Company Description
MTS (Mobile TeleSystems), headquartered in Moscow, is the largest mobile network operator in Russia, operating on GSM, UMTS and LTE standards. Apart from cellular networks, the company also offers local telephone service, broadband, mobile television, cable television, satellite television and digital television. As of Q1 2021, the company provides services for over 84.9 million subscribers in Russia, Armenia and Belarus.
Screens of the Logistic Mobile Application
Product overview
Logistic Mobile Application constituted an iOS and Android mobile application for the field staff (internal product). It was written in Swift and Kotlin programming languages and had authorisation functions.
The applications had two versions for executing different tasks.
The first version was responsible for checking the sale points of the company’s regional facilities and updating technical information while working with subscribers’ equipment.
The second one was accountable for connecting new customers’ offices and apartments to the internet.
Innovation
It was a unique product that could only be developed internally because of the sensitive nature of the information involved. Even a request to the database had to adhere to a rigorous protocol, as the application's backend was connected with the MTS clients’ database.
It also solved the issues of
an optimal route for the staff
inspecting the sale points, based on several criteria: time, the importance of visiting the point, based on remained sim-cards count, and others.
It also tracked employees, preventing the usage of fraud applications, which could change the geopositioning of the staff member by blocking the application.
Favourite challenge
Matrix structure and strict deadlines.
On the one hand, we had to hire employees for the project rapidly; on the other hand, the funding could have been reduced at any moment due to the company’s needs.
After onboarding, I realised that I had to meet the deadline in 3 months and develop the MVP mobile app.
But after the first estimation we understood that it could be launched only in 7 months. I believed that one of my major goals was to lead and change the situation.
My solution
First of all, I reached some agreements with my boss and persuaded other upper managers.
I called few meetings with the external stakeholder to define the most important business needs.
After that, I prioritised our backlog and defined the MVP's features scope. I managed to cut a lot from the first version.
Then I took responsibility for estimating tasks inside the team without team leaders.
Eventually, I implemented something like agile in the waterfall’s company world.
So our project turned out to be successful. As a result, I met the deadline and reduced the release time of the MVP product from 7 months to 3 months.
My group worked hard under strict deadlines as an MTS contractor, competing with other technical teams inside the company and managing to execute the entire project.
The contract for further development was signed. As my direct manager said, I accomplished the impossible.
Screens of the Logistic Mobile Application
Results and metrics
We have developed a mobile application with authorisation functionality and 1C language back-end.
There were several versions for two businesses:
Auditing MTS’s offices and checking their condition using scripts, filling check-lists on every office environment, adding information on the sim-cards count, and scanning new sim-cards numbers, adding extra technical information.
Connecting subscribers’ offices and apartments to the home internet with further supplement. The employee could add all the entire information on a specific apartment, from the router’s number to the device’s mac-number and the subscriber’s name.
Before implementing the Logistic Mobile Application (LMA), employees could not work remotely; the information could be updated only in web versions or at the offices.
More than 1,000 employees started to use LMA, servicing more than 6,000 sales points across Russia.