Divante

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital and marketing director for an industrial solutions company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante?

We had selected our CMS and e-commerce solution, and we needed skilled developers who could partner with us and help us develop them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They help us develop our customer-facing platforms where we build things for the customer including web shops, websites, or configurators. They host the entire platform as well. They do development, bug fixing, and surveillance of all the systems.

What is the team composition?

We work with 8-15 people depending on the number of projects that we have. We have a core team with a technical lead developer, a project manager, a frontend developer, a QA person, and right now, we have a second backend developer. We have two UX experts involved from time to time with us.

How did you come to work with Divante?

We looked for possible partners all over Europe. We had a smaller agency helping us out before but they weren’t good. Divante was recommended by several sources. We had conversations with other potential agencies but we found Divante to be the best fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2018, and the work is ongoing.

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

They understand our business and meet our needs. I’m really pleased with them. The tech lead is very good at understanding our needs and translating them into code. They’re usually very quick, but it always depends on what kind of developer you get. Some are super good and others aren’t as quick. Overall, their quality of service is really high.

How did Divante perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings with them. We use email and Slack to communicate, and we talk over the phone when needed. They’re very good at meeting deadlines. Even if they get delayed, they notify us early on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like the agile way we’re able to work with them. We liked the speed at which we could work with them. They have a good business understanding on their end. For them to understand what we mean and what we need is important. We have such a strong dialogue.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, we started to change a little bit of the team and they introduced new people into the team. It turned out well, but I would prefer to have a consistent team throughout. They don’t do it too often, but it happens.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure they have an understanding of your business early on. Make sure you have a person to talk to that understands you so you don’t struggle every time to explain your business needs each time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital at W.EG. CEE, a business unit of the German Würth Group, which is a world market leader in the trade of assembly and fastening material. W.EG. is the Würth Group’s Electrical Wholesale unit, which is one of the leading electrical wholesalers on the European market. 

We are 17 companies in Europe and they are distributed between Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Italy, and Spain. We have 5,500 people working for our business unit.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante?

Many of our companies had been acquired during the last four years — we acquired 7–8 companies. A few years ago, we identified for our unit that one of the most important topics is product information management (PIM) system. We needed to digitize our products and catalogs. We needed a solution that would meet the requirements of all of our companies. 

The challenges here are we have companies in various countries and various languages and sizes of companies. We have a huge amount of items because we’re selling items from international suppliers and the average company has an assortment between 500,000-1 million items. 

The challenge is to collect those items and then to import those items to the PIM system and prepare them to be published on our various channels like e-commerce or printing material. With the challenges of different countries, different sizes of companies, and the number of our products, we needed a PIM system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The basis of our PIM system is Pimcore, an existing open-source solution. Divante is one of the implementation partners. We used this PIM system as the basis for our project. 

Based on Pimcore, we built our PIM system for the various companies. We added quite a lot of additional functionalities because our industry has a few very specific requirements, especially when it comes to the import of products and catalogs that we receive from our suppliers. There are different size formats and we needed to create the tools within PIM to easily import all the different formats. 

It was important for us to have a solution in October 2018 to go live and import the data and having basic functionalities for our internal job. From there, we have a roadmap for various projects to add functionalities and features, so that is what we’re continuing to work on with them. We’re continually streamlining the process, improving the software, and upgrading it with them. 

What is the team composition?

There have been 8–10 people involved, including a project manager, a technical architect, and developers.

How did you come to work with Divante?

During the demos, they were able to show that they have experience in our business because they’d worked with customers similar to us. They knew the language we were speaking. They’re a company in Central Eastern Europe where most of our companies are based so, from a geographical point of view, that made sense. 

The people from Divante have good language skills and the company has quite a few years of experience in the PIM and e-commerce market. They have around 250 people that are working for them and we felt quite comfortable with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €420,000 (approximately $506,500 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

The most important thing was that we’re able to import and handle this huge amount of around one million items. From a performance point of view, there haven’t been any issues with their product. 

