Milestone FP

Mission

Over the years, Milestone explored various IFA software products with limited success. Despite each product's promise of improvement, they all proved unwieldy and ill-suited to their needs. These solutions were inherently outdated, lacking the necessary features for streamlined business operations.

Upon collaborating with Milestone, we discovered they were using Iress's Xplan—an expensive and perplexing product with inadequate support. Milestone's imperative was to adopt a nimble, adaptable system that aligned with their business growth. Custom software was the right choice.

Our mission: a complete overhaul of internal processes, crafting a new web-based system that removed the pain points from their day-to-day operations. This system aimed to provide swift, efficient services to both personal and corporate clients, mirroring the intuitive, responsive design ethos of Apple products, requiring minimal support for seamless adoption.

The system had to cater for the management of Prospects and Clients to include basic details, fact finds, document management, Cases and tasks, Portfolio management and detailed audit trail. Each of these elements had to be carefully analysed, designed and implemented in the final solution.

Project

By conducting a sequence of discovery and information-gathering workshops, we collaborated closely with Milestone's essential stakeholders. This interaction aimed to grasp their business processes and how a new system could enhance their operational flow. This cooperative and inventive method enabled us to genuinely comprehend their needs and commence designing a system with users at the core of our considerations.

By identifying the challenges posed by their existing system, we initiated a process of envisioning a solution that elegantly aligned with their needs and facilitated efficient workflow. We removed any non-essential elements, prioritised their service delivery, while accommodating the coexistence of supplementary tools and systems alongside the new software.

Subsequently, we proceeded to build a collection of interactive wireframes detailing the system's functionality, all without delving into writing any code. These wireframes proved invaluable for sustaining our collaborative engagement as we progressed toward a set of blueprints, serving as a foundation to embark on the software development phase.

At every stage, we embarked on technical proof-of-concept mini-projects to explore the feasibility of implementing functionalities like email forwarding and drag-and-drop document management. These proof-of-concept initiatives were brief development sprints, each dedicated to confirming both technical viability and user-friendly experience in real-world scenarios.

Upon the conclusion of each wireframing and proof-of-concept sprint, a designated area of the system received approval for development. Our development team then built each area and deployed it to a controlled staging environment, offering Milestone the opportunity to regularly review the updates.

Upon the culmination of all development sprints and the completion of internal testing, the system was delivered to Milestone for evaluation. Following the testing phase, we initiated a data migration project to seamlessly transfer client data and documents from Xplan to the new solution. Milestone were now ready to initiate using of the new system for production purposes.

Outcomes

Ensuring uninterrupted service continuity was paramount during the implementation of the new system. To achieve this a detailed plan was devised to seamlessly transition from Xplan to the new system, now named GoPlann.

This strategy, combined with the success of the data migration initiative, empowered Milestone to transition to the new system on a predetermined cutover date. While Xplan and GoPlann ran concurrently for the initial two months as a precaution, the transition proceeded seamlessly, and no complications arose. Consequently, by the third month following the launch, Xplan software was retired.

The swift adoption of GoPlann promptly translated into time savings for team members. It facilitated easy access to information and introduced a streamlined workflow, propelling the business forward with enhanced efficiency.