Anatomy of a rescue: a case study of how ARDURA Consulting took over and rescued a critical IT project doomed to failure

Imagine a conference room in a large financial sector company. The atmosphere is icy. Sitting around the table are the board of directors, a frustrated Program Manager and an extremely exhausted Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The topic of the meeting is a flagship digital transformation project – a new insurance claims processing platform that was supposed to revolutionize the company.

The project, entrusted a year earlier to an “attractively priced” supplier, is in agony. The original budget has already been exceeded by 200%. The implementation deadline passed six months ago. The application that exists is so full of bugs that it is unsuitable for testing, let alone for production deployment. “Cheap” vendors are demanding more funds for “unforeseen changes,” and the internal IT team is on the verge of burnout trying to put out fires.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. This is a real-life case study in which ARDURA Consulting was called in as a “last resort.” This story is the anatomy of a typical project failure and, at the same time, proof of how strategic partnerships transform chaos into controlled success.

What is an “emergency audit” and why was it the first step to regaining control?

Before we could offer any solution, we had to make a diagnosis. We couldn’t rely on vendor documentation or the subjective opinions of a tired team. We stepped in as a trusted advisor and conducted a quick, surgical “rescue audit.”

Our team of senior architects and QA experts took a deep dive into the source code and architecture. The goal was not to find fault, but to objectively assess the state of the patient. After two weeks, we presented the brutally honest truth to management, showing the scale of the technical debt and the real gaps in security. It was a painful but necessary reset that allowed the Program Manager to understand for the first time where the project really is, not where it should be.

What were the three key mistakes of the original supplier that led to the project’s failure?

Our audit identified three fundamental “cardinal sins” committed by the “low-cost” supplier to win the tender:

1. Lethal lack of analysis: The supplier completely skipped the strategic business analysis phase, assuming that the superficial customer brief was complete. This led to constant “revisions” that were actually uncovering basic requirements.
2. Architectural ignorance: There was a lack of a coherent architecture. The system was “pieced together” on the fly by uncoordinated developers, creating a “spaghetti monolith” – impossible to scale and maintain.
3. Treating quality as an “add-on.” Testing was supposed to take place “at the end.” As a result, the system was so unstable that each new feature spoiled the previous three.

How did we deal with the gigantic technical debt and lack of documentation?

We could not build anything new on such a fragile foundation. We had to stabilize the sinking ship first. We stopped the development of any new features altogether. Our team of senior developers went into “reverse engineering” mode.

Since the documentation was non-existent, our analysts and architects had to reconstruct the business logic by analyzing thousands of lines of tragic code. At the same time, we began the process of refactoring the most critical modules – those that were responsible for 90% of the failures. It was slow, surgical work, replacing rotten foundations under a building that was still inhabited.

Why was the implementation of ARDURA Consulting’s central QA team the key to stability?

In parallel with refactoring, we implemented our independent Application Testing team. This was a breakthrough. This team immediately began building a “safety net” – a set of automated regression tests.

Why was this crucial? Because in the chaos we found, no one knew what really worked. Our automated tests became the “only source of truth.” Before a developer touched any piece of code, he had to first write a test that confirmed the bug, then a test that confirmed the fix – and most importantly, he had to run all the rest of the tests to prove that he hadn’t broken anything else. This was the end of the “blame game” and the beginning of evidence-based engineering.

How did the flexible ‘Team Leasing’ model allow us to take control without further cost escalation?

The client was terrified at the prospect of another rigid “fixed price” contract that had already failed him once. That’s why we implemented our Team Leasing model. Instead of promising an unrealistic “scope” in an unrealistic “budget,” we delivered a close-knit, self-sufficient team of experts (architect + 2 seniors + 2 QA engineers) in a flexible Time & Materials model.

This gave the Program Manager and Procurement Director full control and transparency. They were paying for the real work of the experts, and they could prioritize with us every week. Instead of renegotiating the contract, they simply said, “This week the most important thing is to stabilize module X.” This model allowed us to dynamically allocate resources where the “fire” was greatest, optimizing every penny.

What role did our expertise in cloud migration (Cloud & DevOps) play in the rescue process?

