Colgate was initially looking to build a web app that would allow dentists to easily make Colgate product recommendations to their patients. Some competitors were actively engaging in similar initiatives, so Colgate wanted to take the lead and be early to market. Therefore, it was important to take a quick and smart MVP approach to accelerated development and launch. Over the course of the engagement, the key priority shifted from an immediate go-live to scalability. In addition, there was a broader vision of supporting multiple product-lines and use cases. In short, the full goal was to build a multi-product, multi-geography platform to help dentists make Colgate-Palmolive product recommendations to their patients.
Colgate had lofty ambitions and Gigster was there as a true partner from day one. Gigster partnered with Colgate not only to build the app, but also to help make key strategic decisions, translate business needs into a technical roadmap, and foster a transformation within their technical teams.
Key decisions Gigster and Colgate made side by side included tradeoffs between building for the future vs. launching early, building custom solutions vs. off-the-shelf, and selecting core technology and vendors.
Over the course of 18 months, flexible teams of Gigster PMs, technical architects, front-end and back-end developers, designers, DevOps engineers, and QA engineers dove in and out, as needed by the phase and milestone. Together they built the Colgate Professional Direct web app, the Colgate Direct eCommerce store, Playbooks for supporting multiple product-lines in multiple geographies, and re-architected the Professional Recommendation Platform for scale.
Gigster’s dynamic teams and elasticity in resource allocation, as well as expertise in onboarding and offboarding new team members seamlessly into a proven process, allowed Colgate to build the platform at a much lower cost and a much faster speed compared to full-time hiring, on-boarding and training - which in and of itself would have cost them the early-mover advantage. Together, we were able to build fast while remaining agile on requirements.
The result is a completely new marketing channel for direct-to-consumer sales that not only increases sales but allows Colgate to build a direct channel to consumers. Furthermore, Colgate was not only able to be an early mover in the industry, but also built a platform that was reusable for multiple product-lines and geographies, leading to significant cost reductions, productivity gains, increased revenue, and centralization of core infrastructure. They have built a foundation platform for long-term strategic advantage.
