ABOUT MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE GROUP
Since 2004, Medical Knowledge Group (MKG), LLC has focused on building brand equity for many of the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies. Through its multi-channel marketing solutions, network mapping analytics and patient-finding analytics offerings, MKG enables intelligent data insights for physicians and other health care professionals.
THE CHALLENGE
To reach the pharmaceuticals market, the company organizes and promotes medical conferences. They use data gathered from this conference (attendees, registrations, activity, etc.) For targeted advertising. To collect data at conferences, MKG uses an iPad for attendee check-in, and an iOS app to track attendee movement. Data from both devices migrate to MKG’s internal, custom-built web-based event management system, used to manage and organize all data collected from medical conferences. The web-based system, housing information such as scheduling, billing, registration, sponsors, calendars, third-party vendors, PDF documents for registration, and contracts, was also customizable for each conference, complete with a custom registration landing page.
However, MKG neglected software engineering best practices in managing the web-based event management system. Issues such as outdated programming languages, bugs, data duplication, and long load times (as much as 2 mins.) Began to accumulate, causing the system to be too inefficient and cumbersome to deal with. To remain operational, it became mission-critical for MKG to enhance the efficiency of the web-based system.
THE SOLUTION
MKG recruited Sphere Software to revamp the system. After evaluation, Sphere proposed the following.
changes:
• Refactor existing code base to bring current.
• Debug issues that caused problems with conference registration.
• Employ general best practices in software engineering.
THE RESULTS
Using Python migration, and JQuery to React, Sphere’s developers optimized the system for a better (internal) user experience. Sphere refactored all code, creating a basic functionality package with an essential functionality for conference tracks.
Campaign customizations were stored in a separate repository from the mime module, so that conference tracking could be easily upgraded and easier to support and modify.
We fixed several bugs in signing up and attending a conference. Previously the bugs caused an excessive load time of up to 2 minutes, which reduced to seconds after debugging. This enabled a seamless experience for conference attendees and ensured accurate data extraction and migration to the web-based event system. In addition, Sphere went the extra mile by customizing event systems and associated landing pages and promotional websites for MKG’s upcoming events.
According to SVP of Digital Technology for MKG, Tom Iannucci, “We were most impressed with Sphere’s timely delivery and quality of work. Because of Sphere, we’re now much more operationally efficient. I would recommend them in a heartbeat.”
Since 2005, Sphere Software has built innovative solutions, including technical staff augmentation and product teams to help the world’s most trusted brands move their business to the next level. For more information, visit www.sphereinc.com.
