Aluminati has established itself as the preferred platform for Alumni Communities. As a result, they are experiencing tremendous growth.

Aluminati have built their success on a people-focussed philosophy and through innovative partnerships.

As a provider of global community platforms, Aluminati has no regional boundaries. But it needed to be certain it could balance growing demand with the right scaled team. They needed a way to scale without the risks inherent in growing a business.

Aluminati had considered offshoring before. They had encountered some of the common problems in hiring remote staff globally.

They chose to partner with Potentiam to expand their development team.

Keeping a close-knit team with fully integrated offshore resources under your control

Aluminati had considered offshoring before partnering with Potentiam.

Aluminati wanted to ensure that their employees have a strong cultural fit. They also wanted to maintain direct management oversight over their staff. The Aluminati development team has always been close-knit. Daniel Watts, Managing Director of Aluminati, knew from previous experience that this is not always possible when hiring offshore. However, they struggled to find the resources they needed locally.

“Our Technical Director was initially sceptical of offshoring - advocating for having his team in the same office. He wanted them to be able to communicate directly with each other and did not want to go through management layers within a 3rd party organisation," explains Daniel.

"We have had experience hiring abroad. We had an individual join us from the Philippines for the support team. This was difficult. Data privacy restrictions prevented this person from dealing directly with customer data which was very limiting. The time zone difference was also a challenge. “

Daniel explains that the Potentiam model was appealing. "During the pandemic Aluminati became an international team, with people in nine countries. With Potentiam, we could continue this evolution whilst having team members in nearly the same time zone reporting directly to us. They would be integrated into our team, not an outsourced developer."

 “Potentiam’s previous experience gave us the confidence that they would guide us effectively in growing our offshore team.”

Potentiam's track record with offshoring gave Daniel confidence that he would be guided effectively in growing him offshore team.

Daniel was impressed by Potentiam’s strategic framework for growth. "Charles helped us understand a more strategic approach to building the team," he explains. This framework ensures higher retention and performance. He was impressed by the Potentiam team’s success in growing small businesses. "Charles has a great story behind him. He has successfully built offshore teams for his company which was acquired by Accenture. This experience gave us the confidence that Potentiam would guide us effectively in growing our offshore team."

Designing a seamlessly integrated offshore team

Potentiam was able to present a range of location options, with a full assessment of the pros and cons for Aluminati. Daniel's main criteria was that the team would operate as though they work together with the least possible friction for collaboration.

The key pivotal change in his Technical Director’s position was understanding that this person was not delivered through an agency but was effectively part of the team.

Aluminati decided to build the team in Cape Town. There is no visible distinction between how they are tasked, how they work, how they interact, the tooling they have and everyone else.

"This strategy led us to hire a range of developers with different amounts of experiences, enabling both juniors to learn and seniors to develop.”

"We ended up getting some really great people at a rate that we find reasonable," explains Daniel. "The Potentiam recruitment team know exactly who we were looking for and are excellent at finding the right person to meet our needs."

Aluminati currently have six roles based in Cape Town. The team in Cape Town is fully integrated into the team in the UK.

Aluminati have found offshoring with Potentiam so successful that they are now looking at growing their offshore team. Future plans include adding further development roles as well as sales, service and operations roles.