About the client

The client operates in the European asset management industry, helping asset managers achieve higher efficiency in their product management processes and reduce costs associated with the production of regulatory and statutory documents such as UCITS KIID (Key Investor Information Document) and PRIIPs KID (Key Information Document), financial factsheets and other marketing documents, prospectuses, articles of incorporation or application forms.  

Challenge

Meeting project deadlines

Facing a strict deadline to deliver the project, the Product Manager didn’t have sufficient time to build a development team internally. The client thus decided to outsource the project of building the web and mobile applications. Assembling a full team quickly was a critical requirement.

In Luxembourg, it is extremely hard to find IT resources. We wanted to do it internally and managed to hire one critical person. But we were on a tight schedule, we did not have enough time to scale up locally and deliver, so we chose to outsource to scale fast and start delivering. 

Losing trust with the existing vendors 

The client got into contact with Neoteric a couple of months earlier. The client decided to go for a local provider over Neoteric in the finals but the cooperation with the local vendor did not fully meet the client’s expectations – it notably took the local vendor over 6 months to achieve the team size necessary to deliver the project. 

While completing the first module of the project, the client decided to come back to Neoteric for the second module of the project. After having convinced the client in the initial selection process, there was no selection process at all for the second module. Neoteric had stood out of 18 other companies.

I discovered Neoteric on Clutch where multiple brilliant reviews were available. I identified a total of 18 companies that I knew of, found on Clutch or met at physical events in Luxembourg or in London. Neoteric stood out because of the quality of the exchange we had, the mastery of English and the quality of the people we met.  We rapidly built trust. 

The product had to be developed according to the client’s design draft and in line with strict requirements on user experience (features orchestration and clear information architecture). 

Streamlining remote cooperation within one time zone

Apart from the requirement to kick off the project fast the client was also looking for a partner located in the same time zone, allowing for a maximum of 1-2 hours’ difference. 

I looked at Spain, England, Poland, Lithuania. I didn’t go further East because in China or India, there is too big of a time difference for us to work. And then I picked a company that could give me the team fast enough. I had discovered Neoteric in November 2018 and engage with them in end of May/early June 2019, we started the project in July.

Solution

We supplied the client with 4 teams – backend, front-end, mobile, and quality assurance.

Back-end team

The backend team prepared the infrastructure for an environment running on the client’s Kubernetes cluster, conducted integration with a 3rd party API, implemented required features, and run tests.

Neoteric required a near zero oversight. As a product owner, I was accessible in accordance with the Scrum methodology, but I did not have to go after each dev. There was always transparency and it built a very big amount of trust during the first month.

Front-end team

The front-end team created a web application based on Angular 8 and Storybook, implementing a business logic from the client’s design drafts. The team worked on a proper information hierarchy to make sure that information was presented in a predictable and coherent way. 

They also managed to implement feature orchestration that was emphasized by the client – all features were built around user stories. The team had to make sure users can easily understand functionalities and achieve their goals within the application fast. This was critical for product adoption later and, as a result, for the product’s success in general.

Mobile team

The mobile team created a progressive web application – a reflection of the delivered design draft. The application was performed in Angular, the stack proposed by Neoteric as the best solution for this business case.

QA team

The quality assurance and testing team monitored and coordinated the quality by evaluating the processes and procedures during every sprint. The team conducted tests before new product versions were launched to ensure that the software runs smoothly and meets the client’s acceptance criteria. The team focused mainly on collaborating with the Product Development team to guarantee consistent project execution. The team investigated and identified bugs in new systems to resolve them and increase the product’s quality. 

Neoteric achieved a near zero level of regressions. As delivery usually unfold, the complexity of the application increases and the risk to break something that was done before usually rises. We had almost no such issues throughout the project which is to the credit of the delivery team and the work of the QA team.

Result

We managed to assemble 4 teams of specialists in no time. Those teams built the second product module – both web and mobile applications for asset managers. 

We built the product module in line with the best practices of product design, implementing the vision of the client and ensuring the best user experience within the application. 

During product execution, our development team maintained close communication with the Product Owner from the client’s side and achieved a high level of autonomy and project ownership, thus making it easier for the Product Owner to oversee the process.

Transparency in communication and critical thinking were also crucial qualities demonstrated by Neoteric. The team had a sufficient grasp of what I wanted to achieve from a vision point of view to challenge our approach or design. This prevented errors and brought value to the end product. On top of an excellent delivery team, I worked with a committed team of partners that made that extra mile which makes your product better. I am grateful for this.

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