Requirements Engineering as the root of success

We look at your project holistically and functionally in order to create an optimal, far-sighted infrastructure

Consultation

With requirements engineering and our requirements analysis, we will find your optimal tech stack together.

Elaboration

We dig deep into each project to find the essence of the different departments.

Practical example

Independent with a focus on sustainable scalability & standardization are our specialty.

Requirements Engineering

A good investment

Many SMEs work with classic web designers or marketing concepts without asking themselves questions about sensible, technical feasibility or even knowing which CMS or e-commerce system is used and whether this basic software best fits the company processes.

The consequence of "too agile software development" without a precise definition of goals and acceptance criteria is not only poor quality software (the main thing is that it looks good) but also a significant overrun of the planned budget (largely due to change requests).

We had a website created and are now faced with the problem that the CMS does not meet our requirements for flexibility and data handling.

Result: Complete redesign with increased content quality

Our webshop has crashed - we did not expect this rush.

Result: angry customers and loss of sales of unknown amount

Now we are faced with the challenge of having to migrate the data to the new system.

Result: Creation of a migration tool for a high four-digit amount.

This is exactly where we come in with our requirements engineering when it comes to the sustainable implementation, maintenance, scalability or reliability of systems. Based on a requirements analysis, which includes defined goals such as security, visitor numbers or API interfaces, we work with you to develop your optimal technology stack.

Our credo: Live accuracy and stay within budget

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

John Ruskin

Visionary of business ethics

Define scope of services

Asking questions is allowed

In addition to emotions, the classic sales process primarily uses price as a sales argument rather than the specifically defined scope of services. A current example is the hype surrounding artificial intelligence with the promise of profit maximization. Concrete application examples or fact-based before-and-after comparisons of a reference customer are missing.

Regardless of the IT project that ultimately involves software procurement and/or development, it makes sense to at least partially consider the following points, regardless of whether it is a simple website, an API interface, a web shop or an ERP system.

Disaster Management

How strong is the (economic) dependence in the event of an emergency such as hacking or a failure?

Backup Strategy

How consistently do I devote myself to the topic of backup/recovery and 3-2-1 (3 copies, 2 storage media, 1 external)?

(Cyber) Security

For example, do you need ISO 27001 certification or recurring penetration tests due to NIS-2?

Data Protection

To unauthorized or former employees or commissioned data processors such as Hubspot, Microsoft or Google Analytics

Monitoring

Helps with error analysis and traceability on topics such as data protection, cyber security or a recurring audit

Maintenance

Consists of more than regular updates and includes documentation, optimization of (data) structures and clean code

Our approach: Keep an overview despite details

Practical example

How much does requirements engineering cost?

The prices for a complete engineering project depend heavily on the desired level of detail of the individual sub-areas in the respective software project. On the one hand, if the definition is too generic, there is a risk of not defining any concrete functions and acceptance criteria. On the other hand, if the elaboration is too detailed, there is a risk of restricting the agile development process too much and having less budget available for the actual development work.

A minimum of 2-3 days should be allowed for requirements engineering, this includes 1/2 day on site (plus travel) and 1.5 to 2.5 days for the preparation of the documents.

Initial Situation

The company employs 8-12 people, depending on the season and order situation. An online shop is already available (70% business customers, 30% private customers), but sales are stagnating or declining. The new shop is supposed to "work better" and be "more intuitive" in order to shorten the training period for temporary workers.

According to the managing director's research in the private and business environment, Shopify, WooCommerce and Shopware are used. The prices for implementation are between 7,500 and 30,000 euros.

Questionnaire

Based on the current situation, different questions arise from different subject areas with the aim of a successful implementation within budget and software that is optimally suited to the company.

Key figures and metrics

How many orders are processed on average per day and what is the maximum order quantity per day?
Do you need statistics such as sales, shipping costs, taxes, returning visitors or the most popular products?
Would you like to receive regular, automatic notifications about your competitors' product prices with price suggestions and price changes in the shop after approval?

Products, processing and operation

Are there product bundles that are only put together when the order is placed?
Are there products that may only be shipped upon presentation of a trade license and/or a poison control certificate?
Does warehouse management and/or invoicing take place within the shop or is a connection to an ERP system such as Microsoft Dynamics required?

Legal and Tax

Is the validity of the VAT number including the billing address checked for each order?
Are expired certificates of competence (poison certificates) recognized by the system and the purchaser informed or the order rejected?
For each order, is it checked whether the business license still exists or whether the billing address is the same in order to prevent fraud?

Multichannel, Marketing and SEO

Do you want to better understand the behavior of your visitors or measure advertising campaigns with an analysis?
Do you need XML product feeds for Amazon or Google Shopping or Schema.org for Google Search?
Are features such as up-selling (higher-value product), cross-selling (accessories) or automated suggestions based on previous orders desired?

Security, data protection and monitoring

Should there be automated patch management or are updates carried out according to interval or urgency?
Should there be monitoring (availability) with functional control (e.g. test order) and notification?
Should system and user activities be recorded and checked for irregularities using AI and, if necessary, blocked or reported?

Standardization, clean code and maintenance

When it comes to coding, do you value established frameworks such as Bootstrap/Tailwind CSS, Laravel, Symfony or Vue.js?
Should ongoing development and (code) optimization be carried out using Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD)?
Are comments in the code sufficient or should detailed documentation and test scenarios be created for core functions?