Application Development of Core Software Product
GuideIT provides comprehensive Application Development and Modernization services to a global risk and compliance leader through consulting, development, and hybrid agile/waterfall methodologies to implement a continuous delivery strategy and position the organization for the future.
The Customer
A leading, privately-held information security company maintains one of the most widely adopted certifiable risk and compliance management frameworks for safeguarding sensitive regulated data.
The company’s flagship go-to-market product is a software application utilized by customers to assess and maintain compliance with various regulatory regimes such as ISO/IEC 27000-series and HIPAA.
The Challenge
The company was seeking to significantly redesign its core SaaS-based risk management platform to make it easier and more cost-effective for subscribers to manage information risk and meet international, federal and state regulations concerning privacy and security.
The original application was based on an outdated third-party platform and was not optimized for performance or scalability. The company also had a strategic goal to maintain complete ownership of the intellectual property making up the application and to deliver the product as a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform. Furthermore, the company desired a robust, modernized user interface in line with industry best practices for interface design and user experience.
The existing security solution was NOT:
» Based on modern technologies
» Scalable for cloud-based delivery
» Optimized for performance
» Utilizing UX/UI best practices
GuideIT Application Development Services provide end-to-end solutions for modernization, management, and development of software tailored to specific business needs. Leveraging top industry talent, GuideIT Application Services teams develop, deploy, and maintain best-of-breed software solutions while leveraging modern development frameworks for continuous delivery such as DevOps, Agile, and hybrid models.
The Solution
GuideIT developed a plan to modernize the application and address the shortcomings of an aging architecture while also implementing a comprehensive strategy for ongoing development. The modernized application would be based on the latest cloud-based technology stack to allow fluid scaling to meet demand. Leveraging skilled User Interface and Experience designers, the application would benefit from a refreshed look and feel, based on a material design framework. Finally, the data and application architecture would be re-engineered from the ground up to provide a robust and responsive experience to end users who carry with them the expectation of world-class performance.
Solution Benefits
» Continuous development approach
» Secure code validation
» Increased user satisfaction
» Collaborative development partnership
» Modernized user interface & experience
» Scalable application architecture
» Increased product revenues
» Enhanced application performance
Why GuideIT
DISCOVER > DESIGN > DEVELOP > DEPLOY
GuideIT understands the needs of organizations to not only pursue the benefits of cutting edge approaches but also maintain support for late-cycle technologies that still form the basis of many critical business services. Customers benefit from industry-best talent and a disciplined yet flexible development life cycle approach which incorporates the principles of DevOps, Agile, Waterfall, and other management frameworks paired with a consultative, strategic approach.
GuideIT developed a comprehensive plan to redesign and modernize the core application product utilizing best-of-breed technologies and methodologies. Levering industry best practices and a hybrid agile/waterfall development framework, GuideIT assessed the requirements and selected the best-suited architecture and approach, created a plan to address strategic goals, and engaged within a continuous delivery methodology.
The Implementation
1. REQUIREMENTS– Upon initiation of the project, GuideIT performed a comprehensive requirements gathering exercise to document existing functionality and map new feature requests and requirements for the application. We consulted with the customer who had developed an extensive product scope based on their business needs. GuideIT then adapted the requirements into an initial development plan.
2. DEVELOPMENT– With the development plan in place, GuideIT worked with the customer to prioritize the efforts into sprints, which enabled completion of a minimum viable product version that would then be enhanced through continuous development and integration methodologies incorporating an agile approach.
3.DEPLOYMENT– Within a continuous deployment framework, GuideIT maintains up to six environments to advance new features and enhancements in coordination with the customer product managers and in alignment with the product road map for development, QA testing, UAT, and deployment.
The Results
The GuideIT Application Services teams partnered with the customer for the development of the new application. The customer was seeking to counteract declining user satisfaction and subscribers resulting from outdated features, architectures, and experience. Since implementation of the new application with improved interface and features, the customer has expand their subscriber base by more than 95% in a 20-month period resulting in higher revenue.
As the core go to market offering, ongoing development of the application was crucial to maintaining relevance by offering customers new and updated features. GuideIT implemented a continuous development framework, modernizing the approach and allowing more responsiveness to the customer’s ongoing product goals.
Leveraging a cloud application architecture with modern techniques, overall improvements were made in performance, scalability, compatibility, and interface, resulting in higher user satisfaction.
