Business Intelligence for Case Studies Archives - Arrk Group

AI Powered Web Development

Sandeep Parkhande — Fri, 10 May 2024 13:18:59 +0000

AI-Powered Solution Transforms Web Development and Cost Efficiency in Business Intelligence

We pride ourselves on delivering progressive solutions that encourage our client’s businesses. Recently, we collaborated with a client in the Business Intelligence sector to address their challenges and transform their development process. Here’s how we achieved remarkable results.

Customer

Our client, operating in the Business Intelligence sector, sought to create a web-based application to enhance data analysis and reporting capabilities. Unlike others, our client prioritizes data discovery, enabling businesses to focus on critical aspects. With support from our client, businesses can achieve next-level data navigation that is focused on market insights and business intelligence, which will help build a more innovative and competitive brand.

Data-focused application

Market insights

Business intelligence

Problem Statement

Our client faced significant difficulties when it came to meeting their client deadlines. This led to an escalation in costs that created a bad reputation in the market. The challenge our client faced was the use of traditional development methods that lacked the agility and efficiency that is required to complete a project on time. By recognizing this problem, our client saw the need to develop a web-based application that would help speed up their development process without reducing the quality assured.

Missed client deadlines

Reputation damage

Cost escalation

Need for agile development

Solution Development

At Arrk Group, we helped spearhead a pioneering initiative to empower our clients with cutting-edge AI-based productivity tools such as ChatGPT and Cody to help streamline their overall development process. Leveraging these tools, we seamlessly integrated React UI for the front end and Python for the back end, optimizing the developmental stack to improve performance and scalability. With our approach of harnessing AI-generated codes throughout the entire application lifecycle, we ensured that rapid iteration of the cycle occurred and sped up the overall delivery timeline without compromising functionality or quality.

Pioneering AI initiative

Streamlined development process

React UI and Python integration

Rapid iteration and delivery

Outcomes

We successfully utilized AI-enabled tools to help improve our client’s overall data extraction, analysis, and development processes. By combining the ingenuity of our team members with the latest AI tools available in the market, we helped our client reach the following outcomes:

75% Reduction in Development Time and Costs:
By harnessing AI tools, we were able to implement the project in one week rather than the estimated four weeks quoted without using AI. This reduction in development time led to a 75% decrease in overall effort and cost for the client, which in turn enabled them to allocate their resources effectively.
Improved overall efficiency and productivity:
AI-driven development helped accelerate the delivery process for the web-based application and also optimized the resources allocated. This allowed the client to focus more on their core business activities and strategic initiatives rather than process management.
Uncompromised Quality:
Even though the entire development process saw an acceleration in the timeline, the quality of the application remained uncompromised. This was due to rigorous testing and validation processes implemented by our team. In the end, our client received a fully functioning solution that not only met their needs but also exceeded their expectations.
Competitive Advantage:
As the web-based application was deployed within one week rather than four, the client gained an overall competitive edge by adapting to the change in the market and seizing opportunities before their competitors.

In summary, our integration of AI productivity tools not only addressed our client’s immediate needs but also crafted the way for future success in the dynamic Business Intelligence industry. Trust Arrk Group to revolutionize your development process and drive efficiency.

Reduction in Development Time and Cost

Improved Efficiency and Productivity

Uncompromised Quality

Competitive Advantage

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Revolutionizing Construction Data Management

Drashya Kuruwa — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 04:33:25 +0000

Arrk Engineered a two-tier process to harvest bulk data extraction from PDFs - resulting in the reduction of costs incurred by the client while improving the efficiency of the process.

Customer

Our client is an award-winning eLearning company that offers corporate training solutions to help improve workforce performance while driving business on a global level. With over 25+ years of experience in building meaningful learning solutions, the brand has helped transform people into leaders of tomorrow with a 360-degree approach to training, leadership, procurement, and consulting.

