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.

Key Benefits

• Reduction of loan application process from weeks to minutes
• Over a 25 per cent increase in application-to-loan conversions
• Scalable, maintainable and highly flexible digital solution
• Joint development team hit all major release dates
• Collaborative and efficient working procedures introduced
• Full audit trail for all loan and payment transactions

Summary

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 market place, 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.

Challenge

Premium Credit was losing market share to more nimble competitors and needed to replace its core application quickly. A new digital platform was required to address both strategic and tactical requirements, in the case of the former the business needed to improve efficiency and switch to automated processes, while the latter involved incorporating new reference and account number functionality. However, replacing the entire legacy system in a single move would be high risk and involve years of work.

The strategy that Premium Credit and Arrk Group adopted was to first transition Premium Credit’s School Fees business from the legacy system to the new application. The school fees business mirrors the main insurance lending business very closely, and in some cases is more complex. Furthermore, Premium Credit had made a commitment to improve its customer experience to schools in time for the start of the next academic year, only six months after Arrk Group became the development partner.

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.

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 the 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.

The post Premium Digital Solution Accelerates Loan Applications appeared first on Arrk Group.

The digital platform, awarded The Times’ Higher Education Awards ICT Initiative of the Year in 2013, provides all the functions a student union requires to operate, such as online shopping, event management, ticketing, voting, advice, job shops, content management system, analytics and clubs/societies management.

What sets NUS UnionCloud apart is that it allows all this to be done over one single platform in a manner that is attractive and engaging.

Summary

UnionCloud is the NUS’s digital platform, providing the scalability to potentially connect with and communicate to the entire UK student population of around 7 million people. It has given NUS the potential to turn a diverse group of individual student union organisations into a cohesive and connected community.

The UnionCloud platform was designed and delivered on time and to budget by Arrk Group and gives NUS a best practice digital offering to both higher eduction and further education student unions, empowering them to manage their members’ activity through the student union be it for representation, advice, clubs/societies, events, voting and online shopping.

Situation

Due to ageing and dispersed IT systems and processes, NUS was losing the ability to service its member unions and was also experiencing increased competition from a number of external service providers capable of offering alternative digital platforms. This was having an adverse effect on revenue and usage, which in turn meant that less revenue was remaining within the student movement. Operating as a not-for-profit entity, profits generated from NUS activities are ploughed back into services.

Following a detailed consultation period, NUS decided that a fully integrated digital membership platform was required and would become the solution of choice for student unions by providing a cloud-based, easy-to-access platform for their day-to-day operations.

In the face of increasing competition from external commercial providers, a well-designed and architected solution that met all of NUS’s key criteria needed to be delivered quickly and in a high quality manner, on a critical path determined by the academic year.

Challenge

The UnionCloud project was not only a critical strategic initiative for NUS and the student union movement but also a significant financial investment. With the solution needing to have the scalability of coping quickly with up to 7 million users and have the flexibility to cope with volume peaks in August and September.

The organisational context was highly complex, with a diverse range of stakeholders whose needs and desires had to be embraced as part of the programme. Requiring much more than a team of smart software engineers, NUS required a partner which would work closely and collaboratively, building close relationships at all levels to become an integral part of the team, as well as having the expertise and experience of delivering complex enterprise scale digital solutions.

Solution

Developed as a modular platform, each UnionCloud deployment can be customised according to an individual student union’s requirements and branding, while retaining all the advantages of a centrally managed cloud-based system.

The digital platform utilises a combination of bespoke and off-the-shelf components, using a best-of-breed technology stack and open source components which ensures that UnionCloud is build upon rock solid foundations. These core elements are crucial in ensuring that UnionCloud is able to grow robustly and securely as more unions sign up.

Arrk Group and NUS team members work closely together to develop and support the UnionCloud platform and infrastructure and over an 18 month period has employed Agile development practices to quickly showcase and build working software.

It was developed using an Agile / scrum-based framework and built using technologies such as Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Redis and Resque.

Outcomes

The NUS UnionCloud won The Times’ Higher Education Awards ICT Initiative of the Year for 2013. A key factor in the success of the project was the collaborative partnership model used, with Arrk Group working closely with NUS to rapidly understand and shape programme requirements.

Successful and rapid deployment of the UnionCloud has ensured that revenues generated are driven back into NUS, with effective programme management ensuring a speedy route to market which delivers on UnionCloud’s potential.

Arrk Group’s unique hybrid delivery model has been crucial to the success of the project, and their technical skill, attention to detail and quality plus their speed of delivery have been important factors in helping us deliver UnionCloud effectively

Doug Tomlinson, NUS Group Director of IT and New Media

By utilising Agile delivery methods, a first for NUS, a distributed team of over 30 people successfully delivered the cloud-based platform under the strict deadlines imposed by the academic year. This approach was critical in streamlining the process of understanding and elaborating requirements, testing out technologies and developing the solution from day one. This helped to maximise communication and transparency and eliminate waste from the entire process, removing potential delays and bottlenecks.

