Our work with Moduurn Mobility is something that we are extremely proud of and passionate about. Moduurn allows retail vendors to accept online orders by using either mobile POS or web POS systems. Moduurn’s technology enables customer-facing businesses such as restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, grocery stores, etc to enable online ordering via mobile, web, and in-store POS systems.

Moduurn has taken the market by a storm with its mobile ordering technology. In the process of innovating this space, typically owned by the biggest players, they have also enhanced local jobs and brought investment to the community. Businesses can register and use the Moduurn Back Office application to create and manage their menus. The customers can use their own custom-branded mobile applications or websites which are provided by Moduurn to place the order.

Recently, Moduurn Mobility have been nominated for the Chamber of Commerce Awards, which is something we are excited about! Our benchmark for our own success is seeing our clients doing exceptional things, and Moduurn’s awards and accolades make us so proud!

What are the main takeaways from this article?
1.    Cloud Native: Architecting highly scalable, high traffic cloud-native systems is key for applications like Moduurn, that need to be configured to suit multiple clients with diverse needs.
2.    User Centric Design: When designing a service-orientated product, such as the till, kitchen, and mobile experience, user-centric design is a necessity
3.    Integration and a Data First Approach: A machine process can be developed for white-labeling apps, capitalizing on plug-and-play capabilities and therefore, meeting the needs of a bigger market

Here in Victoria, our largest industry is technology. We are a tight-knit community, and part of that is due to a local organization called VIATEC. They exist to cultivate the most cohesive tech community in the world by providing resources to tackle shared opportunities and challenges while boosting a sense of belonging.

It was through VIATEC that the Moduurn team connected with us. They were looking for a way to address many of the platform’s challenges and when we met, we both realized that we could help each other.

Moduurn had recently acquired another company that owned a mobile ordering solution and decided that AOT was the right choice to help take them from mind-to-market, using the acquired company’s system as inspiration and taking over their past list of clients to offer a more modern solution.

Project Priorities

his project, like many, offered its own set of challenges, with varying degrees of complexity. Our job was to work alongside the Moduurn team to design and implement a solution that was functional and from a usability standpoint, exceptional. We really had to isolate what our main challenges were and the priorities of the project.

1) We needed to provide businesses with an affordable solution that was still able to be branded to their business and customizable to meet their unique business needs. Typically, the more customized a solution, the more costly it is. We had to find a way to make the customization accessible to the target market.

2) We had to give businesses an option for mobile and web ordering that didn’t result in them having to pay large amounts of admin and service fees, skimming from their small margins. Many of the users were independent businesses – entrepreneurs who were trying to build their dream and Moduurn was committed to ensuring that a business using the platform had control over their online offerings.

3) The platform had to allow businesses to use an order management interface accessed by the tablet and POS devices at the restaurant and retail locations to receive real-time orders and order updates from the mobile ordering users. We also had to offer their customers the ability to place their orders through the medium of their choosing – on the web, iOS, or Android.

4) Simplicity was a major focus of this project. The solution needed to be easy to set-up – the user ideally would be able to plug and play. We aimed to provide businesses with a low-cost, low-risk option that would allow them to be competitive in the current business landscape.

5) We needed to build a robust system that could be customized enough to cater to a variety of scenarios, industries, and clients while still being effective.

Solution
·       Back-office platform to manage the business, menus, etc.
·       iOS application
·       Mobile application
·       POS ordering platform
·       Payment gateway

Project Execution

The project was run in an agile method. The team ran 2-week sprints and released new features to the Moduurn team for review and User Acceptance Testing. The product manager was a member of the Moduurn team and worked closely with AOT’s business analyst to groom the backlog and complete sprint planning. AOT Technologies have professionals with years of experience in designing, developing, integrating, and supporting POS solutions and mobile ordering platforms used by a number of retail and hospitality businesses across BC.  

To make the solution affordable for a startup, AOT offered a lower cost offshore/onsite model where the business analyst work and design was done locally.  But the development and testing took place abroad. Our business analyst worked part-time out of the clients’ office so that AOT could be immersed in the company and work closely with stakeholders to outline requirements and get feedback on new mockups and sprint releases.

Technology
MVP, technology stack, Web Mobile iOS Android, WSO2 API gateway, White labelled app for each client, UX, user research, wireframing,

The project followed the Agile Scrum model development process.
Technologies Used: Angular 2, Node JS, Express, Mongo DB, Ionic 2, WSO2, AWS
Project Management: Agile Scrum, Jira
Wireframe, Mockups: Balsamiq, Adobe Experience Design

Results

We were able to bring to life the idea that the Moduurn team had, and introduce it to the market within budget and on schedule. Based on demos and the MVP product, Moduurn was able to draw in investment from angel investors, which allowed them to grow their offering and presence in the market significantly. We continue to support them by improving the product and adding new features constantly to serve hundreds of BC retailers.

We created an API and Integration specification, and Software Development Kits (SDKs) to integrate Moduurn’s technology with third-party POS systems. This approach allowed us to build integrations to a variety of major Canadian POS vendors including Squirrel POS, UniversalPOS, Cuboh, etc for the Moduurn POS. The system currently works seamlessly facilitating secure, high-speed mobile, web, and POS purchase transactions across North America serving popular retailers such as Shell, Burrito Boyz, Blenz Coffee, WestJet, University of Winnipeg, University of Vancouver Island, and Romeos.

Moduurn Mobility is finalists in the 2020 Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce’s Business Awards and is used by many local businesses – this is something we are proud to see. We love to see the success of our clients, and it’s particularly great to see the Moduurn team is succeeding. They are ignited with a passion for the work they are doing and we are confident that this is only the beginning for them.