Epsilon

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your company?

Pacific Union is a leading luxury real estate brokerage in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re also the fastest growing brokerage in the Bay Area. We provide predominately residential real estate services, but we also do commercial real estate as well as have partnerships and joint ventures in property management, mortgage services, and insurance.

What is your position?

I’m the vice president of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with SolutionSet?

There were two main challenges. Number one, we felt a real need to step away from some of the older tools of the trade. For example, we wanted to move away from paper dependent documentation processes and transition to a purely digital process. We needed to allow our real estate agents to create these client-facing presentation tools in a very fast, simple, and reliable way. The tools that we had were neither fast, nor simple, nor reliable. They were able to create presentations with these tools, but they were antiquated, clunky, certainly not elegant, and definitely not reliable. 

The challenge is that whatever system we decided to build still has to adapt to legacy print constraints. We were hoping to create a tool that could publish across three separate channels: to an iPad app, to the Web, and to old-fashioned paper.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project? For instance, did it involve custom visual design, backend development, training, or support?

We partnered with SolutionSet to give them our wish list and our requirements. They took on responsibility for everything from designing the aesthetic frontend to enhancing our backend functionality.

We also collaborated closely with them on content development. We produced most of the original content, but they provided great recommendations, guidelines, and frameworks for us to follow. They’ve conducted training seminars with our staff in order to instruct us on best practices related to our Sitecore CMS [content management system]. We also have them on retainer for ongoing support and maintenance.

How did you select SolutionSet as your technology partner?

We distributed an RFP [request for proposal] to a variety of potential vendors. Having received proposals from our select vendors, we were quite impressed with what SolutionSet brought to the table in terms of their core competencies and their success as well as their willingness to dive into something that they weren’t entirely familiar with. The real estate market is an incredibly tricky beast, but it didn’t intimidate their team. Quite simply, they had the most compelling response to our proposal. We were confident that they’d be a trustworthy and reliable technology partner, and they’ve yet to disappoint us.

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

It was roughly three-quarters of a million dollars.

When was this project completed?

We went into beta launch in October of last year [2013].

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?

I don’t have any specific statistics or figures. What I can tell you, from anecdotal feedback, is that it’s been very well received from our real estate agents. We have a number of agents who have not only adopted the tool, but also embraced it to the point where they are no longer using print whatsoever in any of their presentations. If you know the world of real estate, you understand that’s hugely significant.

One thing that’s also worth calling attention to is how responsive SolutionSet has been when we’ve had feedback from our agents on things they’d like to see changed, or what they would consider glitches, or things that don’t work the way they want them to work. SolutionSet has been outstanding about partnering with us to make revisions, feature improvements and functional changes based on the requests that we’re getting from the field.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think SolutionSet could improve upon, or are there things you’d do differently as the client before initiating this type of project?

I have to say that SolutionSet have been fantastic. They’ve been great collaborators. They have solid oversight on their processes. They provide detailed reports and documentation. The fact that the cost got a lot higher than we had hoped for wasn’t so much a function of anything that SolutionSet did or didn’t do. It’s much more a function of us not being clear on budget limitations, the scope of what we wanted to accomplish, and perhaps deciding to be more aggressive on the implementation timeline. We’re 99 percent thrilled with everything that they’ve done thus far. They’ve been fabulous. This is the first time we’ve undertaken a project of this scale and scope, and it hasn’t been nearly as painful as I first expected it to be. That has everything to do with SolutionSet. 

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your company?

We’re the California State Lottery. We’re a sales and marketing organization that provides lottery products to the players of California.

What is your position?

I’m the chief of application services and the contract manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with SolutionSet?

Initially, our public website was an extremely stagnant, information only type of website. We wanted something that was going to be more interactive and more dynamic. We were looking for the future, something that was going to be able to support millions of players interacting with our site. We needed to be able to support all of our future sales initiatives.  

The other big challenge for us was that we simply didn’t have the skills and knowledge within our IT department to remain competitive in the online space.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project? For example, did it involve custom design, backend development, training, and ongoing support?

They designed and developed a public website that has single sign on capability.

They provided full support for our system development lifecycle. They created the visual designs. They conducted page reviews and usability assessments. They did backend development. They performed our implementation up until maintenance, which is what they’re currently providing.

How did you choose SolutionSet as your solution partner?

We conducted a rigorous RFP process and evaluated multiple bids. There was a lot of interest, so we went through a comprehensive process that lasted nine months or longer.

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

It was an $8 million contract during a three-year period, which ranged from conception to deployment to ongoing support.

When was the project completed?

February of 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head. I don’t want to quote something that’s not accurate. I don’t know how many millions of people we have visiting the site on a daily basis. I don’t have those specific numbers, but it was a dramatic improvement, and our website is heavily utilized. It’s growing with each passing day.

In retrospect, do you think that Sitecore sufficiently meets your business needs?

I would say sufficiently, yes.

How do you believe SolutionSet performed on the implementation of your CMS?

When they implemented that, we went through our normal process of user training and knowledge transfer. We probably had some documentation from them, but I would call that more of an ongoing process as we found out that we could customize items. There were some initial challenges. Part of that was probably just the knowledge transfer using a new system and supporting a website that was obsolete.

Our online marketing group is also not very technical. That contributed to the initial challenges of learning how to work within Sitecore and understand it, too. Overall, it was a successful implementation, and I was very satisfied with the final result. Challenges arise no matter what vendor you’re using.

When working with SolutionSet, is there anything you would consider unique or special about them compared to other service providers you’ve worked with?

SolutionSet has been an outstanding partner. They seem to be extremely skilled in Web development. It’s been a very, very positive relationship for us, which is different from some of the other vendors we’ve dealt with. They’re very professional. They follow best practices in most cases, and that’s really their forte. It’s quite obvious that they’re very skilled at what they do.

In retrospect, are there any areas that you think they could improve upon, or are there things you might do differently as the client before approaching this type of project?

From the department perspective, I think that they would have liked things to be more on a deliverable base. Doing this type of Web development work is kind of an iterative process. That means things can cost more than people in the business, our customers, expect it to cost. That’s a real challenge. It’s just a constraint in the industry.