Oshyn

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT project manager of a nonprofit organization that provides certification and learning for critical care nurses.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

We had a CMS created by an external vendor that was convoluted. We needed help cleaning it up and reconfiguring the settings.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide mostly consulting work for our Sitecore CMS. We typically find a problem and they give us guidance on how to reconfigure the system to our liking. Sometimes they’ll help us remove functionality that we’re not using. In the near future, they’ll be helping us migrate from our version to the latest version once we get all of the bugs ironed out.

What is the team composition?

We work with 4–6 people from their team, including a project manager, a senior systems architect, a VP of technology, and a handful of developers.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

When I came on board, we interviewed three companies. Of those three, Oshyn was far and away the easiest to interact with. They’re also platinum certified by Sitecore.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000–$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2019, and our work ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Whenever we have an issue or a bug, Oshyn is able to take care of it. Our team of content editors is definitely pleased with the lack of bugs, especially since the content we have on the site pertains to COVID-19; it’s great that all of that information is visible.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re awesome. I’ve been in this business 25–30 years and I don’t think I’ve worked with anyone better. It’s almost like working with an in-house team. We use Jira and Microsoft Projects for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their level of expertise and ability to speak to both developers and executives is excellent. The team is really easy to deal with and they’re very smart. They deliver constantly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, at this point I don’t think that they could. They’re really great to work with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to know what you want. Don’t expect them to give you all the answers and do some due diligence on your part.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re Carmichael International Service. We established in 1960 as a family-owned business, which continued until they were sold to a corporation called KWE, Kintetsu World Express. We’re in business logistics as a customs broker, meaning we clear commercial goods for our customers through customs as they come into the country.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

They were our web developers about 20 years ago when we created our website. We hadn’t changed the site since then as it worked and provided the data our customers needed. The time came to do a refresh to give us a new look and feel and to add functionalities. Our customers were beginning to feel that we weren’t investing in technology since we had the same website for 20 years without adding any new tools.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The biggest ask was to update the code on the site since the current technologies and platforms available didn’t support it. They ended up rewriting the entire website from scratch with more modern code. We upgraded the site to .NET.

We collaborated on wireframes at the beginning of the project. They’re not in the shipping business but they were familiar with our product. We drove the wireframes but they gave a lot of input based on what they were seeing in the market. They were able to lay the foundation to help us get to our goal, technology-wise.

Our new product had to be compatible with all the browsers and mobile devices and desktops out there, and their expertise ensured it was possible. They also provided all the color schemes via their designer.

What is the team composition?

I had one project manager, two senior developers, and 3-4 standard developers. There were 6-7 people in total.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

We reached out to them again, as they were familiar with our website and backend system that requires expertise. Not every web developer can manage it so we didn’t put it out to bid. Once we heard that some of the developers of our original website were still there we signed with them again. It was very seamless.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $800,000 on the redevelopment. The project was broken out into two sections. We launched half of it in 2019. This part ran under a time and materials model. In the end, we went over budget since there wasn’t a fixed price. We kept going until the project was finished. During the second half, we were more careful and budgeted based on their quote.

What is the status of this engagement?

The website redevelopment has been ongoing since November 2018. The site is live and they’re now providing maintenance.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve gotten excellent feedback on the website that has helped us win new business. We sent out a survey last week as well and we’re waiting for the results to come in. Through webinars with customers that show them how to use the site, we’ve heard great feedback about how new and fresh everything is.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

They were on point. They had a great project manager who went the extra mile on things we didn’t anticipate. There were a lot of cost-savings from them because of project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been very professional. Every time we brought up something and they came up within deadline with a couple of options. They did a great job as far as timing and ideas are concerned. I’d give them all five stars on those.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I think they were pretty good. They kept us on our toes, pushing for answers when our pace was slowing them down. Even with our challenges, they were able to deliver the product on time.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The product they give you speaks for itself. The quality of the work they’ve delivered is on point. They know what they’re talking about and what’s relevant in the industry, and they demonstrate that in the products they create.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO at DMC Global, a 400-million-dollar global manufacturing company. It’s a holding firm that owns independent manufacturing companies. We have locations in various states as well as offices in the US and Europe.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

We needed development support for our content management platform, which manages our three web properties. We didn’t have the technical resources inhouse, so we relied on Oshyn for web development after an independent contractor failed to do the job.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Oshyn developed our content management system (CMS) on Sitecore. I believe it utilizes .NET and C# as the primary backend languages. Depending on the sub-project, we’ll send them wireframes or mockups that are designed by another vendor. We also engage with them on a ticket-basis, where they resolve issues that pop up.

