Automotive Software Case Study: Managing Multinational Content at Scale

Deliverables

• UX Design, Consulting, React + Node.js Full Stack Web Development, and deployment (concept to delivery) of a File Management console.

• Process improvement strategy for engineering tasks and software delivery.

• UX consulting, user interviews and continuous business analysis to create new features and find new ways to innovate.

• Core feature Node.js development and testing on content management APIs.

The Challenge

Buying a Software as a Service (SaaS) product as a multinational organisation requires strategy.

For enterprises, who want to remain on the cutting edge may find some SaaS products restrictive.

As enterprise SaaS tier usage increases, you could find yourself with increasingly high SaaS fees; which then begs the question – would cost of ownership be cheaper in the long run, to build a solution in-house?

Volvo had agreed that it’s more efficient in the long-term and cheaper to build a CMS from scratch to harness the flexibility to be innovative and scale-up when required, without being tied to a SaaS provider.

The Solution

Custom Content Management System

We led the development of a bespoke content management system (CMS) which translates documents and written content across different locales with React.js, GraphQL and Nest.js integrated with Volvo’s REST APIs in C#.

Building a tool of this magnitude requires expert technical architecture and code cleanliness that ensures scalability and flexibility; when requirements change.

We consulted for and collaborated with the Volvo head office team, in Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden to ensure that our CMS features aligns their long-term strategy to improve profitability through continuous improvement and innovation.

After approvals had been given, we began to work alongside with developers on-site, to deliver new features for their content platform and quickly adapted ourselves to Volvo’s development process and offered advice to further optimise their development workflow.

Adopting the Agile methodology, we ensured that each iteration delivered working software for Volvo.

This project is currently in production and is still used to power the content behind Volvo’s dealer locator.

As well as feature development, we understand that when a new app becomes available, technical support is necessary to ensure users and application infrastructure perform at its best.

We also provided development support for Volvo’s content platform; to ensure editors that are reliant on our services have renewed confidence, while they transition to our new CMS.

Service Design and User Experience Consulting

A successful app begins with great User Experience (UX) and Service Design.

To better understand the scope of the project, we began by conducting UX research, which included interviewing and observing prospective users in their role.

We know that UX projects cannot be completed successfully without User Research.

Our role as UX designers is to include users in the development process to ensure our apps are easy and enjoyable to use, as well as meeting customer specification.

Observing in User Research provides the most accurate information about people, their tasks, and their needs.

That way, we become our user’s advocate, to ensure we’re building features that our users need.

Building something new and momentous like this, is an opportunity to hear from your colleagues about what they enjoy about their current workflows and what they’d change.

We utilise this information to ensure we deliver an app which increases employee satisfaction in their role and accelerates the time taken to complete their tasks.

After we had collated our user research, we presented our findings and a plan for project delivery to Volvo’s engineering leadership.

After approvals had been given, we began by incrementally building usable Figma wireframes to demonstrate the new use-cases and to test them with our users.

Process Improvement

While working with the Volvo team, we collaborated to develop a streamlined process to releasing code, to optimise their git branching model and their pull request review processes.

Pursuing continuous process improvement enables businesses to identify customer values, minimise wastage, and align their products and services with customer values.

This ensured we were able increase our sprint velocity each quarter.

The benefits

1. Lower SaaS costs – Volvo can gradually begin transitioning from high enterprise SaaS costs and have a handle on being able to innovate with their Content Management Platform on demand.

2. Employees feel empowered to innovate – Since editors (the end-user) has been consulted throughout the app development process, it improved relationships between the engineering and the editorial team, as a result, employees feel empowered to suggest new features.

3. Digital asset – Volvo now have a productionised web app, that can run anywhere and can be utilised across the Volvo group or commercialised externally.

4. Business responsiveness/innovation speed – If new requirements arise for content delivery/distribution in future, Volvo is best positioned to respond quickly to remain at the cutting edge of innovation.

Project Length

Circa 18 Months

Client Testimonial