Award Winning Company

Corporate Training Solutions

360 Degree Approach

Problem Statement

Our client was faced with multiple challenges in their quest to gather tabular data from PDF files that contained numerous financial details. One of the biggest problems was to extract information accurately for multiple channels within a single file. This meant that to avoid any discrepancies in the extraction of data, a sophisticated extraction tool needed to be used. The current in-house tool uses Python, Tesseract, Spacy, and Transformer to gather bulk data from PDFs.

Another issue that our client faced is that while the in-house PDF system is robust, it cannot extract tabular data from certain PDFs. This incomplete data extraction hinders the ability to not only gather insights but also impact the entire decision-making process. Our client wanted a solution to balance the cost-effectiveness while ensuring that the data extracted was accurate. However, a cost-intensive solution for every single PDF file did not seem practical. So, to strike the right balance between cost and efficiency was the need of the hour.

Information Extraction

Robust System

Data Efficiency

LLM and ChatGPT

Solution Development

To address the challenges, we at Arrk designed a two-tiered solution that combined the in-house tool with AI-driven technology.

For the in-house PDF crawling system, we implemented an algorithm that is capable of handling multiple financial instruments and tables within a single PDF file. The system was made to crawl the PDFs periodically to extract the data and prioritize accuracy above all else. By using the in-house solution, we allowed our client to achieve bulk extraction of data without any additional costs.

To act as a safe gate where the in-house solution did not work, the PDF was automatically routed to the AIMLbased Amazon Textract solution. The tool is driven by advanced machine learning to work as a fail-safe mechanism where all tabular data can be extracted accurately from PDFs. But, this platform would only be used when the in-house tool failed. Optimizing the use of Amazon Textract meant that the client’s expenses were minimized and were now cost-effective.

AI Driven Tool

Bulk Data Extraction

Cost Effective

Outcomes

Collaborative results with our client helped yield the following results:

Combining the use of the in-house crawling system and Amazon Textract ensured that the most relevant data was extracted from the PDF.
Prioritizing the in-house tool resulted in significant savings as the AI tool was only used for challenging situations.
The two-tiered approach led to an overall efficient bulk data extraction process and maintained the balance between cost and performance.

Seamless Collaboration

Optimal Prioritization

Two Tiered Approach

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Enhancing Web Scraping Capacity Using Amazon Sagemaker and AWS Cloud Services

Drashya Kuruwa — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 11:50:52 +0000

Arrk helped improve the growth efficiency by 25% and improve productivity by 50% with the implementation of the double tag team of Amazon Sagemaker and AWS Cloud Services to facilitate challenges faced in the data management process

Customer

Our client is one of the leading players in the construction data businesses, specializing in offering comprehensive solutions to professionals in the construction industry. They are headquartered in Cheshire, UK, and offer focused data-driven insights to help shape the construction industry landscape.

We have been partners with our client since 2005 to help mark the beginning of collaborative efforts to improve their data management facilities.

Construction Data Business

Partners Since 2005

Partnership Since 2017

Problem Statement

Our client was faced with multiple challenges in the data management process that required a complete overhaul of their tools. The existing web scraping system needed the manual setup of machines, which was not only time-consuming but also needed high levels of manpower. This meant that the development cycle was hampered, and there was loss of data.

Because of the machinery used, it meant that only one developer could work on one machine at a time. This not only hampered the collaborative efforts between teams but also impeded parallel development processes.

Also, the costs associated with the total setup and maintenance of the machines for developers were fairly high, which led to financial problems. In fact, our client found it difficult to allocate resources away from these machines, which in turn caused a suboptimal balance between the operational aspect and cost
efficiency.

Data Loss

Robust System

Hindered Team collaboration

LLM and ChatGPT

Solution Development

We at Arrk took a look at the problems our client was facing and tailor-made a solution leveraging two tools – Amazon Sagemaker and AWS Cloud Services. As per our initial assessment, we introduced Amazon Sagemaker into the machine setup process. This reduced the configuration time, especially with GPUs, and better extraction of data.

We then collaborated with Sagemaker and AWS Cloud Services to ensure that multiple developers could work on diverse projects at the same time. This started fostering an environment of innovative and collaborative efforts to improve the efficiency and speed of the development team as a whole.

