VIEWAPP: Successful Pilot Launch and Scaling of Digital Inspections

Over the years of working with digital inspections, we have implemented them in companies of very different scales — from small teams to large federal and ecosystem players. These included insurance companies, banks, leasing companies, and service providers, each with its own IT landscape, process maturity, and level of business readiness for change. It is through successful projects — not theoretical models — that we have developed a solid understanding of what a digital inspection pilot should actually look like if the goal is not simply to “try it out,” but to implement and scale it.

Throughout this experience, we have repeatedly observed the same scenario: a desire to start “carefully,” with a small selected group, test the process on a few users, collect feedback, and only then decide whether to scale. Formally, this approach is considered traditional and “safe.” In practice, however, it almost always leads to distorted conclusions and slows the project down.

What a working pilot really looks like

In real operations, digital inspections do not exist in laboratory conditions. They function within existing underwriting or claims methodologies, inside core information systems, under real load, with real users who are not motivated to “help the product,” but simply to get their job done. A pilot detached from the real environment therefore fails to reveal either the weak points or the true strengths of the process.

A small test group almost always behaves differently from a mass user base.

• First, it operates under increased attention from management, project teams, and vendors.
• Second, participants are aware that they are “testing a product” and begin to evaluate it not as a working tool, but as an object of expertise.
• Third, such a group inevitably amplifies the influence of individual voices — those who are louder, more critical, or simply more persistent.

As a result, isolated opinions start to be perceived as systemic problems.

In practice, this looks like the following: three to five people describe the scenario as “too complex,” the form as “intimidating,” and the process as “inconvenient,” and the project comes to a halt. Endless revisions begin, simplifications “just in case,” and discussions of hypothetical risks. Scaling is postponed, and the digital inspection gradually gains a reputation as a complex and problematic solution — before it has even started operating in reality.

It is also important to remember that adopting any new tool within existing business processes almost inevitably encounters conservatism and resistance to changing familiar routines. This is a normal systemic reaction, not an indicator of solution quality. In the context of a small test group, this effect is multiplied: participants are predisposed to look for shortcomings, compare everything to habitual processes, and present resistance as “objective criticism.” 

In a mass pilot, this dynamic is smoothed out — most users are not engaged in evaluating the product, they simply perform their tasks. This is precisely why a mass launch makes it possible to separate natural resistance to change from real issues in the scenario and to avoid making decisions based on emotional rejection of something new.

Our experience consistently shows the opposite of the “careful pilot” logic: the most stable and successful implementations always began with a mass pilot.

A mass pilot is not a rejection of testing. It is the first launch in a real production environment on a sufficiently large sample for data to become statistics rather than emotion. These are hundreds or thousands of inspections performed by ordinary users under normal conditions. There is no sense of exclusivity or special status — just standard operation, supported by VIEWAPP client managers on a daily basis.

In such a pilot, the key insights become immediately visible.

• Which steps truly prevent inspections from being completed, and which are simply unfamiliar.
• Which fields generate recurring questions, and which do not matter at all.
• Where support receives repeated requests, and where complaints are isolated and non-reproducible.

If, out of ten thousand inspections, one hundred users consistently complain about the same field, this is a justified signal for change. If three people from a “pilot group” believe that “everything is bad,” this is not objective data.

A mass pilot also removes another important illusion — the idea that scenario complexity is a problem in itself. A digital inspection reflects a company’s methodology. If that methodology is complex, formally defined, approved, and mandatory, the digital scenario cannot be “simple for the sake of simplicity.” Simplification only makes sense when it is based on actual usage and confirmed by mass feedback, not on visual impressions or assumptions.

It is also worth highlighting the role of solution architecture. In projects where integration is limited to creating inspections and collecting materials, while scenarios and forms remain independent, the company gains a rare degree of flexibility. It becomes possible to launch with the current methodology, collect data, modify steps, remove or add fields without triggering a new cycle of integration work. Such an architecture is designed from the outset for a mass pilot and gradual adjustment, rather than endless “polishing to perfection” before launch.

Ultimately, a true digital inspection pilot is not a small selected group or a cautious trial. It is a controlled mass launch in a real environment. It requires readiness to work with support, make rapid adjustments, and base decisions on data. In return, it provides an honest picture, reduces scaling risks, and allows digital inspections to become a working tool rather than a perpetual experiment.

This conclusion is not theoretical. It has been formed through projects that were successfully implemented and genuinely scaled. That is why we consider the mass pilot not an alternative, but the only correct form of testing digital inspections.