Vardot

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal of the Modern American School in Jordan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vardot?

We wanted to redesign our website. We needed a platform that was functional for students and effective for marketing the school. We also wanted the website to be easy to navigate on smartphones, tablets, and computers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vardot redesigned our website on Drupal 7. They created various functionalities including a store and an application portal for interested students. Their team also built a portal into the website where people could submit applications for employment. They also created a 3D virtual tour of the school.

They make regular updates as well as host and maintain the platform. Their team will start another redesign of our website on Drupal 9.

What is the team composition?

I've communicated with two people from Vardot.

How did you come to work with Vardot?

We surveyed the market for website developers in Jordan. We wanted a local vendor that understood the market and could visit the school. We looked at a bunch of companies, but Vardot was by far the best.

How much have you invested with them?

The website redesign cost between $20,000–$25,000. We pay them about $3,000 a year for updates and hosting.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project around August 2015 and launched the website in December 2015. We just signed with them last week to redo the website again.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We receive between 8,000–10,000 hits to the website per month, which is a lot in Jordan. The platform also always ranks on the first page of Google search results. The website effectively directs traffic to our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts too. All of the parents who register at our school tell us that the website was helpful and made them choose us. It's amazing.

How did Vardot perform from a project management standpoint?

We initially communicated via email but a couple of years ago, they switched to a ticket system. Their team usually gets back to us within 24 hours. They’re a great team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their reliability’s the reason that we signed on with them again. After launching the website, they worked with us to tweak the website. We’re a school, so we constantly change. Their team supports us in those changes. They’re extremely helpful when we want to add certain pages, remove certain content, and change pages' layouts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

To be honest, I can’t think of any improvements. They’re slightly more expensive than their competition, but it’s worth it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a small company with a lot of heart. There are huge firms where you don’t know who’s running what. I meet with Vardot’s CEO all the time. Over the last five years, I’ve worked with the same team, which has been really nice.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Executive publisher responsible for wireframing and planning the relaunch of an online news company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

Vardot have key experience in creating publishing platforms in the region, and they also speak and can read Arabic. The ability to follow best-practice globally as well as customizing for the region was key.

What were your goals for this project?

A more human interface, connected into a syndication cms. Mobile ready, with a modular assembly meaning elements can be switched around depending on editorial workflow.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Based on their work with Al Jazeera website.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Vardot were important for discussing the website from a digital publishing perspective; this was their core competency. They advised on wireframing and also were able to make suggestions to the editorial and development teams, based on our requirements.

What was the team composition?

Project lead from myself, with an Amman development team taking over once development began. As such Vardot worked with editorial and dev on the specification.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our reputation has certainly improved. I have noticed that the number of requests to write for the platform, and receive a portfolio page, has probably increased by 50%. Equally, our long-reads or "Insights" section has received a significant amount of praise from writers and academics. Because the website looks more serious, we are better able to source expert commentary.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Vardot were a good team to work with, because they could process detailed development requests from the Arabic and English editorial teams, working across languages and requirements. Ultimately they would often have to harmonize these requirements culturally - Arabic appears from right to left, but also has visual and style aspects that can be different to an English platform. Vardot were well placed to understand these challenges.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I liked the combination of global awareness and best-practice in digital publishing specifically, alongside an ability to work with a local team in Amman, in Arabic.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Initial timescales were not realistic, but I understand that sometimes this is part of the vendor process in the Middle East. Vardot also expanded development capacity on this project when deadlines were running tight, which we appreciated.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a marketing and communications specialist for the American School of Dubai. We’re a pre-K to twelfth-grade nonprofit international school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vardot?

We needed a new website. We wanted an open source product to align with our new enterprise system. We were on a proprietary school-specific website but wanted to move away from the cookie-cutter model. We wanted a product with more flexibility.

We not only needed an external website but also an internal website. We had all of our users on an internal, private, and secure intranet. After 10 years in use, we had a messy system. The internal site was also on the old version of Google Sites, which were to be retired.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vardot provided the sites' architectures. Their team directed all of the design phases and worked with our marketing and communications team. Then, they went through the programming. Their team offered training to the people who would use the system. They followed these processes for both the external and the internal websites.

