business

Jeremy Ziegler and Trevor Olson, co-founders of Web content management firm Aware Web Solutions, were preparing to celebrate 10 years in business when the recession's first shock waves began to hit back in 2008.

They went ahead with the party for clients and business partners at the Chambers Hotel but also gathered their leadership team for a quick strategy session.

The result was a short, simple plan: Adapt, evolve and grow -- all without straying from their core mission of serving as business advisers providing content management solutions that help Fortune 1000 companies expand their business.

"It was all about realizing the full potential in ourselves and our clients," Olson recalled. "And that really relates to empowerment. Empowering our clients to stand on their own two feet, which was our original focus, and also really empowering our people because we're a virtual company."

The approach appears to have paid off for Aware, whose revenue rose about 10 percent a year throughout the recession. The company took in $3.6 million in 2009 and is on track for $4 million in revenue this year, according to Olson.

The growth has come despite Aware turning down some potential projects during the recession, work outside the company's content management expertise.

"I call that 'shiny stuff,'" Olson said. "It's easy to say, 'Yes, let's take that.' We really had to develop a strong discipline to say, 'Let's really own what we're the best at.' That's content management and developing that experience for our clients. That's made us a stronger company as a result."

Advantage of being lean

Launching the company on the eve of the dot-com bubble bursting and operating in a lean, virtual environment also may have been advantages in navigating this downturn, Olson said. Aware is based in the Twin Cities but since Day One has operated virtually. The company's 34 employees work in home offices, client sites and shared office suites, mostly in the metro area.

The company probably never will have a brick-and-mortar office, Olson said, though it is considering expanding to other cities sometime.

The idea of empowering clients and employees also has been part of Aware from the beginning.

Aware's work is project-based, so while it may have return or multiyear engagements with some clients, its intent is to implement content management systems that are easy for clients to update and manage, so they don't need internal experts or outside vendors to handle every little change to their sites.

Empowering employees means having the structure and processes in place to support them as they execute projects in a virtual environment "on strategy, on budget, and on time, period," Olson said.

The company is organized into cross-functional client teams of managing directors, project managers, designers, developers and Web analysts. It also has functional teams in which members of each discipline discuss what works well on various client projects.

P.J. Voysey, former president and CEO of Twin Cities-based information technology support company Techies, said Aware's focus on content management appears to be serving the company well given its Fortune 1000 clients.

"Aware's tight focus and solid execution has allowed them to position themselves as experts and enabled them to move up the strategic ladder with their clients," Voysey said. "They don't have a recurring revenue model, but they should make up for it with repeat business if they are considered a strategic partner."

Bringing in dynamic content

Aware also is at the forefront, Olson said, in what he regards as the evolution of content management into experience management. That approach seeks to connect content generated outside a company's website, such as social media and blogs, into the corporate site.

Experience management also involves using analytics to anticipate what users want and to push content to them based on how they've used a company's website, said Sultan Ghahtani, Midwest director for San Francisco-based Sitecore, which provides the Web content systems that Aware frequently implements.

Aware serves customers well in a consultative role because of the depth of its experience in working with a variety of clients and content management systems, Ghahtani said.

Compellent, a leading provider of enterprise-class network storage solutions based in Eden Prairie, chose Aware to develop its website in 2007, including a Sitecore-based scalable content management system, according to Scott Horst, vice president of corporate marketing at Compellent.

Aware built in connections to social networking applications like Twitter, Facebook and blogging and also created business partner and user portals for Compellent.

Aware built a new website, based on Sitecore, for NatureWorks, a Minnetonka-based company owned by Cargill that produces environmentally friendly bioplastics.

"We're kind of unique in that we're not selling a product through our website and we're not trying to pick up customers via the Web," business intelligence analyst Leah Ford said. "We're trying to educate and provide a body of knowledge around our product."

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury. His e-mail address is todd_nelson@mac.com.