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Read this story and learn Why all Web consultants are not created equal How to look for signs of trouble ahead Why the lowest bid is not always the best Why physical proximity may still be important Why the right consultant today is not necessarily the right one for tomorrow How to be an ideal client	HESE DAYS, FINDING A WEB CONSULTANT IS about as easy as finding a pizza parlor. Just look in the local Yellow Pages. Chances are, "Web Site Design Services" are sandwiched between "Weather Vanes" and "Wedding Consultants." But finding the right consultant for your Web project is more involved than locating the nearest Domino's. Ad agencies, Web design boutiques, traditional systems integrators and specialized Internet programmers are among those hawking Web services. Even seasoned firms, however, have only two or three years of Web experience. And it's tough to find one equally strong in the strategic, creative, technical and project management talents needed to cook up a successful Web site. Pick the wrong pizza place, and you might get an upset stomach. Pick the wrong Web consultant, and you'll need more than a few Rolaids to get over it. Just ask Valorie G. Weaver, executive vice president of Rx Remedy Inc. and editor-in-chief of Remedy magazine, a consumer health magazine based in Westport, Conn. In January 1997, Remedy hired Avalanche Systems Inc., a hip Silicon Alley firm in New York City with a snazzy portfolio, to build its Web site. The project was supposed to take six months and cost $345,000. One frustrating year later, Remedy had spent $240,000 and still did not have a finished site. Avalanche, meanwhile, was in dire fiscal shape, says Troy Tyler, Avalanche's executive vice president and chief operating officer, who was hired in August 1997 to find a financial partner, turn the company around, turn loose unprofitable clients and win new ones. Tyler told Weaver the newly reorganized company, called Avalanche Solutions Inc., could finish the site only if Remedy paid it on a time and materials basis, roughly another $219,000. Weaver was "appalled"; Tyler felt he had no choice. The two companies parted ways, and Remedy kept working with an Avalanche subcontractor. At this writing, the site is due to launch in the first half of this year--nearly a year later than planned, albeit only $50,000 over budget. How can you make sure your Web consulting experience won't give you such indigestion? CIO Web Business asked Remedy, Avalanche and other Web clients and consultants to share their tips. Some of their advice rings true for any outsourcing deal: Prepare a detailed request for proposals (RFP); check references; have the right people on staff to manage the consultant's work. Other tips are Web-specific: Make sure the consultant's work plan allows time for testing the site on different browsers; test out some of the sites it has designed to see how long they take to load and how well they work. The first step toward finding the right Web consultant is to ask yourself a deceptively simple question: Why do you want to be on the Web? Assembling a team from marketing, sales, IS and other divisions can help a company shape its Web business plan. Certainly, a consultant can help develop and refine your Web strategy, too. But don't expect it to do so without some strategic soul-searching on your company's part. Next, size up staff strengths and weaknesses to determine what skills to seek outside: Do you need someone to take over the whole project, or do you just need a few contractors to fill in the holes? Do you have the staff to maintain the site? And do you want the consultant to give you the tools and training to do so? When Office Depot Inc. laid plans for a Web store, for example, the company clearly understood how to be a successful retailer. But it needed someone who understood Net culture and information design, says Beth VanStory, vice president of Office Depot Online in San Francisco. Studio Verso, also in San Francisco, fit the bill. Office Depot also interviewed several systems integrators but decided in-house IS staff could handle the technical demands alone, since they had already built a private Web site. "In the time it would have taken people to get up to speed on our legacy systems," VanStory says, "we could be developing our Web system." Even if you have a multifunctional team, make one person the lead communicator with the consultant. And make sure someone internally is technically savvy enough to know whether the consultant is on target. Remedy did not hire its own webmaster until it was about nine months into the project, Weaver says--clearly a mistake. If you already have a Web site, there's one more thing you should do before you call a consultant: Conduct a site audit. Weed out material that's outdated or not in line with corporate philosophy, recommends Manuel Terranova, content manager for Xerox Corp.'s Internet channel and marketing group in Palo Alto, Calif. It's much easier--and less costly--for a consultant to redesign a 2,000-page site than a 20,000-page one. Visit consultants on their own turf to learn things that won't show up in a dog-and-pony show: Is their headquarters a converted garage? What creative and technical people do they have working on staff? Is the atmosphere chaotic? During preliminary interviews, listening to the questions consultants ask is as important as listening to what they tell you. If all they do is talk about zippy new Web technology, they may not be able to help you develop your strategy. "The good ones will force you to answer the hard questions," says Michael Lehman, senior Internet business manager at ACCO Brands Inc. in Lincolnshire, Ill., which makes the Day-Timer line of personal productivity tools. Make sure you meet with all the consultant's key players--not just those in marketing or new business development--and find out if they will be outsourcing any part of your project. Remedy's Weaver says she did not know Avalanche was outsourcing the site's programming