Success Story High Tech

Increasing Maturity in Agile Software Development

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This Fortune 500 company is a global provider of print and digital marketing services and related supply chain solutions. They help create powerful and cost-effective integrated communications for more than 60,000 customers worldwide. In addition, its logistics services help customers save on distribution and transportation costs while improving delivery reliability.

As the client’s logistics services business grew rapidly, they faced difficulty in keeping up with changing demands and new opportunities in the software development that powered the service.

  • Fortune 500 company

    Fortune 500 company with 150+ years in business

  • client with presence in 200 locations

    Present in 34 countries at 200 locations with more than 43,000 employees serves more than 50,000 customers

  • World's largest commercial printer (2007)

    World’s largest commercial printer (2007)

the Customer Journey

2010

2021

2021

2010
  • Legacy migration

2021
  • Migration support, wire-framing, DLSw Connect, Marketing Solution Group, UX, Chatbox Support Desk

2021
  • Pageflex, West Caldwell support, Wells Fargo support, BCS support

the Results

Key Outcomes

Dramatic reduction in time-to-market
Dramatic reduction
in time-to-market

Record reduction in software defects
Record reduction in
software defects

Improved customer satisfaction scores
Improved customer
satisfaction scores

Our methodology

how
we did it

Apexon works with companies across the digital lifecycle.

Go Digital
Go Digital

Accelerating the delivery of new digital initiatives with confidence

Be digital
Be digital

Creating the infrastructure and foundation to scale digital initiatives

Evolve Digital
Evolve Digital

Leveraging data and analytics to continuously improve digital delivery processes

Launch & Experiment

Automate & Accelerate

Be Intelligent & Autonomous

Launch & Experiment

Enable digital adoption in a quick, and agile mannertransform the patient experience

Apexon helped with RRD’s Agile transformation. Apexon initiated a multi-faceted effort consisting of training, piloting, coaching and paring to start the transformation.

Automate & Accelerate

Build digital infrastructure and foundation for enterprises to scaledigitization on patient Experience

Apexon implemented matured development environment which paved the way for improvements in environment virtualization, release management, automation (both functional acceptance testing and in build quality verification) and project management.

Be Intelligent & Autonomous

Leverage data engineering to make strategic decisions and get digital right every time

The challenge

Implementing successful agile processes

Although the company had introduced Agile methods and practices, the logistics services team was not seeing the expected benefits. They struggled to deliver new software services quickly in response to customer feedback, there were issues with software quality and rework, and it was difficult to maintain.

Apexon performed an assessment of the situation to identify root causes and prioritize areas that would have the greatest impact on software development and the delivery of new services to the company’s logistics services customers.

The Solution

Making Agile work across the enterprise

With priorities identified, Apexon initiated a multi-faceted effort consisting of training, piloting, coaching, and paring to start the transformation. In order to achieve both immediate and scalable impact, the initial focus was on a combination of both new and existing projects.

Over the course of the next 12 months, Apexon worked with the client’s logistics services team on a mix of large- and small-scale coaching and training. Each product stream stack (including business partner and developmental teams) was allocated approximately 90 days of dedicated coaching and training. This provided a way to fine-tune the results and perform any necessary course corrections in the actual product development space.

The teams learned to utilize test-driven development, XP (Extreme Programming) practices, behavior-driven techniques, and design patterns in development. Advanced training offered by Apexon helped key resources become Certified Scrum Developers and continue the work of growing and maturing teams within the company. Positive results from the training were seen in as little as 30 days.

In addition to increasing the company’s development maturity, its logistics business partners were also gaining new skills in areas such as multi-level release planning, advanced product management, cross-team dependency management, and emergent product design. Combined with a new focus on fast feedback and minimum viable product (MVP), these business partners became better aligned and set the stage for faster product delivery. The effort also paved the way for improvements in environment virtualization, release management, automation (both functional acceptance testing and in build quality verification) and project management.

The impact for the company was dramatic:

Time-to-market was drastically reduced

Time-to-market was drastically reduced New projects that previously took 15 months or longer were reduced to fewer than 90 days. And with each new project, this number continues to improve

Defects were reduced substantially

Defects were reduced substantially Software defects, along with the time spent working on them, dropped to record lows and allowed teams to spend more time working on new features

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores improved significantly

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores improved significantly

The changes were so transformative that the client and Apexon made a joint presentation on the project and the journey involved.

“There are lots of companies out there who can help us build some software. Apexon is the only one I’ve seen that is committed to making us better at the same time. That’s a real strategic advantage.” Client’s IT Manager