One of our most important goals was to be able to import the various file types and we can now map those import definitions on our own. We don’t need the support of technical teams. All of our companies are now live with e-commerce, which means the products are enriched and we have all the data we need. We now have various pictures of our items that are sent to our various e-commerce platforms and the technical documents are available. 

We’re happy with the work that’s been done. The product has made us quite autonomous and we can do the job on our own. We’re able to handle all of the items from various suppliers which was our main goal — they helped us reach it.

We exceeded the budget but it was because, during the implementation stage, we added additional requirements that weren’t foreseen in the initial budget.

How did Divante perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in an agile approach. We have weekly meetings where they show us the progress. For smaller things, we also have daily meetings. We’re always able to see how things are moving in the direction where we want them to go.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re doing really well and we like that we have direct contact together. We can talk directly with the developers and explain our business and requirements to them. Everything is documented and the communication is direct. We’ve really been able to reach our goals at the end of the day and create nice solutions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning, it wasn’t that clear how the project methodology was working. They weren’t able to explain it very well to us. During the project, we started to understand why a few processes were important and we had a very open discussion and the initial difficulties were resolved.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s very important that you are clear what the goal is and what you want to do. Also make sure to have the right people involved in the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an e-commerce platform for pastime activities like canoeing. I am a sales executive and a co-founder of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante?

We needed help with the technical execution of our product. The other co-founders and I have business degrees but we didn’t have expertise in terms of technical execution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divante provided UX design for our web platform. We had an idea and business model in place, but the technical execution was Divante’s responsibility. We had an initial Skype call, during which we explained our product’s goal and the mission of the company. Divante gave us a big list of questions to give them a sense of how we functioned and how we planned to build our product.

We have a straightforward design. There were plans in place for everything, including basic wireframes and mapping the customer's journey through the website. We knew what we wanted, so Divante simply executed what we told them in a professional manner.

Divante also put together a prototype for the customers we were trying to approach.

How did you come to work with Divante?

We found Divante through a referral from a local company in Finland. They had used Divante in the past, and recommended them as a way of getting very good quality at half the price. Local options are very expensive. We also researched a number of other companies, but Divante was the perfect fit for us at that point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Divante in January 2017. The work finished in mid-February.

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

We haven’t seen a lot of feedback yet. Another company is executing the software development, and Divante’s work has helped them a lot. It’s much easier to go forward since we’ve put together some good plans.

Divante delivered very good quality and acted professionally. They knew how to lead the process, especially since we were a startup made up of recent graduates. Everything was new to us, so it was great to work with professionals like Divante. They told us how everything would work, and made it easy.

How did Divante perform from a project management standpoint?

I have no complaints. We communicated through email, Google Hangouts and Skype calls, and everything was well-organized.

What did you find most impressive about Divante?

I appreciate their professionalism and the way in which Divante can lead the customer. When buying a heavily technical service, it’s important to know what we want to get out of it, but it’s sometimes impossible to know what the whole process will include. Working with professionals allowed us to highlight important elements, as well as setup realistic timetables and budgets.

Are there any areas Divante could improve?

No. We got what we wanted, so we’re satisfied.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

TIM S.A. is one of the biggest distributors of electro-technical goods in Poland. The company has been present in the market for over 25 years and combines great tradition with new e-commerce technologies, selling through our online shop (TIM.pl) and mobile version (mTIM). TIM, as the first company in this industry in Poland, decided to launch the online version of its store for individuals and B2B [business-to-business] buyers without the necessity of registration or logging in. In 2016, TIM.pl qualified for the finals of the Imagine Excellence Awards for The Best B2B User Experience. This is the official award given to the best online stores by Magento Inc., a provider of the leading online sales platform, used by over 250 thousand companies around the world.

I am the director of development & technology at TIM S.A.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante?

