Case studies

Brief

Created end to end software directly driving turnover growth at over 10X in eight years.

Description

We identified two key drivers of success for Alkemygold.

1) The company’s point of difference was creating reports more quickly than the competition. We developed data collection software that allowed schools to receive their reports within a week. The competition took two months to send out reports. This continued competitive advantage ensured company growth.

2) The company’s main source of revenue is reports. We created a reporting framework that has enabled the number of reports to increase from 1 to 30, generating a large increase in revenue.

Results

• Company growth of 20X
• Continued competitive advantage
• New revenue streams

Brief

Designed an award-winning booking system that created a market leading customer experience.

Description

A popular tour operator, Hotelplan was one of the first operators to target travellers directly, under a number of sub-brands, and aimed to cut out the significant overhead of travel agents.

We designed an innovate booking system that allowed the client to:

• Offer an easy-to-use web interface to both travel agents and directly to customers.
• Create sub-brands at will, with a high degree of customisation.
• Significantly reduce the length of bookings at travel agents.
• Combine their destination brochure information with their booking system.

Designed with flexibility in mind, the solution allowed various systems to provide input into the booking process, such as the reservation system and the travel brochure content manager. The web-based interface and complete picture meant that the booking process was shortened as customers where served more effectively.

Because the system was a collection of swappable parts, differentiating sub-brands could be accommodated very easily.

Results

• The operator became the preferred operator for many travel agents.
• More bookings where made directly by travellers, widening the profit margin.
• The client was able to successfully launch several sub-brands.
• The operator won national awards for its new booking system.

Brief

Created web based interface for Tullett’s internal trading platform – subsequently used to trade £trillions.

Description

The client was one of the largest buyers and sellers in the wholesale financial markets. They produce electronic trading platforms that allow commercial and investment banks to trade products such as energy, commodities, credit and equities. Tullett is publicly traded with a market capitalisation of £750m and a global reach, with offices in 22 countries spanning five continents.

Tullett Prebon wanted a web based application so that people could access their data from anywhere and could sign up quickly and easily, without installing software. Edwin’s solution replicates interface design found commonly in desktop applications in the web based application.

The interface includes:

• Toolbars
• Tab strips
• Frames
• Drag and drop grids

In addition the application allows a user to customise the interface layout and save the settings. This provides the user with flexibility to set up their working environment to best suit their needs.

The interface features were a unique selling point, creating market advantage and delighting our client.

Results

• Created market advantage in a highly competitive market.
• Software used to power trades worth over £100 Bn over 4 years.

Brief

Our work ensured our client’s biggest customer renewed their contract. We adapted a huge, fiendishly complex and totally undocumented legacy project giving the customer what they needed to renew their contract.

(It is worth noting that no in house developers were prepared to attempt the job. It was considered a fool’s errand.)

Description

During 2006-7 FFastFill moved to a new delivery model – the aim was to move to SaaS for all clients.

This new system suited most clients very well. Unfortunately due to legacy systems, the largest client was unable to move to the new SaaS system. It did not have features supported by their older system, features that they required.

Edwin was asked to do two jobs:

1. Update the old system to add new features that were available in the SaaS system.
2. Develop the specification for the SaaS system to enable features required to move the client to SaaS.

These jobs were a huge technical challenge – the old system was a convoluted design that was several years old and completely undocumented.

Edwin made the required changes and created a specification for the SaaS development to enable the largest and most valuable client to move to the new system.

Results

• Our client was able to complete their strategy of moving to SaaS delivery without losing their largest client. This resulted in £Millions in additional revenue from this client alone.

Brief

Created a resilient damage control protocol for a wide range of marine vessels.
(We are unsure of the value this added to Imtech, but defence contracts and naval technology is certainly not cheap! We’re confident Imtech did very well reselling this software.)

Description

Imtech, a major engineering services provider hired Edwin in order to deliver a resilient platform for damage control on board navy vessels. The nature of this system required absolute accuracy with a 0% fail rate.

The solution pioneered a peer-to-peer protocol to underpin the damage and fire-fighting control systems in military ships. The protocol maintained full functionality regardless of the damage inflicted on the vessel.

The open design allowed the platform to expand from the original concept of on-board workstations to an integrated network that includes emergency lighting and safety routing.

Results

• Initially intended for the Hellenic Navy, the protocol and application are now used more widely in ferries and commercial vessels.