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ExecutiveBiz: What type of solutions does McFadyen Solutions deliver?
Tom McFadyen:
McFadyen Solutions is an eBusiness integrator - we build large-scale web solutions, typically for the Fortune 500. For example, we’ve built eCommerce solutions for Neiman Marcus, American Eagle Outfitters, FYE, USDA, and Hyatt. We’ve built portals for P&G, Newell Rubbermaid, Conseco, Veterans Administration, and HSBC. We’ve also implemented web content management solutions for GM, Nokia, Freddie Mac, Smithsonian, and HUD.
ExecutiveBiz: How do you implement Web 2.0 elements into the sites that you build?
Tom McFadyen:
Rich Internet Applications, or RIA, is the most typical element. For example, rich media tools like Flash and AJAX are often used to zoom, pan, and rotate products in an eCommerce system. User generated content, or UGC, is an excellent tool for providing consumer feedback on products which is usually more valued by other consumers than product descriptions written by an online merchant. Leveraging social networking is more challenging, but it can provide great word-of-mouth referrals that drive brand awareness and website traffic. Mashups can be as simple as integrating Google Maps for a store locator. We have a handy glossary of Web 2.0 terms online at www.mcfadyen.com/glossary
ExecutiveBiz: Explain what you mean by “large-scale” web sites?
Tom McFadyen:
Some of our customers generate over a billion dollars of revenue per year through their online web site. Often the eCommerce systems have product catalogs with over a million items, have over a million registered users, manage over a million web assets, and ship over a million items per day.
ExecutiveBiz: You’re in the midst of rebranding from “McFadyen Consulting” to “McFadyen Solutions”. Why is that?
Tom McFadyen:
When I started the company 20 years ago the term “consulting” had a different meaning. For example, Andersen Consulting – now Accenture - delivered full lifecycle solutions. Today the term “consulting” often refers to the body shop, staff augmentation business model of providing one or multiple people on an hourly basis for a client to manage. In my opinion, this industry is becoming a commodity, low-cost business, often with a negative image where no benefits or training is provided to staff. This is not McFadyen’s business model. We deliver “solutions” to our customers, often on a fixed-price, fixed time basis where McFadyen will project manage dozens of our own staff to build and deploy a functioning system.
ExecutiveBiz: McFadyen Solutions also has employees in India. How does your US team feel about working with an offshore team?
Tom McFadyen:
There really is no concern about people losing their jobs to offshore operations. Our India team allows our US staff to work on higher level activities such as project management, requirements gathering, architecture, design, strategy consulting, and other customer-facing activities. Programming and quality assurance are typically shared between the US and India teams. We’re still hiring for all roles, including programming and Q/A. A project team at McFadyen rarely has more than 50% based in India. We’ve seen projects go awry when tackled by India based companies where 90% or more of the staff are offshore.
ExecutiveBiz: What is the biggest challenge in your business?
Tom McFadyen:
Finding top quality employees. The systems we implement are extremely complex and we need exceptionally bright people to implement them. We turn down more new business than we take on because of the constraint of how quickly we can ramp up. The technologies we leverage are very complex, so employees must go through a lot of training before they can lead teams.
ExecutiveBiz: What are you most proud of professionally?
Tom McFadyen:
Surviving and thriving through the “dot bomb crash”. A couple dozen publicly traded and hundreds or thousands of private eBusiness integrators collapsed during a very challenging economy for us the early part of this decade. Many of these companies had market caps worth hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars and went bankrupt within a year or two. McFadyen Solutions delivers proven value to our customers and that drives our customer loyalty and rapid growth. Also, the fact that we’re a debt-free, profitable, and self-funded company lets us focus on our customers. At the core, it’s really our employees who deliver that value and are responsible for McFadyen’s ongoing success.
For more information about
McFadyen Solutions, visit
www.mcfadyen.com.
Interview with Tom McFadyen conducted by JD Kathuria.
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