Factom

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

BlueSky Retail Holdings is a mid-size Events & Event Management business in Chicago, IL, USA. I joined as Chief Digital Officer two years ago specifically to modernise how we build and buy technology. This engagement was part of that programme.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

A competitor move accelerated our timeline by six months. A AI & Machine Learning investment that had been planned for next year suddenly needed to happen now. Internal build was not viable — we needed to find the right external team quickly.

What services did the company provide for your project?

AI & Machine Learning design and build, plus the performance testing that revealed an architecture concern we needed to address before launch. The testing investment paid for itself. They also handled the deployment pipeline and monitoring configuration, which our internal team had not budgeted time for.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

Referral from someone whose technical judgment I trust. The due diligence we ran confirmed what we had been told. The proposal stage was also notably more thorough than the alternatives — they clearly understood the AI & Machine Learning requirements better than the other vendors we evaluated.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Very well. The discovery process was more thorough than anything we had experienced before. They challenged requirements that were vague, proposed better alternatives where our thinking was limiting, and produced a spec that our stakeholders agreed was the clearest articulation of the product they had ever seen written down.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

I used to chase status updates weekly on vendor engagements. This was the first time I did not have to. Updates came consistently, problems surfaced early, and the shared project board always reflected reality rather than optimism.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time. Budget was within the approved ceiling, including one scope addition we introduced mid-project that was quoted fairly and handled in parallel without affecting the main delivery stream. No surprises at invoice stage.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Four months live. User adoption exceeded our first-month target by around 20%. Support volume is down. Features we had deferred for years because the old architecture made them too expensive to build are now in active development. The platform opened our roadmap.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The post-launch engagement. Some vendors treat go-live as the end of their obligation. This team treated it as a transition to a different kind of engagement. Hypercare was substantive, documentation was genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at thirty and ninety days.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

I already have. Three people in my network have used them based on my recommendation and all three have reported positively. That is the only endorsement that matters.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

As Head of Technology at Highveld Tech Pty Ltd, a Legal Services organisation in Johannesburg, South Africa, I manage technology investment and delivery outcomes. We make commercial decisions about technology — every project needs a credible case before it gets approved.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Honestly, we had been deferring this Game Development investment for eighteen months. User feedback had been consistent and our conversion data confirmed the impact. We eventually ran out of reasons to delay.

What services did the company provide for your project?

End-to-end Game Development delivery with particular focus on the data migration and integration workstreams, which carried the highest project risk. A dedicated QA resource was embedded throughout development and they left us with a proper operations runbook at handover.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

A peer in the Legal Services sector had used them for a similar Game Development engagement and recommended them without qualification. Our own due diligence confirmed the picture they described. The combination of domain knowledge and delivery track record made the decision straightforward.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Well. They pushed back on areas where our requirements were vague or poorly thought through and helped us arrive at something more considered. That consultative approach during discovery is not universal and it made a real difference to the quality of what was built.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Communication was proactive and well-calibrated. Technical detail for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, and risks raised with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews kept our stakeholders informed without pulling them into every working session.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time and on budget. The estimation accuracy was the part I found most impressive — they had broken the work down thoroughly enough during discovery that the forecast held throughout rather than drifting with every scope conversation. We had one change request, and it was for scope we had added ourselves.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Four months live. User adoption exceeded our first-month target by around 20%. Support volume is down. Features we had deferred for years because the old architecture made them too expensive to build are now in active development. The platform opened our roadmap.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The post-launch engagement. Some vendors treat go-live as the end of their obligation. This team treated it as a transition to a different kind of engagement. Hypercare was substantive, documentation was genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at thirty and ninety days.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes. I would specifically recommend them for Game Development projects where getting the requirements right at the start is critical. That is where they earn their fees — and the downstream delivery reflects it.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

We are a Gaming & Gambling company based in Singapore. My role as Product Director at Lionhead Digital Pte Ltd means I sit at the intersection of business goals and technical delivery — which means I care a lot about vendors who can translate between both.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Compliance requirements in our Gaming & Gambling space changed and the deadline was set by our regulator, not by us. The ERP Development work required was specialist enough that pulling our internal team off the product roadmap to do it was not an option.

