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[Music] welcome to zifi quick chat recently launched the the new platform along with you guys uh you've been really helpful it's too rigid the structure of sant Commerce is too rigid Magento doesn't need to be C customized but it has a lot more features to build in your Approach at the Discovery was one of the best I think all right well welcome to the ziy podcast episode number one we have with us here estan Delgado from Traverse Mexico um and for those of you who may not be familiar with Traverse or Traverse Mexico uh estan why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself the the role you play in your team and kind of what maybe a brief history of what got you to to this role in this team working on these types of projects good thank you thank you Marco for the introduction and thank you for inviting me in um the role I playing here in in Traverse I mean with a with a B2B company selling tools mainly for for the industry and I am the digital manager here we are in charge of the e-commerce side we recently launched the the new platform along with you guys uh you've been really helpful here and also we are leading the digital marketing strategy the digital marketing campaigns like email we don't have many channels yet I think we we we mainly focused on building a robust base to start acquiring traffic um and now we we have it we are um I am also the team is also leading the the pin or CMS the the the content information the the yeah the product information management or the content management system we are uh all the information is coming is coming through us it's Crossing across digital uh the digital digital Department I think uh we are also leading the Reich it's a project management tool so we are now becoming like the detectives or police officers for the information because now that we built a a website that is automatically built it's we are the the huge like a huge storefront MH and and it's also showing all our mess so we had to along the along the launch and the and building the website we had to reamp and clean all the data that we had for the product the categories the the attributes were pretty were pretty uh dirty and now we are struggling because we also have apis calling in real time the the Erp system for pricing inventory and customer data and we are struggling with that data because it's super dirty I mean this is data that has been touched for many years by many people and and non-digital people that as soon as they can find the information there they don't care if they save the email at the name field they don't care so and and a website is like a robot that hey your your data is in this box and even though the the information is on the top of the box the robot is not going to fight right so right that's what we are struggling yeah sounds like with a new set of tools more advanced set of tools you are now having to rethink perhaps some of your internal um just the way that you manage your own data information and content to make better use of these tools yeah exactly so how about where does your team and the Traverse Mexico business how does it compare to the Traverse us counterpart what are some of the similarities what are some of the differences what are some of the things that perhaps you think are unique to Mexico that presented unique challenges when rep platforming onto Adobe Commerce I think the main difference is that they have a bigger product management team but we have a bigger design department and I think we also have a [Music] bigger a big a bigger digital team I mean we are only six people counting me but I think they are they are more focused over product management and I think that is correct for them but we are mainly focusing on on marketing strategies and how to attract more customers and and and to start like promoting all our new products um I think we have uh a few difference and actually I could if I could if I'm able to share my screen I could show you like can you enable it so if you see here are you able to see my screen now nice so if you see here uh this is like I've designed this map I I mean this is a lot of information so just bear with me okay so these are this is the marketing funnel right so we have our customers here and now and how we attract them onto the into the conversion then transer transform them into loyal customers and then we have on the other side we have the organization and the team we have the suppliers and those suppliers provide us the product to sent to the customer right so I'm just going to hide these two to be more specific and if you see here we have oh oh yeah it's a little slow let's see here we have all the team members we have digital the digital Department we have a a a web designer ux designer we have two two two persons at content management system the web operations and the marketing planning uh we have a graphic designer team like around 8 to9 people uh the product analysts uh the strategic team the finance the purchase operations and all of them are think quote unquote to be at the at the right funnel stage that they that they are currently because the sales and T marketing team are the are the face of to the customers right MH we have main three main segments we we are f focused over companies and their users and we also have Distributors which which we also have uh a different strategy for them and mainly if you see here the conversion rate is Magento and or or the new website is at the at the center of everything and it's showing all that we have everything that we have stored at our dam at our CMS and our Erp is showing through apis and through csbs uh with different extractions and tools are coming into into the website and empowering the search result and all the pages there uh mainly yeah this is the the main the the biggest picture the big picture for for company and how the website are uh the different marketing channels and the the main value propositions that the website is throwing to the customers um I think this is the the big picture so let's let's walk it back walk it back a little bit towards um I believe it was the somewhere in 20120 when you started to consider seriously the re-platforming project away from Santa Commerce onto Adobe right what were some of the things about some of the limitations or lack of features in Santa Commerce that you think would have prevented you from being able to grow into this type of technical ecosystem that you now have today okay sen Commerce P yeah through csvs at some at some points and mainly through apis which made it Soo slow because the apis were big piece of chunks and if you if you know that to to be able to optimize an API you have to split it into microservices so so I think