Thanks to our comprehensive rebranding, TEAM International introduced a new service delivery model designed to meet customers’ needs with unmatched speed and efficiency. This model is represented by our technical Studios—each one focused on specific goals, mission and vision, and business problems. How do those Studios differ from traditional solutions offered by other IT companies? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
Today, we chatted with Dmytro H., Global Director of TEAM’s Managed & Professional Services Studio (MPS), to get all the backstage details on what the Studio is and how its software platform engineering services and cloud-based solutions benefit our global customers.
Let’s unravel the mystery!
Behind the scenes at TEAM International’s Managed and Professional Services Studio
TEAM: Dmytro, let’s start with the basics to walk our readers through the mystery of TEAM’s Studios. Tell us about your MPS Studio, everything our customers and talents should know. What is it essentially about, and what was the idea behind its creation?
Dmytro: Well, when TEAM decided to reimagine its delivery and engagement models, creating Studios, we had one big goal in mind. It was to ensure that talented people stay with us, grow with us, and have fun while contributing to various trailblazing projects for global market leaders. For this, MPS Studio acts as a unification hub for talents with specific expertise in platform engineering, cloud application support, and maintenance services. As for the actual benefits our customers get when partnering with the Studio, we help organizations accelerate time to market by instantly providing all the required cloud managed services professionals who bring know-how, niche domain expertise, and best practices from day one of our cooperation. We have all those experts in-house, ready to jump on any project asap.
Why our Studio approach works better for delivering managed IT solutions
TEAM: So, it’s a real out-of-the-box solution for business owners seeking managed or professional services specifically. Can you also elaborate on the main mission and vision your Studio follows?
Dmytro: Of course! Our vision is to offer a comprehensive ecosystem of database management and DevOps services and cloud computing solutions that empower entrepreneurs of all kinds to efficiently deliver their value proposition across all digital channels. And as for the mission, we’re here to provide our new and existing customers with IT management solutions of excellent quality and speed at competitive prices. Faster than generic tech vendors that don’t operate via a narrow-focused Studios model.
TEAM: And if we were to tell our readers about your Studio’s primary services, what would those be?
Dmytro: Well, talking about services, those are staff augmentation, managed services (long-term cooperation), and professional services (project-based collaboration) that we deliver under key business engagement models designed to fit our customers’ capacities (Co-pilot, Flexible, and Premium). And in terms of solutions, we operate in areas such as cloud managed data centers, software platform engineering, managed application support, and Contact Center as a Service.
TEAM: Now, it’s also interesting to discover more about the key principles you apply in your work. Tell us, how do you approach service delivery and our customers’ unique needs and challenges?
Dmytro: That’s an excellent topic, actually, since it’s a vital component of our everyday philosophy. MPS Studio’s main approach is to simplify client—vendor cooperation as much as possible, empowering business executives to focus on growing their revenue while we ensure that their software systems run smoothly 24/7. So, for this, we have a well-established, four-phase onboarding framework that we use to analyze and understand each company’s tailored business needs and provide solutions that best fit customers' goals.
Building the foundation: Platform engineering with purpose
TEAM: This is how your Studio works from day one, right? Can you share what that framework includes in terms of project management and delivery cycle?
Dmytro: Yes, exactly. As soon as we start cooperating with a customer, our team follows through the Discovery (first 10 days), Onboarding (first 30 days), Stabilization (first 90 days), and Support (post first 90 days) stages to ensure that we deliver 100% relevant services under pre-established SLAs, helping to propel our customer’s business forward while reducing its OpEx.
TEAM: Seems like your Studio works like a perfectly oiled machine! Must be due to strong, human-driven team management. Can you shed some light on how you maintain an energized atmosphere inside the team and ensure that everyone in the Studio is engaged and motivated?
Dmytro: As we all know, motivation and engagement are individual for each engineer. You need a custom approach for every employee. What we do in our Studio, though, is foster a working environment that provides a recognition culture and frequent opportunities for every engineer to shine in their own way, whether it’d be ideation, innovative process improvements, or cutting-edge problem solving.
