SUCCESS STORY
Accelerated Focus helps a customer reimagine their OutSystems Factory and brings CEO to tears
How Accelerated Focus helped an insurance company realize meaningful value from their OutSystems platform investment.
Background
As a growing American insurance company, our customer believed in technology's critical role in expanding their operations. They were growing fast and needed to quickly deliver products and services to support the ever-changing needs of their customers. To this end, in 2019, they purchased the OutSystems platform.
The Problem
Over the next two years, they struggled to realize meaningful value from their investment. They faced several challenges:
Finding the right partner resources
Understanding and following best practices
Creating cohesive, cross-functional teams
Defining a vision and plan for the future
The Approach
Our goal was to set them up for long-term success, bolstering operations on several fronts by improving product delivery, implementing better ways of working, and establishing a plan for the future.
Better Application Delivery
Our top priority was getting their flagship application into production. The team focused on quick wins: improving critical issues while reusing previous development work. Time was invested in much-needed UX research and a complete application redesign.
The outcome? Enhanced functionality, scalable architecture, and a dramatically improved user interface. After two years of stagnating, this business-critical application was production ready in just four months. Moreover, they established new development standards and learned the value of investing time upfront in defining what to build.
New Ways of Working
When we started working together, the customer had big visions but lacked proper product delivery processes. Team functions broke down, and communication was at an all-time low. Upon forming the first project team, they asked us:
“Can we talk to the developers?”
Everyone had been working in isolation, negatively impacting the project.
The new ways of working we introduced brought much-needed structure to their processes. They could deploy confidently (and regularly!), manage new feature releases, and easily adjust direction with each new requirement.
Planning for the Future
With improved technical and process foundations in place, we could now focus on long-term planning.
Our training workshops and weekly leadership check-ins taught them to embrace a product management mindset. We started building a product roadmap by applying business and customer value to decisions, delivering value to the right people at the right time.
The Result
Our customer struggled for two years to deliver something meaningful. In just 12 months, we dramatically transformed their operations, and as a result, they've seen tremendous returns on their investment in the OutSystems platform.
This journey was not without its challenges. Undoing 25+ years of organizational practices doesn’t happen overnight. It was complex and required a high-trust relationship. But quickly developing lasting partnerships, above all else, is what separates us from the rest. That strong relationship, combined with their open-minded attitude toward change, was critical to our collective success.
Timeline
An overview of their three-year journey:
Highlights
The company's CEO had tears (of joy!) in his eyes at the end of an executive team demonstration. For years this application had been his vision as it represented the change and progression he deeply desired for his company.
CEO Cries
Six months into working with our customer, another company acquired them. The parent company had been incredibly impressed with the application we built and said it significantly impacted their final decision.
Company Acquisition
After one year of working with us, the organization had a new excitement for the role OutSystems would play in its expanding operations. Armed with the tools and skills to succeed, they renewed their contract with OutSystems for an additional three years.
Contract Renewal
The Work Continues
Our customer has big plans for 2023; with our relationship going strong, we're excited to be along for the ride!
