Client Success Stories

See how we’ve helped our clients improve business performance by solving complex challenges.

Infrastructure Support

REDUCING DOWNTIME WITH A PROACTIVE SME TEAM APPROACH

CHALLENGE: Our client manager, who was responsible for supporting more than 10,000 retail service points in the United States, was challenged with establishing a support center for the retail organizations to contact and resolve any problems. The environment he inherited had retail service points calling six different groups to figure out which organization was responsible for any problem that prevented his store(s) from processing transactions. More than one million transactions a day and billions in revenue were at risk. The normal maintenance and upgrades of equipment also needed to be addressed. Vendors who repaired equipment or communication services also needed to be managed as part of the support structure. The manager’s vision was to create one focused group that took all the support calls and coordinated communication with any other internal group or external vendor to get resolution on behalf of the retail service points.

Agile Development

Building a modern web application in an enterprise environment

CHALLENGE: Our client’s project manager selected Odyssey Information Services’ professional services team to build a new web application in collaboration with the client’s employees. The team’s goal was to retire an existing application and reduce customer service call volume by providing a user-friendly, self-service experience. The program was divided into phases, with a successful phase leading to funding for the next phase. The first phase set the stage for the minimum viable product to be delivered into production so client’s customers could provide feedback to drive the direction and priorities of future enhancements.

Database Support

APPLYING NONSTOP SQL PERFORMANCE BEST PRACTICES INTO DEVOPS PRODUCTION SUPPORT

CHALLENGE: Our client’s application environment is very data intensive. Millions of queries, stored in a large platform independent database, are used daily to process a vast amount of applications. While the database’s design evolved as the business grew and changed over time, support for the platform’s performance did not. Technical management understood the need to improve performance, but it did not have the tools or approach to provide the executive team with the right metrics to justify focusing on optimizing database performance. The technical team approached Odyssey Information Services with the following goals:

  • Deploy application and database changes within a timely and efficient manner without negatively impacting critical business operations
  • Identify and prioritize performance problems
  • Define a standard set of reporting metrics to measure the environment

Implementation Consulting

ASSEMBLING TEAMS OF NURSES TO LEAD CERNER EMR IMPLEMENTATIONS

CHALLENGE: Our client uses Cerner’s FirstNet clinical application within its emergency departments nationwide to process patient profiles, charts and place orders. Optimizing workflow and minimizing completion time are paramount to ensure patient safety and satisfaction. Our client manager was challenged with finding skilled registered nurse consultants who were familiar with the emergency department and could communicate effectively with physicians and staff across all facilities regarding application updates and changes.

Agile Development

Assembling Top Developers to Form High-Performing Agile Development Team

CHALLENGE: Our client was faced with a demand for digital software features on its website that exceeded the company’s capacity to deliver. Our client had a number of large agile development teams working on various projects, but leadership wanted to experiment with new and different approaches to team structure and efficiency.

Database Support

Using Scorecards to Improve Application and Database Performance

CHALLENGE: Our client’s legacy application and database environment were in desperate need of attention as the environment was the product of more than 25 years of ebbs and flows of product demands, business mergers and repeated changes in personnel. Limited resources were allocated over the years to ensure proper utilization of all available database features with each system upgrade. On top of that, the company’s only database administrator was nearing retirement.

PCI Compliance

Choosing Tokenization to Achieve PCI Compliance

The following challenges were successfully solved through a partnership with data security software provider, comforte.

CHALLENGES: 1) The main goal was to tokenize cardholder data throughout the payments network in accordance with PCI requirements. Up until this point, our client had been relying on compensating controls, which were becoming costly and impractical. PCI Requirement 3.4 stipulates that payment account numbers (PANs) must be rendered unreadable anywhere they are stored and, according to Requirement 4.1, cardholder data must also be protected when transmitted. This means the data has to be protected while in motion and at rest. 2) An additional challenge was that the system had to stay online throughout implementation and without impacting service levels. At peak service levels the system handles up to 225 transactions per second and up to 100 million USD in a single day. In an average month, the system manages approximately 2-4 billion dollars’ worth of transactions. Any interruption of service would be extremely costly. 3) Our client uses a combination of ACI’s Base24 Classic and BASE24-eps on its mission-critical systems. Implementation on BASE24 Classic was especially complicated
in this situation as the company had extensively modified their BASE24 Classic configuration to accommodate their specific business needs. In addition, the servers are in active/active mode so that traffic is constantly balanced across both systems and freely bouncing back and forth. This meant deployment had to be done on a running production system.

Dedication to our clients’ success earned recognition as a Top Performing Vendor by a global oil and gas company four years in a row.

“Their recruiters always provide strong candidates and never waste my time. I highly recommend working with Odyssey for your IT recruiting needs.”

Adam Everett, Hiring Manager

Consultant Application