Given the changes in the world of today’s B2B distribution, we decided to follow market trends and diversify our selling channels. First, we built a small e-shop with cables (also with Divante), then decided to have a complete transformation from offline to online commerce.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We decided to build an e-commerce interface from scratch. Divante started with research, including competitor analysis, survey research, trend analysis, and industry reports. At that stage, they created personas that reflected the user groups we needed to design for. Afterward, we moved to the design phase. Divante ran the implementation and tests (functional integration, safety, and performance tests). Divante also helped us with choosing which technology to use, and we went with Magento.

How did you come to work with Divante?

We started working on this project with another agency that failed in their work on the user experience. Divante had great mock-ups, and they surprised us with a wide knowledge of e-commerce. That’s why we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with Divante?

The project cost over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in March 2012 and ended in July 2013.

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

After the implementation of TIM.pl, we achieved most of our business goals: business diversity, new customers, and improved business effectiveness. It was also a financial success. In 2015 we noted 67% increase in sales through the online channel and over 130,000,000 EUR [US$139,834,500] in revenue, including 87,000,000 EUR [US$93,581,550] revenue from online channels.

What did you find most impressive about Divante?

Divante surprised us with their broad knowledge of e-commerce. They have great experience in the technologies they work on. Divante also has a strong team of customer experience specialists - designers, researchers, marketers, and analysts, who are very passionate about their work.

Are there any areas Divante could improve?

Divante focuses most on the technological aspects of their work, but they should be more business-oriented. It would be great if they could deliver new human resources to the project faster because it takes too long to make changes that arise from current needs.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

T-Mobile is an international provider of telecommunication services owned by Telecom Deutschland. The group has over 130 million customers worldwide. It’s also one of the largest mobile networks in Poland, providing a full range of telecommunications services to individual and institutional clients.

I am the process management specialist.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante?

T-Mobile in Germany was operating a successful ElectronicBeats site, and in order to keep up with market demand, T-Mobile in Poland needed a way to quickly recreate the site for our users.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divante designed the whole layout for ElecontricBeats.pl. They created and implemented the service on the PimCore platform.

How did you come to work with Divante?

Divante was recommended by another company that was satisfied with their services.

How much have you invested with Divante?

The project cost between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in December 2015 with creative workshops. We started designing the service in January. ElectronicBeats.pl was released on April 22nd, 2016.

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

Divante reduced our time to market and satisfied the needs of our users much faster. Their work led to a more prosperous client base and ultimately increased revenue. The website is increasingly generating traffic on a daily basis. From April till August 2016, the website was visited by nearly 340,000 unique users.

What did you find most impressive about Divante?

Divante gave us full support regarding technical issues (including consultancy). Divante has a lot of experience and wide knowledge about the technologies they work on.

Are there any areas Divante could improve?

It may not be connected to Divante directly, but we’d put more stress on SEO [search engine optimization]. Cooperation with an SEO company only started at the end of Divante’s implementation process. Now, we need to catch up.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Ringier Axel Springer Polska (RASP) is among the biggest press publishers in Poland. Our portfolio includes 3 dailies, 2 weeklies, and some magazines. RASP publishes books and special magazines as well. Literia.pl is an e-commerce site for selling all publications published by RASP. I am responsible for the literia.pl site as a product owner.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divante? 

Our main goal was to relaunch the literia.pl site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divante was brought in to build the new literia.pl e-shop from scratch. The previous version of Literia.pl was also made by Divante. Their services included the development of the full purchasing path, intuitive user interface, and new UX. They also did the implementation of subscriptions and collections of books, implementation of user panel, and new graphics, and logotype. The logotype was prepared by RASP in the end, though. Literia.pl was developed using the Magento e-shop engine.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began in March 2015 and launched the website in December 2015. The project is still under development using Agile methodology, and new functionalities are added month by month. 

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

Our incomes have doubled in comparison to the previous year.

Are there any areas Divante could improve?

I wasn’t involved in the first step of the project, and the database of subscriptions was projected incorrectly. Therefore, my experience in building publishing systems in other projects could not have been used, so Divante had to make it without experience accessible only to the industry experts. Taking into account their lack of industry knowledge, the project was quite fine.  

