Dena Matthews, Treasurer and CFO and Jim Teece, President and CEO In today’s competitive business world, a good customer experience is the starting point where a sale is won or lost, where a brand is cherished, and where the seeds of loyalty are planted. It’s simply not enough anymore for companies to produce a great product or complete a reliable service. Beyond just transactional experience, every client looks for an emotional experience or a unique memory—making long-term customer relationships the differentiator for successful businesses of the future.
And this is what precisely Project A—custom programming, web design, content management, and hosting solutions provider—stands for. Founded in 1990 by Jim Teece (president and CEO of the company) along with his wife Dena Matthews (treasurer and CFO), Project A’s core mission has always been to offer bespoke web, database, and mobile app development services to global e-commerce enterprises as well as mom-and-pop shops, and in the process, build long-lasting connections. “And, we have done so successfully for the last three decades,” says Teece. “We are different from other organizations; we are international and simultaneously hyper-local as we are always trying to help our local community blossom in the global e-commerce space,” he adds.
What makes Project Acapable of achieving this feat is its platform-agnostic approach. This helps the company offer highly tailored, white-glove services to selected clients, ranging from integrating SAP Hybris solutions to BigCommerce and WordPress builds, and everything in between.
Owing to this flexibility and client-centricity, today, Project A has become a partner of choice for organizations looking to create effective and engaging consumer-focused e-commerce platforms. The process to developing such e-commerce solutions usually starts by understanding a client’s business and their goals for the next three to five years. “Our objective is to understand their entire business inside out, not just the e-commerce aspect, to orchestrate a more meaningful solution for them that resonates with their business values,” says Teece. Thus, Project A acts as an extension of their client’s development wing, uses best- of-breed agile development process and expertise to provide fast, efficient, and robust solutions.
We are different from other organizations; we are international and simultaneously hyper-local as we are always trying to help our local community blossom in the global e-commerce space
“Our success resides in our client’s success, and this helps us not just offer a solution but also build a relationship,” remarks Teece.
The success Project A has achieved through this approach is no coincidence, though. Project A’s small team of 10 experts always ensures that the company is completely interwoven with its client’s operations. This intense relationship with the client enables the company to accomplish a project with a 100 percent success rate. “We are agile, and we are always focused on the client’s core needs. We are like a SWAT team,” enthuses Teece. Due to the close-knit working relationship, Project A has been able to retain its employees and clients for more than 20 years.
The CEO firmly believes that e-commerce is not just about technology and serving the client’s needs. It is also about changing the community’s thought process and teaching them how to conduct business and remain viable in an ever-changing marketplace. And the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a fitting testament to this. After the pandemic’s initial shock jolted the economy, many businesses had to temporarily shut down and restarted their operations only when they successfully went through the digital makeover. In this trying time, Project A stood by all its clients and helped them to transform according to their requirements. In the same vein, Teece shares a story of a community in Ashland, Oregon, where due to a wild fire, three of his employees and 2500 other families lost their homes. As people needed help immediately, Project A rose to the occasion, and with the help of their knowledge and skillsets, created two solutions. “We put our work on hold for a week, and my entire team treated it like a real project,” says Teece. First, Project A developed a website that connected people who wanted to donate and those who needed donations. The second solution was an app for the help centers to manage their needs, such as donation of food, clothing, money, and more. With its solutions, Project A helped the community overcome the catastrophe.
Now, looking back at the last 30 years of Project A, Teece says, “It’s been an incredibly rewarding journey, and we are constantly evolving in the technical space.” Today, his company has clients worldwide and has worked even with government agencies on several projects. “I am a software programmer at heart, and my focus is always to help the local community thrive—whether during a pandemic or otherwise,” concludes Teece.