What is the team composition?

We have four resources: one technical lead and three support teammates.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

We actually received a cold-call email from them. It was lucky timing because we just happened to be looking for Sitecore resources. I reached out to them and started them off on a couple of minor projects. They’ve done very well, so we continue to engage them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $80,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing relationship began in January 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They’ve demonstrated their technical competency. They’ve been able to quickly resolve issues that couldn’t be handled by our previous contractor. We were astonished when they fixed problems we’ve had for months, in just a couple of days.

In addition to just making things work, Oshyn receives rave reviews from our internal team. The feedback from stakeholders as well as our internal organization has been immensely positive. Our marketing team always has great things to say about them.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

We receive weekly reports and use n inhouse ticketing system to manage our sprints. They’ve been good at leveraging project management tools. They’ve been effective at monitoring and keeping our backlog down.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have a great working relationship, so they feel like a true partner. They’re very flexible and are willing to work with us—especially during this pandemic when budgets are tight. They’ve been accommodating about negotiating terms and can quickly adapt to business needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. We’ve been very happy with their work. We’d like to see them branch out to offer web design, but we understand that that’s not really their model.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try them out first. Make sure that they’re a good fit for whatever you’re trying to accomplish. That way, you’ll get a sense of how you work together before committing to a long-term partnership.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are Dole Packaged Foods, and my position is the digital marketing manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

Our company got a new president, so we were going through some significant changes as an entire company. We lost our agency of record in the process, and Oshyn has stepped in since then to support us through this time of change while we look for a more permanent solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They do all of the support work on dolesunshine.com, our brand website. That has included things like taking control of and auditing the Sitecore backend, as well as adding new products to our pages, which requires them to wear the hat of a creative agency as well.

I’ve been able to provide them with a lot of our internal files and they have used those to implement everything on our website to maintain the stability of our campaigns and operations without us having to bring in a bunch of other outside agencies.

What is the team composition?

We work with a pretty small team on their end. There is a direct account person that I talk to and then there are about 3–4 individuals total working behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

Our agency of record recommended them because of their experience with Sitecore, so when that relationship ended, I reached out to them to see if they could help.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent a little over $500,000 with their agency so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began around October 2018 and is still ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The end result of the project has been more about the stability of the site. We had a lot of issues with it going down because of the fact that it’s hardcoded and couldn’t support all of our media campaigns, but they’ve been able to almost completely stabilize things by transitioning us to an Azure-based technology. We’ve been really satisfied with what they’ve delivered so far.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is one of the biggest factors in why we’ve kept them on for so long. They talk to us about everything and always keep us in the loop. We used to use JIRA to track project management, and they still keep that so that we can monitor things there if needed, but for the most part, we communicate through phone and email.

Occasionally that can fall on the tech-heavy side, but they typically do a good job of translating those needs to language that our marketing team can understand so that we can keep track of what they’re working on and recommending.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team moves incredibly quickly, and I can always count on them to be there when I need them to get something done. They are always willing to jump in and do whatever needs to be done. It can be hard to find that kind of dedication among third party vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Since we’re used to working with larger agencies, it is a little bit weird for us not to have a creative person in-house on their end, but that’s not what they do so it’s not really something I would blame them for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re great at explaining things to help you understand them, so don’t be afraid to ask them questions whenever you need more information on what’s going on.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was a senior technical project manager at Dailey & Associates, which is an advertising agency located in Los Angeles.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

We mainly worked on one of our third-party client’s websites. Their site was unstable and crashing every day.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Oshyn helped us to stabilize the site. They implemented automated deployments. We upgraded the CMS. We did a lot of infrastructure changes to help stabilize the site. We also did a GDPR implementation and worked on ADA accessibility implementation.

