Blue Acorn ICI

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of e-commerce and marketplace for a footwear brand.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blue Acorn ICI?

We needed help with Magento web development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Blue Acorn ICI s primarily doing frontend web development and design using Magento. They’ve helped us migrate our website from Magento 1 to Magento 2; our in-house developer coordinated the needed work. We’ve also asked them to help us with Google Tech Manager and our Google Analytics setup. 

What is the team composition?

We have around five people on the team, including a project manager, a customer success manager, and a business analyst. Additionally, we’re in contact with the developers.

How did you come to work with Blue Acorn ICI?

My current in-house web development team reached out to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

The relationship went downhill from the beginning. Although the development is okay, their work hasn’t been great, and I can’t judge the code because I’m not a developer. They worked on three websites for us, but two of them were significantly delayed, so we didn’t launch our business on time. Ultimately, our in-house developer had to step in and do the work for them.

How did Blue Acorn ICI address the challenges that arose?

They really struggle. I don’t think they’re skilled enough. In hindsight, I would’ve preferred if they said they couldn’t do it rather than having us invest a lot of time and money.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

We missed a lot of revenue by not launching on time, so it had a significant commercial impact. However, it also had a relationship impact.

How was project management handled?

Project management is terrible. They don’t meet deadlines or communicate what they’re working on and how we’re pacing. The project managers are poorly skilled. We got through four project managers, and a business analyst had to step in to support us.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

No, I don’t have anything positive to say about them. Maybe the developers are good; we haven’t gone through many developers compared to the project managers. However, everything else is awful.

In what specific areas can they improve?

They need to improve their ability to deliver a project on time. 

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Make sure you have a good project manager. Although we escalated to the customer success team, they didn’t do much for us, to be honest. They might have great people within the organization, but the project managers aren’t as great as they should be.