It's always good to see questions come up on the SIPA Discussion Forum. But it's even better to see answers.
That's where Vipul Shah, senior VP delivery operations & client engagement for Ace Infoway, comes in. The relatively new SIPA member company is headquartered in India but has been serving the United States—and United Kingdom—for many years.
Two posts came up recently that Shah was quick to thoughtfully answer. The first asked about generic SSL certificates that might be causing a mismatch with sending domains and initiating a "malicious warning" message (especially if they are using Google Chrome). Shah suggested a solution and advised where the person could go to find more information.
The second post said: "We are looking for website/CMS solution and wanted to reach out to the group to see if you have any recommendations."
"There are many open source CMS platforms available in the market that can serve your needs," wrote Shah. "The popular Wordpress CMS has been mentioned. But it would be unfair to provide an answer without proper assessment of your needs. For example when you are looking at a very secure and robust solution, Drupal is the preferred choice."
First of all, continued Shah, it's important to list your current issues and also the short-term/mid-term objectives of the CMS solution that you are looking for. He gave the parameters that he believes should be considered for selecting a CMS:
- Availability of key features as default;
- Amount of customization required;
- Roles and rights management – along with access to different types of users – paid and free;
- One time implementation cost;
- Recurring cost of maintenance;
- Ease of use for editorial/marketing staff;
- Security and performance (speed);
- Amount of content/articles to be published.
"A careful deliberation can help you develop a solution that will go long," he wrote.
I had just spoken to Shah and his colleague, Nirav Oza, VP, key accounts & technology, a couple weeks before for a member profile.
SIPA: When was Ace Infoway established?
Shah: Ace Infoway was established in 1997 by Amit Mehta (CEO and one of the founding members), starting with software services and website development.
How many people work there?
The company now has a staff of about 250 people with women making up 40%-50% of that number.
What are some publishers you've worked with?
Although we cater to customers around the world, the U.S. has become our main focus. We've worked with several publishing companies in the last decade. That includes some reputable compliance publishers and SIPA members for whom we created websites, print designs and software (SaaS) products. We also manage their cloud infrastructure and servers.
What services do you provide?
We have three types of media services that we provide: Number one is technology, consulting and development. Second is keeping a marketing presence and developing websites. And third is for print publishers we do prepress and digital typesetting work. For one customer, we manage 40 B2B sites!
Nirav, what significant shift do you see these days in user browsing patterns and client demands?
[Oza] Creating an interactive and engaging web and mobile application interface is becoming a necessity for the modern businesses. In the past, only core programming technologies like Microsoft .NET, Java, PHP were in use, but now the focus is more on using client side Java Script frameworks along with core technologies primarily aiming to provide adoption of new design patterns, speed, simplicity and scalability for smart business applications. Thus the giants like Google and Facebook are investing heavily in promoting such JavaScript frameworks—Angular JS is supported by Google and React JS is supported by Facebook."
Things change so fast in this industry.
[Shah] Yes, technology and tools are changing at a very fast rate. It's very technical. We have to be up-to-date with our knowledge to offer customers the best choices.
[Oza] In some cases, clients brought product development ideas and provided a brief description of what they wanted. Based on that, we do a business analysis and market research and then propose the product development solution that suits their eco-systems. But in many cases, the requirements come from the clients.
What about the look of a website?
[Oza] In terms of UX design and how a particular website should look—things we are experts in—we do a client interview and based on that propose a system.
Should a company working with you worry about the time difference?
[Shah] No, not at all. On the contrary, we make it clear that time zone differences don't matter for us—we are here 24/7 to support our U.S. and UK clients and have been doing it for decades now.
That's great. And experience matters.
[Shah] Yes, the point is that we are a company dealing with U.S. customers for more than 20 years. It's not about just saving cost. It is about going with a company that knows the industry, its trends and with confidence can provide technology solutions, without any trial and error. We continuously evolve with technology; we invest for our customers and thus offer the best of solutions.
Learn more about Ace Infoway here.
Are you subscribed to the SIPAlert Daily?If not, you're missing out on daily strategies, tips, profiles and case studies that can build your audience and increase revenue. To sign up, please contact
Nevena Jovanovic.
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 and SIIA in 2013 as editorial director…