Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO Duet Inc., a software company. We’re an early-stage startup based in Silicon Valley.

What challenge were you trying to address with Arcanys?

The most important thing in an early-stage software startup is the engineering talent. In the US, engineering costs have been rising for the last few years, and there are a lot of cost pressures. We reached out to Arcanys to staff our project full-time.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Arcanys is our remote engineering team. They’re building an extended development team for us. They recruit local engineers in the Philippines and train them to staff various client projects. Team members are assigned to projects based on their skill set and the client’s requirements. Typically companies go to them for engineering support, and they find the talent in their trained pools and staff the projects. They act as staffing agent for clients like us who want to build a remote team.

Their software engineers are their employees, but they work on our project full-time. Our headquarter team (in the Bay Area) design the products and manages the projects. We also manage the Arcanys engineers assigned to our projects in the same way as we manage our own employees.

What is the team composition?

We have two backend engineers and one frontend. Soon, we’ll add one QA and one scrum master.

How did you come to work with Arcanys?

It was through a referral. The managing director of our accelerator used Arcanys before — he highly recommended them. We then met with Arcanys virtually a couple of times and were impressed with their offerings. We started with one engineer for a few months and then expanded to five later.

How much have you invested in them?

We pay the agency every month, and we plan to spend $200,000 with them this year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

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

We look to maximize the value and outcome of our engineering investment. Arcanys delivers on that front - high value over cost in terms of quality and efficiency. We’re very happy with Arcanys. They're our trusted technical partner.

Moreover, they provide solid work and deliver on time. We don’t have to micromanage them. Arcanys’ team works hard and can troubleshoot, which is a great quality.

How did Arcanys perform from a project management standpoint?

In our case, we manage our own project. We manage the our own engineers and the Arcanys engineers on our project all together in the same way. We have weekly meetings and daily updates using zoom, slack and a couple of other communication and collaboration tools. Arcanys’ team is pretty easy to work with. Overall, it has been working well without any major issues. 

We use Asana for project management and Slack and Zoom for communication. Asana has worked fine for us, so we’ve stuck with that. They’ve also made several recommendations, and we’ve followed some of them. We just pick and choose what works the best for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What Arcanys has impressed me the most is their training and support. They not only recruit the engineers, but have their architect-level senior engineers from Europe and the US work as trainers to train their engineers in the Philippines to follow the software development framework and processes that are mostly used in the US or Europe. It makes a big difference because their engineers can pickup the project quickly and dovetail with our team nicely. 

The other thing that stands out is their support. Software development is a multidisciplinary process, and they have a very comprehensive support structure. Besides developers, they also offer support in UX/UI design, QA, project management, scrum masters, and architecture design and review to guide the project. They can help with many aspects of software development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very happy with them so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Arcanys has been growing fast because of the high demand. If you're interested in working with them, I'd recommend to reach out early as it may take time to find and train the right talents for your project. It's also in their best interest to make sure that you have the right person.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a company that creates websites for florists.

What challenge were you trying to address with Arcanys?

A lot of florists don’t have websites for selling bouquets online. We wanted to create an e-commerce platform that enables florists to list themselves on the Google Ads platform and not other wedding sites.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Arcanys built an Angular template-based system that helps florists create a new website in just a few minutes. We integrated it with Google Ads so we could control Google Ads and what they’re selling online. It serves a sales platform that fits into a florist’s business.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Eric (Senior Web Architect) and Jill (Project Manager). We had a team of eight developers, which we reduced to five once we started.

How did you come to work with Arcanys?

I went to the Philippines for a call center solution at my former business. While I was there, I searched IT vendors as well and found Arcanys on Clutch. They looked like they had a good history and background. We met up to chat through the business and we hit it off pretty well. When I started my new business, they agreed to work with me again.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020, and we launched in January 2021. Our work is ongoing with little tweaks.

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

Their quality is impeccable. There hasn’t been a time where they haven’t made the deadline. Our customers enjoy the solution as well, which fills our business objectives. There haven’t been any serious bugs; on the whole, they’re a good team.

How did Arcanys perform from a project management standpoint?

I talk with Eric on a senior level a couple of times a week. I speak with Jill on a daily basis. I also speak with the wider team every two weeks. As part of the process, I have a session with Jill and Eric on what we’re going to build. Then, Jill breaks that plan down into sprints. Next, she discusses it with the wider team. They always deliver on my expectations. I have access to shared Slack and Jira channels.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re great from a budget and quality perspective. I’ve managed my own in-house team before, and it’s a nightmare. They do a good job all around. Their openness and their ability to listen stand out. They really spend time to understand us and the objectives of our business, which is quite unique.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend Arcanys to anyone. They’re a good team that’s worth getting to know. I can’t think of a better team to work with if you want software built. They have a full range of employees that can develop or design.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Digital Earth Network. We are a software platform, working to pull ERP data from systems of companies that have reps in the field.

What challenge were you trying to address with Arcanys?

We were looking for a partner to develop a multi-tenant software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed a multi-tenant software for multiple platforms. They are involved in every aspect, including testing.

The system manages ERP systems, providing up-to-date data for reps in the field to use. There is a GPS check-in to verify how long a rep is on-site, performs gap reports, and has some digital marketing tools. There is also a CRM component to log texts and calls, store photos, and more. It also provides digital assets, including brochures, videos, product sales, info, and results. 

What is the team composition?

There are eight or nine people working with us at any given time, including a project manager, UI designer, UX designer, and lead developers/engineers. Different parts of the team are involved at different points of the project.

How did you come to work with Arcanys?

