Megatrend

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director for the Development Fund of the Republic of Serbia. We give loans to companies in Serbia, similar to a bank, but we work as a specific institution. Our current portfolio is around 25,000 loans, so it’s a big business. We have 60 employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Megatrend?

We had all the informational systems, but we had a big problem with our databases; it was hard to keep data in one place. We needed a new and modern integral informational system to streamline things.

Our old database was developed using Microsoft, so we wanted the informational system to be developed with Microsoft tools. We wanted it to be easier to migrate the data from our old system to the new one.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Megatrend has built our system in Serbian using Microsoft .NET and ASP.NET Core technologies, as well as ASP.NET Core MVC Architecture for the web application. C# is the main language, and SQL is the core database. 

One part of the project was a web portal; they did it last year, and it’s still on autopilot. The web application is in production, so we haven’t offered it to clients.

How did you come to work with Megatrend?

We had a public procurement. Megatrend won the job because they had the best offer.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around €500,000 (approximately $489,000 USD)..

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed the contract with them in February 2017, and the project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

In IT practice, it’s usually a difference of 2–3 generations of technology when you change a system. In our case, it was much more. The project was challenging initially, so we were afraid we would fail. In the end, we did a good notation, and everything looks fine.

We initially had around 30 databases that weren’t connected, and we now have everything in one database. The software has good infrastructure and architecture; we have a new database and one unique application, so we’ve solved the redundancy problem.

We have two locations in Serbia, and they’re connected to the VPN connection. However, we don’t even need it because our system is a web application. Before, we had problems connecting to two places, but we don’t have issues anymore. Having everything in one database makes it easier and faster when it comes to reports and all kings of documents. We’ve also improved all the processes we had because the new system has given us that opportunity. Now, we have a lot of new daily functionalities that couldn’t be imported with the previous system.

Moreover, we’ve had many changes in our risk department. Megatrend helped us a lot because they had a lot of banking experience and complicated mathematical models for those calculations. We’ve had a good cooperation, and the system has given us an opportunity to improve the processes in the risk department, as well as other departments.

Through their web services, we have situations where we’re gathering data from some of our external partners. A lot of data had to be manually input into our systems, and now we have automated web services. All in all, we’ve had excellent improvements in our business processes. All of our business logic is in one place, and everything is in the same database with good organization and security policies. Each user can see what’s planned for them.

How did Megatrend perform from a project management standpoint?

We had small delays during the first project, but it was partly from our side and partly from theirs. Introducing the project to people within our company took a bit longer than expected, and the migration was hard.

On the other hand, the last two projects were completed before the deadlines. Since not all the problems have the same priority, they respond to the timelines we set. After working for so many years together, we’re much better than we were at the beginning because we now know how to communicate. Overall, it’s been a good experience.

We communicate through emails and telephone if necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Megatrend’s team is very responsive, and they always communicate with us. If there ever is a problem, we can immediately figure it out and fix it together. They also ask us for suggestions to see if we have any ideas. Then, they give us a quick solution.

They’re always open, and we’ve never had a situation where we called the contacts we had.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re planning to input some BI tools in the future; there’s always a need to upgrade, and we always get good suggestions from them.