National Union of Students and Arrk Group collaborate to create OneVoice Digital.

[c5ab_button text=”Download the case study” link=”https://www.arrkgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NUS-UnionCloud-Case-Study-v5-1.pdf” icon=”fa fa-none” font_size=”24″ font_weight=”300″ button_class=”” float=”center” button_text_color=”#ffffff” button_text_hover_color=”#f6f6f6″ button_bg_color=”#481365″ button_bg_hover_color=”#f8b626″ ]

The post Award-winning UnionCloud enhances NUS services appeared first on Arrk Group.

Arrk Group alongside strategic partner KCOM worked collaboratively with the airline to deliver a digital shared services architecture and to develop key additional reusable service components.

Summary

Through Arrk Group’s strategic relationship with KCOM, we have together supported the airline in the implementation of a resilient and robust shared service architecture used exhaustively throughout its digital platforms enabling improved and simplified integration across their digital estate and a significantly improved customer experience.

The Shared Service Platform was designed and delivered on time and to budget by the Arrk Group and KCOM partnership. It is now used in numerous critical transactions, including passenger check-in, bookings, seat availability searches and seat reservations.

Situation

The airline has enjoyed a high degree of growth which has meant that its existing digital platforms have been evolved to meet this increasing demand, instead of being designed and built strategically to cater for its current business operations. As a result, the airline has digital systems which are complex to maintain and integrate, while implementing change is expensive and time consuming.

In the face of an increasingly competitive business landscape and the increasing costs to support and maintain its existing digital platforms, the airline made the decision to develop the Shared Service Platform (SSP) which was an enabler for rapid digital transformation across the organisation.

Challenge

The Shared Service Platform (SSP) programme was not only a significant financial investment, it was also a critical strategic initiative for the business as a whole. The existing organisational and technical context was very complex with multiple legacy digital platforms and the requirement to support the massive volumes of transactions to ensure consistency with the integration standards from the Open Travel Alliance a critical success factor.

The systems that the Shared Service Platform needed to integrate with were integral to the smooth day-to-day operation and success of the organisation, any failure would mean dissatisfied customers and complex operational challenges to resolve. In addition, these changes would need to be made and rolled out with no loss of functionality and availability of existing services. The changes were key to improving customer satisfaction and reducing costs and had to be rolled out against an aggressive timeline.

In order to deliver the new Shared Service Platform, the airline required a partner with the skills and expertise to manage such a business critical engagement. Key to the successful delivery of the digitisation project was the partner’s ability to deliver an extremely high quality technical solution with the capability of meeting the enterprise demands of Shared Service Platform. The partner would also need to work collaboratively with the airline to support any changing demands on the programme.

Solution

Built on brand new service-oriented architecture, the Shared Service Platform provides a consistent integration point across multiple diverse legacy systems as well as seamlessly interacting with the organisation’s trading partners. The level of abstraction that the new platform brings to the airline has enabled it to significantly reduce the time to market for change and greatly simplify any change to core legacy platforms, something that previously would have been time and cost prohibitive.

Arrk Group has been a crucial component in the successful delivery the IT programme of work for the customer. Their naturally collaborative style has suited KCOM and the airline’s need for flexibility through the journey and the quality of their staff has been second to none.

The transatlantic airline chose the strategic partnership of Arrk Group and KCOM to deliver the platform who, working closely and collaboratively with the airline, over 24 months have deployed a well designed shared service platform for use across the business’ digital landscape, helping its customers receive the exemplary experience they expect from one of the world’s leading airlines.

The shared service platform was delivered using Agile/Kanban software development frameworks and built using enterprise technologies such as Microsoft Biztalk, SQLServer, Oracle, XML and HP.

Outcomes

A key factor for the success of the project was the collaborative manner in which Arrk Group worked to rapidly understand what was required to deliver the programme and to quickly put a brand new team in place working highly effectively with strategic partner KCOM and the customer almost from day one.

An Agile/Kanban-style just in time working practice helped to ensure that the right tasks were worked on at the right time.

[c5ab_button text=”Download the case study” link=”https://www.arrkgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Arrk-Airline-Case-Study-v2-1.pdf” icon=”fa fa-none” font_size=”24″ font_weight=”300″ button_class=”” float=”center” button_text_color=”#ffffff” button_text_hover_color=”#f6f6f6″ button_bg_color=”#481365″ button_bg_hover_color=”#f8b626″ ]

The post Digitising Air Travel in Flight appeared first on Arrk Group.