We had worked with a couple vendors who couldn’t complete the work we required. We were considering a few companies, and were impressed with what we saw in the philosophy of this company. Our CTO went to the Philippines to meet with them in person, and found them to be knowledgeable and capable, and they worked in Agile and Scrum.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost so far is between $400,000 - $450,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around July 2019, and it’s ongoing.

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

They did very thorough testing, including pushing the software beyond expected demand prior to launch to ensure it would hold up. They fix any bugs that are found and work effectively.

The platform is consistent, and meets our clients’ objectives. Each client’s ERP system can be slightly different, and the team takes time to be thorough with each one. Our clients are extremely happy with the work. They’re a dream team.

How did Arcanys perform from a project management standpoint?

They are an elite team. Per our request, they restrict us to best practices, keeping us on track, with a laser-focus. We follow strict Agile methodology, have daily scrum calls, and bi-weekly reflective calls to discuss ways to improve. We use Jira for tickets and backlogs, and Slack for daily communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re results-oriented, focusing more on solutions and outcomes rather than the problem itself. They constantly look to empower the team, and encourage open brainstorming with no egos, regardless of the team member’s seniority. It is quite refreshing. I love working with Arcanys; they’ve become part of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Define your project. They do quality work and are willing to bring in people from all levels to speak into the project and find solutions, as needed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

International Content Director / National Networks Manager with Office Media market leader Executive Channel Network, who have digital signage networks and operations in Sydney, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam

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

Atleast 5 different management applications were designed and developed by Arcanys to provide the necessary capabilities required to aggregate, segment and distributes live data from a diverse range of media suppliers including news, weather, financial hubs and social media APIs.

Additionally, a further 50+ intelligent content applications have been designed and developed for daily operation across 5 markets.

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

Following a review process of several vendors combined with a recommendation from an industry colleague, Arcanys was shortlisted based on breadth of technical capabilities, sensible costings, and a fiercely positive approach to innovation.

Knowing that a successful project partnership would lead to an ongoing relationship of development we were very fortunate to find a tech partner who was thoroughly trust worthy and shared common values.

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

ECN's ambitious dev schedule for product development required expertise across multiple technologies including;

• .NET
• HTML5
• JS
• SQL
• PHP and more.

Our projects were largely understood from legacy systems and processes which had been brought together piecemeal over many years but needed to undergo fresh development.

Our Arcanys team implemented our refined workflows and automated processing requirements which has alleviated the need for strong technically minded resources to manage daily operations, instead offering capabilities that can be easily controlled and configured by largely non-technical resources.

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

2 x HTML5/JS Developers ( Senior and Mid level), 1xPHP/Symphony (Mid level) , 1x .NET/SQL (Senior)

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

ECN's Source Content Aggregation and delivery is expected to run without interruption (24/7 365 days a year) across 5 international networks, 600+ unique asset locations, combining data from more than 30+ API suppliers, on a daily basis and even more during advertising campaigns which utilise dynamic triggers for a customised audience experience.

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

ECN Project manages all aspects of product development with Arcanys team members in the same style as would be used with our own local resources. Additional inputs on occasion from Arcanys Scrum masters / Team leads proves helpful where meeting schedules are sometimes interrupted.

JIRA is used extensively for allocation of Tasks, Planning and Timesheeting and has been a brilliantly simple and clear layer of transparency ongoing.

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

No pun intended, but Arcanys' unique ability to be a Swiss army knife of services reduces the need to engage multiple suppliers, which saves time, simplifies project spend, reduces communication burdens and improves our agility when kicking off new initiatives.

But perhaps of even greater value is their 'can-do' attitude and relentlessly positive view of the work.

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

There are always areas for improvement in our business and processes. Arcanys as a partner join us in that responsibility and noticeably are proactive in improving communication, transparency and technical expertise. This has been a key differentiator in their style over other suppliers.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Register Now is a SAAS company providing Event Registrations for mass participation based events in the Australiasia region. I am the owner of the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Arcanys?

Arcanys was initially hired to supplement our internal development team.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were twofold - to attempt to build our team in a cost-effective manner with talented people, and to gain access to other technical resources on an as-needed basis.

How did you select this vendor?

We developed an initial 'test' project that we sent to a number of potential providers that we had shortlisted. We agreed on payment and time frames with 4 providers to complete the project. Not only did the Arcanys team take the time to understand the brief, but they completed it ahead of schedule and provided shippable code that we were able to implement into our platform immediately.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project is an ongoing one where the technical resources Arcanys provides are working on our core platform offering. We build in dot net have had very high information security and PCI compliance processes which the team has been able to work comfortably within.

What was the team composition?

We have a number of developers, architects, BA and QA's at Arcanys working with us on an ongoing basis. The team works closely with the product team in based in Australia on a daily basis. After some good successes with Arcanys, we have gradually increased our team size with Arcanys and are likely to continue to do so.

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

Register Now was struggling to find talent at a reasonable rate. We have managed to do that with Arcanys. This has allowed us to concentrate local resources on building the business and growing our customer base which we are doing faster than ever.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We use Azure DevOps to manage our backlog and releases. Our communication is constant and we utilize Slack for internal chat and Google Hangouts daily standups and video calls as required. We find the brief daily stand up at the start of the day to be a very effective way of keeping the team on track.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We have had no turnover with the team we have been building with Arcanys over three years. This is a testament to the management team's efforts to provide an extremely positive workplace for the employees. The Arcanys employees are some of the happiest that I've experienced.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We constantly review our processes with our team at Arcanys and have found the team very responsive to this process. Time zones can prove an issue occasionally, especially during daylight savings, however, on request the team have been willing to adjust accordingly.