The audit found that the original vendor had tried to deploy the system on poorly configured, expensive on-premise servers. Maintaining this environment was a nightmare.

Our Cloud & DevOps team immediately proposed a change in strategy. Leveraging our global experience, we designed and implemented a modern, scalable architecture in the cloud (Azure). More importantly, we built an entire CI/CD pipeline from scratch that automated the build, test and deployment process.

For the client, it was a revolution. The time to implement the new patch was reduced from a week (full of fear and manual work) to 15 minutes (an automated process). This not only reduced infrastructure costs, but most importantly gave us the speed and security we needed to continue our work.

How did we deal with “vendor lock-in” and proactively transfer knowledge back to the customer?

The previous vendor deliberately created “vendor lock-in” through lack of documentation and use of proprietary “workarounds.” Our goal, as a strategic partner, was full customer autonomy.

Our rescue process was also a process of active knowledge transfer.

1. Documentation as a Priority: every module we refactored was immediately documented in a central knowledge base (Confluence), accessible to the client.
2. Open Standards: We have discarded all “proprietary” solutions, replacing them with open market standards (Open Source) so that the system can be maintained by any competent team.
3. ‘Try & Hire’ model: In parallel with our rescue team, the client hired two developers through us in a Try & Hire model. Our seniors acted as their mentors for 6 months, introducing them to new, clean code. After that time, the client seamlessly took over these specialists, building its own in-house competency team.

What measurable business results did we achieve for the client in 12 months?

Twelve months into the rescue operation, we were able to present the board with hard, measurable business results that proved the ROI of our partnership:

• System Launch: The WMS platform, which had been “undeliverable” for 18 months, was stabilized, tested and put into production within 6 months of our entry.
• Reduction in Critical Errors: The number of production errors (after our implementation) dropped by 98% compared to the previous vendor’s trial implementations.
• Regaining Control of TCO: We stopped the uncontrollable “surplus” of the budget. Continued growth has become predictable. What’s more, migration to the cloud and process optimization have reduced estimated system maintenance costs by 40% per year.
• Elimination of “Vendor Lock-in.” The client regained full autonomy, had documented, tested code based on open standards and its own competent team deployed by us.

How has this rescue operation affected the business perception of IT in the client organization?

This was the biggest, albeit immeasurable, win. For 18 months, management viewed IT as a “black hole” and “cost center.” The project was a source of embarrassment and frustration.

Our approach, based on transparency, predictability (through QA) and continuous communication of results, rebuilt trust. The business saw for the first time that IT could be a partner that delivers on promises, manages risks and speaks the language of measurable benefits. The CTO went from a position of “blame” to a role of “transformation leader.”

What did this story teach us about the true cost of “low-cost” suppliers?

This case study perfectly illustrates the difference between “price” and “cost.” The Purchasing Director, in choosing “CheapSoft,” chose a low price, but bought a gigantic cost in terms of risk, technical debt and lost opportunities.

True TCO is not just the amount on the invoice. It’s also the cost of internal management, the cost of lost time, the cost of lost reputation and the cost of lost revenue from a delayed project. In this case, the “cheap” 1.2 million turned into more than 3 million in real cost and almost led to the strategic failure of the company.

What is the strategic summary of the lessons from this case study?

For leaders facing similar challenges, the lessons from this project are universal. We’ve compiled them in the table below, comparing the two approaches to help Purchasing Directors and CTOs make better decisions.

Case study: anatomy of failure vs anatomy of rescue

Summary: Why is partner selection the most important decision in an IT project?

The story of the company we helped shows that strategy, architecture and quality cannot be spared in digital transformation. Trying to “cut costs” on these foundations is like building a skyscraper without foundations – disaster is only a matter of time.

Choosing a technology partner is not a purchasing decision. It is a strategic decision.

At ARDURA Consulting, we believe that our role is not to be the cheapest code provider. Our role is to be the partner that guarantees the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and minimizes the risk of failure. As a trusted advisor, we go into projects to ensure their success – providing our global expertise in ‘software’ development, testing and management – and prove our value through measurable results.