It’s been six years now since we established our official partnership with Atlassian in 2012. Since then our expertise and professionalism in supporting, maintaining and adjusting this Australian company’s tools was recognized by organizations across the nation and worldwide. Our collaboration with one of the biggest direct sales companies is a great example.

Amway – a dream-come-true story of two friends

 

Amway was established in the United States over half a century ago by Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel. However, the two gentlemen knew each other since school days and engaged together in a number of businesses, including even a hamburger stand. In 1949 they created Ja-Ri Corporation (abbr. from their first names), which imported wooden goods from South American countries. But after being introduced to Nutrilite Products Corporation later that year they decided to completely redirect their business. Rich and Jay walked door to door selling food supplements using what is called now a direct sales system. Their actions resulted in such significant profits, that in just a couple of years their distribution network grew to 5,000.

 

In 1959, as concerns about the stability of Nutrilite grew, they decided to form the American Way Association, or Amway, along with some of their top distributors. They began manufacturing and distributing a concentrated organic cleaner called Frisk. Amway grew rapidly from there and even bought Nutrilite in 19721. Currently the company established by two close friends and business partners operates in over 100 markets worldwide. The organization is currently one of the largest companies in the whole direct sales sector and was ranked no. 29 among the largest privately held companies in the US by Forbes in 2015 based on revenue.

 

Since the very beginning both founders built their company around four fundamental values: freedom, family, hope and reward. These values are still at the center of Amway’s culture after over half a century, empowering thousands of employees and hundreds of brands across the globe to things that are purposeful – to do wonders.

 

 

Amway, use case TTPSC, Jira

Transition Technologies – Unifying Amway’s IT systems through Atlassian tools

 

Operating in so many markets simultaneously obviously means that Amway and its subsidiary companies have branches all over the world. As a result, employees of one office ended up using completely different systems and tools to perform certain tasks as their counterparts at other locations. Such inconsistency bred countless problems, directly affecting the corporation’s day-to-day operations.

 

In order to tackle this situation Amway decided to standardize its IT systems around a single platform. Europe was chosen as the proving ground for the trials.

 

Among the number of systems that were evaluated one stood out significantly: used across a number of European offices, Atlassian software gained high praises from Amway’s staff even before standardization even begun. It’s no secret that Atlassian’s systems are uniquely positioned to be utilized in practically any company in any sector, as close to being completely generic in application as possible. All Atlassian tools are highly reliable and immensely functional. In addition, they can be almost limitlessly enhanced through thousands of extensions available through Atlassian Marketplace. These products are also very simple to use even by people who had no chance to work with them in the past.

 

It is clear then, why Atlassian quickly became the frontrunner and finally won the competitive race to unify Amway’s numerous IT systems. But why did Amway decide to partner with a relatively little-known Polish company – Transition Technologies PSC – to reshape their IT systems and operations?

 

The secret lies in TT PSC’s flexible approach to their customers’ needs, openness towards innovative and unconventional solutions as well as their team’s extensive experience in implementing and maintaining Atlassian tools. TT PSC is Atlassian’s Gold Solution Partner which certifies all our activities around Atlassian technology stack to be compliant with that vendor’s best practices. Our experts are also Atlassian-certified, which is proof of their extensive knowledge and significant experience in the field. It would be hard to guess which single one of those reasons was decisive, but altogether these feats convinced Amway that TT PSC is the right partner for the job.

 

 

Unifying Amway’s IT systems through Atlassian tools. Transition Technologies PSC

Big challenges and great results

 

The biggest challenge which lay ahead of the team was setting up an entirely new Jira instance and interconnecting it with existing instances in order to provide a unified standard for the whole platform – and the whole organization. If you were ever tasked performing such an integration you will know it’s not an easy thing. Luckily, our team had experience derived from previous work for similarly large enterprises, which allowed us to perform the whole process seamlessly.

 

The next step was to unify Amway’s data repositories. We have decided to transfer the entire repository to the Confluence system and store it there. This has allowed us to have created a common and accessible knowledgebase which can be consulted by both Amway’s employees and selected collaborators, whenever they feel the need.

 

Using software such as Bitbucket, Bamboo or Fisheye has streamlined work of programming teams, which were now able to work on source codes of applications they were building in an easier, more efficient way.

 

The entire package of licenses, as well as implementation and maintenance of all the aforementioned tools was smoothly delivered by TT PSC’s experts, not disturbing Amway’s daily operations at any point. We have provided online trainings for employees from all over Europe, ensuring they can get the best out of the tools they are using. Support services from our administrators and programmers in the solution of common issues reported by customers are a standard which we uphold and which Amway appreciated as well.

