Cocomore AG

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

It’s an anthropological museum based in Frankfurt, [Germany]. We have around 20 people working here. We have one or two exhibitions a year, and a lot of scientific research is done here at the museum, too.

What is your position at this museum?

I’m head of education.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge that you were attempting to address when you first approached Cocomore?

I wasn’t a part of the original process. As far as I know, Cocomore had approached us with their services. We wanted to do something special on the Web, but had limited resources to dedicate to that kind of project. Cocomore offered to deliver a site pro bono, as a kind of demo. We agreed and they carried out the development.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail?

We have a physical laboratory, and the idea was to transfer this onto the Web. They were there to kind of optimize this translation, and to figure out how this would be possible. They provided us with possible solutions, which we then evaluated together. What came from our end was, we had a very distinct thought of how it should look. Our own in-house designers gave them the wireframes and templates they’d need. They used the design schemes we came up with and worked out how to develop a digital laboratory so that people can interact with our content.

We provided specific requirements to Cocomore, and they were responsible for building out the solution based on those requirements. They also provided training and support. We still use them for support on major problems. The initial project was pro bono, but now we need to get funding to continue the relationship, so right now we try to handle any problems ourselves.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this project?

The initial build was free, but our use of their services since have probably summed to around €400,000 [approximately $484,000].

What was the duration of this initial deployment?

The test phase started in the beginning of 2013, and the website launched in June of that year. We continue to use them for training, maintenance, and support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have specific statistics to share. There is a lot of interest in the platform and also the opportunity to participate in the work we do here at the museum. In general, everybody says it’s a good opportunity to take part in, but there are also some difficulties. Sometimes, we hear from people that the design is confusing, and that it’s somewhat difficult to find what they searched for and understand the structure. Sometimes, people don’t want to use it because they feel like they don’t have the knowledge to use it effectively. We’ve been trying to rectify that internally and we’ve been successful for the most part.

In other cases, the new site attracts researchers or experts to the museum, so they can publish their research projects. Other people are interested in using it as a communications platform. So, people are interested, but there are problems in approaching the structure of the platform. These are things we’re going to continue making improvements on. We want to make sure our users can access and use the information they need.

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

Their focus on digital marketing is exceptional, too. They have great technical skills at their disposal, but also some great creative and design talent. Being able to take advantage of a greater range of skills is nice, and it eliminates a lot of other challenges that arise during Web projects. Another great thing was their communication. We never had an issue with miscommunication or unresponsiveness. We always felt like we had access to their team, which was nice from a support standpoint.

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

I think the financing should have been clearer from the beginning. They satisfied their commitment to do the pro bono work, but now we have to find financing for the ongoing optimization and support. Maybe Cocomore should have stressed the fact that it’s a major, ongoing financial commitment. That’s more of a service-level recommendation because had we known there were expenses beyond the original scope, we might have reconsidered how we approached the web project to begin with.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

I work for a daughter company of the German Engineering Association, which is a rather large national association with 500 employees. We have 15 people, and we are coming from a publishing background. We publish books, all sorts of contracts for engineering companies. We’ve evolved into a kind of in-house agency during the past five years, which means we are doing more and more online stuff in business like websites and internal and external communications.

What is your position?

I’m the managing director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge you were attempting to address when you first approached Cocomore?

The challenge is one that all publishers have. Our historic business model of selling paid content and selling ads in our member magazine, declined more and more. We needed to find new ways of generating revenues. Our strategy, which was in accordance with the association as a whole, is to evolve into an in-house agency, providing the 38 sub-associations with communications, content, tools, and media services. The initial challenge for us was that all of the guys, including myself, came from a pure print background. We had absolutely no online expertise. We didn’t really know how to deal with big databases, Web services, and stuff like that. We knew we needed to find a qualified technology partner so we could leverage their knowledge.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail?

The first project they were given was to make a clone of an existing site, so it wasn’t from scratch. They were given an existing site, and we asked them to rebuild the site in a Drupal environment. They had rather tight restrictions regarding visual creative development. They rebuilt the site to our specifications and then trained our staff after deployment. One thing that was very important to me was to becoming independent of Cocomore after the project. We didn’t want to be tied and completely reliant on an external vendor. 

How did you find and select Cocomore as your solution partner?

In the very beginning, there was the decision of which CMS [content management system] to use. This was a completely in-house process, and we have an advisory board and member companies. The member companies have people with technical and digital communications expertise. This means I made a proposal that the committee then approved, and gave the go-ahead to use Drupal. Once we decided on Drupal, we needed to find a vendor that could fulfill our technical needs.

I came across an article in a developer’s magazine, which was written by a Drupal employee. I found the article very attractive, as it seemed they were working on the most important things for me. Another thing that was very important was that the agency be based in Frankfurt, where we’re also located. I didn’t want to work with an agency that was located more than 100 miles away from Frankfurt. It was essential to be within one or two hours of the people that would be working on my projects. Cocomore submitted a great proposal and I decided to interview their team and provide them with additional information. We ultimately felt very comfortable with their approach and previous work, so we decided to give them a shot.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this particular engagement?

The initial project was about $10,000. We now have projects with them that are six figures. We’ve evolved from a mere $10,000 to within the range of $100,000-300,000.

When was this project completed?

We maintain an ongoing relationship with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were using an agile development method, so we had two-week sprint meetings using scrum. If you work with this project method, it’s just very transparent. It gives you a lot of information about how many story points you estimated for a project, and how many you really needed. At the beginning of our projects, they provided us with detailed Excel sheets. Then as the project became bigger, Cocomore realized that Excel wasn’t really sufficient, especially in terms of collaboration. They changed to JIRA, using Green Hopper as a plug-in for JIRA, and they trained us to use it. It was a great tool. Our assignments were always delivered to us on time and to specifications. All of their code was tested and viable, which was great, too. We had no issues with their performance.

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

What makes them great, in my opinion, is that they have reached a certain size. This makes them able to provide customers like myself with a lot of expertise in different fields like usability and e-commerce, which are important for our Web projects. This is always a problem if you have a specialized, small agency. They’re great at completed very specialized tasks, but if comes to usability they might say that’s not within their scope. That means you’d have to find someone else, which isn’t ideal and certainly isn’t efficient. That’s where Cocomore demonstrates the most value and strength: the breadth and depth of their talent pool.

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

That’s hard for me to say. I have a really great account director. He’s very fast, he’s on time, and he’s on budget. I know from other activities that this is not representative of the whole company, so I have to be very cautious.

Regarding improvements, sometimes you have developers that stick with the scrum process. If there’s a moment in the project where the account director is not available, and you need a quick decision on a relatively small task, I would expect a developer or a CSS [cascading style sheets] guy to be able to approve a small change. One or two of their developers were not willing to take on that responsibility, which means that we’re forced to wait. That can be frustrating.

I believe a little more flexibility would have been appropriate, but it’s very hard to evaluate this from an outside perspective, not knowing how the people are related within Cocomore. Sometimes even if it’s only a $100 decision, if that developer would do as I wanted, he might then not stick to the Cocomore in-house rules. As a client I want the utmost flexibility, but I have to accept that sometimes that the service providers have their own rules.