Finally, by integrating the AWS Cloud Service, we brought in scalable infrastructure that made our client adapt dynamic workloads for the developers. By doing this, the company achieved substantial savings and
could optimize its resource allocation without having to compromise on its productivity.

Sagemaker + AWS

Collaborative Efforts

Scalable Infrastructure

Resource Optimization

Outcomes

A substantial increase in efficiency by 25% led to the sorting and management of larger volumes of data.
Reduction in costs by 30% p.a., particularly in the machine setup and allocation of resources stages.
Various developers could collaborate and innovate within the team effortlessly.
Teams could now focus more on the business problem aspect rather than infrastructure-related tasks.
Workloads could now be managed effortlessly without compromising the performance of teams, and productivity improved by 50% without any added costs.

Cost Reduction

Managed Workload

Improved Productivity

Cost Reduction

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How Arrk’s AI Engineering Team Automated Data Harvesting, Reducing Costs by 48%…

Drashya Kuruwa — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 01:59:05 +0000

How Arrk’s AI Engineering Team Automated Data Harvesting, Reducing Costs by 48% and Speeding Up Time to Market - Resulting in Increased Revenue and Customer Satisfaction.

Our customer is a well-established global business intelligence organization specialising in the collection and improvement of massive datasets, which are subsequently published for customers to use in individual transactions and market analysis.

Customer

They are especially known for their research reports, market analysis, and consulting services, delivered to technology, IT, and business-related sectors. Their research and insights are often used by businesses to make informed decisions about technology investments and business strategies.

Their data harvesting and data entry operations are managed by a remote outsourced team, while a local call centre team is responsible for research and final publication. Our customer wanted to automate the data harvesting activity across several disparate data sets.

Problem Statement

The major problem faced by our client was the cost linked with remote outsourced data extraction and entry. The sheer volume of data involved in their operations required a manual data entry activity which resulted in significant expense. AI-enabled automation was identified as a possible solution; however, the complexity of this task was exacerbated by the complex nature of the source data. These sources, including various websites, presented data in different formats and standards, often including free-text fields, making the task of automating data extraction and entry a complex endeavour.

The final aim was to achieve a 50% automation rate, a goal that appeared ambitious at the outset but was deemed attainable.

Costly Offshore Data Entry

Complex Data Sources

Free-Text Fields

Automation Goal

Solution Development

Having conducted a rapid EmbArrk^TM discovery, using an iterative, product-oriented approach, a team of circa. 15 Arrkitects utilized Arrk’s agile@arrk project engineering methodology to deliver the project goals established during the EmbArrk^TM workshop. The journey towards automating data harvesting can be summarized in three key phases:

At the outset, the approach taken was a rule-based data-mapping activity. This method required customisations for each website to adapt to their unique terminologies, classifications, and free-text fields. Unfortunately, POC 1 didn’t yield results as expected due to the vast disparities in data presentation among different websites.

POC 2 introduced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Named Entity Recognition (NER) techniques to extract key entities from the free-text fields. This approach demonstrated potential by pinpointing data locations, but it lacked the accuracy required to confidently detect and obtain accurate data. Efforts were made to combine NLP and NER with rule-based logic, but the complexity and cost of this approach became apparent.

In the final phase, a successful solution was created, blending rule-based processing and machine learning. The AI Engineering team precisely identified all the fields that the data entry team needed to populate, along with the associated validation rules. For each field, a decision was made to employ either rule-based processing or machine learning. The machine learning models, although time-consuming to build, provided the capability to generate data for fields that had previously necessitated human intervention.

