Silver for CRM-Konsulterna in Hack for Sweden - Smart digital solution supports business

Hack the Crisis, an online hackathon, took place in early April and was organized by DIGG, Hack for Sweden, Openhack and the Swedish government. Customer relationship management consulting firm CRM-Konsultarna participated this year in the hackathon, the sixth year in a row that Hack for Sweden has done so on behalf of Swedish authorities. Due to the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 virus, this year's focus was on saving lives, saving society and saving business, based on smart services and apps built on open data.

In the category “Save business – digital solution,” CRM-Konsulterna showed great success and took home the silver prize. The mission was to design, test and implement ideas for the future of Sweden and the world. In each category, there was an opportunity to compete in one of two different tracks, producing either a fully finished digital solution or a conceptual solution.

“We were a team of six who worked from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, toiling around the clock to build a new service for digitalized queue management," says Gustaf Westerlund, founder of CRM-Konsulterna.

The CRM-Konsulterna team built a digital queue management system based on QR codes. According to Gustaf Westerlund, CRM-Konsulterna plans to develop this further and start beta testing on customers.

“The idea behind digital queue management is that when, for example, a restaurant signs up, it gets a QR code that it can print. Customers can then scan this on site, from social media or from the website to get a place in the queue on their phone,” says Gustaf Westerlund.

Good collaboration was a decisive factor in the success of the solution implementation. The team from CRM-Konsulterna included five different nationalities, with two women and four men. Alexey Shytikov, the person behind the idea, talks about how it was developed:

“The idea is obvious and simple, but that’s also what makes it difficult, when you want to end up with something simple to implement and with a simple visual impression. It takes a combination of our technical skills and creative finesse.”

Another factor that contributed to the success was Microsoft's technology platform, which allowed for the solution to be developed so quickly.

“It's really amazing how fast you can create all this with the Power Platform. While the winner created only concepts over the weekend, we managed to implement everything: from the back-end with the correct data model, to the application for administration and real-time front-end,” says Alexey Shytikov.

Being a strong team with the willingness to contribute are strong values of CRM-Konsulterna, regardless of the crisis. Kathrine Hogseth, CEO of CRM-Konsulterna and one of the participants in Hack the Crisis, says that the common denominator among team members is the willingness to contribute to the crisis we are in and feeling a strong responsibility to share their creativity and innovation power.

“It feels easy and fun to contribute with our ideas and solutions. We see that as an important role right now, and we are proud of our contribution to Hack the Crisis and of our award. It creates a great deal of internal pride while at the same time we are supporting business and Sweden,” says Kathrine Hogseth.