The technologies and platforms that Oshyn used on the site were Azure, Sitecore, Azure Search, Azure PaaS and .NET. During my time working with Oshyn, we upgraded to Sitecore version nine and moved to the client's Azure account, upgrading it as well.

What is the team composition?

There were 2–3 main team members. Gustavo (Business Strategy, Oshyn) was fantastic. He had a very good attitude and was always on top of things. He was very detail-oriented and I loved working with him.

I also worked with a backend developer who was wonderful to work with, patiently explaining things to me and my partners. I mostly went through Gustavo though, he relayed information to everyone.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

My boss had a relationship with Oshyn prior to me coming on board.

How much have you invested with them?

The budget was fairly significant, they worked on the site for about 300 hours per month. The cost was over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with Oshyn from January–August 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The site’s speed increased by 50% and the site was much more stable. It wasn’t going down anymore. The client was very happy with the work and very proud of it.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira, and Gustavo was my point of contact. He was fantastic, always easy to work with, and always met deadlines. They were always pretty accurate with cost estimates as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were the subject matter experts for the site stabilization efforts. All of their recommendations were very accurate. They’re professionals with a lot of expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They had an operations person who wasn’t easy to work with. That’s not a knock on Oshyn — they did a fantastic job.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Audio Digest publishes audio formats of medical lectures as well as accompanying continuing medical education material. I was the company’s VP of technology from 2012-2018.

For what projects/services did your company hire Oshyn?

We first engaged Oshyn to help us move our e-commerce site to the Sitecore CMS. The success of that project led us to partner with them for all of our development projects for the next five years, from more e-commerce work and web design to web and app development.

What were your goals for this project?

The overarching goal was to replace our legacy site and rebuild our entire web presence on Sitecore. Although many facets had to be reconstructed piece by piece, we wanted to create a seamless user transition from the old platform to the new. Our e-commerce and product entitlements also needed to be integrated with our subscription fulfillment system. 

How did you select this vendor?

Our Sitecore representative recommended them. One of three or four potential partners that I interviewed, Oshyn immediately impressed me with their combination of technical skill, knowledge, and client acumen. They displayed an innate ability to listen, understand our business issues, and contribute ideas that would help us move forward.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Oshyn was a full-service development partner. For each new project, they developed both the graphic and technical designs, managed all Sitecore development and QA testing, and released the product into our infrastructure, which they also maintained.

What was the team composition?

The team composition fluctuated over time as the projects on evolved. Based on the work and timeline at hand, anywhere from two to six additional developers would augment the core team of a technical architect, business analyst, project manager, and a UX designer.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We were very satisfied with Oshyn’s results, as was apparent with our continued partnership. The new product platform they helped us create hosted roughly 30,000 paying subscribers, multiple Android and iOS apps, and an e-commerce site that enabled us to sell our products in various ways. The highest subscription product on the legacy site sold for $400 a year; we were able to sell the on-demand subscription products available on the new platform for up to $2000 a year.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Oshyn has always been very efficient and responsive. We communicated constantly using Skype, Jira, and Confluence for project management, and regular status calls helped both sides stay synchronized. Their mix of on-shore and offshore resources was hardly noticeable; there were no language issues and their Ecuador location was in our time zone. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Oshyn was able to meet all of our needs, even as those needs evolved. They not only provided the in-depth development expertise necessary for technically complex projects, but they also contributed greatly to design-specific projects, offering pinpointed suggestions for best practices and potential pitfalls. They pride themselves on their service and treated our business as their own. 

Are there any areas where they can improve?

The relationship grew over the years to the benefit of both parties. We immediately rectified the occasional lapse in communication or misunderstanding regarding product specifics and were able to refine our processes so that we did not repeat the same mistakes. Oshyn is committed to continual improvement, which is paramount to a long-term partnership. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Chief Strategy Officer for the Texas County & District Retirement System (TCDRS). For more than 50 years, TCDRS has been a model for providing reliable retirement benefits. Benefits are responsibly funded, which means costs are not pushed to future generations. We are one of the best-funded retirement plans in the nation. We do not receive state funding; rather, each plan is funded by investment earnings, the employer and its employees. We also work with more than 760 county and district employers, providing benefits to over 294,000 Texans, including 64,000 retirees.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

We needed a partner to assist our organization in continually improving the customer service we provide on our website, building new tools for our members and employers and helping us increase usability from mobile devices.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our initial project involved Oshyn developing a tool called the Plan Customizer that allows our employers to run various scenarios so that they can make informed decisions about their plan. Every year, our employers can use the Plan Customizer to review their plan, run different plan option scenarios to see potential changes in cost, and submit changes if needed. This tool was very well received, and employers could use it at their convenience.

