Case Study: Chicago Producers - Unique, Creative Solutions
April, 2007
Background
Chicago Producers ("Company"), a 10-people IT consulting practice, develops offline and online media promotional
solutions for clients in the greater Chicago area. To attract new clients, the Company emphasizes its unique ability
to provide custom solutions for "more robust applications." And to retain its clients, Chicago Producers emphasizes
its differentiated services in web hosting and ongoing technical support. Chicago Producers currently provides hosting
services for 50-60 clients.
Create a Winning Proposal
In competing for a major account at a large Chicago-based bank, Chicago Producers won the business with a unique
solution that was integrated with Xignite financial web services. The bank needed to build a new website to raise
awareness and promote the product offerings of its real estate division. Chicago Producers decided upfront that it
would differentiate its solution from those of its competitors by using live interest rates information in the prototype.
While there were some large, typical data providers in the market, but none of them provided the affordability and
flexibility that could work with Chicago Producers' solution. First, most of these data providers sell their data in
bulk, similar to the bulk data used by Wall Street traders, so it was costly to buy their data. Second, the data from
these providers were difficult to integrate. It would take a significant amount of development time to deploy those
data, which then would distract the team from designing a winning solution.
Chicago Producers searched the web for an alternative data provider, and found Xignite has a unique way of providing
market data through web services. Instead of buying bulk data, the Company was able to choose only the interest rates
data that they needed. Xignite's financial web service was very easy to integrate, which allowed the Company to
quickly deploy interest rates information into the solution. While their competitors were using static interest rates
in their prototypes, Chicago Producers was able to differentiate its solution with up-to-date market data. In the process,
the firm also brought Xignite's web services to the bank and it was a solution that met the bank’s business
needs and processes.
Through collaborative efforts, IT consultants, like Chicago Producers, are able to tap into their partners' resources
and build creative solutions that give them genuine competitive advantages in a crowded marketplace. As Dustin Hansen,
Principal of Chicago Producers, described it, "Price was not a factor. No one could offer the custom flexibility that
Xignite did." Now, the bank is one of their best clients.