"It has been my dream to have a custom interface for all client communications." - President, Hickman Group

"It's been my dream to have a custom interface for all client communications that would make freelancers accountable, have everything in one place, and provide access anywhere. Project Insight has delivered all those things and more, and has become the nerve center of our operation."
–- J. H., President, Hickman Group, www.hickmangroup.com

The Company
Based in San Clemente, California, Hickman Group is a creative design firm specializing in new products and marketing of consumer goods. From concept through delivery of each innovative solution, Hickman Group focuses on increasing sales for its clients through the practical realization of a shared creative vision.

The Challenge
As with any creative firm, the progress of a project at Hickman Group -- such as package design, a brochure or website -- involves constant communication between client, creative staff and account managers. Even when leveraging today's common business tools such as digital files, email, faxes and overnight couriers, tracking the hundreds of different pieces of communication, design versions, and significant decisions is often burdensome. The agency and its clients view ad 'comps' or designs, and need to be able to make comments about suggested changes in real-time.

The decentralization of teams within the virtual agency and client is an even greater complicating factor. The work of freelance writers and artists, which is often as critical to the success of a project as the work of in-house creative teams, is generally submitted, reviewed, and disseminated via email. Thus, keeping a job folder or "job bag" that is accessible to everyone involved a combination of printing and filing hard copies of emails and/or copying many people on each and every electronic communication.

The Solution
J. H., President of Hickman Group, explained, "We have customers in Portland, Denver and other cities who travel overseas and to other distant locations and are happy to be able to stay in the loop wherever they are." To that end, Hickman Group set out to find an organizational solution that would unify in-house teams, 4-5 suppliers and offsite professionals, and members of teams from 6-7 client organizations. The agency's computer environment includes 10 users on 10 Macintosh computers running OS-X and OS-9.2, as well as one Windows system, all using version 5 of the Internet Explorer browser.

"When we started with Project Insight, I wasn't able to find another project system that was agency-oriented," J. H. said. So when Metafuse introduced Hickman Group to its browser-centric project management solution, Project Insight, the agency was immediately interested. "It only took a few days to get set up. Metafuse came in right away and gave us several hours of one-on-one training to get us started. They're one of the most talented, professional and dependable companies we have had the pleasure to work with."

The Results
Project Insight delivered on the promise of centralized communication and total project organization. "Generally we set up customers and suppliers in the system when projects span a large timeframe or are very complex," J. H. elaborated. "Those customers are very impressed with our speed of building a custom interface, overall use of technology, and we get instant credibility."

Hickman Group's return on investment in Project Insight can be expressed in a substantial list of benefits:

• Better communication and the near-total replacement of email, fax and paper-based systems.
• Better accuracy in estimating and billing time used; employees and freelancers can see budgeted time and expenses on demand.
• Elimination of internal job-bags or folders as well as separate Filemaker traffic and timekeeping systems.
• Greatly simplified billing and estimating.

J. H. finished by saying, "I think the Internet was made for Project Insight. It's a very powerful tool to have in our industry."

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