BrandAssist was created in 2015. It was one of the first companies in Poland to offer outsourcing “Virtual Assistant” services and training for persons who wish to work as Virtual Assistants. The owner of the company is Pola Sobczyk.
Other objects of the company’s operation include such services as: film editing, preparation and implementation of marketing and sale strategies, consultations for entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, the company has been supporting foundations and associations operating in conformity with the company’s mission.

One of the key issues in remote work is efficient communication and coordination of projects. Before ICP implementation, the company struggled with delays in decision-making, sometimes evolving communication chaos. Too many channels and management software applications caused confusion and stress due to ambiguities in communication not only among team members but also with customers.
The encountered issued resulted finally in inhibition of performance of certain tasks which translated into delayed completion of the entire project.

All persons in the company were efficiently trained by the IC Project specialist team. In this case, comprehensive knowledge was a must as the BrandAssist is regularly joined by new Virtual Assistant who need to be taught how to use the software quickly.

Thanks to implementation of ICP, most issues the team members and customers encountered in the company have been resolved. Namely, communication mistakes have been eliminated and the decision-making process has definitely accelerated. Making decisions regarding specific tasks and performing them successfully has become a matter of a single day.
The messenger and comments incorporated in the software help in quick communication. Thanks to e-mail notifications, the customer is immediately informed if any actions are required from him or her.
This practice has allowed to eliminate the possible mistakes in cooperation with the customer.

“Having tested several project management software products, ICP seems to be the optimum solution at this stage. Despite several issues at the beginning of use (resolved on an on-going basis by the support), the software works very well. It offers several major facilities, such as hourly project reports and the said messenger system, but a direct activation of the time measurement in the task card is missing.
In general, BrandAssist appreciates working with ICP, especially since it can provide its feedback and propose improvements to the software engineering team.”

Marcopol is a leading European producer of fasteners for many branches of the industry. For 34 years, the company has been delivering highest quality products for the construction, furniture, automotive, electrotechnical and many other industries. Marcopol has 30,000 products in stock and also produces customised solutions based on special orders. According to the Customers, the company has the best service centre on the market.

• there are a lot of regularly launched and run development projects improving the service centre in many areas and there has been no operating platform to aggregate the implemented projects so far
• e-mail communication was not effective for projects and project information was scattered
• there were no tools allowing verification of projects over time.

The priority was to properly train nearly one hundred employees – software users. A dedicated training was held at the client’s site. Thanks to the training and the highly user-friendly nature of the software, the dedicated users were ready to work with IC Project starting from the next day.

• thanks to task and project management in the system, it is possible to verify all overlapping processes on a regular basis and in one place
• after the software was deployed, communication in the company improved a lot – the employees communicate with each other via ICP and the notification system reminds of all entrusted tasks and their deadlines
• the division of projects into stages in the system is reliable, it virtually eliminates the risk of repeating a stage: as a result, everything is carried out in the set periods of time
• what makes the work of the management more convenient are Gantt charts in which you can see all projects in a time schedule, which virtually eliminates the risk of getting lost in the projects and their deadlines

“We wanted to deliver simple and uncomplicated deployments that are not very time-consuming. As an ‘agile’ organisation, Marcopol has to react quickly to the changing needs of our Customers. This is why the user-friendliness of the software was a key factor for us, which made us implement ICP immediately. It is a system which surely has made our work easier and more organised, which translated into higher effectiveness of the projects run in the company. For us, it means even better service for our Customers.”

Projekt-Technika is a team of experienced constructors, architects, engineers and fitters. The offer includes comprehensive investment support – from preparation of design documentation, through exercise of author and investor’s supervision, to comprehensive performance of construction works. The company has rich experience gained during construction of multiple facilities in Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Sweden or Finland.

• work was disorganised, dividing the project into parts to be performed by various persons over large time spans was a big issue
• in case of bigger projects, a lot of information would often be irrecoverably lost
• all ideas regarding projects were collected at occasional meetings; they were not, however, noted down in a single place and, thus, their execution was difficult
• there was no clear breakdown of tasks into specific stages which entailed extended lead times for the particular tasks and, in consequence, entire projects

Projekt-Technika has had the full system package implemented. All employees completed a station training in IC Project functionalities and operation. Thanks to the dedicated training session, the company’s decision-makers invested in the annual subscription from the get-go.

• the program streamlines teamwork – projects can be implemented in fragments by several different persons and all information necessary for the given group of employees is ordered in one place,
• all important information is collected in the system, making everything ordered and traceable
• the program facilitates communication among employees, without leaving the workstation
• important project arrangements – concepts, ideas, work progress information – can be added, deleted and modified and all employees are updated on such changes on a current basis
• great preview for larger projects with easy viewing of the particular tasks, making the team meet the timeframes set for the given project easier

“IC Project is a system we’ve been using for a longer time now. In terms of work organisation, it is of great value for us – we can keep all information in one place. I can assign tasks to employees without any issues and they know what they have to do and in what timeframes.”

