Success out of the blue!
Factory is a design and development team of 28 people based in two offices in Croatia. They specialize in building cross-platform solutions including native mobile apps, a web app and a custom CMS — all powered by a single API for easier maintenance.
Factory’s clients range from startups to enterprise companies but the same rule applies to all-quality of delivered solution and success of projects is an absolute must. Enterprise customers demand nothing but the best, so a good first impression and high quality of work are a great formula for acquiring a profitable retainer project. On the other hand, startups need affordable and scalable solutions to maximize their own return on investment.
We work with clients all over the world, for example in Australia where we support several fintech startups and Kuwait where we work with the largest retailer in MENA region.
Projects can last anywhere between a couple of months up to a couple of years. Regardless of the length, clients are invited to Productive, where they collaborate with the team and have full transparency during the project life cycle.
Factory sources the majority of new business from existing client referrals, however, they put a lot of effort into optimizing their sales processes so as to maintain a steady income of projects that will drive future growth. They also put a lot of emphasis on resource planning, which is an absolute must if they wish to increase their capacity to be able to take on more projects in the years to come.
If you are aware that you have your capacity filled at a maximum, your HR should focus on recruiting new staff. On the other hand, if you see an opening in your schedule you should focus your sales effort in covering that gap. It’s all about planning to make your business successful in the long run.
Supporting agency growth with Productive
One of the biggest challenges for Factory was keeping up with the growth. This meant implementing new management policies as the team grew from 10 to over 25 employees in a short amount of time. The focus during this time was achieving balance between quality and successfully adapting to internal changes. Every growing business has faced such challenges at some point.
To keep up with the productivity and deliverables, a growth-driven design methodology combined with regular sprints was introduced. This enabled the team to have clear targets and deadlines in place which had a direct impact on profitability. From the operations perspective, things started to function flawlessly.
As their business grew, Factory learned that managing finances will soon become a full-time job on its own. Prior to adopting Productive, Factory has managed their finances in Google sheets. This was tedious work and mistakes could have happened if care was not taken. The tool they used previously didn’t help much with profitability tracking, hence the need to migrate to a more comprehensive solution.
The biggest benefit I can say we achieved by switching to Productive is knowing if our projects are profitable or not and identifying key points which caused a positive or negative financial outcome. I would also dare say that we saved ourselves one administration staff member salary per year, which is a very good ROI from our perspective.
One thing fast growing companies often ignore are processes. The transition between a leisurely paced startup and a serious business is often painful. This is due to one of the hardest things to change — the mindset of the people. Once you get your processes down, then it’s just a matter of scaling.
This is why the Factory team loved their transition to Productive in particular. The way they put it, Productive never forced any processes on them, but has always satisfied their needs in terms of features, all the while offering the benefit of awareness about their business in general.
If you want to work with Factory, check out their website and shoot them a message!
