Vertiba

BACKGROUND

Please provide background information about your company?

We’re a demand aggregator in Colorado, specifically for Colorado governments that operate within our state boundaries. We work with municipalities, cities, towns, counties, and state agencies to bring them typological solutions that they may otherwise have been unavailable to them. They come to us for rules, regulations, expertise, etc.

And where are you based?

We’re in Denver, Colorado. We only operate within Colorado.

What is your position in the company and your job responsibilities?

I’m the executive director, which is equivalent to CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your company’s business goals for the project with Vertiba?

Our business goal is to provide all governments across Colorado with the ability to put more applications and services online for their residents. The nice thing about Salesforce is that it's a flexible platform that allows unique configurations and Vertiba is responsible for delivering 99 percent of those configurations.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Vertiba?

We sat down with a variety of companies from Colorado that were Salesforce partners. Vertiba is local. They have a high degree of expertise, and they’re able to flex resources to meet the demands that we have that are ever-evolving. They were the closest thing to a perfect fit.

Why did you decide to build on Salesforce instead of another platform?

There are several reasons. It’s best in class, it is highly flexible in that it can be configured a lot of different ways, and it’s cloud-based and truly multi-tenant. Most importantly, it allows us to have all of the robust capabilities that come with being a cloud provider. We don’t have any of the overhead in terms of securing it and maintaining it.

Can you tell me more about the scope of the project?

Vertiba works for us on a variety of projects. They’ve done approximately 10 to 12 installs, each in the same manner. Vertiba works on the requirements gathering. They design, develop, implement, and train all of the users. Vertiba is really doing the projects from cradle to grave, or from requirements to implementations. Vertiba is serving as our agents in charge of that particular project. They are an extension of our offering. There’s no component of the service other than licensing that we handle in house.

What programming languages or technologies were used?

They’ve written all the applications with the Apex language of Force.com. They’ve integrated with a variety of different applications. Probably the most known is the SAP Financial System. They’ve integrated a bunch of the API’s of Salesforce and SAP Financial System together, so they can exchange data. They’ve also worked with .NET and Access databases after migrating data into Salesforce. Once they go live with the Salesforce implementation, most of the other databases will be decommissioned.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the initiatives in terms of dollars?

I would say they are $500,000 to $1.5 million in total aggregate work for all the projects.

How recent was the last project finished?

The projects are still ongoing. The first project started around November, 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

Particular projects around correspondents allowed the staff to increase their work productivity by double. If they were able to process 600 inquiries a month, they’re now able to process 1,200 inquiries a month by adding no additional staff. The only change they made, was implementing Salesforce. We have a 100 percent productivity increase without any additional staff.

On my particular project that they worked on specifically for my office, we were able to decrease our workload by one-third. We have 33 percent reduction in processing paperwork, which allowed us to expand into other areas. Then we started a brand new process. For the first time in Colorado history, the governor or the rule-making agencies can communicate on a moment’s notice with more than 3,000 local government officials.

Since building the application, how has the platform performed?

It’s performed completely within our expectations, and even exceeded expectations on numerous occasions. It truly is a game-changer for the agencies that have installed it. Not a single entity that has used Vertiba to install Salesforce, hasn’t continued to use Salesforce. We continue to contract with Vertiba since we’ve gone live.

How do you feel about Vertiba’s performance overall?

I feel very grateful to have Vertiba as a partner. I think they’ve always gone above and beyond the agreed-upon scope to make sure our customers and their customers are happy. Truly, there’s not a bad thing I could say about Vertiba. They’ve been excellent stewards.

When working with them, is there anything unique or special that you can identify about them?

It was twofold for us. One, they were local. They’re based out of Boulder, Colorado. That was very convenient for us. Also, most of their principles worked with Salesforce in the past. They were part of the Salesforce team. We knew Vertiba had a lot of direct experience and expertise with the products.

Looking back on the projects that you’ve done with them, could they improve or is there anything you would have done differently?

Well, there’s really not. With the type of projects that they’re doing, it’s kind of point-in-time technology, you can always make improvements. We use an agile or iterative approach to these rollouts, that’s built into the design. Looking back, we’ve made improvements to various systems. It was exactly what we wanted, when we wanted.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief background description of what on your company does for background information?

We manufacture equipment in the criminal justice space.

Who do you service?

Government agencies.

How small or how large is your firm in terms of size?

In terms of number of employees? We have about 550 employees.

What is your position within the company and primary responsibilities?

I’m the chief information officer, and I am the executive responsible for all of the technical teams inside the company, IT, software development, and engineering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your company’s business goals or reasons for undertaking the project with Vertiba?

