Encapsulon Assessment
Wren Solutions
About Wren Solutions
Project Brief
Wren was shipping a physical security appliance called “Encapsulon” targeted at retailers and schools. Encapsulon included an auditing application called “Assessment”. The auditing application was kind of like a survey application (think Survey Monkey). The original version of the Assessment application was not successful in the market.
The CEO of the company wanted to provide a version of Encapsulon using the Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) distribution model. Much of the Encapsulon product suite had to be located on the customer premises as it was controlling security cameras and badge readers. The Assessment application did not require any physical equipment, so it was the best candidate to be released as a SaaS application. The company was also changing its sales and marketing to focus more heavily on the retail market.
I lead the team that implemented the new Encapsulon Assessment solution. The team was comprised of 5 .NET developers, 2 product managers, 2 QA engineers, and several contractors that did performance testing.
Solution
We built a SaaS version of the Assessment application targeted at retail loss prevention professionals. According to Wikipedia, retail loss prevention is a set of practices employed by retail companies to preserve profit. Profit preservation is any business activity specifically designed to reduce preventable losses. A preventable loss is any business cost caused by deliberate or inadvertent human actions, colloquially known as “shrinkage”.
The solution was a web application that allowed a Loss Prevention (“LP”) auditor to manage the auditing process, including: creating audits, conducting/scheduling audits, and reporting on audit performance. The Conduct function of the application was optimized for an iPad tablet.
The following screen shots show the richness of the user interface.
Technology
This project was built in Microsoft Visual Studio.
Remarks
“Mark brings a holistic, pragmatic approach to creating and delivering market-driven products. His abilities range from building effective in-house teams to successfully managing outside resources, for both highly specialized projects as well as turn-key development. His business expertise is invaluable to companies that want to maximize their R&D investment. Mark provides value across organizations: he’s an expert at solving complex problems, synthesizing market requirements and working collaboratively to deliver results. “
Amelia Fusaro, President of Wren Solutions