Mobeats

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering manager at Santander. At the time of working with Mobeats, I was the general manager for innovation at the production ministry of the Argentinian government.

What challenge were you trying to address with Mobeats?

When I came into my position at the ministry, we had only one person working on DevOps and system maintenance. We went to Mobeats to develop some PHP tools for configuration and deployment automation. We were looking for specific knowledge on automation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mobeats provided development and UX design for us. The platform was going to be used by different actors in the ministry, and we needed a mobile-first approach. The backend was done in PHP.

What is the team composition?

There were six people from Mobeats involved, including a project manager, UX designer, and developers. 

How did you come to work with Mobeats?

We did some research and had initial interviews with several companies. Our DevOps engineer put us in contact with Mobeats. We chose them because they had the people and the knowledge required to do both the development and the UX design.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s difficult to say because we used the local currency, which changes a lot. The total cost was around $200,000, or maybe a bit higher. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran between March 2017–March 2019.

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

It was a long project, and we had a lot of goals and release dates. For the best part of our two-year engagement, Mobeats was spot on with the dates, which was a huge plus for us to train our team on the tool.  

We also hired Mobeats for another three projects, including a bigger one. We knew that they could deliver the solutions that we needed.

How did Mobeats perform from a project management standpoint?

Their office was 40 minutes away from ours, outside of Buenos Aires. They started working with other branches of the government, so they decided to set up a small office two blocks away from us, which meant they could be there when we needed to meet. That was a good move on their part — they were ready to be there for us. In terms of communication, Mobeats was open to using any tool or methodology we needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most important aspect of working with them was the negotiation part. They discussed our goals with us, put everything on paper, and figured out the best way to achieve what we needed. Mobeats analyzed all the requirements and put together a plan based on our budget and timeframe, and they delivered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was an issue with payments on our side due to government bureaucracy. Our procedure was to pay 60–90 days after the service was provided, and Mobeats sometimes waited for the payment to be made before agreeing to start the next project. I don’t think that it was a negative thing; they were just very cautious in that area.

Mobeats wasn’t rigid with the requirements, but they had a very structured team, and they assigned us specific people for testing and other roles. They had managers for every vertical in their scope, such as development, UX, and testing, and they were rigid in that respect.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Most companies like Mobeats have to be brought in early in order to get the most out of them. If they know what the goal and needs are, they can plan with the client.