They built both the sites on Drupal. For the internal website, they worked on a single sign-on through Google for all of our faculty, staff, employees, and students.

What is the team composition?

We had a main point of contact for project management and another point of contact who led the development. For the design phases, we worked with both of those people. There was certainly a team of 4–5 people working with us, but there could’ve been more.

How did you come to work with Vardot?

We put an RFP together and researched universities’ and international schools’ websites. We looked at who built those websites and found Vardot. We directly spoke to five different companies after the RFP process. Vardot won the bid in the end.

How much have you invested with them?

The total billing was about $30,000. There’s a maintenance contract on top of that. Their price was reasonable.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the work in May 2019, and their team completed the first website in January 2020. They’re currently finalizing the second website

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The engagement was a resounding success based on the reactions from our community and other schools. Comparted to two years ago, it’s easier for us to new upload content. The content on our old external website was about four years old because it was difficult to edit and upload. The new website is much more flexible, so we’re able to add pages on the fly and add content daily. 

How did Vardot perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team managed the project through Basecamp, which allowed us to refer back to all of the project plans. We communicated through Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Zoom. Their communication was efficient and effective. Vardot also had a good ticket system to address issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication was clear and simple. Vardot’s project management was a cut above the competition. They kept us up to date and stuck to the timeline. We held up the project on our end, but their recovered that time by working overtime. That was excellent.

During the design phase, they gave us multiple options. Vardot was patient and worked with our own designers to come up with a good product. Their team was flexible with our design changes too.

They also just did an excellent job. The final product was slick and matched the design, which is unusual. The website didn’t need much debugging because it was so well executed.

Their team also had excellent training documentation. We were able to look at the documents to solve challenges on our own.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, not really. When we went through the RFP process, we thought that they weren’t as strong in the design field. In the end, they exceeded our expectations with their designs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommended them to many people already.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Fitness First Middle East is one of the world’s leading health and fitness companies owned and operated by Landmark Group, a leading retail organization in the Middle East and India. We have over 70,000 members in 66 clubs in 50 locations across the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait. We offer world class facilities including; best in class equipment, an array of innovative programs, cardio, strength and freestyle areas, internationally accredited fitness professionals, free group exercise classes and multiple membership privileges. My position: Digital Marketing Manager and Project Manager for this project on behalf of Fitness First Middle East.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

We hired Vardot to work on the development of our new website. Scope of requirements: Website development for the 6 countries in 2 languages (English/Arabic) for UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, KSA website (Male/Female sections).

What were your goals for this project?

This website is to replace our current Fitness First Middle East website with improvements, new functionalities, new design, enhanced speed and resolve long standing issues with the main objective of enhancing the member experience and supporting business growth.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We sent our website requirements to more than one vendor to come back with a proposal on how they will develop our requirements. Vardot was one of these companies and in comparison to all, their approach and proposed solution plus the cost was the most suitable and met all our requirements.

Selection of the vendor was not based on the location of the vendor but purely on vendor overall solution approach, technical knowledge and skills, ability to understand and meet our requirements and response to our questions during the requirements capture and analysis RFP stage.

Vardot submitted a CMS solution had is no limit on the website templates. A large website can include up to 20 to 25 very unique content templates. The proposed CMS gives you the flexibility to combine as many as you want producing endless variations. The development is in house was one of our key requirements.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Project: Development of the Fitness First Middle East websites for its 6 countries, bilingual (English and Arabic). Each Fitness First site has a significant amount of static content with forms and many key components that require functional development. Project included functional and non functional requirements with key integrations to our Members Management system, our App pulling data bout personal trainers and the timetable into the website with bookings. Integration to our MYZONE system to display data on the website per club. Join Online redesign and development with key enhancements plus and e-store. All this using thir customized CMS based on Drupal 8 and Varbase.

