Swift

Swift Medical is the world leader in digital wound care management, delivering advanced wound care visualization and touchless 3D measurement through its smartphone-ready Swift Skin and Wound software. Swift’s enterprise-grade solution streamlines clinical and administrative wound care management workflows, from image capture and automatic risk scoring to assessment scheduling and claims submission. Today, Skin and Wound has been adopted by more than 4,000 facilities to monitor over 100,000 beds and has had over 20 million wound assessments.  

Number of resources provided: 59
Length of contract: started May2023-ongoing one year
Time to onboard: 1 week
Description of resources provided: integration consultant, API consultant, support services manager, QA engineers, AWS engineer, senior business analyst, project manager, scrum master,  automation engineer & chief product officer.

Challenges

• Technical debt and fixes to legacy project
• New product development needed with complexity around OCR, custom API and data integrations for every B2B customer
• Innovation vs. maintenance
• Unanticipated initiatives
• Need to upskill team with more seasoned engineers who have broader technology language expertise

Solution

• Data-driven approach
• 10 step vetting process
• 3 teams with specialized expertise from global and local options for agencies
• Ongoing oversight as accountable executives to project including budgetary control reports, customer health reports

Results:

“Swift would lean on Outforce.ai again for outsourced projects and scaling – vetting, interview and hiring is just too time consuming for the Swift team, when that time could be better spent on the actual projects.”

-Cerys Cook, Chief People Officer

1.     How’d Swift hear about Outforce.ai?

Outforce.ai was recommended by their board of directors that was familiar and impressed with their process

2.     What was Swift’s vision and how did the challenges listed above affect that vision?

When Swift started its legacy platform 6 years ago, they were unaware of how much the world would embrace and utilize its software, creating an urgent need for it to scale and innovate its product. This rapid scaling unfortunately left the legacy code in an inefficient state, with a combination of Android native and IOS native apps that were separate from each other, and neither fully completing their purposes– not to mention the size of the company doubling, all while launching their first set of enterprise customers. This meant that their focus had to shift from optimizing the legacy platform to innovating their product based on customer needs, and they needed more engineers if they wanted to get both done.

3.     What were the main concerns when considering diverting core engineering resources for innovation?

One of the main concerns that Swift faced was how bringing in an outsourced engineering team was going to affect their in-house engineering team culture and how to keep everyone’s roles and responsibilities clearly defined.

There was also the concern that the outsourced team would be able to contribute to the project quickly, with an in-depth understanding of the customers and their expectations. The final concern was with the complete integration of both teams, getting them both aligned up front, and keeping the culture of the team at the forefront of the working relationship

4.     How instrumental was Outforce.ai’s vetting process in saving time and ensuring the quality of the agency options presented to Swift?

Absolutely instrumental. Outforce.ai listened to the requirements and narrowed the options from thousands to only a couple that Swift ended up interviewing. The ability to not only scale up and scale down contractors, but to switch team members in and out has been seamless. Swift started with a 6-company shortlist, interviewed 3 and moved ahead with a team out of Argentina, all within 2 weeks of engaging with Outforce.ai.

5.   How did the selected engineering team integrate with Swift’s work culture?

Swift keeps a “one-team approach” at the core of their culture, so bringing alignment between the outsourced engineering team and in-house engineering team remains a key piece of advice and focus for any companies engaging with an outsourced engineering team – remembering that regardless of where you came from, we all have the same deliverable. A key selling feature for the team that Swift ended up working with was that the software engineers felt genuine and authentic in their interviews, and passionate about the project that they were going to be working on – instead of the typical transactional attitude that Swift had seen in the past.

6.     What are some of the key lessons and takeaways from this outsourcing experience that Swift would share?

1. Keeping a “one-team approach”, remember that everyone is working toward the same goal.
2. Have everyone on the team (in-house and outsourced) keep an open mind when entering and executing the project.

7.     Looking ahead, how does Swift envision the role of strategic outsourcing in the growth trajectory and innovation roadmap?

Swift would lean on Outforce.ai again for outsourced engineering projects and development team scaling. Vetting, interviewing, and hiring is too time-consuming for the Swift team, when that time could be better spent progressing projects.

Conclusion:

‍Swift Medical's collaboration with Outforce.ai has been a significant step in their journey toward optimizing and innovating their wound care management platform. Faced with challenges such as technical debt, the need for new product development, and the integration of advanced technologies such as OCR and custom APIs, Swift required a specialized and agile engineering team. Outforce.ai's thorough vetting process and provision of a highly skilled outsourced engineering team helped Swift address these challenges effectively.

The partnership not only allowed Swift to maintain a "one-team approach" across in-house and outsourced engineers but also ensured a seamless integration of teams, aligned with Swift's company culture. By leveraging Outforce.ai's expertise, Swift was able to quickly scale up its engineering resources, focusing on both maintaining and innovating its product offerings.

As a result, Swift successfully navigated the complexities of scaling their legacy platform while continuing to innovate. The experience underscored the importance of strategic outsourcing in managing growth and enhancing technological capabilities. Looking forward, Swift envisions continued reliance on Outforce.ai for future projects, recognizing the value of their specialized resources and efficient hiring process in supporting Swift's growth and innovation roadmap.