Case Studies

In the summer of 2009, a major client in the financial services industry approached TDK with a unique opportunity to manage and maintain over 100 of their core customer and business facing websites across the globe.  The client was interested in outsourcing all Project Management and Business Analyst functions to TDK for all business as usual projects, global application rollouts, and overflow work.  The client wanted TDK to work directly with their marketing teams in each region of the globe, interface with their internal technology group and off-shore development team, and manage the full life cycle of all the projects.

TDK created an internal project team to support the global website management and developed a transition plan to support the outsourcing of all the required functions.  The TDK team consisted of project managers and business analysts with solid business and marketing knowledge.  This team also had technical skills with all the major browsers, HTML, Java, MS Access, Content Management Systems, and image editing software.  The client originally engaged TDK for these services through the end of 2009.  Due to the success of the engagement, the client extended the contract through 2010 and continues to add additional projects to the engagement.

The Client, a leading resource for electronic data management for the building industry, approached TDK in August 2009 with a unique need.  They had used an out-of-town software firm to develop and maintain their proprietary application, the cornerstone of the Client's business, from its inception.  After several years, the Client no longer felt that the out-of-town firm had the Client's best interests at heart.  After a quick review of the software, TDK explained to the Client that the application was written using outdated and unsupported technology, and wouldn't support web-based access or a number of other product enhancements the Client wanted to incorporate.

TDK performed a "start from scratch" analysis of the product by reviewing current application functionality.  TDK reviewed industry protocols and standards to ensure that the future design would include industry-standard integration with architectural design and maintenance management packages.  TDK mapped current-state process flows and developed new application requirements with the project sponsor and business stakeholders.  TDK then presented the Client with full requirements for the re-engineered application, including screen flows, wireframes, and a fixed price estimate and schedule for development in a .NET environment. 

In January of 2008 a financial services firm brought TDK an assignment to design and develop an important infrastructural software component.  The client was in the process of building a new advanced processing solution with aggressive timelines and industry leading system capabilities.  An integral component was required that would provide a vehicle for the advanced processing application suite to deliver alerts and notifications to customers and system users via email and/or SMS text messages.  The client turned to TDK to build out a robust, efficient and easily maintained solution that would act as an abstract gateway between the application suite notification queues and vendor message delivery web service gateways.

TDK initiated the effort by performing an in-depth analysis of the requirements, constraints and architectural expectations of the customer.  A solution design was created that addressed all customer requirements and was consistent with architectural expectations and deployment environment constraints.  The gateway developed by TDK was comprised of a self-scheduled and self-configured stand-alone service.  Pending notifications were retrieved and delivered largely via web service invocations, and a public web service API was published for 3^rd party message delivery vendors to report message delivery status.  The technical environment was comprised of J2EE, WebSphere, Spring, and Web Services.  The software was delivered to the customer with elaborate sets of unit tests and integration test suites.

The successful solution delivery and reliable performance of the Production deployment resulted in the client returning to TDK in 2010 to enhance the capabilities of the component in support of new business requirements.

In January of 2008, the principals of a St. Louis-based marketing communications agency contacted TDK with a complex problem. As a part of their services, the Client was responsible for developing and managing numerous web sites to assist their various global marketing and brand solutions customers. Several of their web sites were experiencing errors related to the display on a Macintosh browser. The Client had originally contracted with another technology firm to address the problem, but was disappointed in the firm's lack of responsiveness and in the quality of the fixes.

Understanding the essential role of the Macintosh platform to the agency's overall business, TDK utilized Mac-savvy technology players on their solutions team, reviewed and analyzed every site, and ultimately corrected all errors related to the web sites' display on a Mac browser. The IT environment included JavaScript, CSS, HTML and JSP. The Client was very impressed with TDK's ability to quickly assemble the right team, analyze the root cause of the errors and fix them in a timely, cost-efficient manner.

In July of 2007 a financial services firm brought TDK a complex assignment with an aggressive deadline. The Client had developed a robust payment system and signed an agreement with a very large financial institution to begin employing the new system in their operations. To facilitate payments through this system, the Client needed a portal to capture data about Buyers and Suppliers and their associated relationships. Due to the aggressive schedule and technical skills required, the Client outsourced the design and development of the project to TDK.

TDK began by analyzing the customer requirements and worked closely with the Client to develop the use cases and wireframes. Working on a tight deadline, TDK designed and developed the web portal and integrated the portal into the existing payment system in time to meet the financial institution's scheduled system rollout. The technical environment included J2EE, JSP, Servlets, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Struts, Hibernate, Spring and Oracle.