ELEKS

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at omni:us

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

End-2-End insurance claim automation to reduce process costs, boost customer satisfaction & empower teams

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Support the omni:us hiring team with faster pipeline fulfilment for Java engineers
• Support the omni:us backend team with product feature development
• Work closely together with internal teams and perform at the same quality as the other omni:us engineers

SOLUTION

How did you find ELEKS?

Referral

Why did you select ELEKS over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me

How many teammates from ELEKS were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Backend development, maintenance and testing of backend product features
• data pipeline creation & maintenance
• data migration
• participation in internal team meetings
• adherence to internal team processes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Integration with core team members of omni:us. 
• Independent & self-driven implementation of features along side product team members & internal omni:us engineers. 
• Quality of deliverables aligned with team and adherence to omni:us code standards & development guidelines.

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

Yes we are happy with the project management & delivery. This was driven by internal agile practices of the product teams and was supported by omni:us engineers, product managers & scrum-master. The Eleks team members involved actively participated and contributed to the core development with enthusiasm and due diligence.

What was your primary form of communication with ELEKS?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Eleks is a very supportive & understanding partner. They are easy to collaborate with through short & quick communication paths. The pricing is competitive, and the quality of engineers is high. We highly value the team members of Eleks we are working with as they work on the same rhythm as our omni:us company values.

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

Not applicable

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders of an investment research and distribution company in the investment community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We wanted to develop a platform to facilitate our offering, but we were in a terrible situation. We initially worked with a developer who started building the product for us on .NET and C#. He bailed because he couldn’t deliver what we needed, so we moved on to another US-based group to build upon the existing code and framework. However, they also couldn’t get us where we wanted.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, ELEKS had to work with patches of code, which definitely made the project more challenging. They analyzed the existing code in depth and rebuilt the database to extend it to what we needed.

The system is a solution for some regulatory changes in Europe called MiFID II; it manages content and independent research providers, as well as broker-dealers. With the two groups, there are two regulatory constraints that come around how the end consumer looks at the.01

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Consumers are also divided into two groups: professional investors, which we classify as institutions with 100 million assets or more, and retail, which is anything outside that. The two groups can access different types of research.

ELEKS has built the marketplace using C#. They’ve developed a simple upload process for content providers and multiple features and downloading capabilities for the underlying investment professional. As a transaction portal, the team has integrated Stripe to manage credit card payments. Also, there’s a payment system based on invoicing third parties, which are the broker-dealers that manage payments for institutions. Additionally, they’ve integrated Zoom technology to allow video calls compliant with MiFID II.

What is the team composition?

Our initial development team had seven teammates, including a database expert, a project manager, and front- and backend developers. After completing the project, we scaled down to a smaller team with level two and level-three service management. We still have a project and account manager to monitor things monthly.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

When we started having problems with our first development team, we hired a consultant. He put us in touch with 15–20 different groups, and I interviewed each service provider based in Argentina, UK, Canada, South Africa, and Ukraine. I brought it down to 2–3 companies. Our board of directors didn’t want us to go with a foreign group, so we ended up with the second development company. 

When we had problems with the second US-based company, I immediately pivoted to ELEKS and told the board. ELEKS went above and beyond to win the contract. Their professionalism and quality of work were impressive, and they were reasonably cost-effective. Ultimately, I went to Ukraine and sat down with them to get the paperwork done.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent close to $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our engagement in July 2018. We’re currently still working with them, but another company has acquired us. I believe they’ll stop working with ELEKS by the end of December 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Compared to the two US groups we worked with, ELEKS has been night and day. The amount of detail and level of maintenance they provide is astonishing. Overall, they’ve done well in every aspect from beginning to end.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

They aren’t the most affordable group, but we haven’t had sticker shocks anywhere. Moreover, their communication is excellent. They’re on top of everything, and the level of transparency is remarkable.

We have the code on GitHub, a Slack channel, and Jira to see the progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Even though they had a lot of personal challenges due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, they’ve never skipped a beat on anything. The team keeps everything flowing. All in all, they’re one of the most professional groups we’ve worked with. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve been super happy with their work. If we were to hire a development team again, we’d immediately go to ELEKS.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a cybersecurity company. We provide software for companies to help them protect their code.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We needed help with extra development resources for our internal needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ELEKS is helping us with staff augmentation for the development and testing of our software products. We started with QA tasks but decided to expand the project’s scope for additional software development efforts. Regarding the process, we provide the working resources with training around our products and code base so they can understand how our company works. Each developer brings their own expertise, skills, and tools, which are valuable assets.

