APPLICATION DESIGN
Case Study
Client
Next marketing is a marketing agency that offers management and support of channel marketing efforts. Next Marketing supports large clients engaged in front line partnerships, through the management of their joint marketing efforts using software. Their joint marketing partnerships rely heavily on workflow management, budget and activity tracking, audit logging, and the capture of market spend to allow the partnerships to work effectively.
Business Challenge
Next Marketing had three business challenges in designing and creating their application:
- Next Marketing’s client was operating their joint marketing workflow with the use of a legacy system built in 1998. The outdated software slowed productivity and allowed for only the minimum business requirements to be fulfilled.
- The lack of flexibility in making common updates to the system put a strain on the client’s limited budget, calling for the hiring of freelance developers to frequently make changes.
- Because only 30% of the client’s users are native English speakers, it was necessary to create a UI experience that allowed for ease of use for an international audience.
Next Marketing evaluated the opportunities in developing a new version of their legacy software with improved user experience, features, and technologies beyond what was previously delivered.
Their legacy software had been effective in achieving its original goal, but it was quickly approaching its expiry date due to it’s aging technical infrastructure and outdated user experience.
“Everybody that I’ve worked with at SOLTECH comes up with things that I never thought about before. I would recommend you above and beyond. Dealing with everyone on your team has been such a pleasure. I couldn’t tell you how pleased I am with the whole process. I would say the experience was pleasant and continues to be pleasant. We always recommend you guys.” – Linda Trocano
Solution
We assisted Next Marketing with this project initially via a short Solutions Design phase. The primary objective was to capture a more detailed list of functional requirements for each of the identified features and to create a visual design for the key user interface screen of the application. During this Solutions Design phase, the blueprint for implementation was created, as well as a detailed development estimate.
Impact
Next Marketing was able to present their client with a viable product that would enable them to create a user-friendly, workflow software that met their business needs.
