Bright Interactive

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a medium enterprise, turnover just less than 5 million pounds a year. We employ approximately 75 to 80 people, and we are electrical contractors specializing in repairs and maintenance. Our clients range from local authorities, government departments, [and] housing associations.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m a director. I cover rules, compliances, IT [information technology], and infrastructure.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Bright Interactive?

Management of our administration. Initially, we were on a purely manual system, and Bright helped us develop our IT system and the applications that we run which enable us to cover or accommodate somewhere in the region of 35,000 to 40,000 individual jobs each year. Before them, we were struggling to cover 10,000 to 15,000 on the manual system.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They provide us with web hosting, IT support, IT development. They also connect us with third-party IT providers, as in handheld PDA [personal digital assistant] technology.

What was your process for selecting Bright Interactive with which to work?

They were recommended to us.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Historically, about 150,000 pounds ($250,306)

When did you start working with Bright Interactive?

We have worked with Bright probably since 2005, but it was previously through a third party. Later on, we contacted Bright directly, and that was four years ago. Our relationship is still ongoing with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

Their last project was moving forward with the Web hosting, and that’s gone ahead very successfully. It’s enabled us to do remote working and file sharing without any problems. Before their work, we previously hosted the website ourselves.

How well do you think they have performed overall?

Outstanding.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They give it to you up front, they tell you how long a task will take. To date, they’ve never underestimated or overestimated a job. They come in on budget and on time.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your company?

We’re based in the southwest of England. We arrange challenges for groups or independent travelers. A lot of our customers are charities or corporate agencies who want to collect money, basically fundraise for charity projects. Some of our challenges include the Kilimanjaro trek, the Everest Base Camp, and trek to the Great Wall of China. We travel all around the world with these organized groups.

What is your position?

I’m the office manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you first approached Bright Interactive?

I believe the biggest challenge was in setting our initial goals of what we wanted to achieve, mainly because we had an old database that needed to be replaced. We weren’t entirely sure what was going to be realistic and feasible. Bright Interactive came in and helped us really define the requirements and scope the project deployment. We knew we needed a new site but, outside of that, we were really at a loss.

SOLUTION

How did you select Bright Interactive as your solution partner for this endeavor?

I believe we sent out project descriptions to two or three different companies we’d identified through some basic online research. Bright Interactive was one of those companies, and they ended up submitting the most compelling proposal. We invited them to demo some of their previous work and go over their process with us, and we pretty much took it from there. 

Could you describe the scope of work in greater detail?

Like I said, they were involved in everything. They came in and talked about our short- and long-term Web strategy. They helped us define our functional requirements and scope out the deployment. Once we’d reached a consensus on how we wanted to move forward, they began the process of actually designing and developing the site. They handled all of the technical details, including the data preparation and migration, the systems integration and configuration, hosting setup, testing, quality assurance, content optimization, tagging, information architecture and ongoing support.

Do you recall which platform on which you chose to build your website?

It’s a Django-based website.

Had you selected Django as your preferred CMS [content management system] prior to approaching Bright Interactive?

No. Because we didn’t have any real experience in the space. There’s no way we could have chosen a technology. They recommended we use Django after discussing our business processes and how we wanted to manage our site content going forward. We trusted their suggestion and went ahead with a Django site. 

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was about $150,000 in total.

Do you remember when the site was launched?

It was completed in October of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work?

Our staff members have been quite pleased with the site, especially with the most recent developments. They’re beginning to see how the system is saving time for them and producing documentation for passengers. All organizational feedback has been exceedingly positive. The usability of the site is far superior to our previous site, which was temperamental at times and very unreliable.

When working with Bright Interactive, is there anything you’d consider unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors?

They have a wonderful approach to Scrum sprints. We found it very easy to integrate their workflow with ours because we do really adhere to Scrum and find the results to be far better. They pay close attention to detail, which is fantastic. We’ve found that a lot of the big issues that end up arising during a launch are very simple, but very obscure code flaws. Bright Interactive catches 99 percent of coding errors in their testing and review. When things do slip, they’re extremely responsive when it comes to bug fixes.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think Bright Interactive could improve upon as a service provider?

