In these turbulent times, business needs can change at a moment’s notice. For your organization to make the most of every opportunity to serve customers and capture revenue, a powerful platform, an expert implementation team, and a mature agile program are invaluable. Appian as a platform, Macedon as a partner, and the Agile methodology is the perfect combination.
During the early stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the US government rolled out the Small Business Administrations (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program almost overnight. Rules and regulations were released on a Thursday night, and banks were permitted to take applications the following Friday morning. The organization that could first make these loans available would be positioned to capture a larger market share of the loans and provide a critical customer base with much-needed support.
A regional consumer bank with a well established Appian ecosystem leveraged the flexibility of the Appian platform and the expertise of a Macedon team to do just that. Within a few hours, Macedon built a prototype to put in front of client executives, leveraging functionality and components from multiple existing applications. Following approval, the team began development that same night.
With the power of Appian and the expertise of the Macedon team, the first loans were submitted within 24 hours at the rate of one loan per second. Processing began with the combined framework by the following Monday, with the team conducting one-day Agile sprints. Through Appian, user feedback and other changes were deployed to production in a matter of hours and provided improvements in near-real-time. Our expert team worked with the bank to adapt rapidly, add process improvements, and respond quickly to the needs of small businesses.
Macedon’s skill and the client’s comfort with Agile delivery meant that not only was an application delivered quickly, but improvements were delivered regularly. One week after the initial release, the workflow had been modified and document generation had been added to accelerate the loan onboarding process. Two weeks after the initial release, an RPA integration was added that facilitated direct integration with the SBA’s platform, cutting 25% off the loan underwriting time, removing a credential bottleneck with the SBA, and getting funds to businesses even faster.
Funding a loan is not the only part of this process that mattered. As part of the relief program, there is a review necessary to forgive the business’s outstanding loan balances granted only if they can demonstrate the funds were used appropriately. By building the initial intake in Appian, the bank leveraged and managed the data from the onboarding system directly into a parallel application to manage approval for forgiveness. Not only does an integrated application platform add value at the beginning of a response effort, it continues to pay dividends.
As your organization prepares for the unexpected, the tools, methods, and partners you have will dictate how quickly you are able to adapt. Having a flexible platform that can rapidly incorporate new integrations, RPA, and DevOps practices can ensure you build tools quickly and effectively. An organization versed in Agile will position your power users and business groups to participate efficiently and provide the best possible feedback to development teams to ensure quickly built applications are well suited to the problem.
A partner who knows their craft well and will work from day one to understand and improve your business processes is a force multiplier when you need things built quickly. Appian, the Agile methodology, and Macedon combined together are the perfect trio to top the markets, provide industry-leading customer service, and most importantly, take care of your community.
Macedon Technologies accelerates Digital Transformation by delivering sustainable, enterprise-grade applications faster and more reliably.
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