NoSQL, the cloud and Equal Experts- O2 Priority Moments keeps on growing
28 February 2012
Last year O2, the UK’s leading provider of mobile phones and broadband, released Priority Moments, a new mobile service providing location based offers from leading brands exclusively to O2 customers. The service has seen a huge uptake among O2 customers and is now available as native iPhone, Android and Blackberry applications as well as mobile web. With the recent addition of online offers, the service just keeps on growing.
“Priority Moments is a core channel for customer engagement and helps deliver value to our customers beyond talk and text,” said Ed Pellew, Head of Priority Moments Proposition. “Equal Experts played a pivotal role in getting Priority Moments to market in a short time frame and to an exceptionally high standard. They helped to deliver a service that is greatly valued by our customers.”
Equal Experts were brought in to deliver the central component of the system - offer management and targeting. By working closely with O2 they ensured the original service was delivered in 6 months, from initial inception to going live. To achieve the tight timescales and meet the potential scaling and performance expectations, Equal Experts chose to employ NoSQL technologies and a cloud hosting solution.
The NoSQL database cut down development time and allowed a number of flexible low cost deployment options to be considered. Providing GIS features out of the box made this particular database a perfect fit for delivering offers by location. The flexible schema of the database aided the continuous delivery of new features.
Given the large customer base of O2 the team knew that the adoption curve for Priority Moments would be steep. To cope with the expected uptake of users a cloud hosting provider was selected, allowing additional capacity to be added as needed. Using a cloud platform also allowed the delivery team to create continuous integration and test environments at a moment’s notice.
“Most organisations are wary of introducing new technologies to high profile products and this is exactly where Equal Experts shines,” said Ryan Sikorsky, Director of Equal Experts. “We employ rigorous development practices such as test driven development and automated acceptance testing to create a safe environment where innovative technologies can be introduced to large organisations.”
“You don’t often meet the level of expertise that Equal Experts can bring to your business,” said Andrew Pattinson, Head of Online Delivery, Telefonica UK. “Equal Experts go far beyond delivering your initial product and look at innovations that can be applied in the future.”
