Agency Articles

Over the past few months we’ve been asked to explain what we do in more detail so we thought we’d dedicate this newsletter to better explain what we do, who we work with and how it benefits our clients.

Who are our clients?
In a nutshell we provide web development services to our clients, which include:

• Web Designers
• Web Development Companies
• Creative and Marketing Agencies

While we do one off jobs for some of our clients, our core service is to work long term with our clients to help them expand their services or their capacity.

Our client base is global and includes the US, Europe, UK and Australia. Distance is not an issue because we work using an online project manager tool and communicate using Skype and instant messaging tools like AIM to stay in regular contact.

What we do?
Our service can start from the outlining of the specification to the final deployment or any point between that. We are often considered part of our client’s team and we’re happy to jump in and advise on practical applications or techniques.

Generally we quote on work that has been designed and specified between the agency and their client and provide an estimate accordingly based on the scope and complexity of the project. Our services include:

• XHTML/CSS/jQuery front end coding
• ExpressionEngine CMS Development

We don’t often speak to the client of our client, our relationship is with our client the agency or designer.

All projects are fixed rate quotes based on specifications and designs. This is why a detailed specification is very important so that we can provide accurate quotes and deadlines for our client.

Why do our clients choose to outsource?
Outsourcing becoming a competitive trend in the web industry. Not all agencies will have the capacity or expertise to specialize in everything web. The web is maturing, with many new technologies arriving such as HTML5 so outsourcing development to a company that actively invests in staying up to date is becoming more common and cost effective.

Several reasons why our clients continue to outsource development to us:

• Outsourcing can be cheaper than hiring and training staff, especially as expertise required may change from one job to the next.
• Budgeting is easy with no loss of time. Projects are calculated at a fixed hourly rate that means the client knows how much it will cost and no time will be wasted around the water cooler chatting about last night’s TV programming.
• If the web work is seasonal that’s fine, we’ll be there when it comes back online so no need to support our wages in the meantime.
• Technical skills and support are available if necessary so if you’re not sure if a CMS is the right tool, if IE6 is dead yet or if you can offer iPhone website services then we are here to help.

I hope this summary has helped you to understand who we work with, what we do, and why you should work with us.

If you’d like to know any more about us or how we can help you then please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to explain it in more detail.

Steven Hambleton,
Hambo Development