicker loading times

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

Zanzarra have almost always been on time with every task. In the cases where they did not deliver on their estimated time, it has always been a complex task. However they have always been quick to inform about this.

In cases where deadline was extremely important they even assisted us at night time to make sure everything worked in time.

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

Other than that they are all really pleasant people, their work ethic is otherworldly. They are based in Ukraine and even with a war going on around them they have not failed to deliver any tasks.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

We do not have any competence ourselves for their type of work, which makes it difficult to say. From our perspective every thing we have asked for – big or small – have worked perfectly fine. As laymen when we order new functions our descriptions certainly are not the best.

Zanzarra have been very helpful in both understanding what we mean as well as informing us about easier and quicker solutions to keep the price from getting away from our budget.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a startup that builds a learning and information platform. I was in charge of the technical development and worked directly with ZANZARRA.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

ZANZARRA took on the end-to-end development of our drupal based eLearning platform. The goal was to implement all required product specific features optimizing for cost and time.

SOLUTION

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

We reviewed a number of different web and development agencies that specialize on drupal. ZANZARRA was selected because of their professional approach combined with their competitive offer.

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

In a first kick-off we explained the overall project and goals. From there onwards we made sure to provide all tasks and the required input (wireframes, mock-ups, etc.) directly within the agreed agile development process.

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

There were in total four people from the vendor team, a project manager, one back-end and two front-end developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the site and have it in test operation right now.

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

We had a very direct communication through chats and the agile platform. Everyone was very responsive so that any required alignment happened very quick. We worked on regular sprints with planning meetings every one to two weeks.

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

The team was very competent and regularly provided input and ideas on how to make things better, cheaper, and faster.

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

In some occasions more testing on features by the developers would have been nice, to identify issues and bugs earlier.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of Eurekos Systems ApS. We are a SaaS provider in the space of Learning Management for Extended Enterprise solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We are implementing quite complex functionalities for our clients and roadmap development. We need to extend our core team with additional capabilities to meet our ambitions and deadlines. The development activities are part of the core functionalities of our services and it is not a short term solution we are looking for. We need a reliable partner for a long term engagement with people who fit into our team.

SOLUTION

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

We have previously worked with the owner of ZANZARRA and we trust the people and the effort.

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

We were looking for experienced PHP and Drupal 7 developers. The job is complex as we are introducing multi-tenancy (organisational layers), integration to other payment providers and extension of existing functionality such as compliance based certificates and course page flows.

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

Backend developers, 2 people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have an exceptional scenario where they are incorporated into our team, processes, guidelines and essentially becomes part of our group. We meet deadlines and get the work done reliably and in the quality we expect.

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

We are providing project management and coordination within our team, on a daily basis and without any micro management. This is a perfect solution for us and makes it much easier - it is not 2 separate entities, but one team working together to achieve the best outcomes.

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

Everything has been extremely smooth. From agreements to execution. Great communication, transparency and engaged people who care about quality and interested in the outcome. Proactive, asking questions and communicating with everyone else in our team, QA, Frontend and Backend as necessary and with due diligence.

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

ZANZARRA has performed excellently — they are the perfect partner for us. people have been self-aware and acting as true members of our core team. We want this to continue and have no suggestions for improvements at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a project manager of a web agency

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I was looking for a team of developers with solid experience in Drupal Commerce for a custom site.

SOLUTION

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

I chose Zanzarra after a long selection process with several agencies, their references were relevant and the exchanges before the project were constructive

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

The project concerned a luxury boutique for which a customized click and collect site had to be developed. Many aspects of the project were complicated because the designs were made without assuming the use of Drupal. Finally most of the pages (product, checkout, profile, etc) had to be custom designed.

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

I managed the project, also with the help of a project manager from the client. A creative front end developer had also done the html for several pages before Zanzarra's intervention.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Despite the complexity of the project and many last-minute surprises regarding functionality, Alex and his team were able to deliver the project on time, thanks to a remarkable investment.

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

we communicated via chat almost every day as well as via Trello

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

Some tasks proved to be particularly complex, but the team always found a solution. They also mobilized without counting their hours during several critical stages

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

perhaps some points of complexity could have been anticipated more in view of the designs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a founder and CEO at Rolique - a web and mobile software boutique that focuses on building custom digital solutions for tech-driven companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our company was in need of a trusted Drupal development partner to support us with one of our projects in the e-commerce field. Given the complexity of the exiting set up, we were looking for a partner that would be both proficient in Drupal, but also e-commerce. Besides that, we paid great attention to decent communication and track record of relevant experience.

