C3 Forestry Receivals: Turning a Stalled Project into a Scalable Success

The Problem

Six months of investment with almost nothing to show for it.

C3 Forestry Receivals was facing a common but painful SME challenge: a critical modernisation project that had stalled under the weight of a previous consultancy’s over-complication:

• The Money Pit: After six months of work and a significant budget spend, progress was minimal and the business was no closer to a solution.
• Architectural Debt: The existing work lacked scalability and was built on an overly complex foundation that hindered maintainability.
• Velocity Issues: Development had slowed to a crawl, leaving the business exposed to operational inefficiencies and unable to plan for future growth.

The leadership team needed to stop the “sunk cost” cycle and find a partner who could actually deliver results, not just reports.

The Solution

A clean slate and a focus on high-velocity delivery.

We took over tech leadership and executed a full rebuild of the Forestry Receivals platform, prioritising speed and long-term reliability:

• Simplified Cloud Infrastructure: We migrated to AWS CDK and modern frontend stacks, stripping away unnecessary complexity to make the system easier (and cheaper) to manage.
• Developer-First Tooling: By integrating LocalStack, we enabled local testing that slashed AWS costs and allowed our team to code and test features at twice the speed.
• Built from the Ground Up: We scrapped the broken logic and built a high-quality, fully functional API from scratch, ensuring a solid foundation for the next decade.
• Pragmatic Leadership: We didn’t just write code; we provided the architectural guardrails needed to ensure the system would grow without becoming another “legacy mess.”

Our focus was on cutting through the noise to deliver a system that worked for the business, not just for the developers.

The Results

Delivering in two months what others couldn’t in six.

The “rescue mission” didn’t just save the project; it provided a blueprint for how C3 builds software moving forward:

• Unmatched Speed to Value: We achieved more in two months than the previous team did in half a year, finally giving the business the tools they had paid for.
• Budget & Schedule Win: The project was completed ahead of the revised schedule and strictly within budget, ending the cycle of endless billing.
• Future-Proof Foundations: The new architecture is scalable and maintainable, meaning C3 can now add features in days rather than weeks.
• Operational Empowerment: With a system that actually works, the Forestry Receivals team has seen an immediate boost in operational velocity and data accuracy.

This project is a prime example of how decisive tech leadership and a “no-nonsense” approach can turn a failing investment into a modern, high-performing asset.