For over 25 years, STEMCELL Technologies has made a name for itself as a global biotech company, specializing in scientific services, developing cell culture media, and cell isolation. STEMCELL is a consortium of scientists helping other scientists and has expanded over the years to become an industry-leading partner for scientific research.
But growth comes with a cost, and despite STEMCELL’s successes in cell culture management, the company lagged behind in one important area: IT functions.
Are Outdated Applications Complicating Your Processes?
STEMCELL relied heavily on resource-intensive apps to manage its day-to-day functions. They had a backlog of seventeen aging applications, each built with different technologies, and these were difficult to maintain as the company grew. This created disconnects in team processes and made it difficult to get support tickets resolved, as certain tickets could only be handled by specialists with unique skill sets.
And hiring more developers to sort through the issues wasn’t an option.
“Our mission is to support our scientists with what they need,” says Beatriz Clarke, STEMCELL applications development manager. “We’re a biotech firm, not an IT company, so we cannot justify a huge IT function.”
To resolve these issues, STEMCELL’s application development team began to search for a new, more modern platform to address these challenges. It wasn’t long before they locked on to the OutSystems platform, and the rest is history.
T4S Partners’ Take: Break Down Barriers With the Right Development Platform
STEMCELL’s primary problem was a lack of coordination brought on by disconnected, outdated applications. Developers had a hard time working together to resolve issues, and their development workflows were inconsistent across use cases.
All of that changed when OutSystems entered the picture. Specifically, STEMCELL sought consistency in their development approach and wanted a way to unify their developers to reduce silo’d processes. On that score, OutSystems delivered.
“Before OutSystems, development was slow, and reuse was unheard of. Now, every app we build starts from a common foundation,” says Clarke.
In our view, modern platforms like OutSystems are the perfect foundation for companies to get a handle on their app development goals. There are clear advantages to low-code platforms over outdated legacy systems, such as OutSystems’ 50% faster development timeline and built-in compliance. But beyond that, it’s the perfect way to standardize processes and get everyone on the same page.
Before, STEMCELL was just barely staying on top of its aging application suite. Now, STEMCELL has over 10 new applications in production at a rate three times faster than their previous platform. This has streamlined their processes across the board and increased application development timelines, team coordination, and employee efficiency.
Questions to Ask During Your Own Digital Transformation
Companies like STEMCELL can’t afford to waste time on outdated methodologies that hold them back. This is the primary advantage of platforms like OutSystems: create an agile development framework that’s perfect for launching business-saving solutions at speed. As you consider your own IT needs, ask yourself these questions:
- Is our team lacking specific functionalities that could improve collaboration or communication?
- What type of IT budget are we working with, and how can we get the most bang for our development buck
- How agile are we, and do we have the capabilities to deploy new solutions at speed when required?
These questions aren’t always easy to answer, which is why T4S Partners offers in-depth consulting for businesses interested in modern development solutions. If you’re tired of feeling bogged down by your outdated IT architecture, visit our site and learn more about how we can help.
Link to full story: https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/stemcell-low-code-and-reuse-speeds-application-delivery/