Product-Oriented Approach

Agile Methodology

EmbArrk™ Workshop

Outcomes

This successful AI-enabled automation of data extraction and entry in our client’s research-based business stands as evidence of the power of combining rule-based processing and machine learning. By adapting to the unique challenges presented by diverse data sources, this project has not only substantially lowered costs but also increased accuracy, surpassing human capabilities in some instances. With the ongoing project and the introduction of generative AI, the client is ready to reap even greater benefits in the future, demonstrating the tremendous potential of AI-enabled solutions in data-intensive industries. The results of this project have been transformative:

Machine Learning Algorithms: The project now boasts five machine learning algorithms, with accuracies for AI-enabled data extraction and injection ranging between 95% to 98%. Remarkably, one of these algorithms outperformed human data entry accuracy.
Current Progress: While the project is still ongoing, it has already eliminated 41% of manual data extraction and entry. This equates to 500,000 data entries annually or 2,000 person-days of effort saved each year.
Future Prospects: The next phase of this AI Engineering project will involve the integration of generative AI alongside machine learning. This step is expected to exceed the original 50% automation target.

Improved Accuracy

Reduced Manual Data Entry

AI-Driven Solutions

Efficiency Gains

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Transforming NUS Extra to TOTUM

Drashya Kuruwa — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 07:19:03 +0000

Transforming NUS Extra to TOTUM

Arrk Group has partnered with OneVoice to Transform, Enrich, and Maintain digital platform called TOTUM for students and professionals. Before September 2018, this was only one student discount product called NUS Extra, owned by the NUS – National Union of Students, a not-for-profit organisation.

OneVoice, who was already providing digital support to NUS for the UnionCloud membership engagement platform, took over NUS Extra and transformed the ageing product with a new energetic look and named it TOTUM – a single digital platform for Student Discounts, Proof of Age ID and Student Life.

Arrk Group played a crucial role in the transformation and enhancement of the platform right from its inception through to live deployment and continues its association with OneVoice to provide more innovative features.

Customer

OneVoice is a vibrant collaboration between the National Union of Students (NUS) and Arrk Group, bringing together the best talents of each organisation to build and engage communities of common interest. With a heritage stretching back to 1922, OneVoice passionately understands what it means to collaborate and work together for the common good. OneVoice believes in the positive impact communities, and associations have on society and the collective strength when people come together for the benefit of all. The challenge is to harness and unlock this positive power, amplify engagement and release a community’s potential – to make a lasting difference.

Much more than an award-winning and versatile membership platform, OneVoice provides a suite of additional services, all wrapped around the central tenet of putting people at the heart of all we do.

Vibrant Collaboration

Award-Winning

Not-for-profit organisation

Situation

The NUS Extra card was losing market share in the student discount world due to an ageing app and outdated offers catalogue. NUS Extra faced competition from other players who offered better alternatives in the form of digital services and usage. Furthermore, these competitors had better reach and penetration and provided best-in-class student discounts. These issues directly impacted the revenues and resulted in users shifting their allegiance to the competitors.

Following a detailed review, OneVoice and Arrk Group decided to build a dedicated student discount platform called TOTUM, in which user retention, revenue generation and ease of use would be the key drivers behind the long-term vision of the product. Key components included:

A brand-new front-end website
An offer management system
Digital apps for iOS and Android devices

These features had to be supported with innovative marketing campaigns to announce TOTUM’s arrival and begin the quest to become UK’s number 1 student discount platform.

Strong Competition

Android Mobile App

iOS Mobile App

Solution

The solution/services delivered the following:

We evaluated a complete product strategy in terms of matching current consumer expectations and looking at beating the existing competition by providing a little more, like Proof of Age products
Help the creative and marketing teams to go to market with a rebranded youth-oriented brand
A diverse yet flexible digital ecosystem, including:
- Brand new native apps to allow better reach and connect in the digital age
- A brand-new website for advertising the product, posting blogs, and consuming content
- A streamlined sales web application capable of catering to the sale of existing and new discount card products
- A new slick discount authoring system that helped source and add discounts that would need to be consumed by the end users eventually
- A future-proof micro-services stack that supported all functions from card sales, discounts, user management, student verification frameworks, and many more
A best-of-breed open-source technology stack is powering all products. This includes the use of:
- AWS cloud infrastructure
- Java microservices
- Web applications built in AngularJs, ReactJs and VueJs
- Native apps in Android and iOS built using the best frameworks
- Use of the latest CaaS services like Contentful for easier and more powerful CMS
- Continuous integration and deployment via DevOps tools like Bitbucket, Jenkins, CircleCI, AWS DataDog
- Comprehensive reporting using RedShift DW, PowerBI, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and VWO for conversion rate optimisation
Integrations with 3rd party email and messaging services like SendinBlue and OneSignal
Dedicated product development and support teams, including engineers, architects, product owners, and data analysts with a DevOps culture
Support the legacy infrastructure in the transitory phase, including ASP.NET applications and integrations with print partners

