Musti Group accelerates its digital transformation with Proxify Developers

About Musti Group

Musti Group is one of the biggest retailers of pet care products in the Nordics, with more than 300 stores across the region and six online stores.

They are passionate about helping pet parents make their pets' lives easier and more fun and supporting them in every way they can; in products, in services, and in all types of advice that they can give to the pet owners.

The challenge

Tiina Korvenoja, Head of Digital Front Technologies at Musti Group, is at the helm of a team responsible for all of the companies’ six eCommerce sites operating in different countries.

They are developing and maintaining those six websites, as well as some store applications and loyalty systems used by their staff in the stores. As her developer-heavy team is so business critical to Musti and is facing high expectations, new recruits, she maintains, are very hard to find.

At first, they needed to scale the team up just to maintain the existing system, but over the past years, the team has been facing more challenging and transformative projects to accelerate the business growth. To keep the team and speed of development going, Musti decided to support the internal team by bringing on consultants.

The solution

Tiina and her team have looked into different options for scaling the team, including consultancies and freelancers. And, of course, Proxify, which she says stood out with the ability to onboard people really quickly.

“It's really easy for us to just list out all the capabilities and skills that we need in a short email. And Proxify, with the help of our client manager, can match those needs to the right candidate. Not only regarding the hard but also the soft and social skills that they know will fit our team well", she adds.

"Whenever we need new resources from Proxify, we just easily connect to Joakim. And at this point, they know us pretty well because we have a long history together."

She adds that they have been really lucky to find people who not only match the hard skills required but also match Musti Group in how they integrate what they bring to the team, and who they like as people.

The results

Musti Group currently has four developers from the Proxify network working with the company's eCommerce platforms. Two of those developers were part of the team from the very beginning of the collaboration – Tiina and her team were so happy with their output that they retained them for over two years now.

"We've had them on board from the beginning of our relationship with Proxify, and they have proven to adapt to different types of projects."

They were first onboarded to do maintenance work on Musti Group’s existing platform, and throughout the years, they transitioned from that role to different projects, like launching new digital services on the market and developing a new online platform.

"Now they're part of our bigger transformation project. They have really adapted to all different types of challenges and even acquired new skill sets and technologies that they needed for those projects."

Even when meeting potential issues, she was happy with Proxify's ability to amend an unfit hire quickly.

"When we needed to replace one of the developers, we contacted our client manager. He fully understood our needs, and we were able to move forward really quickly. I think the whole process took us maybe three weeks to find a replacement developer and onboard him into the team."

By working with Proxify, they managed to bring down the usual time to fill a vacancy from six months to a staggering two weeks on average.

Tiina adds that all four Proxify developers they have on the team are as important as their internal team members.

"We don't really make a distinction between who is internal, who is from which consultancy, who is from Proxify. They are an integral part of our team, in all of the daily conversations, Scrum meetings, and all the discussions, just like all team members.”

They recently arranged a kickoff session for the whole team in Finland, and it was a really special occasion to meet up for the first time in person.

"The team was delighted. We are remote-first – everybody is used to working remotely from different countries, different time zones. And it was really valuable that we were able to meet up in person, have some work done together, and just have some fun".

Tiina says they always feel confident in the choice of partner and happy that their Proxify developers have a strong community and learning opportunities and coaching provided.

"They are not just individual freelancers with no support behind them. Proxify supports them in their career paths. They have career counseling, training, and other types of support that they need from Proxify, which in the end, also benefits us as a client. They have a network they can rely on".

The way forward

The next big step for Musti Group is transitioning their outdated eCommerce platform to a completely new one. This will support their eCommerce business growth and give their customers a much better experience with using their services and products.

"This will help us bring the personal experience that we have in the stores online, and my team's role in that is central and crucial."

They are building an entirely new platform that will support their new eCommerce ecosystem, and the team includes Proxify developers.

"With Proxify, Musti Group was able to lift up and scale the team to a completely new level in our pursuit of transforming our digital platforms to a new, modern setup."