Author: Vitězslav Košina

Mobile devices, mobile technology and mobile applications are widely different. Every now and then, we see Android smartphones of various designs and sizes that are extensively used mainly for communication, entertainment, and sharing in social networks. In business, we come across legendary iPhones and iPads with advanced applications often tailored to the needs of a particular company. Windows Phones are gradually creating their segment in the mobile market. The spectrum of mobile platforms is even wider and a variety of using mobile devices is broad as well.

Entertainment and business are only two out of many aspects of mobility. Mobile devices are also of considerable practical importance. They are able to meet specific user requirements at the right time and place. Thus, mobile applications become the right hand in finance (smart banking) and insurance.

Think, for instance, of the mobile application Pojišťovna for an insurance company. It is a case of value added insurance services, a new channel to customers, an interactive communication tool, and a useful helper in crisis situations such as traffic accidents. The hybrid extension of the Pojišťovna application allows for the search of contracted services. The developers applied an innovative approach focusing on user-friendliness while minimizing the need of additional adjustments and costs associated with future updates. This part of the application for a Czech insurance company is developed by the IBA CZ team.

Usable application may be of help to everyone
Application Pojišťovna (Insurance Company) is available not only for the clients of Česká Pojišťovna. Anyone interested in practical assistance in crisis situations is able to download it. The number of downloads is the best evidence that it makes good sense to have the application and that it brings real benefits to its users. Currently, more than a hundred thousand users run the application on their mobile phones. And the download continues, as well as the app’s gradual improvement and its enhancement with new features.

Certainly, the application is available for download from the App Store and Google Play. It is possible to get the app for Android, iOS, and Windows.

Relevant help, no need to click to another application
Mobile application Pojišťovna provides much more than just a quick and easy access to information about products and services of Česká pojišťovna. As a bonus for current and future clients, the application offers assistance when in a car accident, when looking for contractual services or places of interest (including contacts and opening hours). Technical solution involves a combination of generally known mobile applications and a website built on the Liferay technology. The result is a hybrid application that is used as an easy-to-manage web application. The user does not need to visit the website because all the functions are controlled directly from the mobile application.

To view a website through the mobile application, the so-called Webview components are used. All standard operating systems are nowadays equipped with them. The benefit of this solution for the application owner is a significant reduction of time-to-market when deploying new or editing existing content in the mobile application and thus potential cost savings. In fact, the deployment is not subject to a regular release cycle of mobile applications (up to several days for iOS), yet it is subject to a regular web publication activity. In extreme cases, it can take a couple of minutes. At the same time, the website owner doesn’t have to maintain and publish several versions of the app (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile) when making changes in the content.

This technological approach may not be suitable for all mobile scenarios. However, for a selected set of scenarios it can significantly save costs and time of publishing new content in mobile applications.

Mobile web: advantages in many situations
Depending on the position context, a mobile application can provide relevant information associated with the situation. In case of Pojišťovna, it will specify the closest branch offices or available points of service. In case of the Bene+ loyalty program, it is the list of current rewards and discounts offered by GE Money Bank to its loyal customers.

Bene+ is a GE credit card loyalty program and is another example of using mobile web to increase customer comfort. In addition to general information about the loyalty program, the participants of Bene+ immediately get the list of places where their discounts and bonuses can be used and see their locations on the active Google maps.

Unlike the Pojišťovna application, Bene+ is not a genuine mobile application, it is a full responsive website. It is available for mobiles and desktops, although technically it is a different solution. The thing they have in common is that both the part of mentioned Pojišťovna application and Bene+ website are created by the IBA CZ development team and are built on Liferay technologies.

Author: Mark Hillary

Think about the consumer technology that you regularly use today. You probably have a smart phone, maybe a Kindle or other e-reader, maybe an Apple Watch or similar device that can access information from your phone. Maybe your car can hook up to your phone to offer in-car information. Maybe you have an Amazon Echo at home so you can access the Internet just by speaking?

All these consumer devices are available today and are accepted as normal. Most consumers expect to have a device that gives them 24/7 access to all the services and information that the Internet can offer.

So why isn’t enterprise technology like this? Many companies still issue phones that are not even smart and laptops that are too heavy to really be portable. The concepts of cloud computing and app store flexibility remain conceptual in many organisations. Why?

The obvious answer is that consumers have far less to invest than large companies. When purchasing technology, a CIO needs to set the agenda for several years. If things change during that time it can be difficult to shift direction or to keep up with the change. Individuals don’t face this problem.

This has led to the popularity of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies in many companies, where employees are offering cash to use their own equipment instead of what the company can supply.

But a small change in the strategic mindset can also have a major benefit to the enterprise. Commissioning new software solutions as apps, rather than desktop tools can encourage the workforce to be mobile. This can even encourage companies to create entirely new solutions for customers.

An app developed by IBA for use by a bank in South Africa allows bank employees to sign up new customers on the move. They can photograph the customer using their phone and capture details which are then shared with the central system of the bank – no forms, no waiting for an appointment. The new customers, the mobile bank employees, and the bank executives all benefit from the app approach.

It used to be that enterprise technology was years ahead of what people had at home, but now the reverse is true. It’s time for more company executives to take inspiration from the tools they use everyday – how can we use mobile devices and other common personal technology to create better business solutions for our customers?

Business Challenge

Employees of the company should devote about 40 hours a year to self-study. It is required to develop a platform that will help them to do this.

