Domani Digital another year more mature
Posted by Vince Nicita on Friday, February 25, 2011
It’s now been almost 18 months since I started Domani Digital and many people have asked how it is going. When I tell them about the growth, the great new clients, the success stories they inevitably stop me and say yeah that’s all fine but what about the whole work-life balance, remote workplace, flexible working environment stuff. Was it for real, was it too idealistic?
Happily it is still working to plan and in most cases exceeding my expectations. I must admit there were times when I was tempted to go back to the old way – employing programmers and designers again – but I think that was more a result of missing the excitement of the work environment and maybe even a little bit of loneliness at times.
Fact is, the advantages far outweigh the downside. So what are these benefits? Well let me share what my experience has been and I’ll look at it from both sides of the fence – the benefits to a business person like myself and the benefits to my customers.
Benefits for the Customer
- I can find a solution for everybody. I can do jobs smaller that I would not have bothered with in the past but I can also put together a team for even the largest project.
- We are not just Microsoft anymore. In fact projects currently underway cover multiple CMS platforms, open source and proprietary. So we can be completely unbiased.
- We are never too busy. Instead of having 30, 40 up 70 staff as before I now have access to, at last count, well over 300 staff through my network of partners. We never say NO.
- We offer better value. When appropriate, and this isn’t always the case, we can use our off-shore team of developers. I’ve spent over a year training my core team in India and for some of the simpler programming and some support work we can reduce costs significantly.
- We perfected our Methodology. The process is now so streamlined and efficient that we can produce our solutions faster and with less hassle and stress.
Benefits to the Business
- I work flexible hours. While I'm always on call during work hours I still have the flexibility to take the kids to school or catch up for coffee with friends then I may do some work at night. The actual work hours are the same as before – or less – but they might be from home or in the office.
- Overheads are reduced hugely – a home office and nice serviced office in the city. No ridiculous lease and office expenses. No marble foyers, break-out rooms, computer rooms and OH&S rigmarole.
- Only a few permanent staff – need I say more!
- No one sitting on the bench. The holy grail of all development houses is to keep all their staff chargeable 100% of the time. I pay for what I need, when I need it.
This year we embark on a major expansion which will put the scalability of our network to the test. Should be exciting and quite a ride. We are launching our unique offering to agencies who want to outsource some or all of their digital work.
We are also partnering with larger companies that already have in-house teams who may use Domani to fill in the gaps during busy periods or when specialist knowledge is required.
Stay tuned for updates.
Best regards,
Vince
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Domani Digital another year more mature
Posted by Vince Nicita on Friday, February 25, 2011It’s now been almost 18 months since I started Domani Digital and many people have asked how it is going. When I tell them about the growth, the great new clients, the success stories they inevitably stop me and say yeah that’s all fine but what about the whole work-life balance, remote workplace, flexible working environment stuff. Was it for real, was it too idealistic?
Happily it is still working to plan and in most cases exceeding my expectations. I must admit there were times when I was tempted to go back to the old way – employing programmers and designers again – but I think that was more a result of missing the excitement of the work environment and maybe even a little bit of loneliness at times.
Fact is, the advantages far outweigh the downside. So what are these benefits? Well let me share what my experience has been and I’ll look at it from both sides of the fence – the benefits to a business person like myself and the benefits to my customers.
Benefits for the Customer
- I can find a solution for everybody. I can do jobs smaller that I would not have bothered with in the past but I can also put together a team for even the largest project.
- We are not just Microsoft anymore. In fact projects currently underway cover multiple CMS platforms, open source and proprietary. So we can be completely unbiased.
- We are never too busy. Instead of having 30, 40 up 70 staff as before I now have access to, at last count, well over 300 staff through my network of partners. We never say NO.
- We offer better value. When appropriate, and this isn’t always the case, we can use our off-shore team of developers. I’ve spent over a year training my core team in India and for some of the simpler programming and some support work we can reduce costs significantly.
- We perfected our Methodology. The process is now so streamlined and efficient that we can produce our solutions faster and with less hassle and stress.
Benefits to the Business
- I work flexible hours. While I'm always on call during work hours I still have the flexibility to take the kids to school or catch up for coffee with friends then I may do some work at night. The actual work hours are the same as before – or less – but they might be from home or in the office.
- Overheads are reduced hugely – a home office and nice serviced office in the city. No ridiculous lease and office expenses. No marble foyers, break-out rooms, computer rooms and OH&S rigmarole.
- Only a few permanent staff – need I say more!
- No one sitting on the bench. The holy grail of all development houses is to keep all their staff chargeable 100% of the time. I pay for what I need, when I need it.
This year we embark on a major expansion which will put the scalability of our network to the test. Should be exciting and quite a ride. We are launching our unique offering to agencies who want to outsource some or all of their digital work.
We are also partnering with larger companies that already have in-house teams who may use Domani to fill in the gaps during busy periods or when specialist knowledge is required.
Stay tuned for updates.
Best regards,
Vince
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