for instance PLP plps the product listing Pages were built were built through apis so TW to low TW the prices and inventories and stocks for for 25 products it's a huge load for an API and now if you multiply that for the multi mulle clicks and the multi and the multiple users clicking over it's a huge load for the apis so not not very um efficient or not efficient enough to where you knew you were heading yeah exactly so we had speedload the flexibility is the second point the main second point because in in terms of Designing new features and new look and Fields it's too rigid the structure of s Commerce is too rigid and everything was needed to be customized and I mean it doesn't mean that magenta doesn't need to be C customized but it has a lot more features to build in and to play with a uh out of the box and once you customize it you can also take your custom and modify it like easier in an easier way that that sakom had those were the main two two points uh uh apart from that um I think s Commerce what was doing a good job but it was limited for to a specific amount of traffic I mean the scalability was the third point that we didn't to didn't think that we should we we could go much further right right so then how did you end up learning about Adobe Magento their products sweet were you familiar with the software beforehand or did you all go through some vetting process what are some of the things about the discovering Adobe Commerce or Magento a platform that looked or sounded attractive to you at the time uh they already took the decision they wanted the biggest because we wanted to be along the New York team in the same in the same license so what we what we really uh research around was to hire an agency to build this Magento out because we we interviewed I don't know maybe like 20 agencies around the world in the US in Mexico and uh in also in India a couple of agencies and along all of them you won and and I did an intensive research of the sites the site that they that they built and the speed load testings and U designs yeah yeah cool so yeah that kind of leads uh leads us into the next segment of topics which is your overall Impressions maybe perhaps start with First Impressions on zif how that Discovery process went and then over time what is it that um good and bad you know what what is it that you that stood out about about how zif operates the people that were involved in the project the Consulting the planning and the delivery of it um can you speak a little bit about your experience so far because it's been about three years now right yeah yeah crazy yeah three years from now okay so along with all the research because we we've we were evaluating cost uh the professionalism that the team stated in the in the first in the first approach the scalability of the team that they that the agencies had the capabilities and the VAR variety of of resources that that the agencies had I mean talking about Solutions architect or um ux designers and pro UI programmers and uh react developers and and also we were checking the ux design the designs for the size that you built that you've built and also the speed load uh around those sides so and along those those uh five elements to to put it that way you were the most regular and consistent along all of them I mean you weren the most for instance the most professional or or the most um the sdes you build weren the most beautiful but you were pretty close and also the the cost efficiency was was a huge difference versus the the the other guys right and the also the scalability that you provided and you stated uh because your your Approach at the discovery was one of the bests I think because because you were stating all the all the all the main key points that we we should dig around you didn't some of them went like oh you need to do all of this you know like a pre-stated workflow to put it that way or perhaps yeah looking too far into the future and pretending to know exactly what the solution is before start uning the problem right exactly and you always you you guys were like hey I don't know what to offer to you I don't know what you need just let me know your needs and then I'll I'll provide some some big approach and this is going to change and you were super clear about about whatever you wanted to build for us and what your capabilities or your understanding was I mean you you didn't State hey your project is going to cost cost this much I mean this isn't an estimation but it can change because of this and this and this and and that's is the reality cool yeah good to hear definit ly the being realistic and honest about the complexity and about the things that you don't know I think go along long way in the beginning of a project uh in uh taking the time to understand the problem before committing to investing in some solution right so that's good to hear uh anyone from the zipidy team that you would like to give special mention to anyone that you thought was particularly helpful of particular ularly sharp at their skill set whether it was designers Architects project managers anyone that you can um recall yeah I mean not because you're here because but but you were pretty helpful because of your of your two languages I mean having having the ability to talk to someone in your own in your native language it's like super helpful and also I think along the way Sam samille and and Simeon have been really really helpful with the project management Deva at the beginning were like super super helpful to understand the the rich that we could have that dat that you as a team could have um Simeon has been uh very passionate about yes understanding understanding our our deepest needs and trying to focus the team and to translate everything into the team the development team uh yeah he's a for sure yeah I think Sayad and chandre in the development team they have been like very helpful with with trying to to give us the full understanding of the development part and explaining why this cannot be cannot happen or how can it be happening in some other way like the the workarounds and and explaining and making a great effort to explain how does this works for sure in the back end yeah thanks thanks for all that we'll make sure to let those guys know um yeah that their efforts are definitely recognized and so I'm assuming the site is live now you're in a stable stable place you mentioned you are dedicating more time to the digital marketing and Merchandising it's Dimension of it all right getting people now that you have a functioning and good performing website you now are trying to get people traffic to it trying to get people used to that experience right we know that especially in the businessto business space the there sometimes a it's