DDSN Interactive’s CEO Rob Wells: Interview with Goodfirms

DDSN Interactive’s CEO, Rob Wells, is Planning, Building, and Deploying Comprehensive but Easy-to-Use Digital Solutions: GoodFirms

Incorporated in 1997 and based in Melbourne, Victoria, DDSN Interactive is an Australian-based, best-of-the-breed digital agency. The professional DDSN team takes pride in creating customized digital solutions using creativity, innovation and strategic thinking to plan, build and deploy a comprehensive but easy-to-use integrated digital marketing, communications, and operations management platform for each client.

DDSN continues to evolve by:

• generating new software and digital tools;
• designing mobile apps;
• developing user-friendly CMS tools;
• providing bulletproof hosting; and
• creating digital marketing and operations solutions to cater to the specific needs of clients.

DDSN specializes in an agile environment and keep up-to-date with the most advanced industry trends and ever-changing technological resources.

Since its inception, DDSN Interactive has been developing and maintaining effective digital solutions for a wide range of firms, including Trinity College, Telstra, The Cancer Council Victoria, ANZ, Vic Roads, CPA Australia, St. John's College, The Australian Drug Foundation, Bush Heritage Australia, Goulburn-Murray Water, as well as other small to medium businesses.

The GoodFirms team interviewed Rob Wells, the CEO of DDSN Interactive, who unveils the insights of the firm along with its flourishing services.

Rob says,

Innovation is not enough – of course, every business has to innovate. We partner we some industry experts to strengthen our offerings in certain areas – such as a prominent national network vendor (Nexon) to support our proprietary in-house hosting platform – but the core of our work is always delivered by our DDSN experts.

Rob is the co-founder of DDSN Interactive. He started with a personal background in design. The company became an early adopter of advanced web-based technologies in e-commerce, content management, and digital marketing tools. E.g. DDSN was the first company in Australia to deploy the ANZ eGate online payment solution. The team learned how to design and build websites, apps, CMS, intranets, extranets, and took, and Rob took a keen interest in how to unify all those systems to provide beautiful, effective end to end user experiences; both for external customers and internal audiences.

As the company evolved, Rob's role transitioned from design into leading a team of talented developers, designers, and business consultants. Today his key responsibility is assuring the quality of the company's systems and procedures, including the flagship content management platform, Acora CMS. He likes to be involved in individual client projects wherever the team invites him to provide strategic insights or design options.

Rob mentions that the other key partner in the business is Danielle Kennedy, who joined the firm after leading over 180 scientists to build Australia's largest future science platform in her senior role at CSIRO.  

Danielle brings deep insights into big data, strategic systems development, creativity, scientific future thinking, and putting all that to work in live, operational systems. 

Talking about the company's key services, Rob mentions that the DDSN experts strongly focus on delivering beautifully designed, fit-for-purpose digital solutions to both smaller and larger customers. They use creative, strategically minded, sustainable methodologies and continue to work with each client to manage and grow those solutions over time.

As a small but highly skilled agency, the DDSN team delivers similar (usually better) products and services at lower prices, compared to bigger agencies that require higher overheads to provide the same things DDSN can achieve.

DDSN doesn't provide cookie-cutter solutions or templated / out-of-the-box designs and software with a "deliver and forget" attitude. Instead, the company builds on those ideas and works with the clients over years to understand their business and become part of it. Because of their bespoke approach, the team of DDSN experts works well with government clients, associations, and private sector companies looking for a business partner, rather than simply outsourcing some work.

DDSN provides a rare collection of specialised services that sets the company apart:

• DDSN's flagship content management platform stands out – Acora CMS. This enterprise-class DXP (Digital Experience Platform) is comparable to products at 10x its price, and DDSN can make it available to both large and small businesses because it’s theirs.
• DDSN's bulletproof private Australian hosting cloud is unique: Most agencies don’t do that in-house – preferring to rely on AWS or Microsoft Azure (which DDSN can also support, if asked) – but DDSN always has.
• Deep expertise in a few important but complex specialties helps DDSN stand out: strategy, accessibility, UX/CX, interface design, analytics, systems integration. Bigger agencies develop these skills so they’re not unique, but DDSN delivers more for a client's spend.
• Tying it all together is the bow on the top of the package.

The specialty services provided by the DDSN team are what makes DDSN Interactive one of Melbourne's top web development companies at GoodFirms. 

The review from IDM Instruments proves the quality of websites developed at DDSN Interactive.

Furthermore, Rob elaborates on the app development services that cater to clients at the national level. He explains that customized application development services meet the ever-changing requirements of clients' businesses by providing transparency and flexibility in the process. 

With years of experience, app developers create optimized solutions and take care of everything, from analysis of requirements to application integration. The team leverages the new technologies to improve clients' existing business infrastructure and achieve a competitive edge with the enterprise application integration services. 

Thus, employing agile development methodology for fast time-to-market, lower costs, and responding to the dynamic market and business needs would soon endow DDSN Interactive to embark as one of the leading mobile app development service providers in Australia at GoodFirms. 

Concluding the interview, Rob beams about the client retention rate by mentioning that work with all clients is repetitive by nature: it's built into the way DDSN thinks.  Although the team happily delivers one-off projects (like a website, online system, or mobile app) with tremendous value, they always strive to evolve and move with the client's needs and support them over a long period of time.

Rob also mentions that as an agile consultancy business, DDSN works across most business sectors. The professionals have more experience in some industries than others, but the services and skillsets can be applied to virtually any business in any sector. It's more about how the client will engage with the company to learn how to contribute to their business than knowing any specific business vertical.  

Over the years, DDSN has added experience to its portfolio in a wide range of areas – including but not limited to e-commerce, national commercial brands, government entities, natural resource management, membership associations, nonprofits and charities, and others. 

Having seen the excerpt from Rob's interview, now read the full interview transcript published at GoodFirms.