Because most of our clients leverage our expertise for proprietary or internal initiatives, we exercise caution when we discuss our projects. We do understand that prospective clients would like to see examples of our work. The following case study is our attempt to find some middle ground. Please read on to learn how our services helped one of our clients achieve various mission-critical goals.

Disclosure: We presume it's obvious, but minor details in this account have been changed to protect the identity of our client.

The Problem

Acme, Inc. is a well-funded, early stage company that sells specialty widgets on the Internet. When we met Acme, they promoted themselves on a brochure web site, sold their products in a third-party store, and managed their business processes through a third-party application. All these choices made sense back when Acme got started, but as the business grew, things came to a head.

Acme didn't like the third-party marketplace where they sold their widgets. The site couldn't accept their inventory programmatically, so each time Acme made a new widget, it had to be added manually to the store. The process was time-consuming and error-prone. Also, the third-party store didn't provide good statistics on product views. Acme had a hard time figuring out which widgets were generating interest, and worse, it knew very little about its customers.

As bad as things were on the front end, things may have been worse on the back end. Acme was using a one-size-fits-all data and task management software to track inventory, facilitate sales, and run reports. Everything was a struggle. Because the software wasn't really designed for Acme's processes, its employees had to come up with a series of conventions for approximating what they needed. Also, everyone had total access to all the data, meaning the loss of critical information was one accidental click away. It was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Oh, one more thing. Acme was burned by its previous technology partner—big promises, small results—so they wanted to keep expenses under control until the new partner proved it could deliver.

Our Solution

We saw opportunity in Acme's story. Acme had a good handle on its problems and was committed to solving them. They were our kind of client.

First, we needed a plan. Acme had a lot of work that needed to be done, but their desire to keep costs under control prohibited a full-scale rewrite by a team of programmers. Instead, we developed a simple, two-phase process. In phase one, we would produce the minimum amount of functionality that permitted the successful launch of a new public site for selling inventory and a new internal site for managing inventory. In phase two, we would agree on a monthly retainer that made sense for Acme's budget, and new features would be added at Acme's direction.

Next, we needed to figure out what the minimum amount of functionality was. Acme needed their own store—it was the only way they would ever have the level of control they wanted over the sale of their products. Unfortunately, Acme's specialty widgets aren't well-suited for the many off-the-shelf commerce engines available today. Building a robust storefront as a first step was out of the question, but we knew we could build a listing of unsold widgets and some simple search tools for a modest price. Any purchases would have to occur offline, but it was a small, achievable step toward the larger goal. For the new back end application, the minimum amount of functionality was plain. Acme just needed to be able to log into a secure web application where widgets could be added, updated, and deleted. Also, any current inventory would have to be imported from the third-party application to the new custom application.

With a firm idea of our short and long term goals, we designed both user interfaces—allowing plenty of room for feature growth— and established an architectural scheme that would allow Acme to scale up over the coming years. All that remained was to build the applications. One month of coding and constant collaboration later, Acme's new web presence launched.

As we were building the applications in phase one, Acme's sales and marketing consultant had a great idea. Acme was only selling its widgets in one third-party store. The consultant found several other stores that could carry Acme's widgets, and amazingly, all of those stores could accept programmatic entry of widget data. This was big news. By implementing this strategy, Acme could enter its widget inventory in its own system and then effortlessly syndicate that information to over a dozen new markets. Better still, any customer who saw Acme's widgets in one of those stores would be redirected back to Acme's own web site to purchase the item. Everyone was excited.

But Acme was worried. We had already begun the process of queuing up tasks for the first month of phase two. Acme was concerned that we wouldn't let them move this new idea up to the top of a previously prioritized list. They knew that these kinds of changes usually resulted in big fights, where phrases like "scope creep" and "change controls" get thrown around like spears. But we explained that it was fine by us. This was exactly why we developed the plan we had in place. Because Acme bought our time—not deliverables—we would always be willing to change gears when that's what made sense for their business. We both wanted the same thing, to build the best software possible.

Acme's software continues to improve month by month. We're still using the same arrangement, and everyone still loves it.

What's Next?

On the public side, things are going great. The new site looks sharp and is generating more traffic than expected. Acme has gained control over the sale of its own products while continuing to exploit the expanded reach of third-party stores. It's the best of both worlds.

The back end is also coming along nicely. Because Acme decided to fast track the syndication of their inventory, they're still using the third-party application for some of their business processes. At the present rate, we expect them to migrate to the new administrative application in the next few months. We'll get there. That's the beauty of the process—Acme was able to prioritize the work in whatever way that made sense for their needs. They're exactly where they planned to be.

And the future? Well, Acme's talking about doing some exciting things in the next couple of years. We'd love to tell you more, but we want to stay on their good side. You see, we hope we'll be involved. Stay tuned.