Finture

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Software Development Manager for M&Co. M&Co is one of the largest privately owned retail brands in the United Kingdom. There is over 170 local stores, company website and mobile shopping app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Finture, and what were your goals?

M&Co were investing in a new website and this was being developed and hosted by a third party. New applications and services were designed to integrate with the new platform. The new applications and services would have hooks into the existing legacy system within M&Co.

There was also a need to integrate with a new Akeneo setup that was to be used within M&Co and would hook straight into the new website. There were custom applications required to integrate with legacy product systems and the Akeneo platform. Other members of the Finture team were brought onboard to help with smaller projects. The goals were to implement these new applications and services in a modern and flexible design pattern.

They would allow for relative quick changes to be made with minimal disruption to the ongoing operation. All of these goals had to be achieved in a timely manner as there was a strict hard deadline for the new website and for the switchover of services from the previous supplier.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

M&Co had partnered with Finture towards the end of delivery of another project within M&Co. I was very impressed with Finture and the quality that was provided by them through all levels of Management down to Developers. Finture also have existing experience of Akeneo integration so that was another factor.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The project was split into several parts in respect to the areas. The areas were:

• Akeneo
• Website Order Integration
• Legacy event interaction
• Reconciliation

During the design phase it was decided to split the Order Integration into 3 areas - Order importer, Order Updater and then an Orchestrator to work with both of them. This gave the respective areas their own control without the one large single application. The technologies used in all of the areas were mostly .Net Core.

There were integrations with message queuing and on this occasion it was RabbitMQ. The legacy Oracle database had to be used for this project however the core features of the applications have been designed and developed to be database agnostic.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At one point we had 9 members in the team. There was a Technical Lead and 8 .Net Developers of different skill level from Senior to Mid-range. There were a core 4 Developers on the Website Integration project while the others were working on the other smaller projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The Christmas peak and the Black Friday events are always a major challenge within M&Co and the demand it brings especially to the existing or legacy software systems. After the launch of the new website, the results of the order ingestion and time to dispatch were the best results ever achieved by M&Co.

One of the large factors of this result was the features and services delivered on the Website Integration project. Other deliverables were also achieved in the smaller projects and these provided significant benefits to not only the users but also the wider business. Key stakeholder users were very positive with their feedback on the deliverables.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Compared to other vendors I have worked within the past, the project management provided by Finture was fantastic. We had daily meetings and also communicated through Slack. Our development methodology was agile and we used Microsoft Dev Ops for our sprints, tasks and retros etc. The deadlines were regularly met and there were no turnover of staff which was a huge benefit to all the projects worked on.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The way the company carried itself throughout all of the projects. They were very determined and efficient. I had direct access to all the team and this was a huge plus. There were also regular planning meetings with the Senior Management so this also helped with planning and for any issues that cropped up. They were always dealt with in a super timely manner.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

There is very little I can recommend at the moment for improvement or doing something different. All round it was a huge positive working with Finture and they helped to deliver on their goals which in turn helped myself and my team's goals.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Pontiac Intelligence

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provides services and technology to buy digital media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Finture to accomplish?

• Build digital tools

SOLUTION

How did you find Finture?

Other

Why did you select Finture over others?

• Pricing first our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Finture’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Finture helped us by providing exceptional engineers. They have helped us build, test and deliver a digital media buying suite of products.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Delivered products
• additional revenue streams

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They have been great in all aspects. Corporative, available and responsive. They really helped us to find engineers with the exact skill sets and personalities that we were looking for.

What was your primary form of communication with Finture?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The quality of the engineers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Finture could have done differently?

No they have been perfect for our needs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was a head of Project management and system analyst team in a one of the largest leasing companies in Poland

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Finture, and what were your goals?

The aim of our project was to create a new system for handling the sale of motor insurance in order to optimize and automate it. In addition, we wanted scalability through the ability to easily add more insurance companies

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The vendor was selected in a tender. What was important was his flexibility and good references from his implementations in other financial institutions.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They designed the architecture of the solution, then analitycal and development works were carried out as part of 2-week sprints. The key milestones were the implementations of successive insurance company. The solution was designed on BPMS Camunda and no-sql database. Technolgy use in project: .Net Core, Angular.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Vendor provided the entire team: analyst, programmers, testers and PM (10+ FTE). They cooperated with internal employees creating a harmonious team

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The works proceeded according to the schedule. Ocassional technical issue after deployments were fixed ad-hoc

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The vendor approach to the solution as well as requirements change was very flexible. We had weekly 1:1 meetings and a supplier supervisor joined in as needed.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They provided very good cooperation and understanding of the business as well as the needs of the organization. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Everything was ok. I don’t identify areas for improvement.