Case Study
Bill Sharing App, A Flagship Product Development with Offshore Software Development Team
Industry: BFSI
Download PDF
Overview
Client is an emerging startup in BFSI industry, striving to develop a unique flagship product for bill sharing requirements of various kinds of businesses and services.
Business Need
Client wanted to build a unique and flagship product specifically targeted towards people who are looking for a bill sharing app solution. Such bill sharing app should allow to share different kind of service related expenses in the easiest way possible for hassle free bill sharing.
Successful completion of this flagship product development within budget and time would help our client to partner with large banks and financial institutions, allowing them to be part of the market leaders in the segment.
Client Situation
Client wanted to build this flagship product in the shortest possible time frame as they wanted to partner with some big players. For that they had to achieve a tight software development timeline with best possible quality.
After a careful evaluation of capabilities of their in-house software development team, they decided to hire a dedicated offshore software development team. It was almost impossible to hire a large dedicated software development team in-house in a short span of time. Also, it wouldn’t be cost effective to hire an inhouse software development team.
The most challenging part was to search for the best matching offshore software development company; who could understand their business processes, work style, expectations, and provide a well-rounded dedicated and agile software development team that would build their flagship product, a bill sharing app. They also wanted to partner with an offshore custom software development company who could handle the increasing load of work and could easily scale up their team as per the business needs.
Offshore Software Development Team Hiring (Business Partnership Journey)
2018 @ Q4
– Client came up with an idea of building a Flagship product and prepared an overall business plan (roadmap).
2019 @ Q1
– Around March, Client approached us to hire our offshore software development team for building their Flagship product.
2019 @ Q2
– Client finalized the business partnership with us and hired initial team (of 3 software developers) for small phase development.
2019 @ Q3
– As collaboration worked really well, we scaled dedicated software development team from 3 to 15 software developers as per client request.
2019 @ Q4
– Our partnership with Client hit the first milestone and together we launched the first version of their flagship product in the market by end of the quarter.
– Client also hired one of our project managers and a business analyst to closely plan and work for upcoming phases.
2020 @ Q1 – Till date
– Client also hired our expert software developers for carrying out R&D for their flagship product and ultimately established our agile software development team as their extended engineering hub.
Technologies
Targeted Technologies:
Mobile: iOS Swift, Android Kotlin
Architecture: Rest API, Microservice Architecture
Cloud Tech: AWS, Amazon EC2, Lambda, SNS (Amazon Simple Notification Service), Cloudwatch, S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service)
Frontend: AngularJS, Bootstrap, HTML, CSS
Backend: Java, Spring Boot, Elastic Search, Quartz Scheduler
Database: MongoDB
Team Composition:
- Client’s Inhouse Software Development Team: Product Owner, Project coordinator, Technical Lead
- Hired Offshore Software Development Team: 01 Project Manager, 01 System Architect, 01 Business Analysts, 01 Project Lead, 03 iOS Developers, 03 Android Developers, 01 Frontend developer, 02 Backend developers, 02 Quality review engineers, 01 DevOps Engineer
Recommended Solution
INITIAL APPROACH – TO – ONBOARDING
When client approached us, they wanted to hire a dedicated software development team with expertise in various technologies like Mobile native (iOS and Android), Java, MongoDB, AngularJS, Elastic Search, Microservice Architecture and various Cloud technologies.
Within a few meetings between client’s team and our technical experts, we got a good perspective of client’s business plan, their tight timeline, market release expectation and other challenges they would face with their current limited software team. Our agile software development team accepted the challenge to help the client achieve their dream of becoming a market leader with Flagship product, a Bill Sharing app.
STARTING WITH A SMALL DEDICATED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM
We did not enforce the client to hire a full-fledged dedicated software development team right from the beginning as we didn’t wanted our client to end up empty pockets if there is even a slight mismatch in expectations v/s software delivery.
Just like any new business engagement, client was not sure how this partnership would develop going forward and if it would deliver according to the requirements. So, we started initially with a small dedicated software development team to ensure client satisfaction and confidence, also scaling to a large software development team was not a hurdle for us.
Client signed a software development agreement with us, with the initial requirements being to hire 3 software developers in the beginning. The client’s team also visited our office within a month of engagement to understand the development progress, experience what’s going on behind the scenes, and personally meet their extended offshore software development team.
EXPANDING FROM A 3 TO 15 MEMBERS’ AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM (BEYOND ORIGINAL PLAN)
After seeing an excellent result from the initial offshore development team of 3 developers, client asked us to expand the dedicated software development team to 15 expert developers (effectively increasing the team by 5 times its initial strength).
From our wide range of in-house top skilled agile software development team, we reviewed Client’s resource needs and matched it with our resource pool, to onboard another 12 software developers within a short time frame of 1 week to 10 days. This fully integrated dedicated software development team of 15 developers included, Lead app developers, Frontend and Backend developers, Quality review engineers, delivery/release manager and business analyst. Our team started working as a dedicated development team to achieve the defined road map of client’s flagship product development, a bill sharing app.
Result
When Client approached us, they had 3 main parameters in mind: A offshore software development team, quality and value. They were looking for the right software development partner who could resolve all 3 challenges as well as play a key role in building their flagship product.
Client could go to any offshore company, but they didn’t want to hire software development team just for the sake of building a team who eventually would end up creating a mediocre product for them. They wanted to choose a software development team who could really add value to their business and use their fine skills to build a flagship product.
We understood Client’s vision for their business and products, and helped them by putting in real talents on their offshore software development team. We processed and understood Client’s industry need as well as outlined the overall strategy concerning product management and all aspects which helped them to build a bulletproof plan of setting up a dedicated software development team.
We also worked on the required R&Ds which eventually helped Client build new features which added significant value to client’s flagship product.
This successful collaboration helped in launching Client’s flagship product to market on time which allowed client to secure all possible business deals with big players and move ahead on the path of becoming market leaders in the segment.
