From Cost Strain to Scalable Growth: How Searce Helped GivePanel Conquer Their Cloud Challenges

Challenges

GivePanel, a platform simplifying social media fundraising for organizations of all sizes, helps them raise more, cultivate supporter relationships, and run successful Facebook Challenges. However, they faced challenges managing their Google Cloud infrastructure and ensuring its overall wellness. They needed a partner to address these issues and allow their internal teams to focus on core development tasks. Specifically, they faced difficulties with:

Budget Strain: Maintaining efficient cloud management was crucial, yet continuous cost increases threatened their budget goals.
Scalability Hurdles: App Engine’s limitations were a potential roadblock, hindering growth and potentially causing unnecessary expenses.
Limited Resources: Balancing cloud wellness with core development was challenging, requiring a managed services partner to free up internal teams.

These issues demanded a solution, impacting GivePanel’s ability to empower organizations and fulfill their mission.

Searce Solution

Searce engaged in a comprehensive managed services model, offering Cloud Wellness services, and Google Cloud infrastructure support. The solvers at Searce closely collaborated with GivePanel to implement the following solutions:

Google Cloud Infrastructure Support:

Seamless Migration: We successfully migrated GivePanel’s App Engine environment to Cloud Run, significantly reducing costs and increasing scalability. This serverless platform ensures they can effortlessly handle traffic spikes without breaking the bank.
Performance Boost: We implemented load balancers to distribute traffic efficiently, leading to a significant performance improvement. This was a game-changer in terms of boosting overall performance.
Technical Debt Reduction: We collaborated with GivePanel to address 20 cloud tech debt tasks over six months, streamlining their infrastructure and enhancing overall performance. By tackling 4 high-impact tasks, we significantly improved their cloud environment’s stability and efficiency.
24/7 Support: Our dedicated team constantly monitors their Google Cloud resources, proactively identifying and resolving potential issues before they impact performance. With an average resolution time of 4 hours, downtime was significantly minimized.

Cloud Wellness:

Proactive Issue Detection: We implemented advanced monitoring tools to identify potential problems before they affected users. Our proactive approach minimized downtime and ensured a smooth user experience.
Continuous Performance Optimization: We regularly analyzed their cloud resources and recommended adjustments to optimize performance and cost efficiency. This helped maximize their cloud investment and ensured peak application performance.
Streamlined Communication: We configured real-time alerts that seamlessly integrated with Slack, keeping them informed about potential issues and allowing them to take immediate action if needed.

Going Above and Beyond:

Given GivePanel’s strong commitment to improving customer satisfaction, our team wanted to go the extra mile. We helped them automate resource creation with Terraform and shell scripts, which fell outside the original project scope.

Unlocking Value with Google Maps Platform:

Beyond automation, we saw an opportunity to truly transform GivePanel’s operations. We identified that Google Maps Platform could significantly improve customer experience and streamline internal processes. Through collaborative workshops, we helped them discover key use cases, such as address verification and location-based services. This strategic partnership between GivePanel and Searce stands as a testament to the transformative power of leveraging Google Maps Platform, not only in addressing operational inefficiencies but also in enhancing the overall customer experience.

Business Impact

Working with GivePanel, Searce was able to deliver real business impact across these key areas:

Google Cloud Infrastructure Support:

42% Monthly Cost Savings: Our dedicated Client Success team detected rising App Engine costs and proposed a cost-saving alternative: Cloud Run. We then expertly migrated the App Engine environment with minimal downtime. GivePanel slashed its operating costs by 42% thanks to Cloud Run’s efficient pricing model, freeing up significant resources for strategic investments. Our project delivered a return on investment within 2 months, demonstrating the immediate financial benefits of cloud optimization.
Streamlined Upload Process: From cumbersome uploads to smooth sailing – we helped reduce large file (20-30MB) upload times to mere seconds, significantly improving workflow efficiency.
Latency Breakthrough: We achieved a 70% reduction in latency across all services, resulting in significantly faster loading times and a happier user experience.
Uncapped Scalability: GivePanel can now confidently scale its user base without encountering infrastructure bottlenecks or cost spikes, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience.
Fueling Innovation: The cost savings unlocked new possibilities. GivePanel is now investing in exciting new features and business offerings, driving further growth and engagement.

Cloud Wellness:

Actionable Insights: We provided timely updates and insights on Cloud Run revisions, along with detailed error logs, empowering GivePanel to address issues proactively.
Optimised Cloud Environment: Proactive monitoring and optimization improved resource performance, optimized costs, and reduced downtime, creating a healthier and more efficient cloud environment for GivePanel.
Uninterrupted Operations: Searce’s Google Cloud support ensured smooth operations, minimizing downtime and contributing to elevated user experience.

Google Maps Platform Integration:

Savings in the cost of Google Maps Platform Services: We suggested best practices of leveraging Google Maps Services that nearly saved the customer 30% of monthly costs.
Streamlined Address Input: The adoption of Google Place Autocomplete APIs has significantly streamlined the address input process, leading to a noteworthy reduction in the time required to complete this crucial task.

“We’re thrilled with the results of our collaboration with Searce. Their forward-thinking approach and the proactive nature of their Client Success team transformed our Google Cloud operations. By leveraging their expertise in Cloud Managed Services, Google Maps Platform, Cloud Run professional services we’ve achieved significant milestones. This includes enhanced resource efficiency, optimized performance/cost ratio, increased customer satisfaction, and an overall smoother experience for our engineering team and end users.”

–Jen Beattie, Head of Engineering, GivePanel

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