iSpace: Driving Revenue Through Digital Expertise

iSpace: Driving Revenue Through Digital Expertise

How On-Demand, LA-Based Drupal Experts Launch Revenue into Outer Space for IT Staffing Agencies

SUMMARY

iSpace’s ability to quickly place IT specialists with subject matter expertise and skills experience at a significantly reduced cost has been the source of its attraction.

But as businesses within their target industries began transitioning over to Drupal content management systems and requesting Drupal specialists with a suite of complex skills, iSpace faced being locked out of valuable revenue-generating opportunities in Los Angeles, where there is a high demand and small supply of well-rounded Drupal experts. 

Here’s how iSpace made key placements by leveraging our processes and extensive Drupal knowledge to drive revenue and opportunities, increasing the value appeal that has made it a favorite among industries in LA.

Challenge

iSpace’s goal to excel in quality IT staffing placement became increasingly challenging in the Drupal space over the past 5 years. As demand for LA-based Drupal professionals outpaced supply, iSpace struggled to find placements for companies with a full-stack of Drupal needs. 

If iSpace was going to preserve its reputation as a go-to IT staffing agency and capitalize on incoming Drupal projects, it needed a partner who could deliver more than back-end and front-end capabilities. iSpace needed a partner who could iteratively develop value-driven solutions for its clients.

Facet could deliver on the promises of value and help clients waste less time reaching their business goals

giving iSpace a competitive advantage in the Drupal space

Insight

With over a million sites built in Drupal, the demand for expert Drupal talent regularly outpaces supply as projects, migrations, and annual budgeting create waves of Drupal talent needs. In the competitive Los Angeles job market, it’s particularly difficult to find ad-hoc Drupal talent for short-term, project based contracts. However, despite the shortage and overwhelming need, clients continue to demand excelence from their external developer hires. They chose Drupal for its rich feature set and expect a Drupal expert to capitalize and deliver on that value.

To that end, the partner iSpace selected had to be able to assess the true business value Drupal presents and bring insight to each project, helping clients leverage the Drupal CMS as more than a publishing tool. As iSpace's partner, Facet could deliver on the promises of value and help clients waste less time reaching their business goals, giving iSpace a competitive advantage in the Drupal space.

Solution

Less Time and Money Wasted

Drupal is a niche space. Particularly in Los Angeles, a vast majority of Drupal experts have either been nabbed by agencies offering full-time hire or are direct hires at large enterprises. Freelancers in LA are even harder to come by.

With the onboarding of Facet, iSpace was able to deliver flexible resources by bringing on Facet's team of Drupal experts at multiple resource rates to tackle complex tasks across a range of clients. Deals that were locked in the pipeline could be closed and new projects could be tackled with the help of the Facet team. 

Helping with the Big Migration

California State University - Los Angeles (CSULA) was one of our first projects in partnership with iSpace. The university’s Administrative Tech department needed assistance migrating 26 websites from static HTML pages to the feature-rich Drupal 7 platform. After setting a foundation and roadmap for the Administrative Tech Department, Facet built relationships with the Web Information Technology Services (ITS) department as well. The problems faced by Administrative Tech were shared by many other divisions. We supported Web ITS with Drupal implementation strategy and training services to help its 2 Web Support employees scale up its support of 6 divisions and approximately 100 departments. 

Through cross-departmental collaboration, thoughtful website design layout, and information structure, the big migration was completed, with each department receiving an overhaul of their information architecture and, to compliment, a custom brand-aligned site that kept users on track to completing valuable tasks. 

Drupal training manuals Facet developed for tech employees were also later used to empower department web content managers to take control of their sites and publish content independently. With the editorial team masters of their domains, the tech support departments were freed up to solve critical technical issues, prioritize the release of valuable features that enhance user experience, and improve content management workflows through modifications to Drupal architecture. 

Creating a Path for Customers

Some time after the year-long Cal State LA project, iSpace approached Facet again, this time to work with Virco, America’s leading manufacturer and supplier of furniture and equipment for K-12 schools since 1950. 

Their brochure-style website needed updates—the immediate task was to give customers the ability to log into Virco’s website in order to access order statuses from SAP. Once logged-in, customers could check real-time status on their backlog of orders, and stay up-to-date without the need for phone calls or emails. While customers received immediate self-service, perhaps the biggest benefit was to Virco’s sales representatives. They would no longer have to stop acquisitions to pull up orders in their system and answer purchase-related questions; they could focus purely on sales and delivery. 

Revenue Engineering

After finishing the first assignment with Cal State LA, iSpace immediately saw how it could monetize Facet’s wide range of expertise. Solutions architecture, requirements engineering, Drupal consulting and training all compounded value because each require strategy, process, critical thinking and extensive knowledge of Drupal systems/applications. 

The intensive Discovery workshops Facet put iSpace’s clients through surfaced the key features, requirements and tools that would bring the most value and return to their businesses, allowing iSpace to enjoy additional billable work opportunities when Facet recommended new features outside the initial scope of work.

Results

As multipliers, Facet has driven vast amounts of value for iSpace and its clients businesses. Through our successful partnership, iSpace has been able to satisfy more Drupal clients and acquire numerous contract extensions that have grown their accounts. Those clients, in turn, have gained sustainable pieces of infrastructure that drive greater value for their core business operations.

Over 600

Hours of Work for iSpace

100%

Reported Customer Satisfaction