The R&D Сenter in Ukraine for Skai (former Kenshoo)

About the Company

The client is a technology platform that provides self-service programs and applications for profitable data and marketing solutions. With those applications, marketers can draft, assess, and trigger effective marketing across the most engaging digital channels. This helps develop their brands and generate demand by executing digital advertising across the world’s leading mobile and desktop publishers. 

The programs and applications developed by this company exemplify the rules of agile marketing. The company’s main approaches consist of audience targeting, optimization algorithms, automation controls, and actionable analytics. Thanks to those instruments, marketing specialists can adjust their primary marketing programs according to the customers’ dynamic requests and behaviors.

The firm is represented in 16 different locations all over the world.

The Story of Our Collaboration

The company contacted us at the suggestion of one of our clients who have been working with us for a long time and were satisfied with our fruitful relationship.

Needless to say, we are proud of such stories. When our customers are content and share their positive experiences with their own clients, it makes for a precious complement towards us. This is an indication that we not only contribute to the success stories of our customers but that our services help to move their businesses forward and promote their products. As a company that strives for customer satisfaction and delivering the best results, we are proud of this! 

But back to the case of this client specifically. When the company first contacted us, they had already entered the Ukrainian market and had set up their office in Ukraine. But as with any dynamic business, they also had ambitions to grow, develop, and scale up. This aspiration required the important task of finding a trusted partner within Ukraine. This partner should be well-equipped and experienced to help them with many practical aspects, such as searching and equipping the right and suitable office, hiring a competent development team, and supporting their work. The company was particularly interested in a dedicated team model and wanted to establish its own R&D office offshore. The business discarded the option of outsourcing because it did not suit their needs, requests, and vision for business development. The company realized that it is vitally important to be in charge of the developer team and the subsequent code creation process for quality control & security reasons. That’s why the choice of opening an R&D office offshore looked to be the best match for their requests, and of course, the dedicated team, along with all the nuances related to it, are specialties of Newxel. 

Not to waste a single day more, Newxel started its cooperation with this client. We met the customer’s Site Manager and attentively listened to the requests and suggestions for the upcoming project. Afterward, we discussed how we would collaborate to satisfy the customer`s needs in the best possible way. The Site Manager from the client-side gave feedback concerning the location and important goals for the offshore office. Keeping this feedback in mind, we set off to form the team for this enterprise.

Initially, the company expressed a request to hire 5 Senior developers with skills and experience in Java/ Scala programming, and with this in mind, we promptly launched the recruitment process. In only 6 weeks, we had found, interviewed, and hired the 5 professional and highly experienced software engineers required. Additionally, during the same period, we prepared everything for their work, organized the office space in Kyiv, and equipped it with everything they needed. We procured the necessary equipment and settled all the back-office processes. In only 1 and a half months, we had formed an excellent team for this business and ensured it efficiently worked. 

Value Delivered by Newxel

It became evident fast that the team hired by Newxel worked efficiently and brought significant results for the client. The model of the R&D center, yet again, has proven to be so successful that the customer decided to scale up after 3.5 months of collaboration with Newxel. At that point, the enterprise understood that they needed to hire and launch another team of 5 web developers. After the first successful experience of forming a programming team by Newxel a couple of months prior, the firm entrusted this task to Newxel too.  

We took upon this challenge and formed the second team for this company. Nowadays, their team in Kyiv consists of 10 programmers. They form 2 separate groups with local team leaders, and both teams develop various products for the client, and those teams help the enterprise drive its business forward.

Service Covered by Newxel

Newxel provides tailor-made and bespoke solutions for creating an R&D center. For example, we assisted Skai (former Kenshoo) with:

• Recruitment of highly-skilled professional web developers;
• Renting office space for the developer team;
• Organizing a workplace for efficient work of the developers;
• Purchasing all necessary equipment;
• Setting-up infrastructure;
• HR management of your foreign team;
• Facilities and admin management;
• Handling legal matters related to setting up the R&D office in Ukraine, programmers employment, etc.;
• Keeping talented IT developers and preventing staffing turnover (with regular feedback collection and one-to-one sessions with each developer).