This question may arise to someone who hasn’t tried ordering services in IT field from Ukrainians before. Those who have the idea how it works – are definitely in love with the service they are getting.
Here is a short interview-like information, where one of the USA digital marketing agency owners is sharing his experience on comparing both teams he’s using, Ukrainian and Indian.
Acknowledgment: We in Skynix are very pleased to have such a partner, and thanks a lot for providing this useful material to the:
- Interviewer – a wireframing Guru, UI and marketing geek – LW
- CEO – a team leader, who successfully built a great digital marketing agency offering way more beyond web development – SZ
Idea one. The Reputation of Ukrainian companies
Interviewer:
Hi all. What we’re going to do is just ask a series of questions here that would give us some insight into why clients, in their own words, are looking for a solution and what’s important to them in the buying decision process. First off, this is an interview with the CEO a 30 person digital marketing agency in the United States. What was going on in your business that sent you looking for a solution, in the first place?
CEO:
Mostly, we just had a lot of extra work, and we needed more hands. We needed more bandwidth to be able to deliver on our projects. Secondary is we wanted to try out a different team in Ukraine because we’ve heard good things about teams in Ukraine for development as opposed to our current Indian development team.
Some of those things that we heard were good about Ukrainian teams was generally just quality, security, timelines, communication: those aspects which are really important.
Interviewer:
Where did you hear about those reputations of Ukrainian firms for development?
CEO:
Actually it was just through a friend’s Dad who works at Apple and has a lot of experience managing developers.
Idea two. Ukraine = Confidence, and Trust
Interviewer:
Okay. Cool. You mentioned an Indian firm. What else had you tried, and what didn’t you love about other solutions?
CEO:
I’ve just worked with a lot of Indian firms. If you hire someone in the US, you often times get a horrible value. It’s not profitable. There’s plenty of good Indian companies out there, but even the best Indian companies out there, there are certain cultural things. I don’t know if it’s cultural, but it’s just like even the best Indian companies tend to not be good about certain things like quality control, communication, and just general quality and reliability. That’s about it.
Interviewer:
What almost kept you from hiring Skynix?
CEO:
There was a lot of options for good Ukrainian firms. I think definitely price was one of the considerations. Most of the companies I was looking at all had really good reviews. One thing that stood out is just there was really good communication from Bogdan Kushlyk which… I know you asked me what’s the one things that kept me almost from not hiring them, but I suppose just other companies all being similar. The Ukrainian companies were all similar in a sense I knew that I was going to get something that’s good quality. I knew they were going to be more expensive. It’s just a matter of choosing which company to go with. There’s little differentiation.
Interviewer:
Got you.
CEO:
Unless you talk to the people. If you talk to the people, you can start to get a sense just who you like the most. It just came down to that, I guess, and who answered some of the questions well.
Idea three. Focus on details difference
Interviewer:
Okay, that’s great. You actually just answered my next question, but is there anything else specifically that made you confident enough to give them a try?
CEO:
They were really competitive on price and value. It seemed like communication was excellent. It seemed like they had that good attention to detail. They have a good track record. It seemed like they really have their own process. Whether or not they have a really good process themselves, the way that they shared it, step-wise and clearly, into like one, two, three, four, like the way Bogdan broke it down, it’s very clear.
I just really like that clarity and the project management. That was something that was better about them. The other person that I spoke to in Skynix was Oleksii, he was generally just more clear and concise as opposed to other people. And for the cost as well, it was good.
Interviewer:
Got you. You touched on probably a lot of these points here. What is it that makes Skynix the best solution for you specifically for your situation?
CEO:
I think it’s that I have confidence, and then they also deliver on time. Another thing is some of the companies didn’t have the bandwidth. There were other companies that I was planning to work with above Skynix team, but they just happen to be fully booked, to be honest. I just felt like they were a reliable partner that was going to be very communicative, and they’re going to have a lot of attention to detail and quality.
It seemed like they were very on top of their project management which is really nice and refreshing, as opposed to Indian companies where you’re always the person following up. It seems they’re very on top of things.
Idea four. Thinking attitude
Interviewer:
When evaluating Skynix, what was the most important thing to you, if it can be determined?
CEO:
Hmm… I’m trying to think. It’s probably communication and just confidence in the company like telling you being straightforward and honest things that they do and don’t do. I think Bogdan was very clear about this is stuff that we do. When they didn’t do something, they just told us, and then we can find work around.
Interviewer:
Do you have an example of what that was? Like stuff that they don’t do but they’re upfront about?
CEO:
Yes. It’s like in terms of loading the content, some companies they just give you the website that has all dummy text, and we’re expected to load in the content. I told him pretty much that’s not something that we can do. We need them to load it in. The answer was like, “Yes, we can do that, but it’s probably not that practical to have a more expensive developer be doing that. Maybe there’s someone else that can do that”. It was like, “We’ll just have to figure that out”. But at least he just told me that.
