The Project A
Acme Ltd. are looking for a partner agency to take over and improve their existing suite of three websites -
Of the current websites, two are on outdated platforms (Coldfusion, and unmanaged) and one is on a Joomla site with a custom cart. Because of the challenges of taking over the existing suite of websites, on a mix of technologies, wibble co are proposing to move the existing sites on to one, unified platform for e-commerce and a separate CMS for rich content management.
Our Promise
We will deliver a secure, responsive, fully integrated e-commerce website which will drive increasing sales, improve customer retention and reduce overall administration, supported by a straightforward, modern brand portal.
The powerful e-commerce administration system will enable Acme to manage all aspects of the site efficiently, from upload of a new category to the set up of products and a variety of promotions.
Data across the solution, including all customer records, stock levels, prices etc., will be synchronised between the CRM (Sage 200) and website making site administration and customer service easy.
Asked if offline mode would ever be implemented, Mr Brookes replied: "Probably not."
He said Frontier had not taken the decision "lightly" and added: "Having to hamper the game to work offline would have meant that we couldn't deliver the game we're making."
Mr Brookes said the mechanics of the galaxy which players explore, trade and fight in, sit on servers that are online.
"The data set and processes are huge and not something that would translate offline without considerable compromise to the vision," he said.
"A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever-unfolding experience we are delivering," said Mr Brookes, adding: "Trust me we didn't sit down and think, What would annoy people the most?'"
He said Frontier had only made the announcement now because it had been looking at ways to make a workable offline version. However, he said, it had now become clear that it did not have the resources to produce what would be, in effect, two separate versions of the same game.
The Project B
Acme Ltd. are looking for a partner agency to take over and improve their existing suite of three websites -
Of the current websites, two are on outdated platforms (Coldfusion, and unmanaged) and one is on a Joomla site with a custom cart. Because of the challenges of taking over the existing suite of websites, on a mix of technologies, wibble co are proposing to move the existing sites on to one, unified platform for e-commerce and a separate CMS for rich content management.
We will deliver a secure, responsive, fully integrated e-commerce website which will drive increasing sales, improve customer retention and reduce overall administration, supported by a straightforward, modern brand portal.
The powerful e-commerce administration system will enable Acme to manage all aspects of the site efficiently, from upload of a new category to the set up of products and a variety of promotions.
Data across the solution, including all customer records, stock levels, prices etc., will be synchronised between the CRM (Sage 200) and website making site administration and customer service easy.
Post launch services
We are keen to work in close partnership with Acme to ensure we are working to the same goals and sharing the same vision. We want to develop the web presence into a highly profitable and efficient system, which is easy to expand seamlessly across different territories and clients.
Our approach and aims:
- Provide excellent direction, management and support
- Ensure that the site is safe and secure
- Ensure that the site is easy and efficient to update
- Develop the Widget™ platform to ensure that it can support efficient expansion across new territories
- Continually improve the user experience offered by the site including speed of access and user interface development
- Continually improve site sales metrics
- Continually improve performance on Search Engines
- Provide flexible service offering in line with Acme requirements
- To add value to Acme' business, bring new ideas and deliver on time and on budget
Support package
We have designed this package to provide Acme with peace of mind and full cover across the basic services required to maintain, support and manage the web presence.
The support package is made up of the following components:
Service Delivery
This guarantees the overall infrastructure, knowledge base and skill set with built in redundancy to ensure that the service is live and available.
We will:
- Keep key staff up to date and current with Acme's product range, product strategy, design guidelines and competitor knowledge
- Provide an online project hub to ensure that all communication, plans, issues etc., are easily available in one place
- Manage access control
- Ensure that the databases are regularly backed up, all scripts are running and functioning correctly, server security patches are applied when necessary
- Ensure that the staging server, source code repository and all related updates and scripts and are fully functioning
- Provide cover out of office hours in cases of emergency or disaster
Support
Our Account Manager will have detailed knowledge of the web presence, Widget™ administration suite and Acme products. The Account Manager will lead the support alongside the Widget™ developers.
We will provide telephone, email and onsite (when necessary) support for the Acme administration team. Whether it is picking up tasks while an administrator is away on holiday, or helping new staff push the button for site changes, we always aim to provide an exceptional service. We will also provide training for new Acme staff.
We will operate to an agreed set of response times as defined in the SLA and ensure that an escalation process is in place.
Executive summary
What we will deliver
Our solution will be flexible and scalable, supporting Acme's growth ambitions for the next 5 + years including multi language / country development, and rollout of the distributor portal to other brands.
We will deliver a secure, responsive, fully integrated, leading edge e-commerce website which will drive increasing sales, maintain a high level of customer retention and be efficient to administer.
We will take the existing design style and port it across to the Widget™ platform. We will ensure that the new platform integrates well with existing processes and procedures, whilst allowing Acme more power and flexibility. The current route of implementation with Sage 200 (via a 'middle man' SQL database) is appropriate as an MVP – but we would also explore a direct implementation with Sage to enable advanced features (such as live stock knowledge, immediate order response and processing etc).
WorkCo distributor portal
The distributor portal functionality will all sit within the new Acme Widget™ site – it will use the same product base and will share much of the data and functionality with the main site.
The extra functionality required (such as an email-based orders approval process) will be built inline with the existing functional requirements.
The new distributor portal will be built in such a way that it can cost effectively be rolled out to new brands. We can deliver the WorkCo distributor portal with three design options:
- The existing distributor portal style and branding
- A completely new design for the portal
- A design which is splintered off of the main Acme design.
As the main Acme design is reasonably modern, and adaptive to multiple devices, and the new site is going to be run on the same architecture as the Acme site we would recommend option 3 – a design which is based off the main Acme design, but can be easily branded with the logos and colour-ways of the client.
Fusion Data
The fusion data site can either be taken over as-is (we would pull the existing site, templates and data into our easy-to-use Content Management System) – or we can design a new, modern, responsive site to effectively showcase the Fusion Data brand.
Either way, we can set the site up to use product images, and descriptions from the main Widget™ site (if appropriate). If the site is to be fully re-designed we would consult with you to determine the main aims and objectives for the site and recommend the most effective way to showcase the Fusion Data products.
How we will deliver
We will deliver in person.
We are not middlemen. We do not outsource core programming and implementation to other organisations and countries in the hope that the end result will be as good and as accurate as if we did it ourselves.
- We take full responsibility.
- Our in-house team of experts and programmers will deliver the entire project, including:
- Overall management, communication and reporting
- Risk assessment
- Due diligence consultancy
- Best practice consultancy
- Driving the specification process and documentation
- Set up of development environment
- Set up of secure hosting environment
- Design consultancy, where appropriate
- Implementation of Widget™ back end
- Implementation of frontend responsive design and functionality
- Integration with appropriate third party systems
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
We will use a robust UAT process to ensure that the solution is fully tested.