P8 Marketing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of eventWorld, it’s a ticketing platform. We act as an intermediary, meaning we’re the party in between ticket sellers and buyers. Our team processes ticket transactions, and we never possess the tickets ourselves. Rather, we facilitate the buyer being able to purchase the ticket and the payment, which is handled by a third-party service provider. Then, we issue the invoice in the name and on behalf of the organizer who is selling the tickets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bright IT?

Before I joined the company, there was a platform that basically implemented but it was based on a system infrastructure that would not be able to deal with high loads or requests we envisioned for the future. What’s more, the UI was outdated. We felt it wouldn’t bring us to our ultimate goal of selling a lot of tickets, maintaining high requests at all times, or utilizing a strong and powerful system to cope with all of this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We decided to go rogue and build a completely new platform. Our team worked with Bright IT to develop a new concept and infrastructure that was microservice-based and implemented through AWS. In essence, we were working in parallel because the former platform was still up and running during the process. However, we knew there’d be a certain time where we’d shut it down and switch to the new one.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about eight people. There was a complete sprint team with a scrum master and acting CTO from their side. To make things worse we had to let go of our CTO at this time. The sprint team was composed of our in-house developers and people from Bright IT.

Because we changed the programming language, some of the developers were able to handle it and others didn’t feel like doing so. In the end, we had a situation in which the Bright IT team took the lead with support from selected in-house developers.

How did you come to work with Bright IT?

I’ve known Klaus (CEO) for a long time. I chose to work with Bright IT because of their expertise. I’m not tech-savvy because I’m a marketing guy. For me, it was really difficult to figure out what were the exact reasons why things didn’t work as planned. There were always "good" reasons why something didn’t work, but I hardly heard a good reason why it should work.

On top of that, I didn’t have the capabilities or knowledge to prove or disprove something so at a certain point we were not progressing quickly enough. For me, it was really important to have someone I could trust and know possessed a high level of integrity. This is where Bright IT came into play.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from June 2019–April 2020. The goal was always to have our own in-house development team again and not rely on an external source. We built a new team from scratch and onboarded them to pick up where Bright IT left off to ensure development goes forward as planned. After a short handover phase, our internal developers are now in control.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are two major impacts of the engagement. First, we really love the scrum philosophy they utilized. Bright IT did a great job of implementing this methodology. Second, the stability and performance of the ticket platform is much more reliable and has a higher performance level.

Both the features on the backend and the usability on the frontend were built according to our requirements. It’s easy to build anything the way they’d want it. However, it’s important to understand the market that the solution will is being produced for.

An e-commerce marketplace for airline companies works differently than a ticket platform. Bright IT really took the time to understand the requirements of our market and target group. They did a great job of creating a custom design and UI, instead of just using a template.

How did Bright IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We had an organizational structure in place where communication occurred on the C-level, meaning our CMO with their acting CTO. There was also a scrum master who guided the project management. Our teams used modern communication tools like Slack. The flow of communication was pretty good.

Bright IT is a very service-oriented company. They try to please everyone as much as they can. But sometimes, someone has to communicate when something isn’t working. In my opinion, they were too service-oriented and friendly at times.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Bright IT had genuine commitment throughout this engagement. I could tell they weren’t just mercenaries who’d do whatever it took to complete a job because it was well-paid. Rather, they had a true dedication to our cause and implemented this extra step beyond a transactional partnership.

I could really sense that they had a sincere interest in our platform's success. They didn't cash out and jump ship because they didn’t care if the platform was worked or not. This attribute really makes them stand out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are no necessary areas for improvement. However, I would’ve liked if they’d stood up and clearly communicated their opinion at times. Of course, this possesses the risk of their team overdoing tasks by requesting to have a say in matters. And maybe the communication regarding the handover could have been better - on both sides. Other than that, I’m really happy with how they did.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise them to take the time to understand their objectives. Jumping right into a project and then later figuring it out is ineffective. Their briefing with Bright IT should be short and goal-oriented. However, if essential information is missing, that'll cause misunderstandings down the road. The clearer they are and more time they take to really explain everything from the scope to the model to revenue expectations, the more helpful Bright IT will be.

I’d also advise a potential customer to provide one person as their company’s sole communicator. This person should handle the correspondence between the Bright IT’s scrum aster and the company. The more people you have talking with each other, the more misunderstandings will be avoided.

I’d really empower this liaison to be the decision-maker for quick decisions. If there are severe, far-reaching decisions, this person should check and then close the loop with Bright IT. There’s nothing worse than postponing decisions.