to Thaumaturgix Inc. in New York City until she got a call from Thaumaturgix's founder, Peter Dolch, last summer. He said his company had not been paid in four months--and could not continue until it got paid. Weaver, who had been wondering all along why simple technical questions were taking two days to get answered, agreed that Remedy would work with and pay Thaumaturgix directly. Avalanche's former director of technology, David A. Sinclair, says Avalanche's company policy at the time was to not tell clients when work was outsourced--a policy he strongly disagrees with. When he left Avalanche in July 1997, he urged Dolch to make the call to Weaver, since things run much more smoothly when a client has a direct relationship with an outsourcer. How can you tell if a company may have to outsource? "Ask to see a full rundown of the project team," Sinclair advises, "[and] find out each person's relative workload." You want your Web shop to be financially stable so it will be around long enough to finish the job. But unless the contractor is a publicly traded company, there's no sure way to measure its stability. Avalanche got into trouble because it was a fixed-bid, job-oriented shop with ad-hoc procedures, Tyler says. It would do whatever it took to complete a project, even if the fee did not cover all the work. Projects could creep out of control, as Remedy's did, he says. (Weaver, however, says that the scope of the project changed, but it never grew beyond what Remedy originally asked for in the RFP.) To save the company, Tyler found an investor: Razorfish Inc. in New York City, part of advertising giant Omnicom's Communicade Network, to take an undisclosed stake in Avalanche. Tyler also instituted formal procedures. Now, Avalanche charges a fixed fee for the exploration phase of a project, during which it develops a comprehensive project plan. Then, when Avalanche and the client agree on the scope, they will sign a fixed-price contract to develop a site, Tyler says. Clients can take the project plan and find another firm to bid on and complete the work if they don't want to pay Avalanche's prices; Avalanche can even help them find another firm, Tyler says. One sign that a company could have fiscal staying power is if it offers services that have higher margins than Web site design, says John Hearn, lead analyst for interactive marketing at GartnerGroup Inc. in Stamford, Conn. Such services include media placement or sophisticated back-end systems integration. You also want to make sure that a firm is not underbidding on a contract because it is eager to get work or does not fully understand what the job will entail. Ask the consultants to give you a quote--and a time frame--for each element of the process, so you can compare quotes from different firms, piece by piece, says Dennis Kwasnicki, executive director of the Association of Web Professionals in Mississauga, Ontario.

ACCO Brands Inc (http://www.acco.com/) Association of Web Professionals (http://www.ipw.org/) Boca Comm (http://www.bocacomm.com/) Cambridge Technology Partners (http://www.ctp.com/) Forrester Research Inc (http://www.forrester.com/) GartnerGroup Inc (http://www.gartner.com/) John Deere (http://www.deere.com/) K2 Design Inc (http://www.k2design.com/) Magnet Interactive (http://www.magnet.com/) Multimedia Live (http://www.multimedialive.com/) Mutual of New York (http://www.mony.com/) Neoglyphics Media Corp (http://www.neoglyphics.com/) Office Depot Online (http://www.officedepot.com/) Propel Technologies Inc (http://propel.com/) Radisson Hotels Worldwide (http://www.radisson.com/) Razorfish Inc (http://www.razorfish.com/) Reader's Digest Association Inc (http://www.readersdigest.com/) RS-Components (http://www.rs-components.com/ rs/) Studio Verso (http://www.verso.com/) Thaumaturgix Inc (http://www.thaumaturgix.com/) Vendis (http://www.bocacomm.com/e/vendis/) Xerox Corp (http://www.xerox.com/)	Hot firms in major Web or business hubs will often have clients all over the country, even outside the United States. The Web, after all, is a distributed communications medium, and trading e-mails or accepting work orders over a Web site can be a good way to stay in touch. But for some clients, virtual contact is not enough; they prefer to work with firms that are close enough to meet with face-to-face. At The Reader's Digest Association Inc., based in Pleasantville, N.Y., Keith Fox, marketing director for new business development, says projects run more smoothly when he works with firms in New York City. "If I needed something, I could be in [my Web designer's] office in an hour," Fox says. "In new media, which is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week business, [that's] very important." When Xerox launched a major corporate site redesign in 1996, it picked a large advertising shop to help. Some of the site's creative elements tied into the upcoming Atlanta Olympics. As the project progressed, however, it became clear that the unnamed firm had never before coordinated a Web project on the scale of the Xerox relaunch, Terranova says. Deadlines slipped. Xerox had to step into the management breach, running its own daily conference calls and meetings. The launch was delayed until August 31, 1996-weeks after the Olympics, meaning that the company had to scrap Olympics-themed creative work. "Had we known what we were getting into," Terranova says, "we probably would have augmented their skill mix with somebody who could have helped to manage the launch." Looking at a firm's portfolio and checking references to make sure it completes jobs on time and on budget are musts to make sure that firm can handle your job. You must also decide whether to seek a firm that has experience in your industry. In addition, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. recommends asking the firm's subcontractors whether it is easy to work with and professional. And you should find out whether a firm has a concrete project development and management methodology, and how it documents it. At Novato, Calif.