What is the team composition?

We’ve mainly worked with Andriy (CEO), a sales manager, and an account manager.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

Someone who had used their services referred them to me because they had a good experience. I used their services for another project and decided to bring them for this task.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

So far, we’ve spent around $600,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has been instrumental in helping us deliver our development tasks on time and test the release, but the main KPI is that they’ve provided strong candidates for us.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve stayed on budget and delivered within our expected timelines. Regarding tools, we use Jira, GitLab, Trello, and Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their best attributes are their team quality, responsiveness, ability to communicate in English, and cybersecurity expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be helpful if they were in a closer time zone because we have a 5–6 hour difference. Additionally, we think it’d be good if they had additional domain expertise in cybersecurity to differentiate them further from competitors.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with them for your staff augmentation needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a market research consulting firm. We track engines and engine-driven equipment, as well as parts and components, batteries and electric motors. We have databases to track all that information that we then sell to a variety of clients. We also run project-based market studies. I'm the head of our global data products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We've worked together for several years. They rebuilt our internal database around 15 years ago and have worked on our databases since then.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The biggest project we've worked on together is related to the databases we sell. We track a lot of information for these databases, and they built our internal database where we do all our work and make most of our changes. The tool they built allows us to forecast production volumes with an algorithm they built for us.

There is a lot of technology involved in this database, and we've added a lot of nuance over the years. The main information started with companies, their relationships with other companies, and the larger products we track. About ten years ago, we started breaking the information down to track components through new modules.

They built everything from scratch with our guidance. The entire product is built with SQL. We also have a customer-facing database that goes out quarterly to our users. We built that portion ourselves, but it's populated with information from our internal database.

What is the team composition?

We consistently have a team of three or four. There is a project manager, an account representative, and two developers that we interface with directly.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

We had an employee who had a connection with them and recommended them. They offered good pricing and a competitive level of expertise.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent roughly $750,000 over our long collaboration.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started working together in 2004 and have had a relationship ever since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has a huge impact on our business. The technology is so much better than our previous system, and our productivity and efficiency are greatly improved. All of the effects are internal. The ability to forecast is huge for us, and customers are becoming more interested in that kind of information.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

They're quite good. We have an eight-hour time difference with them, but they're very responsive. They answer our emails quickly, and we've always been satisfied with their response times. We may be one of their smaller clients, but they never make us feel that way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They keep up with technology, and their developers are quite skilled. They always find cutting-edge solutions, and they help bring our ideas to life.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They communicate well. The team does change, but we get warnings whenever that happens, so transitions are usually pretty seamless.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you know who your point person is. We have that set up clearly and have never had an issue. They don't feel like an offshore asset, and it helps to have that strong level of communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of CyberProof, an IT service company. CyberProof is the cybersecurity arm of UST Global. Most of our customers are some of the biggest enterprises in the world, most of which are located in North America. I joined the company six months ago after UST acquired my startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We were looking for a partnership to establish a core team that could help us with development and reduce cost.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We are cloud-based, and we had Node.js developers for the frontend and backend, as well as MongoDB. On the frontend, they used Angular as well.

What is the team composition?

At the peak of the work, we have had 10 people from their team including developers, QA engineers, and UI designers.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I spent a few weeks in Ukraine and met with a few big companies, interviewed dozens of people, and established a team with the right people. At the end of the day, it was worth it to do all of that. One reason I chose them was the time zone; I can take a two-hour flight from Israel to Ukraine to meet with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent between $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in late 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of their ability to help me scale, ELEKS helped us get to a point where my startup was acquired by a huge company. I have been truly happy with their work and how they integrated into my team.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

We work as a unified team that is led by our R&D manager in Israel. We have a team here and a team there and work in a Scrum methodology. We close the cycle very easily by leveraging chat operating platforms such as Slack. They are not native English speakers, but we understand each other. Everything is well documented, and they follow the process. Sometimes, they do more than I expect from them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The person who acts as an account manager has been flexible and not too pushy and is looking for long-term relationships. We can look to the future together as partners, not as a vendor. There can be some tough months when you have a startup, but having a partner makes it easier if I need to postpone things for a couple of months.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Today, based on the technology and the ability to manage requirements through Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, outsourced development can work extraordinarily well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are one of the largest computer-aided design software companies in the industry. We have around 7,000 employees worldwide. I am the senior manager of a technology team responsible for localized versions of our products. We handle translations into the multiple languages, which are supported by our products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

We were looking for contracted software development resources in order to augment our internal staff.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ELEKS has provided additional programmers for specific software projects. We require .NET, C#, and general web development expertise, including Node.js.

