Sun Technologies, Inc

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the retail marketing generalist at an animal nutrition company specializing in making quality feeds for livestock, horses, and poultry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sun Technologies, Inc?

Our main corporate website was based on a platform that wasn’t optimized for e-commerce, so we needed to transition to another platform that was more user-friendly and e-commerce-oriented.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our previous site was hosted on Drupal, and we wanted Sun Technologies to move it over to WordPress, which could be integrated with WooCommerce. That feature would give us e-commerce capabilities on the website. Moreover, WordPress had a more user-friendly UI in terms of making edits and additions; we’d have more control over our website.

Much of the new website came from existing content. We essentially let Sun Technologies copy our existing site, download any data they could, and import it to the new platform. From a functionality standpoint, they created nothing new on the website other than turning on its e-commerce features and letting people buy directly from it. 

How did you come to work with Sun Technologies, Inc?

Vendors sent us marketing emails featuring their capabilities. We didn’t only look at existing web developers that we’d worked with in the past; we’d also received emails from companies that offered to do what we needed. Likewise, Sun Technologies captured our attention by sending us an email and letting us know that they could easily rewrite Drupal websites and put them into WordPress. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2020–May 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measured success by checking whether the new site resembled our old site not only from a design and visual standpoint but also from a functional perspective. Those were our main success metrics. 

How did Sun Technologies, Inc perform from a project management standpoint?

There were good and bad things about Sun Technologies’ performance. For instance, they did a fairly good job at touching bases with us; we had a weekly interaction with them, helping us understand the full scope of the project and its timeline. Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances happened on both our teams, delaying the project. 

In any case, their overall project management was decent. They’d planned the scope of work, but they struggled when it came to the finer details. Meanwhile, we didn’t use any project management tools. We simply communicated over the phone or by email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were most impressed with Sun Technologies’ price. Our team was impressed right off the bat by the fact that they could convert our website for such a low price. For comparison, the quotes we received from other developers were five times more expensive than Sun Technologies’ quote. 

Unfortunately, the low cost was reflected in poor-quality work. In the end, however, we were still able to transition to WordPress with e-commerce capabilities built into it. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sun Technologies could be more detail-oriented. They weren’t detail-focused with the features that we wanted to replicate. We ended up going back and forth multiple times; we also had to do many of the tasks they were supposed to do — that wasn’t great. On top of that, they weren’t always clear in the way they communicated.