Services provided:

• Audit plus research and discovery phase
• Creative Design
• Requirements Analysis and project documentation
• Development
• Project Management using Basecamp
• Testing and Quality Assurance
• Content migration from the old website and content upload
• Support and continuous follow up

What was the team composition?

Vardot Team size: 35 in house development

• Account Manager
• Accounts Director
• Project manager
• Development Manager
• Developers
• Designers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website launch had a huge impact on our business with revamped design, user friendly navigation, more content, and information layout is easier and sections are easy to find with quick links. The website is faster has enhanced functionalities with the integration of key data with our membership management system with Join online easy 3 step process for quicker and easier conversions, our member App and MYZONE bringing all this data into the website.

Also making it easier for us to manage the timetable on the app being synched to the website plus our instructors now have a presence on the website for more exposure. Ability to create landing pages for lead generation and conversions plus easier maintenance and reporting,

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was very well done using Basecamp with all information and communication documented and uploaded on to Basecamp. The project manager was very well organized and provided timely updates and feedback. This contributed heavily to the success of the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their organizational and project management were great plus response time was fast and ability to manage change requests and our feedback. They were flexible within reason and provided great support. Timely meetings and being proactive and documenting everything. Strong development team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Design skills as we contributed with our teams design skills to work on the final design and direction.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Médecins Sans Frontières, sometimes rendered in English as Doctors Without Borders, is an international humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation of French origin best known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

Technical support and management of MSF Middle East website and its related projects.

What were your goals for this project?

Maintaining and enhancing the website's functions including the server, security, content updates of related special coverage pages, and SEOs updates.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Through an audit process, Vardot stands as the most accurate services to MSF's needs.

Describe the project in detail.

Maintaining and enhancing the website's functions including the server, security, content updates of related special coverage pages, and SEOs updates.

What was the team composition?

A core of 5 members with a focal point as a reference for the Middle East website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

High security of the website and the high maintenance provided to the server, speed time and efficient workflow of reflecting major changes of taxonomy and new pages online.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Despite providing the services remotely, they communicator channel is very efficient. The team is very responsive and supportive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their fast response and commitment

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not at this stage of our contract.

BACKGROUND

I worked as a Digital Marketing Consultant at the IEC (I worked by a USAID contract as a skilled worker within a support programs)

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) is the independent Jordanian organization that conducts the democratic elections of Jordan at all levels of government. The IEC was imagined, birthed and developed in a record amount of time.

Created in May 2012 as part of the comprehensive political reforms that His Majesty King Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein initiated, the IEC administered its first election in early 2013 for the 17th Jordanian Council of Representatives. The IEC aims to maintain the highest levels of transparency, integrity and impartiality in the management of various electoral processes, thus ensuring the confidence of Jordanians and the international community at large.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

Website re-design and develpment for the IEC.

What were your goals for this project?

To have a moder website, search based with a comprehensive electoral mapping system for the users and researchers to get the info they need with the least number of clicks.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Best value for money.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Solar search system.

Mapping system.

Full website, with a modern design and dynamic functionalities.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We now have the first electoral mapping system (online) in the history of Jordan. First search based website in the history of the Jordanian state institute's websites.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Vardot were very flexible, they've over delivered, although they have faced many challenges when the technical team at IEC suffered in providing the agreed geojason files for Vardot.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They focused on providing results and value, instead of wanting money for themselves! I've never worked with a dedicated team like that.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a deputy director of strategic partnerships at a UN agency focused on services to refugees in the eastern Mediterranean region.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vardot?

We wanted to improve our donation website in 2018, and we did that by expanding services that were already in place by Vardot at the time so that we could modernize and streamline our donation platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team started by analyzing and improving the donor journey itself. We felt that there wasn’t a lot of emphasis on individual donations, so they helped us to redesign the flow in a way that would be more user-friendly, informational, and directive of supporters to the right path for them. Verdot is not a payment platform, so they worked closely with another vendor to help integrate the website with Salesforce.

Another main feature that they helped us with was our expanded payment modalities, allowing our team to incorporate PayPal as a payment method. On top of that, they built an entirely new system using Drupal that functions as an online boutique that allows first-time supporters of the agency to purchase electronic cards for their friends and family members that would be sent out through us for any major holiday and also support our cause.