A recent project involved developing a web-based vendor account management portal with a database back-end. Since we are in the business of localizing our content, we engage with many outside vendors who can provide expertise in any language, from Vietnamese to Japanese and Chinese. ELEKS developed the management portal that is used by these vendors. Managing what systems they need access to, what sort of access they're granted, their periods of activity, and so on, is a complicated process.

At peak capacity, we've used around a dozen resources from ELEKS. We interacted with them primarily through a product manager. We've also had meetings that included our other team members.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

I wasn't involved in the selection process. ELEKS was already working on projects for our company when I was onboarded.

How much have you invested with ELEKS?

The cost of ELEKS' services is between $200,000 and $250,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ELEKS around 2004.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We've had a successful engagement with ELEKS. Our feedback has been positive, no matter where it comes from. Everyone on our side has been impressed with ELEKS's thoroughness, professionalism, and attention to detail. They're smart, careful, and precise, and the quality delivered was great.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

We have an exclusively remote relationship with ELEKS. We use JIRA for defect and user story tracking and GitHub as a source code repository.

What did you find most impressive about ELEKS?

Nothing comes to mind as being unique about ELEKS, but I've appreciated the quality of their personnel, responsiveness, and attention to detail.

Are there any areas ELEKS could improve?

No – not particularly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a professional services consultancy specializing in IT software solutions, predominantly for the legal and financial industries, with the first being our biggest practice area.

What is your position?

I am the head of development within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

Our original goal was to have the ability of adding a couple of extra developers to our team during peak periods of project work. They were brought in as an emergency resource. ELEKS has performed so well in that role that our relationship has since expanded beyond that original capacity.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We were looking to expand our products' scope, so we allowed the ELEKS team to focus on building our product suite. We've worked with them for the past five years in building a strong portfolio.

We handle most of the design aspects and coming up with the goals for our products, but their team acts as our builders and quality control. We rely on them throughout this process, and ELEKS has been very helpful.

They primarily develop our solutions in Microsoft .NET. Most of our software tends to be MVC [model-view-controller] web applications.

Their team varies in size depending on the project type. We've built our biggest product to date last year, which had a team of 8-10 developers on average working on it, while at its peak, it retained up to 20 people. We're starting new projects at this moment and only have a team of about 6-7 developers, which will be ramped up in the following months. One of the things ELEKS provides is the flexibility to do this. They are there to listen to our demands and are very supportive. Whenever we've needed a couple of extra developers in an emergency, they haven't failed us.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

They were recommended to us by a longstanding partner, whose opinion was spot on. We're glad we got that recommendation.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The annual development cost is around $400-500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them for more than five years. It’s an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Generally, we evaluate milestones on a project-by-project basis. Lately, we've undergone fixed price and fixed goal projects with ELEKS, which are easier to evaluate. Even during our old project model, they've performed very well. There were instances in which we changed our minds and altered the scope. ELEKS is very good at tracking any such deviation. We are a very demanding client, but they've hit every goal set for them in terms of metrics.

Legal firms have set ways in which they have to do certain tasks, and working with companies from around the world, we have a diverse audience, but generally feedback has been very good. With each product released, we've gotten better at the process, learned new things from previous releases, and embellished certain features. The work ELEKS has done has not only drawn positive feedback, but has also opened up debates and discussions that we wouldn't have had otherwise. People have looked at a particular new feature and asked if it could be extended to do something more. The apps are feature-rich and have many possibilities.

How did ELEKS perform from a project management standpoint?

If we ever have to hit a quick deadline due to an upcoming tradeshow or similar situation, ELEKS will accommodate us. They assign additional people to our project and even work extra hours on weekends and during evenings.

There have been a couple of areas in which we approached them for particular skillsets which we were missing. As an example, a couple of years ago we were looking to make a mobile version of one of our products. It was a serious decision on our part between using an outside developer and recruiting internally. Within a couple of days, we'd received recommendations from ELEKS for capable people in their company. We had a call and met with one of their developers. This wasn't something we thought ELEKS would be able to help us with, but ultimately they pulled the resources out of their bag.

Overall, we haven't challenged them as much as other companies. We tend not to deviate much from the Microsoft stack. From what I've seen though, ELEKS is able to accommodate diverse requirements.

Recently, we've started looking at in-depth performance testing of our products. We gave them a scenario for what we were trying to achieve. Within a week, ELEKS had returned with a very detailed document of what our approach should be. It was something new for which we had limited expectations, but they came back with a solution that was precisely tuned to our needs. They know us as a customer, and have been able to deliver constantly.

