Zivtech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are the in-house digital marketing group of a large telecom company. We have a small team of 3 dedicated, technical resources who are in charge of the frontend digital marketing efforts while other, higher-level members are in charge of our content. I am the director of marketing technology and digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zivtech?

We had a broken Drupal CMS environment and were looking for someone to help us fix it. The group we'd used for building it was also the one who broke it, so we needed someone else to come in and resolve our site issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Zivtech was tasked with improving our existing site. They increased the stability of our environment, making sure that it would work consistently. This was a problem that had been left behind by our previous supplier. After getting our site to a point that made us comfortable sleeping at night, Zivtech started helping us attack some of the template codebases. This made it easier for us to deploy web pages in a safe and sustainable way. We needed to know that doing this wouldn't break something else into the system. Zivtech also did some frontend development work, helping us develop responsive styling for our pages. In doing this, Zivtech handled some graphic work and page designs, enough to have a big impact in that area.

Over the course of time, we worked directly with 5 resources from Zivtech's team. We also had a project manager helping prioritize their time and making sure that the work was being followed through.

How did you come to work with Zivtech?

We found Zivtech through a personal relationship with another developer we were using, one that didn't actually do Drupal work. We talked to several firms, but once we got to talking with Zivtech, we realized that they were among the best within the Drupal space.

How much have you invested with Zivtech?

Over the course of our relationship, the cost of Zivtech's services has been close to $800,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Zivtech 2 years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Zivtech had a willingness to make sure that things were done right. Early on, as they were developing code, we deployed something that worked within all our environments except for the production one. That’s where it completely broke everything. I personally spent around 48 hours on the phone working hand-in-hand with Zivtech's developers in order to get things back running properly. There was a sense of ownership that Zivtech felt about the site that many vendors don't have. Others weren't willing to spend their weekends with us trying to make things right.

This issue wasn't something that Zivtech did wrong; it was simply a problem inherited from our previous supplier. But Zivtech's willingness to take responsibility for things that weren't their problem distinguished them.

How did Zivtech perform from a project management standpoint?

Zivtech's team isn't necessarily faster or slower than anyone else, but the quality of their work is higher. Over the course of 2 years, we've seen a couple of issues here and there in terms of deliveries. There was nothing of any real significance. Everything pointed back to communication problems, lack of definition around the project deliverable, or something similar.

What did you find most impressive about Zivtech?

Zivtech's team is extremely passionate about the applications they’re working on, especially with the Drupal community. They're spending a lot of time giving back to that community and making sure that the product is being moved forward. They're only going to be as successful as the actual Drupal product—if people don't like it, they're not going to make any sales. It's easy to get all the way to the top. If necessary, we could escalate things to their CEO who will yield a resolution of some sort. 

Are there any areas Zivtech could improve?

Zivtech could open up a bit more to other platforms available on the market. Being an open-source group, they prefer these solutions, so it's been difficult to ask for turnkey platforms that are available from a vendor. Zivtech usually comes back with open-source alternatives for us in these cases, but sometimes we need a quick fix no matter how much it costs.