Please give a brief description of your company.

CDP.PL is a globally recognized and awarded video games distributor and publisher in Poland. The company has focused its operational activities on the local market continuously since 1994. Our most notable current business partners are Blizzard Entertainment, Disney Interactive, Konami, Focus Home Interactive, Nordic Games, and Wizards of the Coast. We believe in an added value, wise life cycle management, and proactive marketing.

What is your role at the company?

I'm a co-owner acting as a CFO and COO and am also responsible for IT [information technology] and development.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached Divante?

There were a few challenges. First, we needed to rewrite our digital distribution platform to give us more flexibility and scalability. Second, we wanted to add a mail-order option without changing and complicating the sales path. Third, we sought to revamp the site graphics and visuals to show our digital and physical products clearly. Lastly, we needed all of this done very quickly.

What was the scope of the project, and can you describe the specific services provided by Divante?

The scope of the project included redesigning the website's graphics and UX [user experience], transitioning from the Spree platform to Magento, and extending the functionality of our mail-order sales. Divante was responsible for code writing, implementation and architecture of our new online shop engine. Another company, ArsThanea, was responsible for UX and website redesign.

What was your process for selecting them?

We searched for companies that could meet our business challenge, and would complement our style of work and our philosophy.

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project? 

The total cost of the project was between $200,000 and $500,000

When did the project begin, and when was it completed?

We first got the idea for this project during the last quarter of 2013. We started working with Divante at the beginning of 2014, and the project went live in January of 2015.

What were the results of the project. Are there any metrics you can share?

The project is still very fresh, and we are still measuring the results, but we have definitely achieved all of our original target goals: a scalable modern platform and a beautifully responsive e-commerce platform that is simple to navigate.

How did they perform in terms of the quality of their work?

Divante managed to develop integrations and functionalities without any hassles or hold ups, and they were always eager to go the extra mile. We had no critical issues even after launching The Witcher 3, which generated huge traffic on the site.

Is there anything unique or special about Divante that really makes them stand out? 

They are very devoted to the project. They worked for 12 to 14 hours per day to meet our narrow deadlines. Divante also went the extra mile by suggesting a lot of architectural and even usability improvements as the development went along.

Looking back on the project, do you have any constructive criticism? Is there any area that they could improve or you would do differently?

In our case, the project was quite big, taking more than 7,000 man-hours to complete, so maintaining real-time information on progress proved difficult. That's one area where Divante could improve. However, using scrum techniques, we were quite well informed about deadline estimations and progress eventually.

Please give me a brief description of your company.

EF Englishtown is an online English school for adults and busy professionals. We are a B2C business operating in 12 markets and employing over 350 people. As part of EF Education First, we draw upon a 45-year legacy of academic excellence and innovative language learning, helping more than 20 million people across the world successfully develop their English skills. Our mission is to use technology to create a fundamentally better way of learning English. Over 30 nationalities are represented among our staff across the EF Englishtown offices in the US, Europe, Brazil, Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, and many other locations.

What is your role at the company?

I'm the Global Head of SEO & Content Marketing. As part of my role, I'm leading a team of seven people responsible for growing revenue from organic search. Our main source of traffic is company blog network available in 12 languages generating over 300,000 UV per month.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached Divante?

We had a low conversion rate, and our user experience was not consistent across different parts of our website.

What were your company’s business goals for the project?

To redesign our blog publishing network, and unify its design with other parts of the website, as well as increase conversion from visitors to paying customers.

Can you tell me about the scope of the project?

The scope of that project was substantial and included a complete re-design of a multisite WordPress installation available in 12 languages with an extensive feature set required. 

What was your process for selecting Divante to work with?

We selected Divante out of other five competing firms from India and UK based on the portfolio of their clients, quality of previous work and, of course, cost.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms or personnel work hours?

The project included 250h of mostly front end web development with additional project management and testing. Divante will also be assisting with on-going monthly maintenance and post-release support.

When was the project completed?

The first phase of the project was completed on May 22, 2015.