With a product mindset and hybrid Agile methods, a team of 30+ at Arrk delivered this in under a year, with the first big launch in less than six months.

Hybrid Agile Delivery

Flexible Digital Ecosystem

Best of Breed Technology

3rd Party integrations

Outcomes

The above services and solutions were crucial to keeping the business innovating with new product offerings and consistently improving the core discount platform to stay competitive in a notoriously crowded discount and loyalty landscape. Important outcomes include:

An active million-plus user base
The increasing average daily active user count on apps is currently at 10K, including both apps
100,000 unique site visitors every week accessing the latest discounts on offer
Increase in ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) by creating compelling higher-value product offerings and targeting them appropriately at the user base
Improved B2B product and high-impact media offerings for brand partners
Increased revenues are invested back into product development and foster future potential for innovation in the student market

Million+ User Base

Improved Business

Increased Revenues

Futuristic Vision

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Barbour ABI – Transforming bricks to clicks

Drashya Kuruwa — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 15:15:35 +0000

Transforming bricks to clicks

Barbour ABI wanted to migrate its services online believing that such a move would enable it to provide its customers with a range of value-adding search facilities and other data manipulation tools. This new online service would also provide a platform for exploring new opportunities to market their business intelligence data to other market sectors.

Customer

Barbour ABI, subsidiary of United Business Media (UBM), is the UK market leader in the provision of construction industry market intelligence. It provides information on the profile and status of major construction projects to many of the top construction companies, sub-contractors, building suppliers, architects and surveyor throughout the UK. Traditionally ABI supplied this information through a combination of monthly paper-based reports and a PC based software tool.

UK market leader in construction industry market intelligence

Providing information on profile and status of major construction projects

Originally supplied information via paper-based reports and PC software tool

Situation

Barbour ABI had a limited IT budget which had little capacity for speculative ventures as well as an insufficient management bandwidth and shortage of appropriate technical skills within the in-house IT resource.

There was a requirement for them to be able to flex the team size based on investment cycles and an urgency of speed to market due to the imminent launch of online services by a competitor.

With a desire to form a partnership through which they could leverage expertise in the e-commerce domain and no previous experience of offshore outsourcing, Barbour ABI chose to partner up with Arrk Group.

Limited IT budget

Little capacity for speculative ventures and insufficient management

Shortage of appropriate technical skills with in-house IT resource

An urgency of speed to market

“We wanted to provide our customers and suppliers with the ability to get the information they needed when they needed it, rather than asking and waiting for it to be compiled”

Commercial Director

Solution

The intial challenge was to rapidly develop and launch a prototype application that would provide a technical, business and commercial proof of concept. Arrk choose to deploy a small onshore team of mixed UK and Indian consultants to work collaboratively with Barbour ABI business people to iteratively develop the prototype. The Arrk team spent some time located at the customer site and some located at Arrk’s UK office. Arrk’s UK business analysts and technical architects worked side by side with a team of Arrk’s Indian technicians and, due to Barbour ABI’s unfamiliarity with offshore, the UK team provided the majority of the management and requirements intermediation between the customer’s business and the Indian team.