Bongo Invest is a developer building its clients’ trust on the market since 2013. It operates mainly in the area of the Małopolskie Voivodship, where it is regarded as the leader in the building industry. The developer made a lot of challenging investments, such as estates of residential houses or modern blocks of apartments.

• serious problem with effective communication between cooperating departments – use of various forms of communication resulted in missing a lot of valuable information
• lack of careful planning of the financial aspect of investments, which resulted in sloppy estimations and financial losses for the enterprise
• lack of financial comparison between investments, which resulted in difficulty finding stages where savings could be sought in future investments
• lead time extended due to the lack of specific organisation of work

We deployed all basic modules available in IC Project in Bongo Invest. Moreover, we launched Gantt charts and a cost module, which offer a great overview for finance and time planning of projects. At the testing stage of our tool, we conducted an hourly preliminary online training. After two weeks we organised an all-day dedicated training for all employees at the client’s site – the entire enterprise was trained quickly and thoroughly, thanks to which the pending projects and investments did not suffer when the organisation of work was being changed.

• communication between cooperating departments improved considerably, employees can communicate with each other about pending tasks and current duties in IC Project
• thanks to careful planning of revenues and costs and later analysis of various investment stages for the financial aspect we have managed to raise the profitability of every subsequent investment
• lead time of investments was reduced thanks to good organisation of work – all information and tasks are in one place, there is no difficulty reaching any piece of information.
• access to all reports has given us a lot of leeway in terms of communication with investors

“IC Project is a tool that has made working in our enterprise very much easier. I never thought that one programme can help in so many aspects. Comprehensive service and in-depth trainings helped introduce the enterprise to the system. I would definitely recommend IC Project.”

Great Gastro is a producer of batters and marinates for meats, fish, vegetables and fruit.
This enterprise from Wadowice deals with operating restaurants, pizzerias, pubs and bars. It offers highest quality products enriching dishes with unique flavour.

An experienced team holds culinary trainings across Poland, providing marketing support as well. To meet its clients’ expectations, Great Gastro also offers Grano Forte, private-label coffee with exceptional flavour and aroma.

• lack of close control over the working time of employees – the management does not know what tasks specifically a given employee completes and in what time
• major problem with communication and delegation of tasks between production departments
• extended lead time as a result of missing deadlines for individual tasks
• lack of proper control over dealers’ meetings and their field work

The full IC Project package was deployed at Great Gastro: task and project management, calendar, full reporting and the like. Redundant modules were specifically excluded so that the programme was even more transparent to all employees. The deployment was instantaneous – after preliminary programme testing, a comprehensive training was held at the client’s site and all employees were trained efficiently and in depth. The production did not stop even for a minute – it was without doubt a seamless transition to a different working model.

• managing tasks on the Kanban board allowed creating separate production stages that each product goes through – it made control in the production department considerably easier
• communication between the production department and office workers improved a lot – all information is conveyed through the system
• thanks to proper system notifications, all task deadlines are closely supervised, which led to a boost in productivity of the entire team
• the mobile application allows dealers to report their work when they are in the field, which allows tighter control over their duties and results in improved effectiveness of actions

“This is a great tool. I never thought that one programme can facilitate communication and control in my enterprise so much and introduce order in the production department, at that. IC Project was a good choice.”

Idealia Sp. z o.o. – an interactive agency providing marketing, PR, web development, graphics and professional business advising services. Idealia works based on 3 main principles: precision, perspective and energy. It has 2 divisions – in Warsaw and Kielce. On the market since 2009.

The company tried multiple tools for communication with the Client for 4 years. It usually ended with e-mail correspondence and sending files, which was never fully satisfying and failed to solve certain issues. Cooperation with international brands showed that communication can look different. It is necessary to require greater control over the tasks entrusted for performance from all engaged persons to be able to meet deadlines and control the tasks at each stage of their implementation regardless of the number of persons assigned to the project and diversity of assigned tasks.

• communication issues – several thousand e-mails in inboxes
• lost orders and small projects
• no control over tasks carried out by employees
• extended time of task performance
• hindered planning and order pricing

The following available ICP modules were implemented for Idealia: Projects, CRM, Calendars, Communication, Reports. Additionally, some modules were adjusted to the needs of the company and its employees. The implementation process was almost instantaneous. The staff training took 1 day.
The feature allowing to add Client’s personnel to the project allowed to resign from progress meetings and on-going reporting as the Client can check the task status on a real-time basis.

• the number of e-mails sent among the employees has dropped by 90%
• the time spent on searching for information regarding the projects and tasks has been significantly reduced
• the project profitability has improved by 9%
• the time devoted to task reporting has been almost eliminated