Cybercom Group

I worked with Cybercom for over a year, spending close to 100,000, so I believe I have reasonable authority to express an opinion on them. Before considering contracting or working with Cybercom, I would highlight the major issues I had: 1 - Actual Team Size: First off, I would question their claims as to how many staff members they have. We were continually told that it was many hundreds! However, having been to their office in Warsaw several times, I only ever saw twenty or thirty. I did question, and was told that they have multiple offices. I am dubious of this however, because on several occasions the team I was working with came across issues that they struggled to deal with. A company with hundreds of developers would have a huge brain pool on which to call in these circumstances, but this never happened. Instead the individual team members struggled on until they found a solution (not necessarily the best one, just a solution, and at significant cost!). 2 - Method of Working: Cybercom don't operate in the real world in terms of how they do things. They try to work EXACTLY by the book (It was like working with someone straight out of college). In an ideal world this is exactly how it should be done. However, we live in the real world, so some semblance of common sense is required. With Cybercom, there is no such thing. Once anything deviated from their robotic methods, the system would break down. So it broke down regularly! 3 - No Concept of Business: Cybercom have zero concept as to how business works in the real world. They certainly had little or no concern for mine. Their vision is very narrow and short sighted. They are I think, more interested in the "quick buck" than a lasting relationship. 4 - Short Sighted: From the outset, I requested that where possible 3rd party plugins should be used. However, they decided to develop everything from scratch, often with poor results, when they could have tapped into existing resources. I believe the reason for this was to squeeze as much as they could from a client as they could. In their stupidity however, they didn't have the common sense to realise that A. I would have spent the budget with them anyway, and B. A lot more would have been achieved, with a much better end result, and I possibly would still be working with them. 5 - Meeting Delivery Dates: In the 12+ months that we worked with Cybercom only ONCE did they deliver a sprint on time! I found this particularly irksome, because it was the developers setting the agenda (the tail wagging the dog!). While I understand and accept that for various reasons delivery dates can be missed from time to time, to only deliver one in the space of 12 months is unacceptable. 6 - Internal Issues: Once I had cancelled the contract, I discovered what may be the root cause of their issues: bad management. It turns out that they hemorrhaged team members. One has to ask themselves why would this happen? Are they disorganised internally? Is there a bad working atmosphere? Are they a nasty company? Whatever the reason, it points to bad management! To be fair, they did do some good work, and one of the developers assigned to the project was excellent (although he left not that long after I cancelled the project, along with others who worked on it). I would say that about 40% of what I spent was invested well. The remaining 60% I may as well have given to the birds. Cybercom are just not that good! Unless you have lots of money and time to waste, plenty of patience, like getting the runaround, and are not that passionate or bothered about your project, go elsewhere!