CG Infinity was brought in to help our retail energy client enter new international markets.
Impact
Our client was entering new international markets, specifically, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland, and needed expanded application development. They had two options about how to proceed. The first option was to buy or subscribe to a set of IT systems, which were already configured for the international market. The second option was to extend their existing set of core applications to support these international markets via customization.
Solution
After careful deliberation, the decision was made to extend the existing IT systems to perform the features required for these international markets – the same systems that we at CG Infinity had already been supporting. This minimized the number of systems that they needed to operate their business with, giving them a single source of truth about their customer portfolio. The challenges for getting this implemented meant familiarizing ourselves with how the operation in those countries occurred and prospecting a customer, acquiring a customer, billing a customer, and dealing with customer satisfaction issues. There were also different regulations that we needed to be familiar with. We built a 4-person development team and a 2 person QA team to tackle this international market entry to get this done. We were able to accomplish this in just under 14 weeks. Our value engine’s operation utilizing our team members on the United States side and in the New Delhi office was the most notable attribute we brought. The targeted countries of the international market entry were right in the middle. We were able to have five hours of overlap with the key business interfaces in the European countries, which alleviated a lot of anxiety the key business users had about the systems they were working on. Many times, most issues were already flagged and tackled before the US team even woke up.
Result
Our highly leveraged team made it very cost-effective for this capital project, delivering measurable ROI and a positive outcome. We came in on time, on budget, and worked efficiently with only a six-person team. After just over 3 months, we handed the support workflows back to our production support teams. Ultimately, we delivered an international strategy that allowed our client to enter new markets faster and cost-effectively.