Solution

To help employees learn and improve their professional competencies, a learning ecosystem has been developed. It works as follows. An employee enters the application and searches for something related to his/her professional activities. For example, a front-end developer might request React courses. The system offers either ready-made courses or a training plan: for example, to become a good front-end developer, you need to master HTML, CSS, etc. Employees who take courses provide feedback after training and assign scores. All data is downloaded from the system for analysis, which allows making recommendations to employees with a similar specialization or field of activity.

The system has proven itself well within the company, so it was decided to offer it to other enterprises to organize self-training of employees. To do this, we developed an application that can be deployed to a third-party customer.

Training content for the system is prepared by teams that are engaged in content management and prepare training programs. There are also third-party services connected to the system. To use the system, we developed a mobile application and a browser extension that allows sharing an interesting course or material.

Result

Introduction of a system that helps employees learn and improve their skills has had a positive impact on the efficiency of self-training. With every year, the average number of hours that employees spend on training is growing.

Background

Previously, the bank used the ESB solution, which was insufficient for the development of digital channels: Internet banking, mobile applications, chat bots, etc.

Business Challenge

Develop a new solution that would allow the bank to provide services to its clients 24/7 and scale without loss of quality.

Solution

We chose a solution based on microservice architecture: API Gateway, OpenShift, Docker were used. The project is divided into several domains developed by different teams. These are services for internal and external clients.

The security models that were used earlier were replaced with new ones that meet up-to-date international standards. The solution is deployed in the cloud.

Result

The customer now operates an API that can be called by different systems, while using all the benefits of a microservice architecture. Services are available almost 100% of the time. There are more than 15,000,000 domain service external system calls per week.

The largest IT project in Germany in the last 2 years.

Background

The company’s operators use about 5.5 thousand internal applications. They monitor the loading of cargo on ships, provide commercial analysis, and assess financial performance. These applications are isolated and have different interfaces.

Business Challenge

Create a new application development solution with a single interface.

Solution

A team of architects reviewed the current system and business processes. It was decided to use one set of front-end libraries when developing new applications. So they can use the same UI.

The new solution can significantly reduce development costs, because it allows creating a large number of applications, keeping them in the same style and using the same architectural approaches.

Result

About 20% of applications are already using the new UI. The rest should switch to it within 2 years.

Challenge

Develop a mobile application for customers of the Eastern European Railway to view the schedules of international and commuter trains, buy tickets and obtain help information about services.

Solution highlights

The mobile application was being developed by two teams – Android and iOS. Work on the project lasted a year and a half. Approval of specifications, drafting of the terms of reference, and approval of the styling design took several months.

The IBA Group team participated in the coordination of the styling design for the mobile application: the visual style was to correspond to the unifying vision of a new website and mobile application, and the functionality that was requested by the customer. The application, like the ticket sale section of the website, runs on the basis of a new integration IT platform.

The previous version of the platform has been under development for over 10 years, so when introducing a new concept, the team was faced with multiple issues and improvements. The basic functionality of the mobile application includes viewing train schedules and buying tickets. The users may also view the online information board.

The list of routes provides information on the departure time, train number, the availability and cost of tickets; and a specific seat may be selected on the car diagram. To place any order, specify a personal identity document or mobile phone number (only for commuter trains). Payment for the order is available directly in the application by credit card. Online reservation is available.

When boarding the train with numbered seats, one needs to show the passenger car attendant only the document specified during reservation, and when boarding the train with unnumbered seats – a ticket on the smartphone screen.

All orders are retained in the user account: active, requiring activation (for commuter trains and municipal lines), as well as a full register of orders for the last year synchronized with the old website, and all tickets that have been refunded. The user account also provides opportunity to view selected routes and trains, the schedule by stations (including transfers), the train route, news and promotions, and help information.

Project results

Mobile app runs on Android and iOS. In the first month after launching the application, the platform recorded at least one million requests every day. Most of them are schedules of international and commuter trains.

Today, 2,000 tickets are sold through the mobile application daily. The plans of the IBA Group team include technical support and application development. In the next releases, new functionality will be added, for example, the ability to pay for bed-clothes in the application. The planning takes into account user feedback.

Overview and challenges

The end–to–end mobile application that deals with customer and account origination was designed to improve employees’ efficiency and to enable them to perform everyday operations when they are out of the office.

SOLUTIONS HIGHLIGHTS

Functions:

• Out of the office operation (register new clients and work with the clients’ accounts)
• Expandable architecture (e.g. insurance policies can be added)
• All functionality within one device, including reading barcodes and creating clients’ photos.

Features:

• Integration with bank’s backend applications
• JSON over HTTPS, providing secure and fast data transmission even over GPRS
• Based on PhoneGap framework, it can run on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and other platforms.

Result

A customer can make mobile payments and be updated on tariffs and services.

A map is seamlessly integrated in the mobile client. The user can filter objects by distance and find the nearest ATMs or bank offices. Choosing an object, the user can view information about it, including street address, working hours, and the list of its services, as well as make a route from the current location to the selected object.

KEY ISSUES

The goal of the project was to develop a mobile client to simplify processing and approving of documents at a large–scale organization. The client should be closely connected with a backend document workflow system based on IBM FileNet.

In addition, it should bring to end users new instruments for working with corporate documents, including operations in offline mode, a flexible business process model, and a comprehensive commentary mechanism.