ARS Case Study | Maven Solutions

Ukraine

LOCATION

Home improvement

INDUSTRY

Enterprise

COMPANY SIZE

01. CLIENT

ABOUT ARS

BUSINESS

ARS is one of the largest home improvement retailers in Western Ukraine with 9 superstores, 3 furniture shops, and 25 years of experience. The company offers a large variety of goods ranging from DIY tools, building and finishing materials, to luxury ceramics and leather sofas.

02. PROBLEM

THE GOAL

LONG-TERM GOAL

Establish an online presence that generates as much profit as brick-and-mortar stores.

To achieve this, the Client needed to:

1TRANSFORM
THE BUSINESS

2DEVELOP THE MARKETPLACE

3ENSURE SCALABILITY

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03. SOLUTION

THE SOLUTION

THE TEAM

With a focus on the look and feel of the new website, ARS initially engaged an external design agency. Maven was responsible for architecture, design implementation, marketplace delivery, and business processes.

THE PROCESS

We were built the process with a focus on efficiency, value delivery and timing. To achieve it, we applied Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) approach:

INCEPTION

CONSTRUCTION

TRANSITION

It divides the process into 3 stages with a goal and the plan of action for each. First, we align the vision, uncover needs, build the architecture, and plan the release. Then, we develop the software and ultimately iteratively launch and scale the complete system.

THE INCEPTION

To meet the required timeframe it was crucial to synchronize the work of the design and the development teams. A disconnect could have a dramatic impact on the time and cost of the project.

To address the issue we offered to act as a mediator between ARS and the design agency. This allowed us to:

1. Review the design beforehand to ensure its cost and functionality-effectiveness.
2. Increase the efficiency of the overall process by enabling the work to be done in parallel.

Design Team

MAVEN TEAM

ARS

The team structure

MAVEN TEAM Design Team

PLAN

Complete work on both the back and front-end at the same time, implement the design, and launch the MVP.

Parallel work streams became a crucial part of the project’s success. While the marketing agency focused on the design, the Maven team worked on business logic, including the following:

1. Gathering requirements and defining fundamental back-end features.
2. Creating the website using a generic design.
3. Developing the back-end as well as integrations.
4. Implementing the completed front-end on time.

RELEASE PLAN

Unfortunately, the design agency was unable to meet the deadline. The launch was rescheduled. To remain cost-effective and maximize time and resources, the release plan was updated.

We prioritized MVP functionality using the MoSCoW method for prioritization of requirements for the stakeholders.

We used the MoSCoW results to subdivide the release:

ALPHA RELEASE

Must have functionality makes up the first Alpha Release. It includes the new design and some fundamentals features.

BETA RELEASE

Should-have functionality makes up the Beta Release. It includes a broader set of features tested by a broader group of people.

PUBLIC RELEASE

Launch the marketplace to the public with functionality comprised of the 2 previous releases.

FURTHER GROWTH

Provide robust delivery and scalability by releasing minor updates every week and major improvements every 2 months.

Design ideas section

Catalog

THE CONSTRUCTION

Due to the great complexity and the unique nature of the project, we chose Scrum framework for the construction phase. To overcome the complexity and avoid impact of the hidden issues, the story points estimation method was adapted:

SPRINT STARTS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS SPRINT ENDS

First, we roughly estimated the backlog and evaluated the difficulty of each item using the story points method.

The number of story points delivered is analyzed, and based on that we were able to re-estimate when the work will be completed.

Scrum allowed us to add or adjust features on the fly, to manage true performance, and to control the process. The Client benefited from efficiency, transparency, and adaptability throughout the project.

04. Result

THE RESULTS

30%

FASTER TIME-TO-MARKET

The initial scope required 15 months to be developed.

Maven decreased this to 9 months by releasing the MVP early.

30%

COST REDUCTION FOR THE MVP

The faster time-to-market allowed ARS to realize a return on investment (ROI) sooner.

ONGOING GROWTH

Maven continues its work with ARS to continuously improve the marketplace and the KPIs.

Irina Kelner
Co-founder @ ARS

We are pleased with the work of the Maven team. We enjoy that members of the Maven team are not only strong in technical questions but also have a high level of expertise in business. They always know how to help us with Magento related questions or any other tech inquiries. At the same time, we love detail orientation, accurate documentation and fast learning process of any member of the Maven team.