In 2015, Oshyn helped us redesign our website with a focus on improving the information and usability of our Investments section, refreshing the design of all public and customer-facing pages and adding new features. The site was built using Sharepoint and .NET.

And most recently, Oshyn assisted us in delivering a redesigned member portal. Changes centered on making the portal mobile friendly, adding multi-factor authentication and other security enhancements, and integrating new features like document upload. A second phase is currently underway that provides additional online services to our members.

What is the team composition?

It depends on the effort, but typically the team has 8-10 people covering development, QA, and project management.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

Our previous design partner recommended Oshyn. They did so well on the initial project that we’ve continued to partner with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $1 million over the years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been partners since 2013.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We continually receive great feedback from our members and employers regarding the work we have partnered with Oshyn to deliver.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

The financial and reporting side is always accurate, and they do a good job communicating with the project team. We mainly communicate via email, phone, and status reports.

Equally important, they are flexible. So, as the project evolves or we encounter challenges, they are easy to work with to adjust scope, resources, and schedules.

​​​​​​What did you find most impressive about them?

They do great work, but they also take the time to understand what we are trying to do as a business and how they might help, which makes them a good partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. There isn’t anything major I’d change about them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Maintain excellent communication to optimize the partnership.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a developer at Wolters Kluwer, a medical education company for physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals.

What challenge were you trying to address with Oshyn?

Our legacy environment was outdated. We wanted to completely revamp our system with .NET and C# development. The platform we came up with is called Platinum. The previous environment had no place for community members to access all of their content and listen to it on mobile devices, and we needed a tool that allowed for that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the new environment for our customers. We had the whole project scoped out, but we quickly discovered that our projected timeline wasn’t possible. We started with the e-commerce component first, so we could concentrate on marketing and sales while the next phase was in development.

It was difficult to meet our initial goals, so when the membership platform released, it was separate from the e-commerce platform. We decommissioned our legacy environment in April 2018, merged both new domains, and attached them to our existing URL. They were instrumental in making all of this happen.

What is the team composition?

We had between 10–15 team members at any given time. Christian (Software Consultant, Oshyn) is our lead, and Vicki (Director of Delivery Services, Oshyn) was our design consultant. There were two business analysts, and the rest were either web IT developers or mobile developers.

How did you come to work with Oshyn?

We wanted to use Sitecore as our development platform and CMS. We interviewed several companies, but Oshyn was at the top of the list of recommended Sitecore developers. Our panel looked over customer testimonials and asked them about their ideas for our project. After comparing them to the other possible vendors, they were the most appropriate fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $5 million on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in 2013 and work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

There is no comparison to our legacy environment. Online sales have increased by 1,000% or more. Previously, 80% of orders were processed through the phone, but most of those transactions now come almost exclusively through the new environment.

How did Oshyn perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re phenomenal and always available. A lot of their developers work in Ecuador, which is three hours ahead of us, but all of their business analysts, designers, and support staff are in the Los Angeles area.

We worked in sprints and could view the entire process, from planning to QA testing and production. There were daily status call updates at the beginning, which have since changed to two calls each week. We provided feedback and they gave us information about any changes. We used Confluence and Jira to store documentation and submit tickets.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have an almost familial relationship with them. They’re very involved and feel like friends. They took ownership of the product and are very knowledgeable about our process. The partnership with them is very special.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No; it all worked so well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them all the pertinent data, copy, environment, customer scenarios, and user case studies, and make sure they have a complete picture of your company, your process, and your customers. If you don’t give them what they need, you may not get what you want. That said, they were interested and reached out to get all the information that they needed to complete our project.

Could you briefly describe your company?

We’re a global manufacturer and marketer of network testing and performance analysis tools, hardware, software, and services. We operate in a number of markets including network equipment manufacturers, telecommunications providers, and service providers. We operate in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

What is your position?