What is the team composition?

I had one main point of contact with them who had the know-how to answer all of our questions and prioritize workloads for her colleagues, but I’m not sure how many people were on their team in total.

How did you come to work with Vardot?

I had received very positive feedback from my colleagues who had worked with them in the past. They were selected on a waiver several years ago because they were local, but the relationship has been very successful over the years so it was an easy decision to continue working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost from January 2018 was approximately $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on the project from January 2018–February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The gift for refugees program was designed very quickly under a great deal of pressure to finish before the holidays, but we’ve already had a full return on the investment we made in the very short period since that program has been live. I think that really speaks to the quality of their work because it’s clear that there are no hiccups in the process at all.

They do a great job of balancing the technology of the product so that it’s easy to use with the creative ideas and designs from our team in order to make our services a little more unique and customized than you might expect from something built this quickly.

How did Vardot perform from a project management standpoint?

One of their strengths is their ability to be totally honest about timelines, even when we are applying pressure to get things done as quickly as possible. They demonstrated the integrity to tell me exactly what they could deliver and when, and it felt like they were always presenting realistic timelines rather than just promising things they might not deliver. For the most part, our communication took place via phone, email, or face-to-face meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We occasionally had problems with our other two vendors in terms of integrating the various payment services that we needed, and Vardot was always on top of communication and collaboration with the other teams, even when they were not. Our project manager, in particular, was always proactive, and that helped us to stay on track which in turn helped save our agency money, and that is always a big deal for a charity organization like ours.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It seemed to me that they were somewhat limited by their exclusive use of Drupal for the new website, but the product that they delivered was very high quality in the end so that was not a big problem for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We were established in March 1999 as a non-profit independent institution; authorized to function as a regulated market for trading securities in Jordan. Position: Senior Software Developer

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

Upgrading and Re-Design webiste.

What were your goals for this project?

From the standpoint of to develop and improve their provided services for all related parties (Stakeholders) and to ease the access to the required information of the stock exchange and the listed companies, the stock exchange had developed a new website in Arabic and English, which reflects the full image of the stock exchange and its huge developments that it witnessed and the advanced level it reached.

It upgraded old stock exchange website developed using Drupal (6) with new version developed using Drupal (8) and new theme design.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Vardot is the best company in Jordan that intended for Drupal development. It provide us the best quality ,cost, and support during and after the project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The new website features rapid response design that suits all types of screens including laptops, tablets and smartphones that are all easy to be used by researchers and investors.

The new website allows monitoring the market's daily summary, the top gainers, the top losers and the most active companies live during the trading session, however, a range of high charts have been added, so reading and analyzing, finding trading data and any required information will be way easier due to being reclassified and reordered using advanced and smart search methods.

On the top, we created separate pages for the Investors, Issuers, Researchers and Brokers that each of them includes the related information for each of them to get the most out from the website. It is worth mentioning that the ASE's website is considered one of the most active ones in Jordan, where the number of visitors reached 9 million with around 400 thousand users for the same period during the year of 2018.

What was the team composition?

Vardot team was consist as the following:

• Account manager
• Project Manager
• Development team
• Design Team
• Infrastructure and Ops team

The project manager had responsibility to arrange tasks between us and Vardot teams. This impact for speed of development time and get us a great results.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Improve number visit into website. Support mobiles and tablet so users can visit our website easily. provide new look and service for users. Decease number of error and downtime. improve performance and ranking. Provide new data classification for the users. Provide an integration among stock exchange internal system and website.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

project manager was effectively coordinate the development functions needed, provide a plan and time line for tasks. Also assigns tasks for intended teams and provide us a online task tool for tasks management . This impact for speed of the development time and get us a correct results at agreed time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

stock exchange has a two challenges type of data which are: Trading Real time data and group of bulletins. Each one of theme have different data source and different protocol .

