Transforming development processes to drive consistent growth

Client

Beelivery is the UK’s largest on-demand grocery delivery service. Harnessing the power of the local community, Beelivery works with 50,000 independent, registered delivery drivers who are on hand to purchase and deliver groceries straight to customers. The company operates with a 24-hour delivery service where they deliver food, drinks and essentials to customers in 15 to 60 minutes.

Founded in 2011, the company has seen consistent growth since its inception with particularly high demand during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Beelivery is now the UK market leader in on-demand grocery delivery.

Background

Beelivery were enjoying increased sales volumes as a result of additional demand for online grocery delivery services during the COVID-19 lockdown. 

With the increased demand, Beelivery began to see areas for improvement in their current working practices. Their current development processes were under strain, such that the company didn’t have full transparency about what work could be delivered. 

To fully thrive in this period of demand and in the future, Beelivery knew they needed a complete review of all development processes. This would include how to manage the priority of work to be delivered and a tighter feedback loop so that they could develop and release new features rapidly at a high quality standard. 

It was hoped that customers would gain more accurate delivery time predictions, while drivers would be granted fairly priced jobs and a more streamlined experience when collecting groceries in-store. 

Another part of ensuring this standard was to connect the quality process, so that QA analysts could identify issues via manual or automated testing, and that this testing was closely aligned with the planned release cycle.

A key objective for this project was, therefore, to equip the whole Beelivery team (software developers, BAs, QAs, UATs and stakeholders) with a thorough understanding of agile processes. 

In addition, the company was eager to review their security model to ensure the safe handling of all personal customer data. Although ISO compliance was not an aim in the immediate, Beelivery wanted to lay the groundwork for achieving this. 

Based on Audacia's experience and our reputation as a ISO-certified leading software development company, Beelivery were confident that we could help them improve their operations in these areas.

Solution

Audacia worked in partnership with Beelivery to implement agile and scrum processes at a company wide level. This work involved implementing common agile processes like daily standups, sprint planning, retrospective meetings, as well as regular requirement definition sessions. 

All development work was now carried out in regular, fortnightly sprints with a well-defined release cycle, that was aligned to a Gitflow branching model. 

Audacia took an active role in managing all team meetings and development activity to ensure that Beelivery employees and management grew comfortable with these regular activities.

To further facilitate these processes, Audacia provided advice on tools that could be used during the release cycle. As a result of Audacia’s guidance, Beelivery created an Azure DevOps project board and scrum process, as well as an Azure DevOps and Azure Portal configuration of Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment pipelines.

Results

Beelivery is extremely satisfied with the level of organisation that has been achieved by moving from previous ad-hoc working practices to a fully structured agile scrum methodology. 

Multiple workstreams are now aligned against each other, so that work can be successfully planned and delivered in parallel. Project Managers, senior stakeholders and investors can now plan work and have an accurate understanding of when work would be delivered.

Better prioritisation processes have also been introduced, such that work that is closely aligned with those tasks that are perceived to offer most business value.

Team structure and morale has improved significantly thanks to this project. Software Developers and QAs now have greater visibility over their assigned work, which creates more seamless workflows throughout development teams and senior management.

The quality of work delivered as well as the development pace has also increased as a result of this process refinement. Performance of the team and the individuals can now be measured with granular detail, which allows improvements to be made easily. 

From these improvements, Beelivery are able to provide a better overall experience to all stakeholders. For customers this means providing more accurate delivery time predictions and driver availability, while for drivers this means now offering more profitable, fairly priced jobs and an easier in-supermarket experience when picking items.

The success of the project has instilled advantageous working processes for Beelivery in the future. Audacia has clarified an approach that will allow the company to work with greater visibility of their responsibilities and confidence in the service they are providing to customers.