About

Founded in 1969, TAC Worldwide is a leading provider of technical workforce solutions for various industries, including financial services, government, energy, biochemical, transportation, aerospace and software.

Serving companies within the mid-market and Fortune 1000, TAC Worldwide is dedicated to helping its clients find the best contingent workforce talent within the IT and engineering sectors.  Its dedication to providing the best customer service for clients who are seeking to refine and improve their retention and recruitment strategies has propelled TAC Worldwide as one of the top five U.S. firms that provide technical and engineering contingent staffing and workforce solutions.  TAC Worldwide has over 30 branch offices across North America, along with strategic partnerships and alliances throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.

Challenge

With a staff totaling over 500 employees, TAC Worldwide has struggled in the past with managing Web content updates for its Intranet and public Web site. Prior to implementing RedDot CMS, requests for content updates to the public Web site were pushed manually as basic HTML files or Word documents and then published using a custom, homegrown solution. As TAC prepared to redesign the public Web site, the homegrown system was unable to provide the functionality needed to support the firm’s online initiatives.  Content updates to the company Intranet were also done manually, often causing bottlenecks and delays.  The TAC Intranet also lacked a standard look and feel, as well as consistency with company branding.

TAC needed to redesign its public Web site to reflect its corporate image and to ensure that the content was up to date with the latest company information for its customers.  TAC decided to look for a content management solution that would grow with its staff as the company continued to expand and meet the demands of its clients globally.

Solution

To automate its workflow process and ensure that its public Web site and Intranet stayed fresh and current for the target audiences, TAC Worldwide searched  for a content management system that not only met its Web requirements but also fell in line with their budget. "We were looking for a solution that suited the mid-market,” says Ellen Cameron, Web Applications Manager for TAC Worldwide. "We didn't want to purchase a content management system that required extensive customization. Instead, we needed an out-of-the box solution that would work with our existing infrastructure."

Finding a solution that was scalable and flexible enough to meet TAC’s Web content management needs, while remaining cost-effective, was a key factor in the company’s final decision for choosing a CMS vendor.  After researching several Web content management providers, TAC Worldwide viewed demonstrations by Microsoft, Ektron and RedDot. 

Greg Ellis, Senior Programmer Analyst for TAC Worldwide, remarks, “During the evaluation process, we found that the products weren’t quite equal and that there were significant differences between the vendors.  Since Microsoft had an expansive platform, it would have required us to adopt all of their tools and run SQL Server.”  He continues, “Ektron was simpler than Microsoft, but limited in functionality.”

In the end, RedDot fell into the middle.

“We liked that RedDot allowed us to write pages in any language.  It was nice to know that we had that kind of flexibility with our site.” Ellis recalls, “Also, RedDot’s versioning and workflow capabilities really appealed to us.”

In addition to working with flexible templates and strong workflow capabilities, TAC Worldwide needed their content management system to easily manage and export content to multiple Web sites.  Publishing information to both their Intranet and public facing Web site was an important step in making sure that the TAC Worldwide sites were consistent in both look and feel and adhered to corporate standards and guidelines.

Finally, TAC Worldwide needed a solution that suited their budget.  “Cost was a big part of the decision process,” explains Cameron.  “Microsoft was pretty expensive compared to RedDot.  Ultimately, RedDot CMS seemed to offer the most value for what we were looking for in a solution.”

Results

Since relaunching their public Web site with RedDot CMS in 2003, TAC has gone through another site redesign and relaunch in 2007 with RedDot LiveServer. Within four months, TAC Worldwide had a prototype up and running in time for its National Sales Management meeting. Three months later, the new TAC Worldwide Web site was launched. 

The extensive functionality of RedDot LiveServer has allowed TAC to take advantage of many features available in the new public site. When visiting the TAC Web site, users are asked to register their contact information online. This invaluable data is captured and sent off to TAC’s Marketing Department for monitoring the success of campaigns and for possible lead generation.  In addition to collecting this information from its Web site visitors, TAC Worldwide has received much positive feedback regarding its expanded search engine capabilities.

Following its recent successes with RedDot LiveServer, TAC Worldwide has more projects in store.  A planned Extranet site, the Business Intelligence Channel, is set to go live in the near future.  Once the Extranet is launched, TAC Worldwide customers will be able to login and access white papers, statistics and specialty reports.  Content will be delivered based on user profile and settings chosen by the customer.

“We’re interested in doing more than just content management,” says Cameron.  “We want our users to experience the benefits of RedDot LiveServer.  I think it will really be an important step for us once we are able to build personalized portals and deliver real value-added information to our customers.”

TAC Worldwide is not only happy with the RedDot LiveServer product, but also with the professional services and customer support teams who assisted them throughout the implementation process. “It has been a great relationship,” says Cameron.  “When we first needed consulting help, the RedDot professional services team was fantastic. They are very knowledgeable and helped us build exactly what we wanted.”

When reflecting on the benefits of using RedDot since TAC Worldwide first implemented in 2003, Greg Ellis remarks, “Every version that we’ve implemented has proven to be very stable and we’ve had very few issues.  There is nothing in the RedDot product that has prevented us from doing what we need to do.”