SOLUTION

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

ZANZARRA was founded by my former colleague - Alex. I admire him as a professional and his standard for quality, also how dedicated and committed he is to doing great work. Turning for help to ZANZARRA was natural, as we were looking for a tech partner with that type of attitude and values, which would resonate with us.

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

We had several on-boarding meetings to walk the ZANZARRA team through the project, codebase, and scope that was required to be completed. The Guys showed a great level of understanding and expertise during those and were aligned for starting work in less than a week.

The scope of work included several complex integrations with the bookkeeping software, stock management software, and shipping providers. All work was carried out within Drupal setup and Drupal Commerce, plus several custom integrations written from scratch.

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

There was a project lead assigned to the project and one Drupal developer. The set up worked really well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After completing 3 sprints, the client was already integrated with the bookkeeping software and stock. This made the client's business more effective in just 6 weeks, their shipping process got much better and more user friendly for the customer. After successfully completing the scope, the client was happy and prolonged cooperation with a new contract and more work.

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

We had daily standups in Slack, used GitLab for versioning and code reviews, JIRA as a ticket management system. After each sprint, we had live demos with the client to demo the results of completed sprints. Their communication was instant and well structured. This was a key to project success, as we had up to 10 people working as a distributed team across 3 different time zones.

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

They always delivered on time and on budget. Expertise in Drupal is excellent, their communication is smooth. We loved it!

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

Nothing that comes to my mind. I wish all agencies were as reliable as ZANZARRA.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We specialize on finding product-market-fit. This includes the whole value chain from ideation, to development of digital products and web experiences to validation through digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ZANZARRA?

We worked with Zanzarra as support for a number of projects to augment resources and as Drupal sparring partner. Industries included tourism and business services.

What were your goals for this project?

Goals included Drupal development and support.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We shortlisted based on research and interviewed based on a number of technical, project management and quality factors, important to our company.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Drupal 7 and 8 Development

What was the team composition?

We have worked with 4 different team members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Drupal solutions we have worked with together have been sustainable, flexible and generally of solid quality. When needed Zanzarra has provided a valuable contribution, which was appreciated by our team.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

N/A for the projects worked on.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their flexibility and responsiveness were solid. Bringing them in on certain projects we have developed a workflow, which made them a full team member, not a remote vendor. The collaboration therefore has been fluid and communication very good.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Due to the open communication, any issues or blockers were addressed immediately.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Mastering Alchemy. We have an international presence and lead spirituality-focused classes and conferences online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ZANZARRA?

In the past, we’d partnered with dishonest vendors who intentionally created errors to charge us for more work. We engaged with ZANZARRA as our sixth developer to help us with our website, which was fraught with problems.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ZANZARRA has focused on fixing the ongoing issues and bugs on our website. Their work even involves fixing the typos that the original copywriters had made. They’ve implemented system upgrades and have also added functionalities to ease navigability on the administrative side. I’m beginning to think about pursuing a web redesign with them.

What is the team composition?

We currently work with Kristina (Project Manager) who serves as our account manager. She designates the work to different developers.

How did you come to work with ZANZARRA?

We came across them on a freelancing platform. They had overwhelmingly positive reviews, so we decided to trust them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $6800.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in November 2019, and it’s an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve experienced the internal benefits of having a streamlined platform. The site is now far easier for us to navigate. On the user side, it’s working the way that it should’ve worked before. Their price is amazingly low for what they do.

How did ZANZARRA perform from a project management standpoint?

I communicate with Kristina using a project management app called YouTrack, which has been great. While they’re from Ukraine, they’re excellent communicators, so I haven’t had any issues conveying information to them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I feel taken care of, and I feel attended to. On top of being extremely responsive, they excel at giving detailed explanations in a way that I, as a non-IT person, can understand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind immediately, so I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very patient, so even if you don’t understand something or are having trouble explaining something, they’ll take the time to make sure that you’re on the same page. I definitely recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We use their services for two businesses, one being a market research company. The other company is a business review business. I’m a market research executive and part of the technical onboarding team for the review business. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ZANZARRA?

They’ve collaborated with us on multiple projects at this point. They’re all related to web development for our two websites.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were helping with us the full development of the review website. That involved programming and coding for that entire project. There are also several other tasks between the two companies that we’ve contracted them for. That involves bug fixes and implementing new features. The sites were created using Drupal. 

Throughout the development projects, we report any problems or issues we notice to their team. Then, they’ll discuss possible solutions and options with us. From there, we’ll come to an agreement and start agreeing on timeframes. They put that plan into action.

