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Case Study - The Apartment Service

Problem

Managing Director, Charlie McCrow of The Apartment Service came to uniCenta to help him with difficulties in his project.

The project was initially handed to a software house who was costing The Apartment Service a hefty chunk every month and after eighteen months, tens of thousands over-budget and way past delivery he was still no closer to seeing the finished result.  Unfortunately, the project team leaders couldn't transfer Charlie's vision to their offshore developers they employed and it was decided to pull the project in-house.  This is where the vast experience and knowledge of The Apartment Service's team really came to the fore and enabled them to fulfill their unique requirements.

Reaction

The project history showed there wasn't any kind of plan and that most efforts were based on ad-hoc, and loosely agreed, milestone dates.  As is often the case, many of the stakeholder's "vapour wishes" (our term for ideas plucked out of the air, and they kept coming thick and fast... quite right too) were far too ambitious for the current development team and the budget.  Something had to give and it was clear that handling a situation like this would take a special kind of Project Management and hands-on involvement.  Certain areas had to be re-negotiated in order to get traction back into the whole thing.

More importantly though; the considerable time, money and effort spent to-date The Apartment Service was keen to see some tangible results.  And quickly.

The first question was to ourselves; "Could we do it?"  Of course, we said "Yes"

Solution

Our brief was to audit, to code level, what had been achievd so far and get the project back on-track.  It was clear we needed a quick rescue plan so, we promptly put in some structured lines of communication - both ways - between the development team and the stakeholders; delivered initial project documentation and rationalised the development budget and the development team.

Nett result:
Successful outcome for The Apartment Service. Site Launched 30th March 2009 - www.apartmentservice.com

  • Investment preserved
  • Best-practice methods injected into project
  • Easing of future development costs
  • Minimise/Eliminate future project trauma

Before

After

Key Points

Build a site worthy of The Apartment Service's standing as europe's leading apartment rental business

Create a real-time, on-demand availability and booking engine

Deliver a B2B/B2C driven Customer and Supplier Portal using latest .NET technology

Open up their technology to Agents and Affiliates