SpikeSource Customer Success Stories

SESLOC Federal Credit Union Profile

Industries: financial services Members: 31,000 Assets: Over $370 million Founded: 1943 Location: San Luis Obispo, CA URL: www.sesloc.org

Introduction

SESLOC is a member-owned credit union with offices across Central California. Seeking to upgrade its online presence, SESLOC management realized that comprehensive changes were needed in order to develop, deploy and maintain a site that would attract customers, improve customer loyalty and reduce operating costs by promoting customer self-sufficiency.

Challenges

SESLOC management turned to Initsoft Web Solutions, a leader in interactive services. “With Initsoft's focus on understanding our business, their successful track record in financial services, and knowledge of rich content management technology, Initsoft was an easy choice for us,” explained Carla Swift, SESLOC's Director of Marketing. “We evaluated many companies and were consistently impressed by Initsoft's high standards of service, deep technical knowledge, and clear understanding of our objectives.”

With customers such as Cisco, Intel and Motorola, Initsoft understands the importance of working with clients to apply technology through the Internet to make a difference in their business. Salim Lakhani, Initsoft's Managing Director, described the opportunity, “We recognized that SESLOC needed a reliable solution very quickly that would guarantee results, yet maintain a consistently high level of security.”

Solution

With speed of deployment high on the list of priorities for SESLOC, Initsoft evaluated its options and chose to develop SESLOC's web site using an open source architecture. “We needed to move into production quickly at a competitive price; applying reusable open source components was a natural decision for us,” said Dave Nugent, Initsoft's Chief Architect. “It provided us with a distinct advantage, enabling us to move SESLOC into production quickly at a lower price point than proprietary, 'closed' software solutions.”

To provide SESLOC with the highest level of support and reliability for their web content management system, Initsoft selected the Drupal Spike Ignited solution from SpikeSource. Spike Ignited solutions use open source software that is tested, certified and supported by SpikeSource, the leader in business-ready open source solutions. “With SpikeSource behind us, we knew we could offer a solution that would truly be as reliable, secure and predictable as possible,” explained Lakhani.

Supporting open source software creates unique challenges for end customers and their service providers. To ensure support, updates and security, Spike Ignited solutions are delivered with Spike™ Net, a web-based and telephone-based service. “SpikeSource provides us and our clients with an ongoing stream of fully tested component updates that correct critical security defects, improve operational characteristics and deliver new features,” said Nugent. “But just because an update is available doesn't mean we want to use it, so SpikeSource provides in-depth information about each update and categorizes that information, enabling us to focus on the most relevant updates.”

Result

Initsoft moved SESLOC into production in record time at a price point lower than their expectations with a consistently high level of reliability and security. SESLOC's Vice President of Information Technology, John Baas concluded, “We are pleased with our choice and are confident that Initsoft-together with SpikeSource - will continue to allow us to grow our top line while lowering our cost of customer acquisition through a secure, reliable online presence.”