It’s not something that they generally always do, and it might not be the most cost-effective. But it’s something that they can work to figure out and make it work, and that’s what they did. I was confident enough with that answer that they would figure it out. And also given that it was the understanding that I would give them a project to test it out, and we would evaluate how it went and then give them more work depending on how that initial relationship went. But very quickly, just working with them I felt very good about everything.
Interviewer:
Got you. Are they open to doing low commitment initial project upfront to test the waters and then move on?
CEO:
Yes, more or less. I don’t know if that’s something they always offered, but I suggested it. I was like, “Why don’t I just give you guys one of our projects to start and let’s check the costs. And let’s just see how we like working with each other”.
Idea five. Dedicated project management
Interviewer:
What’s happened since then?
CEO:
They’ve been able to deliver on the promises. In terms of expectations, I would say they’re above expectations. Bogdan is highly communicative. The whole team is very smart. They do a good job with timelines and quality. They don’t require us following up too much of them. They tend to just be able to self-manage. I feel like in a Ukrainian team I have a dedicated project manager which is nice in that way, while someone else within a team is doing development. In Indian team, there is the developer, but that same person also manages the project. They’re wearing two hats whereas in Ukrainian team there is a dedicated project manager.
Interviewer:
Got you. That’s something unique is that they have a dedicated project manager?
CEO:
I don’t know how unique that is to Ukrainian teams, but I’d say it’s very unique to Indian companies. Indian companies, I don’t think they normally hire a dedicated project manager because there’s extra overhead there.
Interviewer:
I know it’s something that we just talked about earlier, but you’d say that the project managers definitely have technical ability and understanding and not just a layer of management? They actually know what’s going on in the development process?
CEO:
Yes, exactly. If you don’t know that the PM is not your developer, you might as well assume that he is because he’s very knowledgeable.
Idea six. More added value
Interviewer:
Along these lines, what could you do now that you couldn’t do before or better than you could do before?
CEO:
We just have confidence in the delivery of projects and also have confidence in charging more and work at bigger clients that have higher demands, where we have to be very on time with delivery and also on time with quality and also with security. I don’t have to worry about the site going down. I don’t have to worry about them just having a lot of bugs. I can trust that they have their own due diligence.
Interviewer:
You’d say that their work has been crucial to your business being able to scale and to increase revenue? Is that true?
CEO:
Yes, I would say I wouldn’t be confident to take on our biggest project that we’ve taken on ……. [NDA company] if we didn’t have Skynix team there.
Interviewer:
Okay. That’s awesome.
CEO:
I would have been confident to make that sale. I wouldn’t have been confident to do the projects. I would have been too scared that the site would go down. There would be bugs, that we get hacked, and we get sued by a billion dollar company.
Interviewer:
[laughs] It’s a legitimate fear, definitely.
CEO:
Even with Skynix team I still bought the most premium business insurance plan I could, just in case. As the companies you work with getting bigger, there’s more liability. You have been covered, and you have to be protected. You have to be very safe, and do everything correct.
Idea seven. True partnership
Interviewer:
It’s a great point. Can you give me an example of when Skynix made a difference for you?
CEO:
Yes. They just keep us updated, and they said how long the project was going to take. They just got it done on that timeline exactly. They’re very communicative the entire time of where they’re at things. To me, that just is fewer things I have to think about and worry about. Same for the project managers, the other people on my team, like everybody of my trusted employees is not just blindly following directions, but they are providing better insights.
Interviewer:
I’m going to jump out of interviewer role real quick and just add on to that as something that works with the Skynix team and directly with Bogdan. It’s one of the things I’ve really liked about his work style is that he’ll come back with feedback. Development and design is always just a series of solving challenges, but he’ll come up with three recommendations rather than just being like, “That doesn’t work”, or “What should I do?” It’s okay, “Well, here’s a proposal of three different avenues that we could take with this”.
CEO:
Yes, I like that.
Interviewer:
He’s just thinking through that, and that’s super helpful. I’ve never had that experience with a development team before. That’s something that’s been huge for me personally.
CEO:
Yes, definitely.
Interviewer:
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
CEO:
Also, one of the biggest things that I’m still weighing just costs. There are some jobs that Skynix team is going to be expensive. Although they’re still good projects for us, we can’t afford to use them for the lead development team which is unfortunate, but that’s how it is. Their costs are higher. But I’m hoping the cost is higher, the quality is higher. There’s less risk of missing client deadlines which is also really important because that means more client retention for us.
In the end, I’m still weighing the cost differences. I feel like the bigger projects that have more budget, I would say almost certainly we will use Skynix. And we’ll probably still have our other Indian development team for other projects as well that we feel comfortable with having a lower cost.
Interviewer:
Well, that’s all I got. That’s great. Thanks for the feedback and your time.
