carsales Drives Operational Transformation and AI-Powered Customer Service in Australia with Thoughtworks
Founded in 1997, carsales revolutionized the automotive industry by digitizing print classifieds. Recognizing the need to adapt and innovate in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, carsales embarked on a journey to optimize its engineering organization.
"To sustain our competitive advantage and continue delivering exceptional customer experiences, addressing some challenges within our engineering processes was important," said Matt Earle, EGM of Consumer at carsales. "Thoughtworks' Engineering Excellence offering provided the structured approach and AI-powered software engineering capabilities that helped us to unlock our full potential."
In collaboration with Thoughtworks, carsales implemented key initiatives:
Optimizing high-performing teams: By adopting a customer experience strategy for new products and feature releases, the roles and responsibilities of the team focused on private buyers' purchasing experiences were redefined. More specifically, leveraging story mapping for the planned feature releases alongside identifying streamlined deployment processes and cost reduction priorities, resulted in improved decision-making, execution speed and delivery efficiency.
Reducing the time to value: Through an iterative approach with Test-Driven Development, Thoughtworks helped increase delivery predictability of new capabilities faster. As a disruptive, digital native company, this enables carsales' developers to roll out new features to customers ahead of the competition. By enhancing the test pyramid with system and contract tests, and automating quality checks, carsales achieved higher code quality, improved developer confidence and faster delivery speeds.
The impact of these improvements were evident in the successful launch of carsales' Model Finder - an AI-powered vehicle recommendation tool that tailors car suggestions based on buyers' lifestyle needs and preferences, whether for family driving, commuting, trade work, or other purposes. This project showcased the benefits of the new engineering practices, including more efficient resource utilization, risk reduction, faster time-to-market and higher ROI.
'carsales' commitment to keeping up with the latest innovations in engineering excellence and AI is driven by its mission to make buying and selling a great experience for customers,' said Karin Verloop, Managing Director for Tech and Business Services, Thoughtworks Asia Pacific. 'The successful launch of the AI-powered Model Finder is a testament to their commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences. We're proud to have played a role in their operational transformation and look forward to their continued advancement in the digital auto marketplace sector.'
Thoughtworks' Engineering Excellence is a field-tested and data-driven methodology that combines platform technologies, engineering practices and developer experience approaches under an overarching measurement and governance model. By addressing key focus areas such as platform engineering, developer productivity, testing strategies and knowledge management, the service offering enables organizations to identify and eliminate waste, reduce friction and accelerate value delivery.
Supporting resources:
About carsales
carsales, Australia's #1 digital auto marketplace has been transforming the way Australians buy and sell vehicles for over a quarter of a century. Driven by a simple yet powerful mission: to make buying and selling a great experience, carsales prioritises innovation and effective solutions to connect users seamlessly. carsales is part of CAR Group Limited – an ASX50 business and global leader in digital marketplaces. The carsales network of sites extends beyond cars, encompassing bikes, boats, caravans, trucks, farm and construction equipment, and more. carsales has Australians covered, no matter how they move through life.
About Thoughtworks
Thoughtworks is a global technology consultancy that integrates design, engineering and AI to drive digital innovation. We are over 10,000 people strong across 48 offices in 19 countries. For 30+ years, we've delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology as the differentiator.
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