I’m the corporate marketing manager. I run the team responsible for our marketing operations, which includes the website, email and marketing automation systems, and a number of data systems operating behind all of those things.

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

Yes, our website runs on a content management system called Sitecore. At the time we gave it to Oshyn, we were looking for someone to take over the development part of our website. We don’t have a development team in-house. As a result, we engaged Oshyn as a Sitecore certified developer to take that on for us. They essentially function as our extraneous Web development team.

Why did you select Sitecore as your content management system?

That decision was made before I was here. However, I do understand the rationale. Sitecore is a global leader in the CMS space, and they offer a product that is enterprise ready and very adaptable due to its reliance on the .NET framework. It’s highly customizable and programmable at the same time. It provides an ideal environment to maintain and monitor content and users across multiple sites and integrated systems.

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

There are two types of work that we would do with Oshyn. One is Sitecore maintenance and operation. Consider that keeping the website up and running on a daily basis. If there are small changes we need to make, like the template of a specific page, make some configuration changes, or sometimes we change the hosting environment, such as upgrading a server, they handle that. Anything related to administration and infrastructure, we delegate to Oshyn.

On top of that, when we have strategic projects, we engage with them on a statement of work type of arrangement. A couple of examples of those are we switched our blog platform and the look and feel and design of the blog a couple of years ago, and Oshyn handled that project, so both the design and then the technical side. More recently, we conducted a redesign of the overall branding look and feel of our website, and Oshyn did that, too. They worked on both the design side of it as well as the technical deployment.

How did you select Oshyn as your solution partner?

I went through a fairly rigorous RFP [request for proposal] process. My starting point was the vendor Sitecore and looking at the partners on their website that operate in North America because that’s where our Web operations are based. Then from a long list of those providers, conducting secondary research, reviewing their websites and services, I short-listed a set of them. I think there were four potential vendors on that short list.

We went through a proposal process, understanding their capabilities and their costs. Part of the optimized choice was locale. I’m in Southern California, and Oshyn is based in Southern California, [That, along with] their cost model and business model for this type of work, and their capabilities in terms of certifications. They came out on top of that evaluation, based on their location, skill set and the cost of their business model.

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

Again, we have two ways of doing projects with them. We have a monthly retainer basis. I don’t know how comfortable I am talking about what that is in exact figures. But, in terms of hours, we contract for 40 hours a month on a regular basis. Then, when we do the large statement of work level projects, they can range anything from a $5,000 project to a $30,000 project. Again, it depends on the scope. We usually do two to three of those a year.

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

Let’s see. Again, from my point of view, when you balance the quantity, quality and responsiveness of the work they do, they definitely meet all of the parameters that we went into the relationship with.

On the statement of work type projects, like redesigning the website, again, after the project was done, it’s all positive feedback in terms of people within our company.

The one metric we could look at is we had some stability problems with our website before we were working with Oshyn. We’ve measurably improved the uptime of our environment by both upgrading the versions that we had and getting everything up to best practice levels, recommended version levels and distributing the Web servers in a different fashion within the data center. I’m very happy with the improved uptime there.

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

Again, when we approached Oshyn we weren’t in search of a marketing partner. We really needed an exemplary development team to augment our own capabilities. A lot of the certified partners for Sitecore are more akin to marketing agencies that can develop on Sitecore, rather than Sitecore developers, per se. We knew what we needed going into the relationship, and they’ve been able to deliver.

In retrospect, are there areas you believe Oshyn could improve upon, or are there certain things you'd do differently as a client before initiating projects of this nature?

In any of these relationships, you have to sort of tune them and understand how both sides work. One of the lessons we’ve learned is that given the business model of the retainer relationship and their skill sets, we need to do more preparation. As an example, we can’t just give business level requirements to their team and say, “Here’s what we want to do.” We have to think it through a solution and give them more technical requirements, and then they can execute it pretty flawlessly.

I think that gap is where, as marketers, we’d like to be able to give business level requirements, if that makes sense, and then have someone else to figure out the technical side of things. We’ve found that we have to provide a little more of what would normally be business analyst level task in between, translating the business requirements into technical specifications. When we do that, everything works out fine. When we submit business level requirements to them, it could be a hit or miss.  