-based Multimedia Live, for example, clients get a "design document"--a blueprint of the site development and launch process. The contract should spell out the site's specifications in detail-functionality, performance levels and operational requirements, says Gary Saidman, an attorney with Kilpatrick Stockton, an intellectual property law firm in Atlanta. The specifications should also include prototyping and testing, developmental stages that can then be used as payment milestones, says Saidman, who has advised clients on Web development contracts. If you're using more than one developer, their roles should be clearly delineated. Don't forget to specify who owns the hardware, software, code and content. And you may want to restrict what the developer can do with technology it has developed for you. When Radisson Hotels Worldwide hired Washington-based Magnet Interactive to design a Web site that would serve as an interactive tool, marketing medium and Web-based reservation system linked with its legacy systems, it asked Magnet to agree to not license the code to any of Radisson's competitors, says Rachael Marret, director of interactive marketing at Radisson in Minneapolis. Make sure the contract lets you use and modify whatever your consultant develops, even if you do so with another developer, Saidman says. Make clear who will be liable for copyright breaches, linking disputes or if a customer's credit card number is stolen. The contract should also cover what happens when you part ways--specifically, how will you make the transition to another agency or to taking the project in house? "Nobody can predict the future," Marret says, "including whether the interactive agency that fits your needs today will be the interactive agency that fits your needs tomorrow." Remedy never signed a contract with Avalanche. Weaver says it was because it did not get Avalanche's technical specifications until late 1997; at that point, because of the project's problems, the company's lawyer advised it not to sign. Tyler, however, says Remedy and Avalanche were both responsible for agreeing on a scope of work--and the failure on both sides to do so led to the problems down the road. These tips may help you avoid Remedy's pain. But given that the Web--and the industry that has sprung up to help businesses take advantage of it--is still so new, there are no guarantees. So do your research. Get the right players involved in-house. Know what you want, and be vigilant to make sure the consultant delivers it. And keep those Rolaids ready just in case. Senior Writer Sari Kalin can be reached at skalin@cio.com. What Will Make You an Ideal Client Don't expect the consultant to work in a vacuum. Propel Technologies Inc. in Portland, Maine, gives its clients a list of roles they need to fill, says President Amy Smith. Deliver your content and core creative material on time and in a format the Web firm requests. Ken Burke, president and CEO of Multimedia Live in Novato, Calif., says that is the biggest problem Web firms face. Have a strategy and communicate it clearly. Most problems arise when a company hires a firm to start building a site, says Rosalind Resnick, president of New York City-based Internet marketing firm NetCreations Inc., "and they realize halfway through that that's not what they wanted to accomplish." Develop a cross-functional team, but still put one person in charge. Otherwise, warns Lee Dingle, worldwide director of interactive solutions at Cambridge Technology Partners Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., "you're trying to build a Web site by committee." Make clear what ROI you want--say, an increase in orders. Otherwise the consultant won't be able to deliver it, says Matthew de Ganon, president and vice chairman of K2 Design Inc., a full-service interactive ad agency in New York City. --S. Kalin Why I Picked My Web Consultant E.P. Rogers, CIO, Mutual of New York (MONY), New York City Project: Designing a corporate intranet. Consultant: Propel Technologies Inc., Portland, Maine Why: It had the best chemistry, and it had good client references. MONY would be an important customer for Propel, a small Web shop. Advice: Make sure the consultant can handle emergencies, even after the site is up. When MONY announced its demutualization, the chairman wanted a press release on the intranet pronto, but MONY's staff had not yet begun doing its own updates. Propel delivered in an hour with just one phone call. "You have to have somebody who can be responsive," Rogers says, "because once you get this up, it becomes the lifeblood of the company." Bernard C. Hewitt, head of Internet Trading, RS-Components, Corby, Northamptonshire, England Project: Building an Internet trading site for U.K. customers, letting them order from a collection of 100,000 electronic, electrical, mechanical, and health and safety products. Consultant: Cambridge Technology Partners, Richmond-Surrey, England office Why: Web boutiques seemed too risky. Cambridge filled all of RS-Components' needs and was willing to work with software providers RS-Components had already chosen. Advice: Don't be put off by price. "[Cambridge's] price was higher than any other contractor's, but their time scales were shorter and more certain," Hewitt says. "They hit every delivery date and hit every value and quality required." Bill Folks, project manager, technology integration department, John Deere, Moline, Ill. Project: Launching an external corporate Web site. Consultant: Neoglyphics Media Corp., Chicago Why: It knew the technology and had already launched major corporate Web sites. Advice: Evaluate whether you need someone with a marketing bent or a technical bent. Neoglyphics was more technically oriented, Folks says. For Deere's redesign, it will seek someone with more of a marketing focus. "They were right for that phase of our Internet development," Folks says of Neoglyphics. "Now we're looking at, 'What can we do to benefit from our [Web] presence?'" --S. Kalin
CIO Magazine - June 1, 1998 © 1998 CIO Communications, Inc.