Case Study: Offshore Mobile Developer for Pricena

This case study reveals how the 2015 Online Startup of the Year benefited through working with offshore software developers.

Since 2013, Pricena has been helping online shoppers in the Middle East make well-informed purchasing decisions by offering accurate information on products sold at more than 120 stores across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait. In November 2015, Pricena was recognized as the Online Startup of the Year by Du Enterprise Agility Awards.

The Story of Cooperation with Grid Dynamics

We had a pretty bad Android app and a very basic iOS app that didn’t have all the features we offered on our website, so we needed to hire a mobile app developer who could help us reach those of our users who prefer to browse product prices on their phones. Our previous experience with IT outsourcing wasn’t very successful, so we started looking for a better option and decided to partner up with Grid Dynamics. With Grid Dynamics, we were able to hire a mobile developer with just the skills we needed.

The offshore developers are my full-time employees who’re just working from Grid Dynamics’s office in Ukraine, and I’m very happy with them.

Value Delivered

Our Android app now has 4.3 stars and over 50,000 downloads on Google Play, and we’ve added a lot of new features to the iOS app, including a user management system, special offers for app users, and many more. We’ve also hired a full-stack developer through Grid Dynamics to help us with the web version of Pricena.

Why Grid Dynamics

I don’t see Grid Dynamics as an IT outsourcing vendor. The offshore developers are my full-time employees who’re just working from Grid Dynamics’s office in Ukraine, and I’m very happy with them. They’re part of the day-to-day aspects of our business, we solve problems together – it’s not a short-term partnership. When you work with dedicated developers, you know they’ll do their best to deliver high quality work.

I don’t see Grid Dynamics as an IT outsourcing vendor. They’re part of the day-to-day aspects of our business, we solve problems together – it’s not a short-term partnership.

Tools

• Bitbucket, Skype, Hangouts, Fabric

Tips

• Hire developers who don’t require too much guidance and can manage the job independently
• State some ground rules that you want to have at the job from the very start of your cooperation
• Don’t question the commitment of your offshore developers to the project
• Keep each other notified about the times when you’re going to be unavailable online.