How our talents stay determined to build reliable managed IT solutions that scale easily
TEAM: That sounds amazing, knowing that bright minds always have a chance to grow personally and professionally while doing what they love. Let’s talk about talent retention. What practices does your Studio implement to keep employees, increase tenure rate, and secure customers’ projects from downtimes?
Dmytro: To add to my previous answer, as a well-established IT professional services company, we follow mature retention practices that include providing rewards and recognition, transparent career paths, competitive compensation, health insurance and wellness programs, paid sick leaves and vacations, covered L&D opportunities, agile cross-project migration, frequent one-on-ones and team building, and flexible work modes. We are also strong advocates of a healthy work-life balance and “work hard, play hard” mindset, as we strive to protect our employees from burnout.
TEAM: Perfect, and what is, let’s say, the most challenging part of what you do in your Studio?
Dmytro: These days, we’re challenging ourselves with AIOps and AI in Customer Experience—we must keep up with the trends. Along with this, we also keep progressing with the standardization of our daily operations and designing the Career Path 2.0 program to provide our Studio members with even clearer and more exciting career development flows.
Solving real business problems with tailored IT management solutions
TEAM: Can we discuss any particularly interesting problems we tackled to give our readers some real-world examples of what your Studio does?
Dmytro: Sure. Imagine a situation where one of our customers had a large and complex IT infrastructure with enormous capacity needs. Consequently, that customer kept receiving massive monthly bills for AWS cloud services. Something had to be done, so when we joined the project, MPS Studio experts investigated the resource utilization of each invoiced item and uncovered orphaned, oversized, and overprovisioned resources. After that, our CloudOps team solely executed the first cost optimization stage, cleaning up the customer’s account from all those unused resources and efficiently scaling the cloud infrastructure. In the second stage, we cooperated with the development team, successfully migrating the customer’s workloads to alternative, more cost-effective services that didn’t decrease the overall performance. As a result, the monthly invoice shrank from $50,000 to $14,000.
TEAM: Oh, that’s totally impressive! And since you mentioned AWS, let’s also touch on the subject of the core tech stack you work with in the Studio. How flexible is your team in staying abreast of the latest emerging technologies?
Dmytro: I'd say we are highly tech stack agnostic, which means we have so much experience in many different areas that it’s easier to say where we don't have expertise rather than count everything we work with. And if we aren’t proficient in any emerging tech, we act fast to close that skill gap, establishing a prompt learning curve that allows our experts to gain experience with the needed tools in record time.
TEAM: Okay, proceeding with versatility. Hybrid cloud models are highly popular these days among businesses in various industries. What is your Studio’s capacity to provide solutions in this domain?
Dmytro [smiles]: Well, we deliver comprehensive managed IT solutions and services that leverage Azure, AWS, and GCP, as well as Rackspace, VMWare, and Hyper-V. I'd say we know a thing or two about multi-cloud and hybrid cloud models.
Keeping businesses running 24/7: Beyond managed support and cloud-based solutions
TEAM: Fair enough, surely. Besides cloud infrastructure and architecture, can you tell us a bit more about how your team manages challenges when there is a need to combine cloud with other technological domains for customers’ projects?
Dmytro: Oh, that’s an interesting one as well. TEAM has a variety of different Studios, including AI/Transformation, Digital Software, Information Security, Design, Data, Salesforce, Software Implementation, and even IoT. Each Studio focuses on its niche expertise, providing instant capacities and services someone might seek in that niche. So, whenever our customers need additional help, MPS Studio’s delivery managers immediately approach other Studios’ Heads and establish seamless cooperation to provide a flow of all extra services. TEAM’s broad tech expertise allows us to bridge all possible gaps our partners might have in record time.
TEAM: That’s like a full-on factory that doesn’t tolerate downtime, got it. But alright, it’s time to wrap things up. You definitely have projects to work on, so… Last but not least. In your personal opinion, what makes the MPS Studio a top choice for global market leaders? Why do they opt for your services?
Dmytro: Of course. Thanks for this interview, by the way. So, let me put it like this… We are too big to fail, but are small enough to care about every customer as if they were our only customer.
TEAM: A perfect description if you ask us!
Shout-out to Dmytro for this insightful conversation! We hope you’re excited to try out our Studios, whether as our partner or talent. Head over to the MPS Studio’s web page for more details!