We used to use Team Foundation Server, but have moved to Confluence and Jira for project tracking. This has come as a recommendation from ELEKS. They've been using those tools themselves for some time. They showed us how they work with them, and the process seemed an improvement from what we had.

What distinguishes ELEKS from other providers?

We get approached by a lot of offshore providers wanting to do work for us. I've had discussions with many of them. What sets ELEKS apart from similar firms is the partnership and rapport that they deliberately cultivate with their client. It's easy to have offshore resources with no real relationship and just an email address to which you send work.

The relationship we've built with ELEKS has been driven by them. They have a UK-based account manager who comes in to our office whenever there's an issue or there is a new project. They're very proactive in doing this. The staff in Ukraine are all English speakers, they engage us, and always prefer calling rather than making email chains. They're open to suggestions as well.

The fact that they have this openness and flexibility has made this engagement work. When I first started working with them, I was skeptical about offshore arrangements. In the end, we've made it work, and it's largely due to the ELEKS team's positivity throughout the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I've worked with ELEKS at two different companies. The first company developed high-end entertainment automation software, which we used to revolutionize the way action movies are filmed. My second company performs medical informatics work.

We also used it to do events for Disney, Cirque Du Soleil, Universal Studios, and a bunch of other companies. ELEKS was instrumental in developing the software and some of the electronics platforms to be able to allow us to do that work.

What is your position?

I was co-owner and the CFO/CEO of the previous company, and I am currently the founder of the company I work at now.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ELEKS?

For the first company, the standard technologies that a lot of our competitors were using were PLC [programmable logic controller] or industrial controls. We wanted to implement a mesh network with a data abstraction layer, so that we could have many information protocols running on a single network. We could also provide integration between multiple systems and multiple devices to provide show control solutions down to the drumbeat or the camera frame. We wanted to coordinate projection, lights, special effects, 3-D motion, and camera control, down to a single camera frame. It was a very complex undertaking.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

ELEKS was instrumental in developing the back-end software, the data abstraction layer, the user experience, and they also helped us with the electronic layer. ELEKS even debugged firmware that shipped with chip-sets that maybe couldn't handle the refresh rates we were looking for. They were instrumental in the entire process.

At my current company, we mainly use them for staff augmentation. We controlled all the project management, design specifications, functionality, and technology choices in-house, but we were starved of quality developers. We needed ELEKS to provide us with Java-specific expertise and augment our team of internal developers. Nowadays, ELEKS is looking for solution-based clients, so we might actually be one of their legacy clients because we already had mature technology, and we are using them as team augmentation.

How did you come to work with ELEKS?

We found them through a referral in the 2000s, so probably 2003 or 2004. They had worked on some development for a partner of ours, and we took it from there.

Could you provide a sense of the size of the initiative in financial terms?

For the current company, our cumulative investment with them in time has been more than $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We don't have specific milestones or projects defined. It's just an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The strongest measure of their quality is that we still use them after 12 years. Across the span of multiple companies, changes in the executive team, big growth, and being invaded by the Russians, we still use them exclusively for those tasks. They're the first people we turn to when we need additional development support.

We have an excellent reputation with the quality of our product, and we're pretty happy with our ELEKS team members, but our own end-users wouldn't be able to differentiate between code that's developed in-house and code that's developed by ELEKS. The quality of work we get from them is as high as we would expect from anyone.

From a project management perspective, it's always smooth. The communication with management there is as good as time zones will allow. Even given the time zones, they're still responsive.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve, or things you would do differently?

Not for us. For me, they've always delivered an exceptional technology and staff for 12 years now, so I can't think of any way ELEKS could improve. They're a big company and have a lot of branches that we don't use, so I can't speak to the quality of those parts of their business.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

Whenever you're working with contractors, or even your own staff, make sure that you have a very clear specification for what the product is supposed to be. Be open to different technologies, and be open to different approaches, but be very clear on as many details and priorities as you can be. The clearer you are, the more likely you'll end up with what you're looking for.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a technology and consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed qualified and diligent Java programmers to assist in developing ERP, automation control, and a variety of other products.

SOLUTION

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

Personal referral

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

Java, PostgreSQL, Delphi,

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

We've had a team of between 7 and 40 for since 2005 depending on our market need.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are great.

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

We meet with our team a couple times a week. They are really just extensions of our staff.

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

I'm impressed by their training and recruitment of top-performing IT professionals.

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

None.