Zoolatech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a director of mobile apps at with a major retail company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zoolatech?

In our specific area, finding high-skill engineers is really difficult. We were trying to increase our development resources and turned to Zoolatech to help us scale up.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There’s really no specific scope to our work with them because they are as much a part of our team at this point as our in-house developers. They help us with all of our operations, including iOS and Android mobile app development, testing, and QA alongside our fulltime employees.

What is the team composition?

I think we have about 30 people from their team working on our products.

How did you come to work with Zoolatech?

Someone at our company knew of their founder, and we requested a proposal from them and another company. Their technical expertise really won out, so we decided to go with them.

 What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in January 2018 and we are continuing to work together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their throughput as a non-employee vendor is pretty much equal to our full-time employees’, which we are really pleased with. The quality of their work has been absolutely excellent.

How did Zoolatech perform from a project management standpoint?

The program management resources have been outstanding. They coordinate with our internal program management resources to make sure that stakeholders are communicated to and that we are always aware of the dates that they set for delivering on specific milestones.

We have regular video conference calls with their team and coordinate over email many times a day on top of that. Now that we’re all remote, it’s almost perfectly integrated into our communication as an internal company.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What really differentiates Zoolatech is the level of ownership they take over the work they do. They care as much about our company and product as our employees do, and they really go above and beyond to satisfy a deep curiosity and make sure they are proud of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, this is definitely the best relationship I have ever had with a third-party vendor.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Really trust their resources. They hire good people and do a good job of understanding your culture, so the worst thing you can do is micromanage those resources. Just give them responsibility and a chance to succeed and you will be very successful with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Senior Director of Product at Ten-X, a commercial real estate marketplace. We provide a platform for brokers to put their inventory to sell.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zoolatech?

We support the tools that work with real estate transaction lifecycles. There are tools on the platform that interact with the bottom of the funnel where the transaction and paperwork happens.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with several offshore developers to provide development support, including Zoolatech. They provided frontend, backend, and data science work.

On the frontend, they designed the navigation and search results page. They redesigned the page. Their team also supplied backend design to manage different types of marketing material.

What is the team composition?

We had around 15 people, spread between the frontend team and the backend marketing tool.

How did you come to work with Zoolatech?

Their pricing was good, we knew they had engineers that could ramp up quickly.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $1 million in 2019.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work started in summer of 2019 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They had low numbers of bugs and hit all KPIs. They were very enthusiastic and got everything done that we asked. They delivered quickly and had a quick turnaround. Everything was great.

How did Zoolatech perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a strong project management team that is flexible. We have an up-to-date version of Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Things got done very quickly. They were always up to speed on our methods.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are no issues outside of minor time zone issues with them in Ukraine.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Stay in touch with their engagement manager.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work with the Stanford Alumni Association, and I’m the technical product manager for Stanford Magazine.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zoolatech?

We realized that we needed to redevelop our CMS for the magazine. It was pretty outdated, so we brought in Zoolatech to redefine that workflow and deploy newer technologies for the publishing platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Zolatech was essentially our technical development team. They provided front- and backend development services. We had a designer on our internal staff that provided mockups and Zoolatech handled the development.

What is the team composition?

At most, we had three key members working on the project. They provided a number of different developers that we interviewed and selected each developer for our team. We assembled a team consisting of a lead developer, a frontend engineer, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Zoolatech?

It was through a colleague who provided a contact. We were looking at other development services in our area, but Zoolatch was more affordable and provided the flexibility that we wanted. We were able to scale up and down based on the needs of the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in May of 2018 ad it ran through April 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It has been transformational. Our workflow and publishing process is completely different. We were able to integrate a number of new interface elements that allow us to tell stories in new ways. We’ve been able to invest in the platform so it can adapt to our editor’s changing needs.  Having direct control has completely shifted how we think about the digital services offered by the magazine.

