Case Studies / Smart Building Automation and Sustainability
How MAS Global Supported A Fortune 500 Manufacturing Company To Build A Global Sales Solution, Saving Time And Increasing Revenue
About the Fortune 500 Manufacturing Company
Since 1885, they have provided building automation and smart security, fire, and HVAC solutions to “make buildings smarter.” With $22B in revenue, 105,000 employees, and 2000 locations, this Fortune 500 Manufacturing company offers the world’s largest portfolio of building products, technologies, software, and services, transforming “the environments where people live, work, learn and play”.
The Business Challenge
The company’s primary offering comprises an extensive and robust portfolio of products from air conditioning units to video surveillance devices
The challenge they faced is to consistently manage the sales cycle across product lines, which requires an integrated platform to support the complete process from Configuration to Quotation. This was difficult because the company lacked an integrated platform to streamline all its product lines.
The Challenge Continued
The sheer number of variables for each order created a complex supply chain and an ordering system that relied on dozens of applications.
Each order would be so complex, that it typically consumed two weeks for a sales representative to prepare a quote for an HVAC installation.
This delay costs the company sales opportunities because clients become frustrated with long wait times or choose a competitor’s solution for faster service, even if the other solution wasn’t properly optimized for their needs.
Another business challenge was the ability to scale and easily integrate new product lines into their offering. Since their systems were not integrated, it was a challenging task to prepare new product lines for going to market.
This combination of challenges could cost the company to fall behind their competitors if they didn’t modernize and centralize their applications.
Thus, the company decided to build an in-house CPQ (Configure Price Quote) web-based platform that allows users to customize nearly every aspect of their order to meet the specific requirements of the company’s end-user customers.
The final goal of this web-based platform was to allow the company’s sales engineers, users, and partners to design, and configure systems and products to estimate projects. This would enable the company to deliver to their clients, including schools, smart buildings, sports and entertainment facilities, hospitals, data centers, airports, and laboratories.
A new landing page was developed to be fully integrated with the Web Solution under strict security standards. Their new site is now responsive and works smoothly on all web browsers and devices while correctly displaying images and videos on every platform. This page was integrated with Adobe Experience Manager for Delta Multilingual Solution and centralized content management.
The MAS Global team also performed a migration from AngularJs to Angular8 LTS. The migrated web works with Redux and is fully coded using strict typescript specifications. Many reusable components were created to improve code efficiency and readability, and therefore maintainability.
From the Backend perspective, the mobile money transfer app and web are aligned with the company’s business rules. Staying inside these boundaries helps to have control over transactions while matching the policies with each destination country. Additionally, the MAS Global team helped with the implementation of partner fixes inside the client’s platform, which was beneficial for the product and the client’s partners.
How We Helped Them
MAS Global collaborated with the Fortune 500 Manufacturing Company’s business teams to facilitate the implementation of a unified CPQ cloud platform which initially encompassed some of the most important product lines.
The platform was built upon an adaptable, scalable and flexible architecture which included the possibility of adding new product lines in the future to meet evolving business needs.
This Fortune 500 Manufacturing Company partnered with MAS Global for a multi-year engagement. MAS Global successfully deployed to production many of the strategic product lines and became a trusted partner, providing more than 100 highly technically skilled and English fluent team members over the 6-year engagement period.
MAS is currently helping the company with the integration of other product lines such as Air Handling Units and Chillers. This implementation is leveraging the scalable and flexible approach that the platform features and they are planned to be rolled out soon to end-users.
This resulting powerful web platform has allowed the company’s users to readily estimate projects that span product lines, and can be used from anywhere in the world without the encumbrance of divergent desktop applications.
HOW DID WE OPTIMIZE THE COMPANY’S PROCESSES?
MAS Global introduced the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to help the project team measure progress and provide deliverables on a more consistent schedule.
MAS’ Agile expertise helped make the transition quick and easy, so disruptions from the change were minimal.
SOON AFTER, PRODUCTIVITY RAMPED UP.
One of MAS Global’s differentiators is the long-lasting collaborative relationships our software developers forge with our partners. While other service providers are quick to move their resources from one client to another, we invest in developing new skills in our team members, and leverage those with the client over the long haul. This had the additional benefit of preventing skill loss and attrition, which helped keep the project moving forward.
WHAT ABOUT THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS?
This Fortune 500 Manufacturing Company used to rely on dozens of unrelated individual systems to perform the entire “CPQ” (Configure Price Quote) process. The challenge was to modernize the application of all these different tools, converting them into a single web-based program that could serve thousands of users, in any region of the world, without compromising availability.
MAS Global contributed significantly to modernizing these applications and transforming them from primarily desktop stand-alone applications to cloud-based scalable and highly available solutions that leverage the benefits of the cloud and the use of modern technology stacks.
AS A TRUE PARTNER
MAS Global was able to embrace and enrich the platform through a wide range of backend and frontend technologies like .NET Core, .NET Framework, Angular, React, Jquery, Javascript ThreeJS, among others. This enabled the platform to grow organically and make use of the latest cloud offerings from different vendors through a stable plan of scalability and global expansion.
The successful DevOps adoption for the company was boosted due to MAS Global’s expertise on CI/CD Process design and technology selection. This resulted in a predictable, continuous, stable, and adaptable development/deployment system that permanently and reliably releases business value to users in smaller cycles ensuring high-quality standards in every step of the process.
Within a few months of joining the project, MAS Global’s teams were able to create a unified solution for configuring bids, ordering parts, and assembling estimates.
Are You Ready for MAS?
Do you have a major software development project that is stagnating? Are you tired of constantly having to onboard new software developers as your outsourced developer constantly cycles people out? Do you need proven, reliable, and professional services from a software developer who generates real results?
If your answer to any of the above is “YES!” then reach out to MAS Global today! We offer a unique approach to software development services that combines U.S.-based developers and nearshored developers that provides:
- Cost savings
- Significant flexibility
- Long-lasting relationships with your developers
- Consistent results using Agile frameworks and methods
- Strong reporting so you’re never in the dark