What services did the company provide for your project?

The stated scope was ERP Development delivery. In practice they also contributed to product strategy conversations, flagged gaps in our requirements, and produced integration documentation that our partner vendors later told us was unusually thorough.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

We shortlisted five vendors. Two were eliminated immediately based on the technical proposals. Of the remaining three, this team's ERP Development approach was the most specific and evidenced — actual Gaming & Gambling reference cases, not generic slides. The reference calls confirmed what the proposal described.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Well. They pushed back on areas where our requirements were vague or poorly thought through and helped us arrive at something more considered. That consultative approach during discovery is not universal and it made a real difference to the quality of what was built.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Professional and efficient. The PM had a clear view of the critical path at all times and was transparent when anything threatened it. We made one significant scope change mid-project. It was handled through a proper change request, fairly priced, and absorbed without disrupting the delivery timeline.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

Delivered on time. We had one week of unplanned delay due to an external API issue that neither party controlled. They communicated it early, proposed a workaround, and the launch date stayed the same. That is how delays should be managed.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Four months live. User adoption exceeded our first-month target by around 20%. Support volume is down. Features we had deferred for years because the old architecture made them too expensive to build are now in active development. The platform opened our roadmap.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The post-launch engagement. Some vendors treat go-live as the end of their obligation. This team treated it as a transition to a different kind of engagement. Hypercare was substantive, documentation was genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at thirty and ninety days.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes. I would specifically recommend them for ERP Development projects where getting the requirements right at the start is critical. That is where they earn their fees — and the downstream delivery reflects it.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

Luminar Tech Pvt Ltd is a Education business based in Hyderabad, India. As VP of Product, I own the technology strategy and vendor relationships. Every spending decision gets evaluated against a concrete business case — we do not invest in technology for its own sake.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

A competitor move accelerated our timeline by six months. A Digital Marketing investment that had been planned for next year suddenly needed to happen now. Internal build was not viable — we needed to find the right external team quickly.

What services did the company provide for your project?

The stated scope was Digital Marketing delivery. In practice they also contributed to product strategy conversations, flagged gaps in our requirements, and produced integration documentation that our partner vendors later told us was unusually thorough.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

A peer in the Education sector had used them for a similar Digital Marketing engagement and recommended them without qualification. Our own due diligence confirmed the picture they described. The combination of domain knowledge and delivery track record made the decision straightforward.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Thoroughly. The requirements document they produced was detailed enough that our QA team used it directly to write acceptance criteria. Every story had a defined business outcome attached. Nothing was left to interpretation, which paid dividends all the way through to testing.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Very strong on the async side, which mattered given the time difference between Hyderabad, India and the delivery team. Written updates were specific and consistent, decisions got responses the same day, and nothing was dropped across a five-month engagement. That discipline is harder than it looks.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time and on budget. The estimation accuracy was the part I found most impressive — they had broken the work down thoroughly enough during discovery that the forecast held throughout rather than drifting with every scope conversation. We had one change request, and it was for scope we had added ourselves.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Four months live. User adoption exceeded our first-month target by around 20%. Support volume is down. Features we had deferred for years because the old architecture made them too expensive to build are now in active development. The platform opened our roadmap.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The directness. When our requirements were unclear, they said so. When our priorities were contradictory, they explained why. When a technical approach we assumed was right had significant downsides, they told us before we committed. That kind of honesty is what I actually want from a technology partner.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Absolutely. We are scoping a second engagement and I expect this to become a multi-year partnership. For anyone in the Education space looking for serious Digital Marketing delivery, I would put them at the top of the evaluation list.