Building Momentum
Searching for a partner
Steffes Group is at the top of their game in the auction industry.
But when it came to their online platform, Steffes lacked the internal resources and coding expertise necessary to transform in a way that allowed them to maintain the momentum they had built over the last few years.
They needed a strategic partner who, beyond providing the development support required to achieve their goals, was committed to their long-term success.
Watch as Sean Todd, IT Director for Steffes Group, talks about
his experience with supplemental dev from Onsharp.
Overcoming Challenges
What Steffes Needed in a Partner
Steffes was searching for a partner that would truly integrate with their business and internal teams.
By dividing the labor while maintaining a solid, collaborative workflow, Onsharp developers could dive deeper to better understand their goals and aspirations, and learn about what Steffes was trying to accomplish.
That way, the client could get the best of both worlds — their own industry expertise with the development capabilities of expert coders.
Let’s work together to close the gaps in your business so that you can reach your full potential.
Maintaining Momentum
Steffes’ online platform allowed them to spring ahead of their competitors. To maintain that forward energy they needed to modernize and continually optimize their platform.
Bringing On Extra Help
Steffes realized that needed to expand their team with expert developers. After evaluating a number of possible options, they chose to bring in Onsharp for supplemental development.
Keeping Expertise In-House
Steffes knew that they needed to keep things in-house in order to capitalize on their own auction-industry expertise while expanding their team's bandwidth and skillset. Onsharp made that happen.
The Reservations
Before bringing on supplemental development help, Steffes Group had a few reservations. Some of these included:
- Cost: Pricing carries a heavy weight no matter the project, and when you’re spending big bucks, you expect a top-notch job. This was a top concern for Steffes, who felt as though they could fall victim to a bait-and-switch type of scenario or lackluster dev support that still came at a high price point.
- Quality of resources: Steffes carried concerns about the extent of expertise that external devs would be able to offer.
- Ego: Steffes believed that those ingrained in technology “knew what they knew,” which raised hesitations about hiring supplemental support. The last thing they wanted was an external team that acted like they knew it all without the technical expertise and performance to back it up. Or, devs that were too prescriptive and set in their ways with little room to make adjustments.
"The greatest benefit to utilizing supplemental dev help is the ability to scale up and scale down without having to add or reduce full time headcount."
SEAN TODD, IT Director for Steffes
Our Solution
When Steffes needed to supplement their in-house dev team, they turned to Onsharp.
Among the benefits that they experienced, a few stand out from the crowd for IT Director Sean Todd.
- The ability to scale up and down as needed: A benefit that directly addresses one of Steffes’ topmost goals, scaling up and down without having to add or reduce full-time headcount is made easy with Onsharp supplemental development.
- Having access to developers who have experience with a variety of projects: This is an invaluable pro according to Sean, who shared that diversity in experience has helped guide development in the right direction and “Preventing us from going down paths that would be detrimental later.”
- Saving time and money: The flexibility and commitment offered by Onsharp’s supplemental dev team have allowed Steffes to accomplish much more in far less time. “To do what we’ve done to this point, in the amount of time that we did and with the budget we had, would be borderline impossible to go about ourselves. We’ve been able to shrink our timeline from years to months, and that’s been fantastic.”
"In order to be successful with supplemental development, you need a team that's willing to truly partner with you. Onsharp has been that partner for us."
SEAN TODD, IT Director for Steffes
The Day-to-Day
When you bring on supplemental development support with Onsharp, you get a team — however large or small you need — that’s happy to provide feedback on your current systems, suggest ways to improve them and apply their expertise in combination with your industry insight to develop a truly valuable solution.
For Steffes, this culminated in a long-term partnership where a few of our developers are effectively working full-time with Steffes to provide the ongoing support and knowledge they need to continually drive success in the auction industry.
Ready for Results?
Learn more about how supplemental development from Onsharp can help you get more done, faster.
About Steffes Group
Founded in 1960, Steffes Group is an auction industry leader specializing in farm, construction, transportation equipment, and real estate. With its roots in Fargo, North Dakota, the company has expanded across the Midwest and Rocky Mountain Region, boasting locations in five states. Their growth is credited to their unwavering commitment to outstanding service, professionalism, and most importantly honesty and integrity. Learn more about Steffes Group.
