RDW Group is the third largest Web-developer employer in Rhode Island, according to PBN’s 2011 Book of Lists.
The company – offering advertising, public relations, Web design, applications development, and branding services – has 18 Web programmers, 11 designers, 16 producers, three solutions architects, and five account executives.
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Jim Malachowski, chief operating officer and partner, took a moment to talk to PBN about the surge in growth the Web-development side of the firm has seen during the past year.
PBN: RDW Group’s Web-development branch grew its gross profit 30 percent year-over-year during a time period that has been less than favorable for most businesses. What do you credit for the growth?
MALACHOWSKI: A lot of hard work, focusing our attention, taking some risk and having some brilliant employees.
On the Web-development side of our business we have considerable experience and expertise in the publishing, higher education, and health care verticals. We have focused our time and attention in these areas. The work we did for the Harvard University Business School MBA Program won the prestigious MITX Interactive award. That got a lot of attention in the higher education community and helped lead to other work in that sector.
In the publishing sector, we invested in the development of a new cutting edge website based software platform which is used by publishers for their e-library. This publishing platform has been hailed as the best in class. Publishers, like many businesses, are looking for cost effective solutions for increasing their online presence. The timing of the release of this platform and its positioning in the marketplace was exquisite. Our investment in this initiative has contributed to our growth.
Since its inception 25 years ago RDW, has been involved in the health care market. We have worked for hospitals and other providers, health insurers, medical schools, teaching hospitals and the renowned Massachusetts Medical Society. Quite naturally our experience and expertise in this sector extends into the Web development and interactive divisions of our company. Our reputation in this industry continues to grow and with it our client base has grown.
Our Web site development team, consisting of employees in Boston and here in Providence has won numerous awards for their work for a variety of clients. We have some absolutely brilliant people working for us in this specialty.
We hired 15 professionals in our interactive division in the past year, made offers to two more this week and are looking for more. We do, however, have very stringent hiring requirements. But if you want to work on some exciting projects with the best and brightest, please apply.
PBN: You say that websites have become increasingly important for businesses as a communication tool over the years. Who are most of your clients?
MALACHOWSKI:Websites are increasingly important. At one point not too many years ago, websites were considered just one of the many communications tools of an organization. Now for an increasing number of companies, websites have become their most important communications tool. Sites must reflect the brand attributes of the company and be in concert with all other communications vehicles.
It is true you can get a website built inexpensively. It is foolish, however, to have your most important communications vehicle built at discount prices. Your website must be integrated into your communications and brand plans and reflect how you want your company to be perceived by those who visit the site. This requires deep thinking and quality work.
Our website clients are quite diverse in size, sector and geographic location including some European clients. There are, however, particular industries where we have considerable experience and expertise.
A partial list of our Web-development clients includes: World Bank, Washington D.C.; International Monetary Fund, Washington D.C.; Oxford University Press, Oxford , United Kingdom; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG (Publisher) Berlin, Germany; Berg Publishers, London, United Kingdom; Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass.; Cengage Learning, Florence, Ky.; Columbia University Press, New York, N.Y.; Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; The Johnson School, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; The Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.; Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.; Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Mo.; Graduate Management Admission Council (Grad Boards), Reston, Va.; Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Va.; Society for Scholarly Publishing, Wheat Ridge, Colo.; Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware, Wilmington, Del.; Blue Cross Blue Shield Rhode Island, Providence; GTECH, Providence; North Safety Products, Cranston; Honeywell, Morristown, N.J.; Northeast Utilities, Hartford, Conn.; Harvard Business School, MBA Program, Harvard University, Boston, Mass.; Harvard Business Publishing, Harvard University, Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health, Boston, Mass.; Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
PBN: What trends are you seeing going forward in Web development?
MALACHOWSKI: The influence of pads and digital readers are the most significant trends in the near term. It is evident that tablets and e-Readers have taken command of the new technology landscape as an alternative to actual paper publications. From novels to newspapers, these devices provide an easy and intuitive way to collect your favorite titles and news on one device.