No. They’ve been very responsive when we’ve gone in with tweaks and small changes. They’ve been very supportive of our needs, and they’re able to offer considerable insight into our overall Web strategy.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your company?

I work for a small firm that offers digital asset management solutions to clients. We land the clients, we secure them, and we help them organize their digital assets. In other words, we organize their photos, videos, and graphics files.

What's your position?

I'm the owner and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you first approached Bright Interactive?

When we first started, about eight years ago, we were exploring different software solutions out there. We were in the preliminary stages of development with five or six different solutions. We were recommending different ones for different clients. We were finding that we were getting bogged down because we couldn't be authoritative on any single software solution that we were providing for our clients.

We found Bright Interactive through a Web search, and we clicked on a personal scale, on a business scale, and on a product scale. We're based in Canada, so we needed a multilingual solution. There were very few multilingual solutions out there at the time. They were one of the few, so it seemed natural to go with them.

About two years after that, I decided that when we provide a solution, our first choice is to go with our Asset Bank solution, which is the one we utilize the most and know the most extensively. Frankly, the support that we got from Bright Interactive is what I needed for my clients.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of work they've delivered over the course of the relationship?

We've had different customizations performed by them. They've all been completed very rapidly. We do a lot of our work using Adobe products: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, etc. There is the ability to map out a hierarchical structure, which my librarian creates, and then that gets mapped directly into Asset Bank's instance, so it would automatically populate the assets into the base terms. They have helped a lot in the redevelopment of their skin to accommodate the user interface. A colleague of mine just had them do some development work updating metadata fields. Most of their work has revolved around custom development and modifications of our solution.

We actually host some of our solutions on our own servers here in Canada. Some clients can't use their hosting solutions in England, so Bright Interactive has helped me set up and configure the server in the correct ways. That's well beyond the scope of basic or even custom development. They've helped us set up servers the way I'd like them, and then they deploy Asset Bank on those servers with backup systems, and different FTP [file transfer protocol] portals. I knew they could really go above and beyond, which is why I felt confident in hiring them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We've probably invested around $5,000 to $10,000 on their services.

How long has your relationship remained ongoing?

We've had a relationship since 2007 or 2008.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they've delivered?

Everything has been highly successful. Our main performance metric is whether or not our end clients have been happy with their solutions. They have been in every single instance. We haven't had a failed attempt or a misfire yet. They're extremely competent folks there, and they're always willing to go above and beyond to ensure their clients are satisfied.

When working Bright Interactive, is there anything you'd consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

They're really good at upgrading and customizing systems. They listen to you, which is also nice. They're not just saying, "Yeah, yeah." They're actually listening, writing it down, and then thinking about it. They're not super fast moving. It's not like they're chasing shiny things all over the place. There's an 80 percent comfort to that. That would be one thing that I really do appreciate in the long-term. Sometimes, in the short term, it's frustrating: why can't you do this? They are very methodical and attentive, which creates a very solid project. If timeline is stringent, I can see issues arising, but if this is going to be a complex, thorough deployment, they can definitely handle it. There have been very few hiccups over the years. There have been a few of instances when a new release has caused a significant hiccup.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think Bright Interactive could improve as a service provider?

When I first started with them, their documentation practices were somewhat poor. There was a certain learning curve to it. The documentation at the time wasn't up to snuff. What that would mean is that I'd be paying them for a lot of small things, because I couldn't find the answers to it. They've since brought out a knowledge base and much better documentation on that.

Sometimes, being based in the U.K. was problematic. If it's two o'clock in the afternoon here, they're not there. However, that's always been compensated for by five o'clock in the morning on the very next day, and the solution would be on my desk. It took time to acclimate to those circumstances. Before I start a new project, I acclimatize my client to those circumstances, too. If there's a support issue, I will mitigate it first. If it's above and beyond any skill set, I'll say, "You know what, we'll have an answer for you before you even awaken." I do believe they're acting on that, as well, in terms of providing a North American coverage on their support or they're about to.

I was talking about that 80 percent there. There's always that 20 percent that maybe they should offer a couple of other bells, but that's more of client pressure. "How come there's not a mobile app yet?" I know they're working on it. Other people have it, but I know other vendors have a mobile app, but no one's using. They're very thorough in their research, what they should put a head in, again, not chasing the shiny.