Company presentation

DIANGI Grup was launched in 2007 and has as main activity phone, tablet and other terminal repairs for clients in the telecommunications industry. The company offers full service customized to its partners’ needs, in order to provide customer satisfaction, as well as successful repairs. Having high standards and a strong focus on efficiency, the firm needed internal solutions for data gathering. As a consequence, in April 2014 it started its partnership with EXE Software, which has developed complex bespoke Enterprise Resource Planning software for DIANGI, ever since. The product consists in several modules, each designed to serve a different line of business.

Executive summary

The partnership between EXE Software and DIANGI started in 2014 and continues up to the present day. In August 2015, when DIANGI became the official warranty repair provider for an important Romanian tablet and smartphone manufacturer, a new module had to be added in order to answer the demands of this particular line of business.
The challenge was to cope with the dynamics of DIANGI, a company in full expansion, both locally and internationally. For such a company, time is essential: when a new contract for taking over the repairs warranty from a company is signed, DIANGI must start work on fulfilling the related tasks immediately. There is no postponing and this leaves no room for months-long analysis prior to delivering an added feature. However, EXE Software managed to do it and the collaboration is currently a success story.

The solution

The solution brought in by EXE Software was developing a reliable ERP software, customized to DIANGI’s needs. The application was developed using Agile methodology and the analysis process was condensed into a minimum amount of time dedicated to discussions and planning of intermediate releases. The practice of intermediate releases allowed for fine tuning on part of the application’s users, upon personally working with the newly added features.

The entire process could be described through the following steps:

Discussing possibilities

In this first step it was crucial for the project’s success to have a clear understanding of DIANGI’s goals and expectations. That is why DIANGI was invited to a kick-off meeting with a team representing EXE Software (a Business Analyst and the Team Leader of the development team) that was trying to gather as much information as possible; information that will be essential for the next steps.

Drafting the project

After this first meeting, an internal team is assembled in order to draft the project’s business and technical solution.
Together with the development and testing team, a business and technical solution is created. The major goal is then divided in smaller tasks and action steps that can be easily tracked and implemented.

Final tests

The last stage includes the UAT (User Acceptance Test) phase and business testing and if everything is correct, the process moves to production. The QA (Quality Assurance) team increased the efficiency and coverage of DIANGI’s software testing through automated testing. Using this method, the QA team ensured the development team that DIANGI’s software application is reliable and meets all the requirements of the project preventing potential issues that the manual testing might have missed.

Adjusting the draft

The draft is then revised and both parties try to reach an agreement to define the final plan. Certain tasks may be eliminated for reasons such as costs, and once the final form is ready, the product development process begins with the first sprint planning tasks.

Ongoing tests

Every two weeks, the product is released in its testing environment and the business analyst presents its features.
Ongoing tests are a key activity in the development process as it lets you know what need to be improved before “hitting the market”.

Forecasting costs

Based on the final goal, EXE Software sends the forecasted price range and planning of intermediate releases.

Future requirements and support

For each new feature or requirement, EXE Software creates a preliminary analysis to establish the impact it will have on the app and make sure it does not affect the existing features. The development process starts only after the entire solution is drafted and the tasks are approached one at a time. The partnership between DIANGI and EXE Software also includes support services. There is a dedicated support and consultancy team taking care of maintenance and proper functioning of the application. They receive notifications for any kind of issue, through a diligent notification system. In addition to this, EXE Software also offers a Datawarehouse solution and real time updates on the daily work flow.

How the Solution Helped

EXE Software’s application of Agile software development methodology for DIANGI was a success. As was the case with the precedent modules, this additional one was quick to serve the new business needs.

With the new module already in place, DIANGI’s ERP withstood the significantly large increase in the number of tablet and smartphone repairs, thus keeping up with the biggest performance challenge it has had to face yet. In October 2015, two months into the implementation of the new module, DIANGI secured a growth of its business, measured in almost 17 000 devices repaired within warranty and 39 application users. The numbers continued to grow and peaked at almost 20 000 repairs and 68 users in December the same year.

One year later, in October 2016, the app is used by 150 employees of DIANGI and the number is expected to increase with about 30% annually.

Furthermore, DIANGI’s need to provide transparency to its clients was also covered in the development process. Chosen clients can follow in real time the repairs’ status for their product line and extract reports created in the application’s dashboard.