How did Zoolatech perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great from a project management standpoint. We had a project manager who was the person I could talk with if we were having any issues or just to communicate on a daily basis. We ran the project using an agile methodology, so we had daily standups and retrospective meetings to discuss sprints. Having that project manager gave me a really easy point of contact if there were any concerns or if I was thinking about where the project was going.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They became a part of our integrated team. We didn’t see them as service providers—they were core team members. Having a daily conversation with them and getting to know their personalities was a great benefit. It was wonderful to see the investment they had in our project made when challenges arose. They were willing to work outside of normal hours. They’re also ten hours ahead of us, which we were concerned about at first, but they were extremely accommodating to our schedule.

They were very flexible as well. We weren’t exactly sure what we needed going into the project, and they were willing to work with that ambiguity. And still, they delivered everything on time and on budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were great partners throughout the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time to interview a number of different candidates that they provide. That way, you can find the right fit in terms of personality.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are HDS Global, and I am the CTO of the company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zoolatech?

Bringing in talent to the company at speed was the biggest objective. We’re based in the Bay Area, so competing with companies like Google and Facebook for developers can often be incredibly difficult, and we reached out to Zoolatech for help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were able to access the talent market in Ukraine through their services. They provided both recruiting capabilities and strategy, helping us to understand how to best attract talent and then putting our materials in front of a big enough pool to build the team that we wanted.

What is the team composition?

They have brought about 12 people onto our team so far.

How did you come to work with Zoolatech?

Our company interviewed about five different firms for the engagement, meeting each of them and evaluating their capabilities. Our selection process was focused on making sure they were both able to meet our requirements and also a cultural fit in terms of the values we have as a company. Zoolatech was by far the strongest and made a really good impression with us, so we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The total project cost has been a little over $2,000,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked together for a little over a year, starting in January 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our biggest success metric is really the ability to execute on the product. The resources we have engaged through Zoolatech work in conjunction with our team in the US, so we don’t have a way to isolate their team and just evaluate them completely independently, but we can measure their contribution through our ability to follow the roadmap that we’ve laid out, as well as the quality of the product we are ultimately able to produce. All of that has been substantially higher than we expected.

The other aspect of the work is in the rate of attrition from their side, and how well they are able to acquire developers that want to stay with us for the duration of the work. We don’t have any attrition so far, which is really spectacular for the outsourcing model.

How did Zoolatech perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t have project management in the traditional sense since we are running an agile style development process with their team fully integrated into ours, but we do have an account manager on their side. That person has been exceptionally involved in the process, and they do an excellent job of keeping tabs on both the progress and happiness of the members of their team.

In terms of communication, we are in touch closely every single day. We make use of Microsoft teams as a communication channel and for video conferencing, we’re using Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As we mentioned, culture is a big deal for us, and we run a culture survey twice a year that includes their team as well. They run a culture survey internally as well, which provides us with a lot of valuable feedback as well and is, in my opinion, a big part of the reason we haven’t experienced any attrition.

On a more fundamental level, that culture match has been the key to attracting talent that fits our company’s style and needs. When you’re hiring and interview a bunch of candidates that don’t work out, it can become a very negative experience, so having a process in place that works well is incredibly valuable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really don’t think there’s anything I would suggest they improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COS of MasterControl

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Leader in life sciences quality and manufacturing software bringing life-changing products to more people sooner. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Rapidly expand team to meet aggressive development timelines.

SOLUTION

How did you find Zoolatech?

• Referral
• Previous work experience with Zoolatech

Why did you select Zoolatech over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Zoolatech were assigned to this project?

75+

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

Team members joined existing or new scrum teams to develop the key services and applications to deliver a modern, scalable set of applications. Teams committed to quarterly deliverables and executed on plans meeting the technical and product vision laid out by our executives. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sample of metrics:

• Team velocity
• % Commitments achieved
• PR time
• Unit/E2E/Stress testing 
• Escaped defect rate
• Service/application uptime/MTBF

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

Our principal contacts were extremely responsive to our needs, excelled at finding/screening/hiring high quality candidates, and true professionals. 

What was your primary form of communication with Zoolatech?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Working with Zoolatech is like hitting the EASY button: from senior management to our team members. 

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

Honestly, nothing comes to mind in this regard.