sometimes challenging for people that are used to doing business a certain way offline right through phone calls through email through chat through very um what are now could be considered outdated practices to shift and get used to doing all of that business on a website right on a computer on a phone without talking to anyone um without directly interacting with anyone to to those ideas what would you say are some of the pieces of or yeah parts of your business model that you are excited to evolve or that you want to look into now that you have more technological capabilities what are some of perhaps some trends that you want to accommodate for or any anything exciting that you're looking looking forward to next now that kind of Step One is in place okay so as a small context I'll I'll say that I was previously I was in Walmart walmart.com.mx uh leading the marketing digital marketing strategy and and when I got here into a b2c I mean from a b2c to a B2B was I was trying to implement some some of those strategies that that work pretty well at work at Walmart right even the paid search and pl Google pla or Google shopping and Facebook ads but none of those work here so we thought of this site as specifically be to built in order to help the sales agent to to support the customer right so we are the the most eager features that I'm trying to get are the quote workflow for instance the punch out catalog to to merge those biggest customers into the website through their through their Erp and to be to connect our erps and also to help because we we are we are facing some challenges here in in Mexico as a digital as a digital channel because the people is not that digital the digital Market is not that evolved as I as as in the US or you know maybe sou South America [Music] um the the companies are like I don't know how to put it but like bureaucratic systems they have bureaucratic systems that they don't they want give you give the purchase purchase agent the the the company's credit card to purchase online because frauds can happen they're not used to purchasing online yeah yeah they're not used to purchase online the the the the purchase agent can be misusing that that card a lot of a lot of fears that they have right so we have to think of okay you can have your company's sprad it into the website but even though if you don't want to use that that same uh you don't want to place the order here you can also place a quote that can respect your 15 days of prices the prices for 15 days or that can uh the web the sales agent you can call the sales agent and say hey I place a I place a quote Yeah Yeah I received it you I can I can close it out in the meanwhile you can go through your internal processes I mean the company can still have their internal bureaucratic processes and you can still be able to place the order or the quote through the website so the the walk the the path we're walking is how to help the sales agent even more to release their time to be able to prospect more and get to close more leads into the into the into the funnel okay so quoting sounds like quoting and punch out cataloges right yeah other one devel we are also developing a a uh new search result approach for usability uh most of our traffic I think 80 80% of our traffic is going through the we to the search result so we are using hodar as a um heat map and click click map to to measure the customer's interaction but and we've we've come to a different issues there and yeah I think those those features are the best to yeah those sound like um interesting initiatives for sure so let's see maybe to wrap it up here last question um what is if you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice three years ago when you were starting this project what do you think that would be what what is the something that you wish you would have known either about how the B2B model in General Works about how web development works or about some something specific about Adobe or Magento what what's one thing that you wish you would have known at the beginning of the project that you've learned since then although is this I'm I'm Pro agile and working with MVPs and stuff like that I I would say dig more around the specific needs that you have mainly for the apis but because that's what we've come across because when not all the teams are that professional as you are being like you have all the P the the the stages of development right including QA assurance and quality assurance and uh code reviews and testings and stuff like that and we we've come across a team with the apis that does not does not um does not take that much only only build whatever you tell them to build they do not think as if they were using it and they do not test it out they do not they only build it and hey this this is working hey is the specifications to reference and as long as it specs yeah yeah more a more than more than 80 users at the same the the concur more than 80 concurrent users was uh throwing the API down the pricing API Downs so this is this is like super low capacity but they didn't know because they didn't test them out so I would I would state for me me the the the advice that hey be more specific dig around and think of all the possibilities and be more specific document and if they are not testing dig around if they are testing and if not create your own testing H interesting yeah that's a good one specificity and perhaps paying more attention to the non-functional requirements right aside of exactly what is this piece of code supposed to do how is it going to behave in the real world how is what what yeah the full workflow yeah what EPs and flows could throw it off course yeah sure that's cool um well estan do you have anything that you want to any shoutouts anything you want to comment on um where can people find you where can people find Travers we your headquarters are in keto right which is a City close to Mexico City um yeah any closing thoughts or remarks no I mean you can find us in travelers.com DMX uh you can find the contacts there uh I think to close this out I'm pretty grateful to you guys they you've been really helpful for us and letting helping us out to understand the deeper levels of how the development World works and uh yeah I think you've been super professional and wanted to to thank you with this oh yeah likewise we can say the same we've definitely learned a ton um thanks to the massive project that was Traverse Travers us and Traverse Mexico put together was definitely a good um good challenge for us as a company so cool well thank you very much estan for coming online with us today and um we'll keep in touch nice nice thanks thanks you guys thank you for for this for this time yep all right signing [Music] off