Interview with Vitaly Schiglinski, Vice President - Business Development - *instinctools

Vitaly Schiglinski  

Vice President - Business Development, *instinctools Company

Give us a quick overview on the *instinctools Company.  When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?

*instinctools journey began in 2000. After university graduation my friends and I were very enthusiastic about creating our own company. So we decided to gather a team of best local developers and provide software development services in Belarus and Germany. That’s how *instinctools Company appeared. We grew gradually, as many clients were coming from around the world, and to date we’ve become a company of 300+ people with offices in Minsk and Grodno (Belarus), Stuttgart (Germany) and Reston (USA). So, for now we provide not only outsourcing services but also deliver business solutions to our customers.


What is your role in the management and development of *instinctools Company?

I’m a co-founder of the company and my role of a marketing director appears to be a key one at *instinctools. Together with my partners we choose strategic direction for the company’s development. As the company grows new management challenges arise. Co-founders are those people who care about each step forward and prevent company from wrong moves on the way to success. From the very beginning our marketing positioning is oriented on European and American markets.


Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry.

You know, every day in our company is full of achievements. Every satisfied customer is already a big achievement for us. Various awards and acknowledgements that we receive almost monthly are valuable for each member of our team. Also, a big achievement for us now is that we are launching 2 new projects as small divisions of *instinctools. More information about them will be soon announced in our social networks. Whereas, the biggest one I guess is still coming as far as we grow and improve our expertise in different domains. I’m sure that we are on the right way to it.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?

Generally, it always depends on the project and its constraints. Mostly in projects we are working under the model of “time, money & scope” triangle. Constraints in such a project depend on the priorities for a client.

When the scope is the highest priority, then clear requirements are crucial here. Having high quality requirements, we can plan correctly the development process and identify risks beforehand.

When the highest priority is time - it means that the customer is focused on the value maximizations. Scrum and other agile methodologies fit better in such cases, because we are closely working with customers, demoing every new feature and receive feedback. That allows to quickly adjust the scope to customer’s needs.

As a rule, the more constraints we have, the more complex the development process management is, and therefore, the greater focus is placed on risk management.


How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?

Regarding this issue we often consider 2 most common cases:

The first one is when clients already know which platform they need. In that case, we analyze whether chosen approach fits to their business needs and requirements.  Regarding the analysis we either agree on the chosen solution or offer a better one.

Another case is when the client does not have any preferences for the technology, so then we initiate a so called “discovery” phase. During this phase, our solution architect and business analyst clarify business requirements and potential future needs of the project, trying to find out the best possible set of technologies for product implementation.

For the most challenging projects, discovery phase may include development of proof of concept solution or MVP to test the market needs.

Which would you suggest for a successful and profitable business progression, Native or hybrid apps? How do you define the factors that influenced you make this choice?

The choice between Native or hybrid apps depends mainly on the requirements we have.

If requirements can be satisfied by using HTML5/CSS/JS and standard components, we will recommend Hybrid stack.  If requirements imply significant level of customization, we will suggest Native stacks for the required platforms.

In general, native technologies are preferable for complex business solutions. They allow avoid risks of integration with third-party systems. Hybrid technologies fit better for simple solutions including MVP. 


How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?

Here at *instinctools we have 3 classical work/pricing models: Time & Material, Fixed Price and Dedicated Team.

Time & Material is perfect if the customer doesn’t have any specifications, exact terms of delivery, and it’s also ideal for developing MVPs, prototypes and for teams that are part of remote customer's team.

Fixed Price model works for customers having a detailed specification, strict deadlines for delivery, fixed requirements and budget.

And Dedicated Team are offered to those customers who want to build a team of developers, with no complete vision of the final product and no exact terms of delivery. This model is well applied to Agile development methodologies and is similar to T&M.


How helpful are the mobile apps developed by the *instinctools Company for your clients in enhancing their business?

Our main approach in software and mobile development is to help customers improve their business with the final product and make the end-user satisfied and happy while using it.

For more than 19 years we develop apps, which brought people together: doctors and patients, men and women; which give people possibility to track their health condition, to keep an eye on their babies 24 hours/day, to order taxi, book a hotel or plan their travel. All of those and many others apps have already helped thousands of people and made this world a better place!


What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

In my opinion the best practices are making a product of a good quality and by a reasonable price, meeting deadlines and customer's budget, dedication and commitment, transparency and service delivery, I mean listening to the client and addressing his concerns, that is on high priority for us.


How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?

Developing software for small and medium-sized businesses we always recommend and apply up-to-date technologies. The main advantage of this approach is that they will remain modern and working for a long time. Mainly brand-new technologies are included on POC stage.

Though products for middle-sized companies are less flexible, we just enhance them with the newest technologies during refactoring.

Enterprise level products are focused on stability and predictability. For such type of projects new technologies usage is less preferable, but we are constantly seeking for possible ways that might work best in any specific environment.


What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?

AR, VR and IoT are very trendy right now and, in my opinion, this is the future. Currently many solutions provided by *instinctools are implemented on these technologies and we move forward to improve our expertise in this direction.


What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?

The Future has already come to Mobile technology, I suppose. Global popularization of mobile technology will spread rapidly to my mind. And I believe in global level integration of devices, not only cell phones but also IoT. It is becoming a reality right now and can be enhanced with the great power of artificial intelligence.