Meet MASSIVE ART: Full Service Digital Agency and Sulu Platinum Partner
MASSIVE ART WebServices GmbH and Sulu have a shared lineage. Sulu started as a team at MASSIVE ART before spinning off to form their own company. Now, MASSIVE ART is a Sulu Platinum Partner.
MASSIVE ART is a full-service digital agency. With over 60 employees across five offices, they provide consulting services along with design, development, and online marketing resources to enable digital transformation for their customers. Cornelius Hansjakob, who leads the Commerce and Engineering business unit explains, “We are a sector-independent, full-service agency and we have all the competence required in-house.” Founded in 1997, MASSIVE ART has over 25 years of experience in the industry, and many long-term clients, some of whom have been with the agency for over ten years! That’s a lot of satisfied customers!
The first versions of Sulu (Zoolu) were developed by MASSIVE ART employees before they spun off into Sulu. “So that's the history - we are very strongly connected. And a lot of customers really appreciate the fact that we are so close to the Sulu team,” explains Claudia Mangold Arias, UX consultant and lead of the Experience business unit at MASSIVE ART.
Shared values and a love of open source
Because they come from the same background, MASSIVE ART and Sulu have a lot of similarities. “Both teams are very down-to-earth, very hands-on, honest, and very professional. We're both very dynamic teams” says Claudia.
Sulu is an open source CMS, and open source is a way of life for MASSIVE ART. Cornelius asserts, “It’s a goal for us that we want to use open source products, and we want to contribute to open source projects.”
MASSIVE ART sees the value in open source and wants to pass that on to their customers, especially the cost savings. Claudia explains, “Some customers still choose licensed software solutions because they have a feeling that they are more secure or more solid. But we know that open source software can be very high quality — especially with Sulu. So it's better for our customers to invest their budget in development and design services, and save on high license fees every year.”
The right place at the right time
MASSIVE ART service mostly multinational, B2B clients - product and service providers who ship all over the world. Global businesses need multi-language and multi-portal solutions. These clients often require many different language and country versions of the same website.
Being situated at the center of Europe (with offices in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein) MASSIVE ART is perfectly placed to service these types of customers. And Sulu is the perfect solution. “This is one of the key factors that fits really well between Sulu and MASSIVE ART and our customers,” says Claudia.
Winning customers and solving problems
Closing deals
One of the main benefits of the Partner Program, and something that MASSIVE ART do quite often, is to invite a Sulu team member to pitch the CMS to potential customers.
“A lot of customers are not sure which CMS to choose. We see a strong benefit when Thomas Schedler comes to the meeting and pitches Sulu, and we pitch as the agency. Together we are able to gain some big clients,” enthuses Claudia. “When Thomas presents the Sulu CMS, it’s really impressive for customers. He’s a great speaker, and he pitches the CMS in a way that only the founder of Sulu can do. And having Thomas there shows that we, as an agency, work very closely with the Sulu team. So that really helps in customer acquisition.”
Technical Sparring partner
Another advantage of the Partner Program is that MASSIVE ART developers gain professional sparring partners. When there is an advanced customer requirement that they don't really know how to solve, MASSIVE ART can always ask the Sulu team, “How would you approach this problem?”
One example of this was when they had to integrate a website with a construction customer’s product information management (PIM) system. MASSIVE ART hadn’t worked with that specific PIM system before. They approached the Sulu developers, who created a proof of concept and built the foundation of the API to the PIM. This generic technical concept showed how the data could be transferred and displayed in the front end. Once the Sulu team proved the concept, the MASSIVE ART developers could take over the project and run with it, developing the API for the customer.
“We love working closely with the Sulu developers and see that as a huge benefit of the Partner Program,” says Claudia.
Become a partner
Our partner program will enable you and your team to produce outstanding web projects, as you benefit from our project reviews, technical consulting, and extended support.
