End of the year – a busy time in almost every company. In those related to e-commerce, perhaps even more intense. How was it like in i-systems and how did we reconcile the work on systems for our clients with product development work? What are the main aspects of our work for next year? You will learn about this and many other interesting things from today’s summary.

New projects as trend determiners

The last three months, and in fact even the entire past year, were marked by systems for B2B companies. They are more and more open to new solutions optimizing their work and enabling new sales opportunities.

Among the projects from the B2B sector in the last quarter of the year, we can distinguish among others: a system created in the PWA (Progressive Web App) standard for a nationwide distributor selling products and systems for cleaning and hygiene. PWA allows you to build a consistent communication for both mobile devices and web browsers. One application means a number of benefits – firstly, the team of developers and the customer himself saves the time, and secondly, its positive impact on the quality of the project.

Other interesting projects were implemented, among others, for the company offering materials for roofing systems, irrigation installations or object floors, as well as the company that imports and distributes household appliances.

It seems that the new year will also be all about B2B solutions – we are already rubbing our hands just thinking about the next challenges that await us.

Strategic development of the organization

In the last quarter, we also focused on integrations, mainly developing connections with such systems as Asseco Softlab ERP, Streamsoft Verto or imoje offered by Silesian bank – ING Bank Śląski. Our next steps are aimed at even deeper integration, and thus, support for more processes in our e-commerce system.

In the last months of the year, part of our team was attending events such as the 6th Retail Channels 360 Forum – Multichannel Grow, Web Summit, Heads of Sale Forum and Fashion Business Congress.

Internal quality improvement projects

The recently adopted model of work in contextual teams is already fully functional. Current teams focus on areas such as: CI, integration, orders, RMA, CRM, PIM, discounts, GUI, Shop App, Allegro and POS.

To illustrate how this model works, we decided to briefly describe the workflow of two contexts. Continuous Integration (CI) team has recently focused on refactoring CI-Builder and Kubernetes Builder, as well as updating GitLab. They also worked on accelerating the system operations and stabilizing PHP images. These activities resulted in the possibility of handling much more traffic. On the other hand, the team responsible for Product Information Management (PIM) improved the functioning of products in the store, and also focused on price lists, product sets and advanced sorting.

What are the i-systems plans for 2019?

The areas of i-systems activities in the new year will be divided into two main categories. The first one will be the globalization of the company’s activities and products. The activities will start in the first quarter of 2019.

The second category will concern the main i-systems core – the software. Works on the development of products are carried out by all the above-mentioned contexts, therefore the development will take place in a parallel and coherent way. The most important activities include further work on PWA, the work on even bigger separation of the frontend and backend.

Such separation will allow creating unattainable, till now, possibilities of scaling the application, and thus achieve greater efficiency with less cost. The plans also include: completing the new API (CRM) and completing the new discount policy module.

We will keep you informed on the details of further works on the blog. If you don’t want to miss the next summary of key development activities of i-systems, we invite you to subscribe to our newsletter.

The previous quarter at i-system was highlighted by the new organization of teams which were transformed into contexts. This directly influenced the change in our approach to the design and development of the e-commerce systems. Here is an overview of Q3, which is a collection of the most important news from the life of i-systems.

New projects

Despite summer holidays, we have initiated several new projects as well as moved to the final stages in a few of those already underway. One of the highlights is the B2B platform for one of the largest distributors of construction, workshop and welding equipment in Poland and a complete system for an automotive company which after the analytical stage is now being implemented.

Trends in system development

Among the most interesting trends we observed both on the market and when developing new systems, we can distinguish the penetration of the B2C related features, to the B2B systems. Apart from adapting an increasing number of functional solutions, it is also worth to highlight all aspects related to the usability and appearance of the systems. Currently, B2B systems, apart from their natural business features, are also characterized by easy management and ability to quickly adapt to new market expectations.

Strategic development of the organization

At the beginning of July, i-systems invested in a company specializing in blockchain technology. GamerHash, is a solution that uses the unused processing power on users’ computers. Currently, it is mostly used for legal mining of cryptocurrencies, but in the future it will be also used for CGI rendering or machine learning. In practice, this means that the shared processing power can be used to process animations and scenes using special effects, as well as improve the the data acquisition for the needs of the self-learning processes of computer programs. In addition to the direct investment, i-systems will also support GamerHash technologically. The company will use its experience in the area of transaction systems and will be responsible for expanding the e-commerce part of GamerHash. Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder made their investment before as well.

