Case study
STING Reality / BO!
A new platform that could not throw away its history.
Building a new system on a greenfield is easy. The brief here was different: the new ecosystem had to take over existing data, connect to legacy applications, and come into being while agents kept working.
Solution architect · Integration design · Delivery leadership
01
Context and scope
The network needed a platform covering an agent's daily work — from records and listings to client communication — while staying connected to what already worked in the company. The scope therefore covered web, mobile, back office and training from the start, not a single application.
02
The constraint: data you cannot walk away from
In real estate, historical data has value in itself — a deal can run for months. The new platform could not start empty. The design had to accept that part of the truth stays in the original systems and that the new layer has to live with them rather than ignore them.
03
My role and responsibility
I designed the target architecture, defined the boundaries between services and the integration contracts towards the existing applications. I also led delivery across several teams — part of the capacity was ours, part the client's, which meant agreeing not only on technology but on who owns what.
04
Architecture built on an integration layer
The foundation is an integration layer separating the new applications from the source systems. It means the internals of one system can change without rippling through the rest, and new services can be added gradually instead of in one large release.
05
Agent application and mobile app
An agent works between viewings, not at a desk. The web and mobile applications therefore share the same data and the same rules but differ in what they put first. That is a design decision, not cosmetics — it determines where each operation is allowed to happen at all.
06
Back office, training and notifications
Operations also need network administration, a training platform for agents, and notification mechanisms tying the other parts together. Each is a separate service with its own lifecycle, so it can evolve without touching the rest.
07
Delivery across teams
The hardest part was not the technology but the coordination. Aligning the pace of two teams, holding one set of technical standards and deciding what ships first required a single place where technical decisions are made and defended.
08
Results and current state
More than 200 agents use the platform daily. Over eighteen months the engagement grew from 32 to 420 hours a month — thirteenfold, because delivery kept landing and more of the ecosystem came online.
Had the platform been built without regard for the existing data and systems, it would have shipped sooner — and nobody would have used it. The value was in finding the boundary between old and new, not ignoring it.