Case study

Team extension at its best – fixing a 10-years old application

Sharing best practices of development engineering while fixing and renewing an insurance application

Business Challenge

Client

HDI Group
Industry

Insurance

Many companies come to the conclusion that they need to challenge themselves more – so they stay competitive on the market. Usually, they search for more efficient ways of developing software, adding new features and releasing faster. But sometimes – they want to challenge the very core of their operation: software engineer practices and technology stack.

Dealing with old technologies and developers that had little experience in a different project, our client – the insurance company – was searching for a partner that would challenge them to improve. Their application was old but stable and well-designed – yet because of the way the new features were developed, the number of bugs increased dramatically. A fresh perspective was much needed.

We helped our client in two ways.

On one hand, we took care of the code of the application. We fixed critical bugs, and at the same time – we optimize every piece of code we came across. Our approach was comprehensive – many times we faced a defect, that turned out to be a small feature. We took care to make it as optimized as possible, refactoring the code and writing tests.

We also introduced a different, new and efficient frontend technology – Vaadin, and ensure the application is ready to be migrated.

On the other hand, we showed the client an entirely different approach to software engineering. We presented how useful a QA engineer in the team is, how the code can be written cleaner and more efficient, and at the same time – with far fewer bugs. We challenged the company’s developers to use the best coding practices, for example, through code review.

We also introduced Gherkin. It is a way of describing the business functionalities in a way that is perfectly understandable for developers.

We know that taking care of the code results in better, more efficient application – and show our client all the time, how they can achieve the most optimized software.

However, the biggest part of this project is a partnership between the client and the DSS team. Our client trusts us – they trust our choices, leave us the time we need for changes and optimizations and are happy to learn from us or share their knowledge with us. It is beneficial for both partners: we can provide services of the best quality, and the client receives a valuable, efficient product.

Benefits

The client’s application is optimized. Bugs are fixed on a regular basis, in a comprehensive way – DSS developers do everything to ensure the client will receive the code of the best quality.

The application is ensured to be ready for a migration to a new, better front-end technology. Soon, we will start the migration process.

The company sees a different style of working in practice – with the QA engineer as a part of the team, remotely, with code reviews and comprehensive approach. We work in Scrum methodology, and help the client’s team with leaving behind their “waterfall” habits.

DSS team provides the client with the out-of-the-box approach: resulting in new ideas and suggestions for improvement. Since our client trusts the team’s expertise – it sets them on a road to improve not only their product but also their business opportunities.

Services we offered

Software development

Quality Assurance & Testing

Legacy Update

Testimonials

What our partners say about us

After carefully evaluating suppliers, we decided to try a new approach and start working with a near-shore software house. Cooperation with DSS from Hicron was something different, and it turned out to be a great success that brought added value to our company.

With HICRON’s creative ideas and fresh perspective, we reached a new level of our core platform and achieved our business goals.

Many thanks for what you did so far; we are looking forward to more in future!

Jan-Henrik Schulze

Head of Industrial Lines Development at HDI Group

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