“The project was carried out effectively and according to high standards. Huld’s experts listened to our views on the matter, and presented plausible suggestions as to solve our problems” says BREF’s Marketing Manager Tiia Perä, who also actively participated in the development project.
The year 2020 was a year of changes for many companies, presenting them with a new challenge: How to adapt and comply with the “new” world and a more limited cooperation between people? Real estate business was no exception, as house viewings and meetings were no longer always possible to organize using older, well-established models.
Bureau Real Estate Finland, or BREF, noticed early-on that their office rental process needed to be developed in order to meet the needs of this digital world in constant change. The goal was to apply virtual viewings when renting office premises, as well as to create possibilities for a more flexible management of advertisements. Huld’s experts were asked to participate in developing an agile software project for this purpose. The project goal was to provide a suitable solution for these newly identified development needs. During the project, even other important software changes and updates were identified and carried out.
“The project was carried out effectively and according to high standards. Huld’s experts listened to our views on the matter, and presented plausible suggestions as to solve our problems. The final product is a new tool to manage our object advertisements, complete with new functionalities in our system. With their help, our customers get an even better customer experience and the amount of manual operations carried out by our employees is cut back significantly” says BREF’s Marketing Manager Tiia Perä, who also actively participated in the development project.
With the help of the system changes developed during the process,
“Solutions built during this project made it possible for us to better utilize marketing materials previously unknown to us. Thanks to this automation tool, our cooperation with our important interest groups has also improved. We have also received highly positive feedback from our business partners. Our staff is also very pleased with the tool. Their tasks have become more effective, as it’s no longer necessary to do several things manually.” says Tiia Perä.
The project was launched swiftly and fluently thanks to the client’s clear vision of the desired goals, as well as their engagement in developing new technical solutions in close cooperation with Huld’s project team.
The project was launched with an UI/UX workshop in order to make sure that all the involved actors shared a common vision, both of the operating environment as well as of the users, interest groups and business points of view. The next step was to a create bare-bones user interface and map out technical options. With these, the project layout was sketched and completed with possible implementation options and workload estimates. Simultaneously, preliminary feedback was also collected on whether the ideas would work or not.
“The project was carried out within the agreed time frame. Our cooperation ran smoothly, thanks to regular contacts and communication. We were constantly aware of how the project was proceeding, and what was going to happen next. We even got to test and comment the new functions, fresh from the drawing board.” Tiia Perä says.
After thorough planning, the implementation phase of the project was actually quite straightforward. To further enhance the implementation phase, BREF and Huld had joint weekly meetings. During them, the project outcomes were presented regularly early-on and further actions were directed together.
In all, close cooperation was the key to an optimal solution – that is, to create as much added value as possible for BREF’s business, while keeping up with the project time frame. Nevertheless, the project was in its entirety carried out according to strict quality standards. Thanks to fast decision-making and clear priorities, the goal was fully accomplished.