The Client
Groupe Auchan is a French international retail group and multinational corporation headquartered in Croix, France. With a presence in 12 countries and 269,000 employees, Auchan is one of the world’s leading distribution groups.
The Goal
Our client needed a software product that would fully manage the daily bidding and ordering processes for fresh products (fish, fruit and vegetables), automating interaction between their shops in Romania and the local suppliers.
Our Challenges
The software is vital for Auchan’s buying department, because all products are fresh and have critically brief shelf-life. All orders need to be completed by 8.00am each day, and the application must assist in making the optimal financial decisions. To add to our time-related provocations, development speed was of the essence, as the software had to be up and running in just 3 months.
The InCrys Solution
InCrys met this challenge by deploying technical talent with deep understanding of the retail sector and extensive background in software architecture and custom application development.
Because time was such a key factor in the success of this project and we couldn’t afford any miscommunication-related delays, our team recommended the Agile working methodology. This allowed constant feedback for every step of the way, insuring full compliance with client needs for one feature before moving on to developing the next. We deployed features every 2 weeks and dynamically
managed the Product Backlog based on Auchan’s input. The approach was a first-time experience for our client, who had previous exposure only to the Waterfall working model.
The Results
Overall, the project has become a wall-of-fame InCrys success. The Auchan team was impressed with the speed and reliability of InCrys’ handling of the Agile methodology, and chose to make this approach a regular practice with upcoming projects involving our team.
- Developemnt time was 30% shorter than requested
- The application ran bug-free from day one of Go Live
- Our client is regularly requesting new functionalities, and the product keeps growing and evolving
‘InCrys team demonstrated valid capabilities in understanding our business needs; they delivered a highly functional system supported by professional services. The Agile methodology introduced to us by InCrys has been a key success factor in the development and implementation of the new software. It was of a critical importance for Auchan to have the system up and running in a very short period of time and InCrys’ team has done an excellent job in meeting this aggressive deadline. Auchan’s buying department is now using the software delivered by InCrys on a daily basis, reaching an increased productivity and financial efficiency in the management of fresh products.‘ – Romuald Mikolajczyk, Auchan CIO