Well, we have Salesforce. We had been using Salesforce for quite some time. So, we wanted to take it to the next level in terms of the use of it and expand its capabilities. So, we were talking to our Salesforce rep, and they recommended Vertiba as one of their partners.

Why did you decide to continue using Salesforce as well as why did you continue to add and expand it?

It’s a good product. We had already made a pretty significant investment in it in terms of process. It was supporting all of our Salesforce automation. So, it was very helpful in that. Then, we wanted to add some things into it that were customizations. So, we needed to have development done, and we decided to use an outside firm to do that development.

SOLUTION

Please provide more about the scope of the project such as the design, the development and some of the support?

Yes, it was business analysis, design, development, test, release. It was all of those things.

What part of the project was more in-house and what part did Vertiba mainly take care of?

I would say that they took care of the whole gamut on the things that we have worked with them on. The things that we have done ourselves is when there’s development integrated with other things inside our company, other applications, we’ve done that work. The product ownership, in terms of a product owner, we had internal and the business team requirements detailing. We have someone on that area internal to the business operations that has done that. But, there’s been a lot of business analysis done based on how we use Salesforce, and some recommendations of how we could enhance our usage of it. Vertiba made all those recommendations in addition to actually doing business analysis, design, and implementation.

What technologies were used, just like servers and databases and any kind of programming languages?

It’s a cloud application. Salesforce is a cloud application. So, there aren’t any servers, so there’s no installed infrastructure in our environment. A lot of it has been – in addition to the business analysis and design analysis, there’s been programming.

What kind of programming languages?

It’s the Force, I can get back to you with those languages, but it’s specific to Salesforce and their environment.

Can you just give me a size of the initiative, in terms of dollars?

I prefer not to share that.

That’s fine. How recent was the project finished?

It’s still ongoing. We’ve had the relationship for a couple of years now. They’ve been doing this latest round of projects. We started in November, I think, and we’re thinking we’re going to finish in May.

Have there been any kind of change in manpower?

I don’t think it’s ever gotten up to 10 or 12. But, I would say from where we started with our initial project two years ago, we’ve probably doubled the size of the team.

Can you give me the numbers from when you started?

It started with two or three. Now, it’s five or six.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project, do you have any stats or metrics that you would like to share?

Yes, I think that the feedback that I’ve gotten from the project stakeholders that we have had been always been very positive. I think that high remarks on knowledge of Salesforce, knowledge of business processes, kind of best practices because they have seen a lot of other companies use Salesforce, so they bring a lot to the table in terms of best practice, and just good, well-written code, very agile in terms of methodology. I can’t say that I have any specific metrics with the things that we’ve done in the past, but I know that with the things that we’ve been working with them on the last six months, I’d be able to give metrics in another six months. I feel like there’s going to be some improved productivity, improved reliability, and scalability. But, I can’t substantiate those right now.

Continuing to build and expand on Salesforce, do you feel like that’s still the right decision?

Yes, I think it’s a great technology. It’s a great company to do business with. There’s just a lot of innovation that goes on around Salesforce. I think that Vertiba, they’re experts of it. So, it’s been great to have an expert in the mix instead of, you know, where sometimes we’ll just be doing things on our own and not understanding a broader picture of how people get benefit out of this technology. So, that’s been very helpful. I think it’s accelerated some things.

How do you feel about the overall performance of Vertiba?

Yes, I think that they’re a great – it’s been a great partnership. As I’ve said, they have a lot of expertise in this area. They get us thinking outside the box in some things. There’s been a lot of good collaboration, approach to collaboration. They are very communicative in status, follow up, and follow through. So, it’s been positive.

Do you feel like there’s anything unique or special about them when compared to other companies that you may have worked with in the past?

I think their culture. I like their culture. I think, like I said, it’s very agile. It’s very pragmatic. They don’t have to bring big, consulting to the table. They’re just very good at what they do. They operate very agile, like what I said about them. They’re not afraid to make suggestions and recommendations of how you could think about something differently. So, like I said, they get you thinking outside the box, even a little bit.

Looking just back on the project, was there anything that you feel they could have improved on or you wish they would have done differently?

I don’t think that it’s necessarily anything that is unique to them about projects. I’ve probably worked over a thousand projects over my career. Sometimes, you learn things as you go along, and so I wouldn’t think that there’s anything that is specific or unique to them on these projects. We’ve learned a couple of limitations of the technology, but we’ve definitely been able to come up with solutions to that, just in terms of data sizes and stuff like that. So, I think that those situations, when they have come up, they’ve been worked through well.

Do you have any further comments about your experience with Vertiba or their performance?

Not anything that I haven’t said already. I could say I enjoy working with them. I think that they have a great culture. I think they bring a lot of expertise to the table. They’re informative about best practices. They know the technology, and they’re good to work with, easy to do business with. I really like that aspect.