Vardot can handle the stock exchange integration challenges and provide us a great effort in testing and development get the the correct result. This project was completed successfully because of their professional team. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

Based on our project , a little note may improve works. We can provide more technical document for the project developed and infrastructure.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

King’s Academy is a private, not-for-profit, co-educational boarding and day school (grades 7 to 12) in Madaba, Jordan. The school, which integrates the New England boarding school experience in the historical and intellectual context of the Middle East, follows an English-language, Advanced Placement curriculum. The curriculum includes an integrated co-curricular program of athletics, activities and community service, and students live in a nurturing residential environment that allows them to flourish personally and intellectually. In 2019-2020, King’s students numbered 630 and hailed from 36 countries. My title is Director of Communications and Publications

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

We wanted a Jordan-based Drupal company to take over our website development and hosting and we chose Vardot for this purpose. We were already working with school-specialized Drupal website development company in the US, but were not happy with their service. We have both a public website and an internal portal.

What were your goals for this project?

--Transfer all work to Jordan and work with a company that was locally-based --Develop and grow the website and the internal portal

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We researched website companies in Jordan that work with Drupal and met with a few. Vardot's work and client list stood out from the start, so we went with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The provided support for our two websites (internal and external) and helped us develop the sites extensively over the four to five years we worked with them. They were also handling the hosting of our two sites.

What was the team composition?

Small team of dedicated people. I think we worked with around five to seven people overall.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website and internal portal became stronger and better than they ever were prior to working with Vardot. We knew from the analytics that traffic was increasing to our sites.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Efficient, well-organized and responsive team. Ticketing system worked well. Nothing was ever impossible.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their dedication to our project, the personal attention, the follow-up, the can-do attitude, the amount of time they spent working on our project and our problems to find viable solutions to everything, the way they treated our project as their own -- as if they had as much a stake in its success as we do.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything was great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The ForUS platform/portal is a national initiative by the King Abdullah Fund for Development (KAFD) to facilitate career opportunities for the Jordanian youth and unemployed. Besides job vacancies; the portal features integrations with strategic partners that provide volunteering work, critical skill development courses and e-mentorship.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vardot?

Revamping ForUs.jo Portal

What were your goals for this project?

- Revamping the portal - Implementing technical integrations with new partners - Introducing new services - Upgrading design and UX

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Tendering Process

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The ForUS platform/portal is a national initiative by the King Abdullah Fund for Development (KAFD) to facilitate career opportunities for the Jordanian youth and unemployed. Besides job vacancies; the portal features integrations with strategic partners that provide volunteering work, critical skill development courses and e-mentorship. The discovery stage was very quick and thorough in terms of gathering requirements and establishing objectives. We established strategic partnerships early on as well to identify all integrations required. The integrations were started as soon as we received and approved the wireframes and designs. An initiation stage was necessary due to the fact that we needed 3 of our team members to be trained by Vardot’s technical and project teams for the duration of the project delivery process. The website was developed and delivered on the timeline agreed between us.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of a project manager who led communications and coordinations between ourselves and Vardot. The team of course included: 2 x Senior Web Developers 1 x Junior Web Developer 1 x QA Engineer Add to that; our own 3 trainees that received training from Vardot in Drupal and project management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We received positive reviews from all the early testing regarding the ease of navigation and user-friendliness of the UX across all devices. We were most impressed with the impact that the new Drupal CMS made on our on-site SEO performance. Our team is comprised of a number of users with various publishing permissions and with the new CMS installed the publishing process became more streamlined and easily managed.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The workflow was smooth and easy. The project manager communicated updates with us on a daily basis via BaseCamp and phone. Of course, our 3 team members communication in person with Vardot team throughout the project delivery.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was very impressed with their strict adherence to agreed-upon timelines and delivery deadlines. The project was delivered on schedule. The designs as well and attention to UX was impressive. Our team members also conveyed to us their joy at spending time within a large team and how much they benefited from Vardot’s expertise in Drupal.

Are there any areas for improvement?

As I mentioned earlier; the experience was both impressive and hassle-free. I highly recommend Vardot and will look forward to any future ventures that arise between us.