While an e-Reader, such as a Kindle and Nook, is purely for reading, a tablet, such as an iPad, provides many other options. These devices are further evolving the always and anywhere mindset that began with smart phones.
Tablets have forced us to evolve our own approach to information and visual design. Diversity of form factors and new Web browsing patterns are requiring our designers to focus on user experiences, while our engineers are forced to consider content delivery in multiple forms.
The real future of the tablet lies in its ability to support and advance productivity, instead of purely serving as an entertainment vehicle. Now used in hospitals and classrooms around the world, it is essential for these devices to evolve quickly. Developments around increased processing power and advanced functionality are crucial to their success.
PBN: With this 30 percent growth, does RDW have any plans to add more services (to its Web-development branch) or expand its workforce?
MALACHOWSKI: A computer screen is a relatively small piece of real estate. Anyone can fill that space. However, filling it with compelling imagery and the appropriate amount of content in new and interesting ways that have a clear and crisp flow that optimize search engine interaction while keeping true to the brand identify is a very challenging endeavor. We are constantly challenging ourselves to develop new user interfaces with cleaver information architecture and testing the usability of our ideas.
Our Web-development teams will continue along this path in the near term. We will also continue to add “Solutions Architects” and consultative capability to our service offerings.
Social media is playing an increasingly important role in our work. Social media is an integral marketing tool for companies of all shapes and sizes, across all industries. The difficulty lies not in creating your profiles across various networks, but in creating your voice, empowering your brand, and ultimately maintaining and managing these things as a part of your ongoing marketing and PR strategies. The rules haven’t changed, but the tools have.
Just like printed brochures, you can’t simply create it and let it sit on the shelf. Social media is no different. Creating your company’s Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles is simple, but the value is in how you use them. You need someone to manage the entire effort, and have a clear understanding of your company’s image, and the purpose of your social media efforts.
It comes as no surprise that the future is officially mobile. We are already designing and developing mobile sites that function as well as their computer-based predecessors. But with the increasing number of mobile devices and evolving form factor, it becomes difficult to tailor designs to one-off devices. Rather, we are approaching the design and development processes as a single experience. With the Web, the landscape is constantly shifting. Different than print, Web is flexible, therefore our approach needs to be equally as flexible and most importantly, responsive. With responsive design, you create one site, and then scale that site to fit on any screen size through the use of liquid layouts and media queries. Responsive design enables one website to adapt to any device or platform.
Our User Experience Designers have developed an unparalleled process in which users actually test sites (often times in our own usability lab), allowing us to fine tune the design before a site is actually built. As new devices and form factors establish themselves, we are forced to constantly evolve our strategy for evaluating a user’s experience.
These are some of the ways our Web-development services are changing in the near term.
PBN: What kind of application development has RDW been involved in recently?
MALACHOWSKI: About two and a half years ago, RDW Group and its interactive division called iFactory positioned itself as a leader in the electronic publishing sector with the development of PubFactory, our new website based publishing platform. As mentioned earlier this platform is used by publishers for their elibrary. Working with clients such as Oxford University Press, SAGE Publishers, and De Gruyter, iFactory has transformed the way that publishers deliver content.
PubFactory is the engine behind sites such as the Oxford English Dictionary Online and the International Monetary Fund eLibrary. With powerful search tools, sophisticated browsing abilities, interactive modules, and award-winning design, the PubFactory platform is customized to each client’s needs, and has become the clear choice for organizations of all sizes.
The future of electronic publishing is not about how great the publisher’s content is, but about how that content is shared. It’s not about the information readers can access, but how easily they can access it. We are amidst an exciting transition in the evolving world of electronic publishing and facing new challenges, morphing business models and an overall change in the way we approach design and development. There is a serious demand for customizable publishing platforms that provide advanced functionality and smart design for easy access to publications – we are thrilled to be pioneering these industry solutions.