 

 

Big challenges and great results. Transition Technologies PSC

The Best Is Yet To Come

 

Although Frank Sinatra sang about a romantic feeling rather than the collaboration of two businesses (That would be awkward, wouldn’t it?), he couldn’t be more accurate as to the overall feeling and direction of where this cooperation was heading all the way from the start.

 

It’s easy to see how solutions we implemented improved everyday work and efficiency levels at Amway. What we have already accomplished will further consolidate our businesses’ relationship, which shall result in measurable benefits for both parties. We look to the future with nothing but optimism.

 

TT PSC team’s effort, commitment, professionalism and reliability have met with much appreciation from Amway. Bartosz Rapacki, Amway’s IT Manager in the Integration Development EIA division summed it up nicely:

 

And so we turn towards tomorrow to help another one of our satisfied customers, ‘cause »The best is yet to come…«”

 


1 1972 – Amway bought control of Nutrilite. They acquired full ownership of Nutrilite in 1994.

_All posts in this category

blogpost
Articles

Document Management System at Jira – digital transformation for government, accounting, office and more

Document System Management is the basis for digitizing business processes. See how it is possible to transfer and archive documents in the Jira system. Learn about the benefits and see screenshots of the solution, as well as sample document flow paths in the company.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Project Management in Jira Cloud with Structure and Structure.Gantt

Among project management applications, you can find simple tools that address a single employee's needs, as well as comprehensive environments for managing an entire portfolio of projects. Our text is addressed to those who want to bring order to work management, centralize processes and gain a single environment for conducting multiple activities. We present the most important functionalities of the Jira Cloud system integrated with the Structure application and Structure.Gantt from ALM Works.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Migrating Jira Server to Jira Cloud

20 years after entering the IT market, Atlassian is still one of the world's leading providers of enterprise software solutions - from test and development management applications to agile (or cascading) project management systems to business process digitization capabilities, including administration and ITSM. According to recent data, Atlassian already has more than 200 000 customers worldwide and its market value is estimated at more than $60 billion. In order to achieve and sustain these results, Atlassian must be flexible and adapt to the needs of a changing world. Atlassian is now entering a new era with its customers - the Cloud - and is phasing out its Server-based systems.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Confluence + Linchpin. A modern and functional company intranet

An intranet improves communication, integrates and gives a sense of belonging. Apart from purely practical advantages, it has a number of assets of a social nature (“social intranet” is also one of the keywords searched in Google). If you are looking for an intranet/extranet that will be functional, intuitive, advanced in terms of functionality and friendly from a visual point of view, we recommend a combination of the Confluence system by Atlassian and Linchpin by Seibert Media.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

System for HR team – recruitment of employees in Jira environment

Electronic recruitment systems and proven recruitment tools are increasingly sought after by professional recruiters and companies, who want to streamline the process of hiring new employees in their organizations. By combining the capabilities of Jira Service Management and Confluence (and proper configuration of both), we can implement a comprehensive environment, in which the recruitment process […]

Read more
blogpost
Articles

IT Service Management for business. Service desk with ITIL certificate

What's the difference between a service desk and a helpdesk; what functionalities does an advanced tool like that have, and what criteria to take into consideration when choosing ITSM software for your company? See the answers.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Asset Management in Jira Service Management

Asset Management is often associated with financial asset management; it can also refer to the management of any fixed assets within a company – and it is in this context that we present the embedding of this concept and related activities in Jira Service Management.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Automatic and manual tests – test management platform based on Jira Software + Xray

One of the strategic stages of software development work is testing - every single "package" of code should be tested in order to identify and fix bugs as quickly as possible. In addition to automation, it's important that the environment bridges the silos between the development and operations teams. These needs are met by Jira Software with the Xray app and additional tools.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Customer Portal in Jira Service Management: notifications, automation, knowledge base, SLA

The Customer Portal is easy to use, and at the same time it offers advanced configuration possibilities. It is a solution dedicated to businesses in need of a platform that will allow their customers and employees to report faults, needs, and problems, which are then forwarded to the appropriate support line. The Customer Portal in Jira Service Management is a tool that is being constantly developed by its producer. It is scalable, certified in terms of compliance with ITIL, and above all – easy to use.

Read more
blogpost
Articles

Jira Service Desk becomes Jira Service Management. New name, more possibilities.

The year 2020, and especially its end, is the time of changes announced by the producer of Jira software. Recently, we have heard about the new licensing and support conditions for Atlassian Server products, and today (November 9, 2020), the company announced the rebranding of their Jira Service Desk. Apart from the new name – Jira Service Management, customers will receive a complex, comprehensive ticket management system. So far, Jira Service Desk has been enriched with many useful functionalities through add-ons. Now it will have them by default, which is a huge step towards meeting the needs of business customers.

Read more

Let’s get in touch

Contact us