The application was developed and launched in four months providing Barbour ABI with both a validation of the proposition as well as confidence in the offshore delivery model. This provided a green light for development of a full-scale production implementation name Drillstar. For this phase, the Arrk team size was increased with the majority being located offshore. With the offshore team having developed significant business domain knowledge (and with continuing management support from Arrk UK) Barbour ABI’s business users were able to develop a direct communication channel with the offshore team to deal with things things like requirements and solution design. Over time Arrk UK’s management involvement was further reduced as Barbour ABI moved to a VODC (Virtual Offshore Development Centre) model where the offshore team is managed directly by the customer as an extension of its own in-house IT function. Arrk’s VODC model provides offshore senior delivery and quality management as standard within Arrk’s Offshore Delivery Centre, leaving the customer to focus on requirements management and strategic product direction.

Deployment of a small onshore team

Application was developed and launched in four months

Development of a full-scale production implementation named Drillstar

Barbour ABI moved to a VODC model

Outcomes

The Dillstar system delivered the vision of an online data-warehouse that enables a heterogeneous user base to access the data it needs when it needs. Features include:

A suite of web-based business intelligence tools
The ability to maintain a personal profile of 7000+ search combinations
Email and SMS notification
Daily synchronisation with legacy systems
Branded portals and administration functions for larger business-to-business customers

The system is now the delivery channel for 80% of new sales and is a major source of competitive advantage with sales increasing 25% year on year.

Drillstar system delivered the vision of an online data-warehouse

Increased accessibility to data

Now the delivery channel for 80% of new sales

Competitive advantage with sales increasing 25% year on year

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Application support management success, for RAC

Drashya Kuruwa — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 15:02:10 +0000

Arrk Group drives application support and management success for RAC

The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) were in desperate need of a cost effective, scalable application support and management (ASM) capability with the added ability to successfully shape and deliver future IT project across the full set of RAC services and supporting applications.

Customer

The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) is one of the UK’s most progressive motoring organisations, providing services for both private and business motorists. Ever since its foundation in 1897, the RAC has been consistently at the forefront of developing motoring services – from introducing uniformed patrols in 1901 and roadside emergency telephone boxes in 1912 right through to the present day when they boast what they believe to be the world’s most advanced computer systems to deal with calls for roadside assistance.

One of UK's most progressive motoring organisations

Founded in 1897

One of the world's most advanced computer systems dealing with roadside assistance

Situation

The drive for increased customer satisfaction and cross-selling throughout RAC’s services led to a major transformation project that included the implementation of Siebel (CRM), Agresso (Finance) and an Oracle data warehouse. Due to limited capability within the internal IT team, RAC approached Arrk Group to support and manage their core application.

A drive to increase customer satisfaction and cross-selling

Desire to introduce a CRM and a Finance system, as well as, an Oracle data warehouse

In need of a major transformation project

Limited capacity within the internal IT team

“Above all, Arrk’s commitment to RAC’s success via open, responsive and sensitive handling of the transaction confirmed our correct choice of IT partner. Transition went to plan and our RAC team expanded to include some outstanding and technically excellent Arrk colleagues and a best practice set of ASM processes that together set a new benchmark for quality of IT service at RAC and even taught me a thing or two”

RAC Business Systems Director

Solution

RAC implemented a joint RAC-Arrk IT team, with ASM being performed by Arrk Group’s off-shore development centre in Mumbai.

The radical transformation required a significant number of RAC IT staff redundancies, removal of IT contractors, and needed a sensitive and carefully orchestrated knowledge transfer activity to Arrk Indian staff brought on-shore and then transferred bank to Mumbai in waves.

The newly implemented ASM services followed Arrk Group’s best practice, ITIL aligned processes were put into effect to ensure a proactive, professional, responsive service was delivered in-line with agreed Service Level Agreements, demonstrated through regular reports and service reviews.

A joint RAC-Arrk IT team was implemented

Arrk's off-shore development centre in Mumbai performed ASM

ITIL aligned processes ensure proactive, professional and responsive service

Project was delivered in-line with agreed SLAs

Outcomes

The RAC-Arrk Group partnership successfully reduced IT costs by 30%, enabling redirection into value-adding enhancements and business projects that brought additional benefits to RAC quicker than ever before. Arrk Group’s ASM service drove up RAC user satisfaction due to faster, quality issue resolution and a higher throughput of critical enhancements. Arrk’s rapid knowledge take-on enabled removal of risk and cost associated with the previous contract staff.

