About ISS Art
Your challenge is our inspiration — we build custom software solutions for the most challenging of projects. Since 2003, ISS ART’s custom software developers have been helping the world’s top companies to turn their dreams into reality.
Services
Mobile App Development
UI-UX Design
Internet of Things
Machine Learning
Industries Served
Sports & Fitness
ISS Art Reviews
Write a ReviewHonest, practical advice — no vendor bias, no unnecessary complexity
Isla Mackenzie / CEO - Highland FinTech Ltd
Verified
Feb 18, 2022
Feb 18, 2022
Project summary: Several previous vendor relationships had left us cautious. We needed a partner who would be honest about complexity upfront rather than discovering it mid-project.
The technical quality of the work is the easiest thing to praise, but what I want to highlight is the communication culture on this team. Every question got a same-day response. Every risk got flagged before it became an issue. When we needed to change direction mid-project — a business decision on our side — they absorbed the change professionally, requoted fairly, and kept momentum going. That flexibility is something you cannot assess in a proposal and it turned out to be one of the most valuable things about working with them.
PROS
Technical depth across the full stack, honest and timely communication, delivered exactly what was scoped without surprise additions to the invoice
CONS
Honestly nothing worth documenting — we went in with high expectations and they were met on every measure
Project TypeIT Consulting
IndustrySports & Fitness
Project Cost$50,000 to $149,999
DurationJan 2025 – Nov 2025
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
Highland FinTech Ltd operates across the Sports & Fitness sector with offices in Edinburgh, UK. In my capacity as CEO I oversee both the strategic and operational technology agenda. We are a growth-stage business that needed a development partner capable of scaling with us rather than constraining us.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
The immediate trigger was a performance failure during our peak trading period that cost us measurably in both revenue and client trust. The root cause was architectural and our internal team did not have the IT Consulting expertise to address it properly. We needed specialists.
What services did the company provide for your project?
Primarily IT Consulting, 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?
Their portfolio included two projects that were sufficiently close to our own brief in terms of complexity, IT Consulting scope, and Sports & Fitness context that we felt confident they understood what we were asking. The proposal was technically rigorous, the pricing was transparent, and the proposed team structure gave us senior engineers throughout rather than just for the pitch.
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. I will note that the original timeline was aggressive and I had privately expected a slip. They managed to hold it by making smart sequencing decisions early on that I only fully understood in retrospect. The budget discipline was equally good — we received a single change request for scope we had introduced ourselves and it was priced fairly.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Hard to isolate precisely because several factors changed simultaneously, but the data we can attribute directly to the new IT Consulting platform shows a meaningful improvement in the metrics that matter to our Sports & Fitness business. Our account managers report that the new capability is coming up positively in client conversations, which was one of the strategic objectives we started with.
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?
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.
FAQs
Company Info
Founded
2003
Employees
50 - 249
Hourly Rate
$25 - $49
Avg. Project Cost
$25,000+
Client Rating
4.2/5 (11 reviews)