Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I run technology for Pearl Coast FinTech, a growth-stage Human Resources company based in Dubai, UAE. My role as Head of Digital Strategy covers product engineering, platform operations, and our vendor relationships. We'd hit a point where our internal capacity just couldn't keep pace with what the roadmap demanded.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
Our previous vendor had maintained this platform for a few years, and the technical debt had piled up to the point where our delivery speed had dropped to a fraction of what it used to be. We needed fresh engineering eyes and an actual plan to deal with the underlying mess.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The scope ran the full Cloud Services lifecycle — discovery, requirements, architecture, development across roughly a dozen sprints, integration testing, performance validation, deployment, and a four-week hypercare window afterward. They also handed over full documentation and ran a knowledge transfer session for our internal team.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
We were coming off a failed engagement and went into vendor selection this time with a lot more scrutiny. We asked pointed questions about how they handle scope changes, how they estimate, how they communicate bad news. The answers were specific and consistent across everyone we spoke to on their team, which gave us confidence it wasn't a rehearsed pitch.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Really well, partly because they already had Human Resources experience that cut down on the amount of context we had to provide. They knew the terminology, asked the right questions, and translated our business requirements into technical specs accurately enough that development barely needed any clarification cycles.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
The most structured project management I've dealt with from any outside vendor. Sprint planning was tight, acceptance criteria were specific, and retrospectives actually led to changes rather than just being a box to tick. The backlog and risk register were both treated as live tools, not paperwork. I never once had to chase a status update.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and inside the approved budget. Their estimating was notably accurate — they'd broken the work down in enough detail during discovery that the forecast held up the whole way through, instead of drifting with every small change. We had exactly one change request, and it was for scope we added ourselves.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The ROI model we took to the board was deliberately conservative. Current performance against that model puts us on track to hit payback well ahead of the eighteen-month target we set. The operational efficiency gains in particular have outpaced the model, partly because the new platform's data quality supports decisions the old system simply couldn't.
What did you like most about working with this company?
Their instinct for never losing the business goal in the middle of technical decisions. I've worked with technically strong teams before who lose that thread once things get complicated. This team kept every architectural call tied back to the outcome we'd actually agreed to, which made the harder trade-off conversations a lot easier.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes — though I'll add that they're not the cheapest option out there and they're selective about what they take on. If price is your main filter, look elsewhere. If you need a partner you can trust with a serious Cloud Services program in Human Resources and expect them to actually deliver against the brief, this is the team.