All-in-all this led to a vastly improved RAC IT and business department relationship which encouraged RAC to extend Arrk Group into project delivery.

IT cost reductions of 30%

RAC system user satisfaction increase

Business and IT risk reduction

Vastly improved RAC IT and business department relationship

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Premium Digital Solution Accelerates Loan Applications

Drashya Kuruwa — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 10:49:34 +0000

Premium Digital Solution Accelerates Loan Applications

Arrk Group helped increase Premium Credit’s competitiveness by designing, building and deploying a large-scale, secure digital customer acquisition platform.

The highly scalable digital platform has reduced the time taken to process a loan from weeks to just minutes, which in turn has resulted in an increase in conversions of over 25 percent. Furthermore, the new platform has improved productivity and customer satisfaction, whilst improving the compliance audit trail.

Customer

Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Premium Credit is the number 1 premium finance company in the UK and Ireland with over 29 years experience. They provide finance to customers to pay for insurance premiums, school fees, membership fees, season tickets and more. Collectively, they have processed over 26 million direct debits annually.

Premium Credit is owned by Cinven, a leading international private equity firm. Cinven has extensive experience acquiring successful companies and helping them grow and develop.

Number 1 premium finance company in the UK and Ireland

Over 29 years experience

Processed over 26 million direct debits annually

Owned by Cinven, a leading international private equity firm

Situation

For over 25 years, Premium Credit Limited had used the same loan administration system, which had become increasingly difficult to maintain and expensive to support. Supplied by an American corporation with little or no presence in the UK, it required US-based staff to be engaged locally to provide support. With significant changes occurring within the marketplace, including changes in technology and legislation, Premium Credit decided to replace its legacy system with a modern alternative.

Following initial strategic advice from Arrk Group, Premium Credit commenced in-house development of a new platform using an Oracle/.Net architecture. However after two and half years, senior management were frustrated and asked Arrk Group to conduct a consultative investigation. As a result of this work, Arrk Group was invited to become Premium Credit’s technology partner.

Replacement of legacy system in one go would be high risk strategy

New undefined functionality would need to be integrated into new system

Speed to market essential as market share was being lost daily to competitors

In-house team lacked the skills required

Solution

Working closely with Premium Credit’s senior management team, Arrk Group established a new programme and project management structure and implemented disciplined, focused design, development, testing and deployment methodologies. The result was the creation of a joint Premium Credit/Arrk software delivery team with Arrk Group people taking up key leadership roles. Discovery workshops involving a diverse range of users and stakeholders were used to rapidly build consensus within Premium Credit, with Arrk Group’s business analysts complementing the existing in-house team of business analysts and testers.

A number of test cases and scenarios were generated from these sessions which in turn shaped the solution’s requirements, determined by business priority. The main development activities were carried out at Arrk Group’s office in India, including build and testing. User acceptance testing and deployment was carried out by a joint, UK based team. Once an application release was ready, in-house system support staff carried out deployment and on-going support.

Joint project team established

EmbArrk process undertaken to identify full requirements and gain consensus

Phased migration approach established to deliver quick wins to market

Scalable solution developed using a consistent platform and architecture

Outcomes

Despite tight timescales, the initial target to deliver the first release of the application before the start of the academic year was met, as were several subsequent releases and deployment target dates. All in all Arrk Group developed a range of new applications and services using same platform and architecture all delivered efficiently and on budget. This new functionality included several multi-platform customer self-serve loan application systems that use the latest in e-signature technology and mobile customer engagement tools.

Premium Credit can now rely on a highly efficient and robust digital loans processing platform which has allowed the company to become extremely competitive. Arrk Group has also introduced to Premium Credit a new approach to software development, one which encompasses the latest practices and technology and allows for the rapid, flexible, cost effective development and deployment of new applications.

Reduction of loan application process from weeks to minutes

Over a 25% increase in application-to-loan conversions

Improved customer experience through self-serve loan application system

New working practices employed on the project up-skilled the internal team

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