Zimalab

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a co-founder of POWERNAPP. Our online booking platform clusters one-night hotel stays for small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) to purchase at a lower price point. Buying a high volume of rooms annually positions us to negotiate discounts at locations across the Netherlands that individual companies couldn't access. 

When a business joins our platform, they uniformly receive a 10% discount on the daily hotel rate. Using this system means we're always more affordable than our larger competitors. Our product also solves problems for the hotels we partner with nationwide. Regarding sales and acquisitions, it reduces the time they spend on contracting and account management for smaller clients and lets them focus on more profitable key accounts.

What challenge were you trying to address with Zimalab?

We were searching for a third party to help us design and develop our online booking platform. Offering discounted rates made it a particularly complex product to build. In particular, we needed a team who could work with different programming languages.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we proposed a scope we’d formed in-house and held discussions to prioritize and plan next steps. Zimalab helped us design each phase of development for the online booking portal. Our system is a web application built on Symfony. They pinpointed which features needed to be active in the first phase of development. Throughout the project, we added new functionalities to the platform.

Zimalab created three interfaces for channel manager systems to ensure we offer a consistent 10% discount compared to major competitors. A hotel's reservation system generates rates and tracks inventory, then sends this data through a channel manager to platforms like ours. This system offers equal access to room availability and pricing metrics. Our product also involves calculating a 10% discount, which requires a slightly different connection than for our competitors. Each one involves a different programming language, so they worked on them one by one.

Zimalab wrote the code in different technical languages for all the functionalities in our booking process. They designed a reporting tool within our system that shows an SME company their total annual spend on hotel rooms. As they created user stories, the team considered the most efficient way to book a hotel room from landing on our site and selecting a location to the next steps in the booking process. 

What is the team composition? 

Zimalab’s team includes three developers, two designers, a project manager, and the CEO.  We started this project with the managing director. Afterward, they assigned us one point of contact. Our project manager was the project lead. She liaised with the rest of the team on our behalf. 

How did you come to work with Zimalab?

We found 15 freelance developers from around the world on Upwork.com and held the first round of interviews on Skype.  After shortlisting five teams, we had one of our friends who works as a developer join the second-round calls. He asked the right technical questions to determine how well each candidate could develop the type of portal we needed. 

After passing our technical check, we chose Zimalab for their strong communication skills including English fluency. We preferred their team of developers to the risk of working with a single freelancer. If that one person gets ill or stops the project, we wouldn’t have a backup. They offer competitive prices compared to teams in the Netherlands and an excellent value.

How much have you invested with them?

At this point, we've invested $30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Zimalab in September of 2016. The first version of our platform launched in April 2017. 

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

Zimalab is a trustworthy party to work with. They built all three connections with channel managers that are critical to facilitate our business. If we couldn't connect with these systems, it would be impossible to connect with hotel reservation systems at all. 

Based on my work experience, I know that building these complex interfaces is usually a lengthy and challenging process. Zimalab delivered in just two weeks without any mistakes, which is quite a success story. Developing these side projects in different programming languages is an impressive feat. 

How did Zimalab perform from a project management standpoint?

The team’s communication around timelines was quite good. They completed four out of five tasks within the given time frame. Since each side project was clustered within the same timeframe, we made sure to ask how long the team needed to develop each feature well beforehand.

They were entirely on top of things during development. We’re their largest client at the moment, so they knew this was going to be a significant project. Our system is now finished, so there’s not much development to do besides adding small new functionalities. From a business perspective, they’ve been less organized in our current maintenance phase. We have to make sure they stay on schedule. There was a difference in their enthusiasm at the beginning of the project and now. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aside from developing our product, they also considered our entire system as a whole. As Zimalab designed user stories, they carefully thought through every aspect of how clients will use our platform. We were enthusiastic about building a lot of fancy features. Zimalab encouraged us to minimize some elements to make sure users accept the system as-is. They preempted us from creating too much at once, yet still produced a fantastic UX. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It feels like they have more projects going on now and that they aren't as on top of project management. As their biggest client, I still feel important. They should keep up the original level of oversight and focus on each project, though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication with Zimalab is strong and occurs on a daily basis. Ask for insight on the number of hours they need to complete individual tasks. Requesting a thorough overview, as well. Otherwise, you’ll get lost in the number of hours allocated to specific functionalities. I strongly recommend them because they're skilled at the work they deliver.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of an online digital products company. We supply small to medium-sized businesses with GTINs which enable them to sell their products via online marketplaces and most offline retailers.

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

Our websites were created about 6 years ago and had become unable to cope with the growing demand of our digital products.

Since we did not have any in-house developers, we hired the Zimalab team to re-develop 3 websites - each in a different currency and targeting different geographical locations - and also build an automation functionality into the sites.

The project involved re-hosting of sites, integrate Paypal/Stripe payment gateways, build back-end interface to manage all aspects of customer orders, stock, front-end customer login/account section and more.

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

We posted a job on Upwork and Zimalab responded. Zimalab had excellent 100% reviews in all aspects, however, the deciding factor was that they had previous experience of creating a digital website. They understood all my requirements and answered all my questions in a timely manner.

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

Before commencing any work, I went through the long list of requirements with Zimalab. After this, we had a Q&A session to basically fill in any blanks. I had three websites fully re-constructed.

Before Zimalab has started work, I had no automation in regards to the delivery of digital products, no customer login account/history and no automated stock management.

All these tasks were previously done manually. My project was rather complicated as each digital product we sold was unique - so each and every customer would receive a file same in structure but different in content.

Zimalab understood this requirement really well and was executed perfectly. In addition to the automation (from order being placed to delivery) of digital products, various forms (contact us form, feedback form plus other forms) were implemented into our websites.

A stock management system was created for us in the back-end, which enabled us to very easily upload new products/files etc into the website. A new login/account section was created so customers can view their order history & re-download etc.

A feature for custom orders was also created and implemented into the websites. Before completion, the Zimalab team had created demo sites on their servers, so we could test out functions and features as the project progressed. Testing was on-going and vigorous before going live.

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

There was a project manager who was in daily communication with us initially, two developers working on the project and a 'tester' who managed the on-going testing of the sites.

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

Repeat customers were very happy with the new login/account section. This resulted in a significant decrease in time spent on customer service (customers chasing orders etc).

Sales were positively impacted. General management of the whole business was significantly reduced.

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

Once a project manager was assigned to us, we had daily contact via YouTrack. After some weeks when the project was well underway, contact reduced to every 2-4 days.

Contact was to clarify features/functions/content and so on and well as to give us a regular update on the project progression.

Any questions/changes required I had were responded to very quickly by the team - sometimes within minutes and at times within a few hours - despite the local time difference.

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

Most of all - they had the expertise in building/designing ecommerce websites. From front-end to back-end. It was a major project.

Probably like with any major project, there were a few bugs in the system upon going live - which were very quickly identified and resolved.

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

I can't think of anything which could have been done differently. Bugs in the websites after going live were very quickly resolved - despite the time zones differences.

I will be using Zimalab again in the future to either add more features/functions to my current sites or for any new web-based projects.