About the client

Luvina’s client is a leading Japanese tech-enabled company specializing in providing internet-based PR & marketing support services, information services, searching and reservation services to restaurants in Japan and other countries in Asia.

Project overview

  • Overview: The client’s Restaurants information services applications include an intuitive responsive website and a mobile application that enable users to search for restaurants, menus, and other food-related services, check availability and make reservations. The client needs a dedicated IT team to build new features, and maintain the system (infrastructure, databases, etc.).
  • Industry: Hospitality, Online services, Ecommerce, Food and Cuisine services, Digital Marketing.
  • Country: Japan.
  • Technologies:
    • Language & Framework: PHP5, FuelPHP, Laravel, Python, Perl, Shell script, Java (Android), Objective-C (iOS).
    • Environment: AWS, LAMP (Linux, Apache 2, Mysql, PHP), Virtual Box & Vagrant.
    • Database: MySQL5.6, Groonga, Redshift, MongoDB, Solr.
    • Testing tool: Senelium, PhantomJS.
  • Team size: 22 members.
  • Collaboration model: Offshore Development Center (ODC).
  • Software development type: End-product development (Analysis, Design, UI/UX design, coding, testing, integration and deployment), operation, maintenance, and support.

Challenge

  • The client owns and operates the main site which acts as an intermediary between restaurants and consumers. Connecting with the main site are many satellite sites that form an eco-system such as weddings, tourism, chefs, agricultural products sites, etc. (over 50 sites) but all are related to food and have a strong connection with the restaurant search homepage. With the complexity of the ecosystem, the IT team takes on a very important role in the business. They need innovation to continuously release new features, and operate the entire system to guarantee 24/7 services. That mission requires a high skill – high availability – dedicated software team to be in charge.
  • Many ‘unique and strange’ jobs/requirements and new techniques need the team quickly and continuously study, innovate and improve to adapt.
  • The client required a very high security-level.

Solution

  • Luvina Software proposed to the client the Offshore Development Center outsourcing model, recruited and onboarded an experienced web development team with the right required skills for the client’s project.
  • The advantage of the ODC model, in this case, is that it helped the client quickly establish their software development subsidiary with no startup cost, reduce management headaches, be able to scale the development team size as needed, and satisfy the long-term human resource demand.
  • In the development phase, the team employed the Agile approach. Every sprint took two weeks including planning, features development, and reviews. Tasks were broken down into 6-hour units. Notes to execute and other charts were attached to Kanban boards. Screens were constantly shared between team members to align on real-time progress. We reviewed the released features and other assignments to prioritize important tasks for the next sprint.
  • Security experts were employed to train Luvina’s engineers before onboarding to guarantee every team member is qualified with the client’s high-security requirements.  
  • To be able to deliver the results on a professional level: the Luvina team worked and collaborated closely, directly with the client’s engineers and business analysts. Luvina sent engineers from the Japan branch to work onsite at the client’s office when the project required.

Achievement

  • The ODC outsourcing model helps our client operate their business more efficiently: Operation cost is reduced, more time and effort is used for sales and consulting activities, and customers’ satisfaction is increased with good reviews. 
  • Our client is satisfied with the performance, and quality of Luvina’s engineers and project results. They decided to expand the team and even move other ongoing projects previously partnered with other outsourcing partners to Luvina.