What were the results of the project, and are there any metrics you can share?

I don't have any metrics to share yet, as the project has just finished, but I'll be happy to share them later.

How did Divante perform?

Divante performed and delivered beyond our expectations. Everyone here has been pleasantly surprised with how quality the work has been.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies that you may have worked with?

Divante has great people who are passionate about digital work and have the skills to match their ambitious ideas for projects, and deliver them on time. 

I was also pleasantly surprised with their clear and professional communication skills at every stage of the project. 

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve or you would do differently?

One thing to consider in future is to explore alternative project management software, as the current one (Redmine) is a bit dated. It works and I have no issues with it personally, but for some clients it might be too advanced and might feel like extra work they don't need in their busy schedule.

Please provide a description of your company. 

We are the leading distributor of gold and other precious metals in Poland. Our company sells precious metals to both institutional investors and individuals. 

What kind of business challenge you were trying to address when you approached Divante?

We were trying to update and modernize our online store. Very few distributors of precious metals have modern websites. We felt one way we could differentiate ourselves would be by following the latest trends in e-commerce. For this reason, the size of the project was quite large.

Why did you select Divante for the project?

We chose Divante based primarily on their past work. Our choice was heavily influenced by their rich experience in large e-commerce projects. They have access to the leading specialists in the field.

Can you talk about the scope of the project?

The scope was quite complex. Divante was tasked with comprehensive design and implementation of the store, including integrations with internal CRM [customer relationship management] systems that we already had in place. 

Can you give a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms or man-hours?

In total, the project consisted of about 2,000 hours of work, such as programmers, testers, and front-end developers.

When was the project completed?

The final project was delivered April 14, 2015.

What were the results of the project and are there any metrics you can share?

We are very happy with the quality of the work delivered by Divante. The site feels modern and functions very well. However, it is still too early to speak of results or metrics.

During your cooperation, was there anything unique or special about them, in comparison to other companies with which you may have worked?

Divante has worked on a lot of e-commerce projects. Their experience in the field really showed throughout the project.

Looking back at the project, is there any area that they could improve or handle differently?

There is always room for improvement, but we plan to continue to work with Divante in the future.

Please provide a description of your company.

We are an FMCG [fast moving consumer goods] distributor. We are the main distributor in Poland for companies, such as P&G, 3M, SCJ, and Braun. 

What is your role at the company?

I’m the director of our contact center, I also oversee our e-commerce department.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached Divante?

Divante has worked on several e-commerce projects for us. These projects have primarily revolved around integrating all our sales channels, such as sales reps, call centers, EDI [electronic data interchanges], and B2B [business-to-business] platforms, onto one consistent platform for both our B2C [business-to-consumer] and B2B operations.

What were your company’s business goals for the project?

Our goal was to make it easier for our customers to order from us. With an integrated sales channel, our customers would have more flexibility in the way they placed orders. We could also ensure they had the most up-to-date trade terms, promotions, and order history information.

Can you talk about the scope of the project?

They were responsible for the full development and integration of our new B2B and B2C sales platforms.

What was your process for selecting Divante with which to work?

After we decided to go with Magento for our sales platform, the choice of Divante was quite obvious. They're very well known in that area. 

We've chosen to work with Divante on other projects based on our past success with them.

Can you give a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms or personnel work hours?

In total, we've probably spent around $300,000.

When was the project completed?

It finished February 2015.

What were the results of the project, and are there any metrics you can share?

It's too early to speak about the business results of the project, but we are very satisfied with the quality of their work.

How did Divante perform?

Divante performed very well. They have a very methodical way of doing things, which made for a very smooth project.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies with which you may have worked?

Most of software companies say, "tell us exactly what do you need and we will program this for you." Particularly with our B2C platform, we had no experience and thus were unable to provide specific instructions. Divante consulted with us and gave us insights that went far beyond basic software implementation and coding.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve or you would do differently?

We did have a problem when they changed the project manager for our team, but they resolved this issue quickly.