Could you briefly describe your company?

The California Teachers Association is a labor union in California representing public school teachers and staff members. We offer benefit programs to those members, similar to what you would see from AARP or AAA, including life and disability insurance, auto insurance, and discount programs. CTA does a lot of work influencing legislators to support public education and developing curriculum and standards for teaching.

What is your position?

I’m the manager of the member benefits department, which administers the benefit programs I described before.

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

I’d say that there were two. One was that we needed to start promoting and presenting our product offerings in a manner that’s consistent with the 21st century. We had been doing a lot of stuff through paper and printed documents as well as training programs where we go out and meet with our members one-on-one or in groups. Those practices are resource intensive. We wanted to be able to leverage our digital presence so we could increase the volume of people we interface with. We had a basic website, but it wasn’t generating the traffic or interest that we wanted or needed. We decided to build a separate website exclusively housing the member benefits offerings we have.

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

On the first round of the project, Oshyn built the member benefits website that I was talking about. They did it from front to back. We started with a conceptual design, and then went to requirements, wireframes, and began building the site, developing it, launching it, and maintaining it.

The second part of the project revolved around the development of our mobile app. Oshyn didn’t develop the application for us, but they worked alongside the consultants building the app. Oshyn essentially deployed our content. Once that mobile app was live, Oshyn built mobile pages that the app would link to, enhancing the functionality of what the app was offering, and turning the app into a control device for the mobile pages Oshyn was building.

How did you select Oshyn as your solution partner?

There was a twofold process to that. The group responsible for managing the primary CTA website had some issues with their previous vendor, had put out a request for proposals, and were seriously considering Oshyn. Around that time, I was working with my counterparts at NEA Member Benefits, and they were working with Oshyn, albeit with a different CMS [content management system]. After having conversations with both of those groups, I was convinced that Oshyn was definitely the vendor to go with.

Could you give a sense of the size of this project in monetary terms?

I’d call it about a half-a-million dollar project.

When was the project completed?

The first website that we built was launched about a year and a half ago. I would say it was the spring of 2012.

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

I don’t have a lot of testimonials. What we’re seeing is a lot of traffic from the CTA website to the member benefits website, which was kind of what we were hoping for when we built the separate site: that we would have more details available and more flexibility. When we see that traffic, it tells us that people have been enticed, and are pursuant of more information.

How do you think Oshyn has performed on this project?

I thought they performed very well on the first project because we were trying to do single sign on, and because we were attempting to link several different websites being administered by different teams, using different content management systems. There were a lot of external dependencies involved. If you’ve ever worked on a project like this, you know that external dependencies are the most difficult ones to mitigate during the process. Oshyn demonstrated a lot of flexibility in this area, and they were consistently doing everything in their power to maintain the agreed project timeline.

Do you think Sitecore has performed adequately for your business needs?

Yes, I do. We had a lot of trouble with Sitecore to begin with because we hadn’t worked with it and didn’t have a whole lot of experience with CMS. It’s not that easy to find ways to get up to speed on Sitecore.

We’re very happy with the fact that we’ve been able to use Sitecore for the main website as well as the mobile pages. Having all of these platforms able to deliver the same dynamic content to the user while still tracking key information on the backend has been an incredible advancement for us. 

We’re also happy with Sitecore from the point of view that we’ve been able to run fairly lean with it. We haven’t had to dedicate enormous resources to its maintenance and operation.

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

Yes, one of the things that I learned along the way was how much time and effort it can take to get content built inside of a CMS. Oshyn’s strength is really more in building from the foundation and templates and not putting that in. I would probably, before going into a project like this again, make sure that I had somebody who was more up to speed in terms of getting that stuff in quickly because it’s probably not efficient to pay a consultant to do it regardless.

Other than that, they use a sprint approach. I think the sprint approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and they’re pretty much the same thing. In one way, it limits the flexibility in that the teams that are assigned to do various tasks are only assigned for set chronological periods. That can be problematic when you’re hitting dependencies that you don’t have control over. But, at the same time, I think that it also puts a framework around the project and forces it to keep moving forward, which is always good.