Arrk | Enterprise application

Arrk is responsible for the development and support of the RAC’s entire web presence including one of the most well-known and highly visited websites in the UK

The RAC wanted its web sites to provide a compelling experience that is so content rich and easy to use that customers return on a regular basis and confidently buy RAC services and products. The RAC aims to make its e-Channel its largest sales channel over the next two years. To facilitate a radical revision of the www.rac.co.uk web site, they decided that they needed an information and e-Business portal offering members and non-members information (e.g. traffic, routes, car buying, safe driving) and a set of branded products (e.g. RAC membership, insurance, car loans, RAC car checks).

What we did

Our initial task was to migrate the whole site from its original platform based on a proprietary product to a Java based environment allowing flexibility, speed of change and a lower cost of ownership.

• Leading staff from Arrk India worked on-site alongside RAC staff for the first few weeks
• Joint teaming and a high degree of colloboration with the RAC business was fundamental to us achieving the pace of change needed
• Arrk UK analysts worked with RAC business staff driving out requirements and priorities
• Arrk UK analysts specified requirements and acted as the project interface for the Arrk India team
• The Arrk India team delivered weekly deployments of key services during an intensive development period
• UAT was managed by the RAC
• Arrk is now working in a fully integrated way with the RAC on other business critical projects.

The results

• Delivery of critical applications quickly: The RAC was able to reduce the lifecycle of projects by using the Arrk India team as a pool for scaling up to meet development needs as they were scoped
• Reduced Cost base: Using an off-shore development centre reduced development and support costs. Arrk UK’s technical skills and know-how in working with its offshore counterpart enabled the RAC to offshore work without a costly and often risky learning curve.
• Flexibility: The offshore team has been able to pull in specialist skills to supplement the core team for specific projects reducing the need for the RAC to use additional external resources. These skills have included: web design, middleware specialists, testing engineers and infrastructure technicians.