Challenges

One of the top high-end U.S. retailers was running on legacy, home-grown workforce management software for managing employee and contractor schedules and organizing / deploying their labor force efficiently. Of course, in a retail organization, this has a huge impact. The legacy workforce management software had previously been moved to the cloud (GCP) through a lift-and-shift migration. The software still reflected, however, the legacy architecture.

The application environment was inconsistent across channels, often fragile and rigid, and costly and time-consuming to operate and maintain.

The organization wanted a more agile, robust, and user-friendly system. As part of the need for agility, they particularly needed to implement various state law requirements around employee hours and work rules.

Our solution

Celsior was selected to work in a collaborative partnership with the organization to modernize the application. Instead of a time-and-materials staff augmentation approach, the organization chose to work with Celsior using a fixed monthly cost approach.

Software development was done using DevOps / Agile and leveraged Celsior’s App and Cloud Innovation solution stack. This provided cost-effective developers, other expert technical resources, and a solution framework. The process of modernizing the application accordingly used the latest technologies and practices.

Development was done on GCP using refactoring to move to a microservices-based, native cloud architecture. Various security features were also added. Finally, significant work was done to enhance the user interface for the store’s employees.

Business outcomes

The app modernization is an ongoing project that is now in its third phase.

Using the DevOps / Agile approach, significant value has already been realized and further benefits are expected. With changes already implemented, the organization can more efficiently manage its workforce and avoid over or under-staffing. This contributes to improved customer service in the stores, happier employees, and reduced workforce costs.