Services
Mobile App Development
Unity 3D Game Development
IoT App Development
Enterprise App Modernization
Cross Platform App Development
Elmo Solutions Reviews
Write a ReviewCustom CRM that replaced four spreadsheets and a lot of tribal knowledge
Jisoo Kwon / CTO - HanRiver Tech Co Ltd
Verified
Dec 20, 2024
Dec 20, 2024
Project summary: We had a clear product vision but lacked the engineering capacity internally to execute it within the window our market opportunity required.
Project governance was one of the things that impressed me most. We had a dedicated project manager who ran tight fortnightly sprints with clear acceptance criteria, a shared backlog that gave us full visibility at all times, and a change request process that was fair and transparent. Nothing slipped through the cracks, no bill shock at the end, and the final delivery matched the original scope document almost perfectly. In my experience that kind of discipline is genuinely uncommon.
PROS
Collaborative working style that made them feel like an extension of our team, excellent written communication for our async timezone relationship, clean and readable codebase
CONS
The initial project brief document they required was more detailed than we were used to providing, but in hindsight that rigour was part of why the project ran so smoothly
Project TypeCRM Development
IndustryNonprofit & NGO
Project Cost$50,000 to $149,999
DurationOct 2025 – Feb 2026
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
As CTO at HanRiver Tech Co Ltd, I manage a cross-functional technology team serving our Nonprofit & NGO clients from Seoul, South Korea. We are a commercially focused organisation and every technology decision we make is evaluated against a clear business case. We needed a partner who understood that context, not just the technical brief.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Nonprofit & NGO competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the CRM Development work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
Primarily CRM Development, though the scope naturally touched adjacent areas. They handled architecture design, implementation, integration with our existing systems, performance testing under realistic load, and knowledge transfer to our internal team. The breadth of what they covered without requiring us to bring in additional vendors was one of the reasons the project ran efficiently.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
We evaluated four vendors in total. Two were eliminated after the technical assessment stage because their proposed architectures showed a surface-level understanding of what we needed. This team's proposal demonstrated genuine depth in CRM Development and specific knowledge of the Nonprofit & NGO sector that the others could not match. The reference calls confirmed a consistent pattern of delivery.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
The requirements understanding was solid from early on, aided by the fact that they had prior experience in the Nonprofit & NGO sector and did not need us to explain domain context that a less experienced team would have required. That background knowledge shortened the discovery phase meaningfully and reduced the volume of clarification questions during sprints.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was handled primarily asynchronously given the time zone difference between Seoul, South Korea and the team's base, but it was managed so well that the gap rarely felt like a constraint. Written updates were clear and timely, escalations were handled promptly, and we never had to chase for a status update. The cadence was exactly right — enough to feel informed, not so much that it created overhead.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and within the agreed budget. They had given us a range estimate at the start, which I had been sceptical of, and they landed within the lower half of that range. Their estimation accuracy came from having broken the work down in genuine detail during discovery rather than giving a rough number and hoping. It showed in every sprint.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
We went live three months ago. In that time we have not had a single P1 incident, our page performance scores have improved across every measure, and the feature we had deprioritised for years because the old architecture made it too complex to implement is now in our next sprint. The platform they built has opened up our roadmap in a way we had not anticipated.
What did you like most about working with this company?
Their ability to hold the business objective in mind alongside the technical task. I have worked with technically excellent agencies who lost the thread of what we were actually trying to achieve. This team never did. Every architectural decision, every trade-off conversation, every prioritisation discussion was anchored to the outcome we had agreed at the start.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes, without qualification. I have already made two direct referrals to peers in the Nonprofit & NGO sector who were facing similar CRM Development challenges. In both cases I gave the recommendation specifically because I was confident the experience would match what I described — which is a level of confidence I do not extend lightly.
IT partner who feels genuinely embedded in our organisation
Maximilian Schreiber / Director of IT - Schreiber Logistik GmbH
Verified
Dec 20, 2022
Dec 20, 2022
Project summary: Supply chain traceability from manufacturer to patient had become a compliance requirement and our existing systems had no serialisation capability whatsoever.
Our previous agency had given us a platform that worked well enough to demo and fell apart under real load. This team came in, diagnosed the root causes accurately, and rebuilt the critical components without disrupting the live service. The performance improvements were immediate and measurable — page load times dropped by 60 percent, error rates dropped to near zero, and our support team has far fewer incidents to deal with. The contrast with our previous experience could not have been sharper.
PROS
Senior engineers on our account throughout the entire project rather than a bait-and-switch to juniors after contract signing, transparent reporting, realistic estimates that proved accurate
CONS
Their calendar books up quickly which made scheduling the initial kickoff slightly challenging — a good problem for them to have and not one that affected our delivery
Project TypeIT Managed Services
IndustryPharmaceuticals & Biotechnology
Project Cost$500,000+
DurationDec 2024 – Sep 2025
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
As Director of IT at Schreiber Logistik GmbH, I manage a cross-functional technology team serving our Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology clients from Hamburg, Germany. We are a commercially focused organisation and every technology decision we make is evaluated against a clear business case. We needed a partner who understood that context, not just the technical brief.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the IT Managed Services work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
End-to-end IT Managed Services delivery with a particular emphasis on the integration layer that connected the new build to our existing Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology infrastructure. They also provided UI/UX input that was not in the original scope but which they offered proactively because they could see it would affect adoption. That kind of initiative was characteristic of how they approached the whole engagement.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Honestly, the quality of the questions they asked during the briefing process set them apart. Most vendors listen to the brief and come back with a solution to exactly what you described. This team came back with a solution to what we actually needed, which turned out to be somewhat different. That kind of consultative instinct is what we were looking for.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Thorough and precise. They translated our business language into technical requirements without losing the intent, which is a skill that sounds straightforward but frequently goes wrong. Every user story they wrote was reviewed against the original business objective before it entered the sprint and the acceptance criteria were specific enough to remove subjectivity from QA.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Outstanding. I have worked with agencies that communicate beautifully during the sales process and go quiet during delivery. This was the opposite — structured, consistent, and genuinely informative throughout. Problems were surfaced early with proposed solutions rather than just problem statements, which made the inevitable mid-project decisions much easier to make.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes on both counts. There was one sprint where a third-party integration took longer than scoped because of undocumented API behaviour on the vendor side. The team flagged it immediately, proposed two mitigation options, and we agreed on an approach that recovered the timeline within two weeks. That is how scope issues should be handled and rarely are.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The most direct measure is that the problem we hired them to solve no longer exists. Beyond that, the new IT Managed Services platform has reduced our operational overhead measurably, our team spends less time managing incidents and more time on product development, and we have been able to onboard two new enterprise clients who had previously cited our technical limitations as a barrier.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The intellectual honesty. They told us when something we wanted was a bad idea and explained why. They told us when a timeline was tight and gave us options. They did not tell us what we wanted to hear in order to win work or avoid a difficult conversation. In a long engagement that kind of relationship is far more valuable than an agency that just says yes.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Absolutely. I would recommend them with a specific note that the quality of the discovery process is where the value starts. Clients who invest properly in that phase will get the most out of the engagement. We made that investment and the returns are evident in the quality of what was delivered.
Company Info
Founded
1979
Employees
10 - 49
Hourly Rate
$50 - $99
Avg. Project Cost
$25,000+
Client Rating
5.0/5 (2 reviews)