What is the team composition?

Alex (Founder & CEO, ZANZARRA) is our main point of contact on their side, and we normally have direct contact with him. So, I’m not sure of the size of the team working in the background.

How did you come to work with ZANZARRA?

The owner of our market research company made our first contact with their team through Upwork. After he selected them, I handled much of the work-week project management between their team and ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between £25,000–£40,000 (approximately $32,554–$52,086 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around December 2015, and our team still calls upon them for small development projects. Their large-scale site development work occurred between 2016–2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve always been satisfied with all of their work. It’s now easy to navigate and find all the information that customers might be looking for. Additionally, it’s a fast and well-designed platform. We’re really happy with it. 

How did ZANZARRA perform from a project management standpoint?

Whenever we’ve needed to get in touch with them, it hasn’t been a challenge to find them straight away. They’ve also always been able to deliver within our timeframe as well. We’ve been impressed with how they manage projects. Normally, we communicate over email or Skype. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, we’re happy with the way they’ve designed and developed the site. Our team is very satisfied with the resources they’ve provided us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

From my perspective, everything that we’ve wanted from their team has been fulfilled.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Lovebook is a local printing service. most popular our product is photobooks and albums. I am the founder of this company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire ZANZARRA?

We needed a website where customers could quickly and conveniently order our products. It was important to create a constructor where the customer could configure the appearance of the product, download the files and pay online.

What were your goals for this project?

Цe need e-commerce platform with flexible capabilities.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

zanzarra recommended to me by friends as a responsible and professional team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Developed a new site on the Drupal platform for custom solutions to best meet our needs

What was the team composition?

Оn dis project work 2 employees

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project has helped us increase the geography of our sales and simplify order administration.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I am very pleased with the communication with the project manager Alexey, he always answered my requests in time, provided the maximum information about the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The guys work quickly and smoothly, in case of any problems, they quickly reacted and solved them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I do not have much experience in this field but it seemed to me that guys are well versed in business. Although there is no limit to perfection, there is always room for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m an independent marketing agency. I provide services from website development to print materials, branding, and UX design.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ZANZARRA? 

I know coding, but I need to focus on managing my business. I needed to hire an external resource to meet my clients’ web development needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

ZANZARRA predominantly works for me on the Drupal content management system. It's my preferred platform and it's what they specialize in. As long as Drupal is the right content management system, they work with my clients in industries ranging from finance to medical to a local newspaper. They’re able to operate at the root level. They can also set up the environment for me and do the installation. They build custom modules and create other customizations of the theme and the style. 

They support troubleshooting with the newspaper client in particular. I took that job on from someone else and it’s required a lot of cleanups. They've built sites from scratch for a financial investment company. I gave them the specs of what was required, including restricted access to certain parts of the site. They do custom work for the medical company on their website as well. 

What is the team composition?

I work with Alex (Account Executive, ZANZARRA). 

How did you come to work with ZANZARRA? 

They were a referral from another company. 

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent $7,500 to date. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

I've been working with them since January 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I've not heard any negative feedback, which is important because I only get work through referrals. Their expertise in Drupal is efficient and sufficient for my clients. Being based in Ukraine, they're fairly inexpensive compared to what a U.S. firm would charge. It's a great opportunity to work with a talented team. 

How did ZANZARRA perform from a project management standpoint? 

It was a little bumpy at first. We started out just communicating via email, resulting in a bottleneck between me and the project manager. Alex recently integrated me into their job tracking tool. Now I can update tasks through the tool and see who's working on it. The project management software works really well, and now communication is quite smooth.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Their self-awareness of where their talents lie is excellent. I had a client that wanted a WordPress site. ZANZARRA had enough presence of mind to say that's not our strength so we can't support that project. It makes me feel confident that they only take on work in which they’re competent.

They also focus on the customer. There's a lot I don't know. ZANZARRA is good at educating me and being patient about explaining until I understand. They always come back with solutions whenever I pose a problem. Even though they’re 10 hours ahead, it’s amazing how often they have something ready for me the next day.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My only challenge was at the beginning with the lack of a project tracking mechanism. It turns out that they had a tool available and I just needed to ask. They’ve met every request I've had for engagement. I don't have anything to improve. They’re are working at maximum capacity now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

As with any project, clearly define the business needs. Once that's done, ZANZARRA can estimate properly to meet your needs. I don't think there's anything out of the ordinary that you need to do in order to engage with this team.