During the last quarter, i-systems team, represented the company in several events that blend business and technology. These were: InternetBeta, Shopping Centre Forum 2018 CEE Exhibition & Conference and E-commerce Expo in London.

If anyone missed us at any of the previous shows, we’ll be joining the VI Forum of Retail Channels 360, which will be held on 18 and 19 October in Warsaw, and at the Fashion Business Congress, planned for 25 October in Łódź. Both conferences will feature our presentations, focused on the modern day e-commerce systems. We will be also present at the eCommerce Fair in Warsaw, scheduled for November 7th. We encourage you to catch up with us there!

Internal quality improvement projects

The biggest internal change, was the one related to the organization of work of people involved in the implementation and development of the systems. We have been preparing for this change for a long time, so that the process would be smooth for all the involved parties. From now on, most of the work related to the IT-related projects will be carried out by the so-called contexts.

The background behind the creation of contextual teams is related to the … termination of the research and development department. This department consisted of highly skilled and competent people who where not, however, directly involved in any project. This organization had its advantages and disadvantages, both for internal product development and for the team members themselves. The change in our sales model associated with the launch of the CI-based solution has also affected the implementation and development model itself. In this model, the new system is implemented by many contexts, each one of which has the best knowledge of the specific issue and the product to which it has been assigned. Thanks to this, the knowledge in our organization is now more aggregated and arranged in an even more accessible way than before. Such work organization significantly accelerates the implementation process and improves the quality of our solutions.

Current context teams include Product Information Management, integration, order management, CRM, RMA, GUI, promotions and Shopapp app. We will be posting more about the contextual teams on our blog soon.

Selected awards

As our quarterly summary shows – the last months have been really intensive for us. Last but not least, we are proud to announce that at the beginning of September our company was awarded with the „Highest Quality” title in the Ambassador of the Polish Economy 2018 competition, organized by the Business Centre Club.

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Upcoming holidays do not mean e-commerce actions will slow down. Actually, on the contrary, it is the best time to prepare and implement new solutions before the peak period for most e-commerce companies. Here is an overview of the last quarter in the daily life of i-systems.

New projects

The second quarter of the year brought a number of new contracts. Except for those strictly connected with online sales and customers switching to continuous integration, it is worth paying attention to new analytical projects. The analysis was made for a company specializing in thermal insulation distribution and a company that supplies tools and machines for construction and heavy industry. These contracts show great demand related to trade and distribution solutions.

Trends in system development

Among the most interesting trends observed on the market and while working on particular systems, we can distinguish widely understood integrations. Our recent work in this field covered, for instance, warehouse and accounting programs of the Asseco group. A large part also concerns and will concern integration with the marketplace, which is an external system that aggregates offers from different places. Integration with marketplace means a couple of challenges, such as two-way inventory integrations or automatic display and removal of offers, according to the previously adopted sales logic.

Strategic development of the organization

In the second quarter of the year, representatives of i-systems participated in several business and technology events, such as Retail Marketing Forum, XIV Targi eHandlu [en. XIV E-commerce Fairs], E-commerce Innovations, E-commerce B2B and E-commerce Universe. During enlisted events, we focused on educating the market and presenting the effects of research & development team. Continuous integration was the most frequently discussed topic. It is a response to quickly changing market expectations, as well as the desire to have a constantly developed and up-to-date e-commerce system.

Conversations during E-commerce Fairs

Internal projects for quality improvement

Among the internal projects developed in the last three months, the Progressive Web App can be distinguished. This solution is designed to provide the customer with the best experience, regardless of which device he or she uses. This idea at first glance has a lot to do with Responsive Web Design. However, the solution has a deeper purpose than just displaying things correctly on every available device. Its main goal is to significantly improve the efficiency and speed of the system, by changing the organization of tasks performed by its frontend and backend parts.

Selected awards

At the beginning of April, i-systems was awarded in the FT1000 ranking. The ranking is being prepared by the Financial Times – one of the most opinion-forming global economic and financial magazines in cooperation with Statista Research Institute – a leading provider of data on markets and consumers. The company’s place in the ranking is determined by the increase in revenues that the company reported in the years 2013-2016.

In addition, it is worth mentioning the appearance of i-systems in the ranking of the 500 best providers of B2B solutions from Poland and Ukraine, responsible for the design and development of IT systems. The ranking was prepared by the Clutch agency.

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