Quotes and excerpts taken from Sitation’s Director of Solution Architecture, George Dzuricsko, certified both as a Functional and Technical Consultant with Akeneo, during an interview with Francois Chaix, Akeneo’s Worldwide Partners Evangelist.
Additional details from Rachel Maley, who manages Sitation’s Gold Akeneo Partnership and is certified as a Functional Consultant.
Akeneo Focus
How long have you been partnering with Akeneo?
- Sitation began their Akeneo partnership in November 2019 as Bronze, quickly jumped to Silver in August of 2020 and made it to GOLD in January 2021 with an amazing effort led by Sitation’s Akeneo team.
- We accomplished this by attending trainings, gaining certifications, posting press releases and blogs about our own experiences with the platform; sharing on our website & LinkedIn as well as successfully implementing Akeneo for a few clients in the first 12 months.
- From engaging in this partnership to achieving gold – we accomplished this within 14 months time, which we are quite proud of!
What did you think of Akeneo initially?
- It’s nice to work with a platform that’s open source (as a developer). There are resources and a community; that’s very helpful. It’s a tradeoff since Akeneo is SaaS as well.
- Pain points that came up early on are now fixed and not even an issue with 4.0 and beyond. This is great for both us as implementers & consultants, and the client who is using this day to day.
Why are you still a partner today?
- Akeneo is a great PIM – very focused on the product enrichment experience which we’ve seen a more demanding need for as clients boosted their online sales
- We have a lot of expertise at Sitation that we are happy to share with retailers, distributors and the like
How big is your team working on Akeneo?
- Sitation has over 5 certified consultants between Functional & Technical, with more on the team that are capable of guiding clients through an implementation process with their data, development and taxonomy skill sets.
- We are constantly training internally to ramp up new users and allow them to take their shot at the certifications!
What is your best souvenir you have with Akeneo?
- Ziggy of course!!
How do you know & interact with the Akeneo Community?
- Traveling for projects, meeting with Functional Consultants, getting to know some of the team at the Paris conference (2019)
- “The akeneo team is very warm, very friendly”
- “Never had an issue where we were worried about any other factors than client success”
- The community is really strong with Akeneo
- 5 of us at Sitation were able to attend the onsite Functional Training in Boston, so seeing Akeneo HQ and meeting the consultants in person really helped form that relationship
- A few of us were able to enjoy a post-shift beer with Akeneo’s CEO, Fred! What a cool experience
- Sitation is remote first; “the diversity of geography has really helped us grow”
2020/2021 Impact
How was remote training with projects in 2020 (and early 2021)?
- Good transition from previous question; apart from not traveling to a client site – our work is completely suited for this
- As a company, we got nervous with the spring 2020 market struggle/uncertainty
- Then we excelled because we know how to work remotely
- “We’re a cameras on onorganization” – getting that emotional connection as best we can, and it’s a great opportunity to grow some of those skills
- Was it hard with some customers (who are not used to working remotely)?
- Some challenges are universal
- Client had to change security – no way to VPN to IP to access certain resources
- Mixed blessings – forced to deal with everyone’s personal life
- Crying kids, barking dogs – disruptive but HUMAN and we’re all figuring this out together and work towards the solution together
- Some advantage to this – nothing that you experience in an office
- What do you expect for the rest of 2021?
- We are excited about Sitation’s continued growth and development; improving training capacity and have fully trained and certified power users to lead and consult
- 2019 (when we became partners) we were under 10 employees, now we have surpassed 30
- This summer, we were honored to be a part of the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Private Company list at #379!
- “It’s no longer ecommerce, it’s just commerce”
- “To be in ecommerce right now is incredibly exciting”
We are proud to be a Gold Akeneo Partner and look forward to continuing this journey. Visit us at Sitation.com to learn more or contact us about any implementation or consulting services!
