Why AliveCommerce About
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Knowledge and process

Applications and data

Customer and web

Browse by symptom instead

Twelve problems described the way clients describe them, with the causes behind each.

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The structure

Continuous ownership

Before you commit

Start with one problem

One process, or one focused conversation. You don't need a scope, a platform or a budget to get in touch.

Ways to start
How we workWays to startHow we deliver

Priority sectors

Also

Or by situation

Not sure you fit?

Established and growing businesses with complex operations, systems, teams or customer journeys. No rigid size limit.

AliveCommerce at 1000 feet
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Reading

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Proof

Nobody owns the application layer

MSPs own infrastructure. Vendors own their product. The space between has no name and no owner.

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AliveCommerce  /  How we work

Two ways to work with us. Five ways in.

Every engagement is one of two shapes, across one of three layers of the business. That's the whole structure. This page exists so you can find your square on the grid in about thirty seconds, rather than reading five service pages to work it out.

Most firms sell one engagement shape and make every client fit it. We run two, because some work has an ending and some work doesn't.

A migration has a start, a finish and a budget. The application layer never finishes — neither does the website, or the way information moves through a business. Those need someone to own them, not a project plan.

We named the ownership models separately because they're genuinely different products with different buyers, not because we're several companies. Champion1, LiquidIQ and DARWIN are all AliveCommerce.

The three layers.

Named by what breaks, not by what we'd sell you to fix it.

Knowledge & processHow the business knows what it knows

SOPs, documentation, training, records, approvals — and the parts that were never written down because the person doing them has been there nineteen years.

When nobody owns it: key-person risk, slow onboarding, audit exposure, and the same question answered a hundred times a year.

Defined project
AliveCommerceProcess automation, documentation and workflow systems, delivered remotely.
Onsite
LiquidIQPaper conversion, floor-level process mapping and hands-on training. National.
ApplicationEvery piece of software the business runs on

ERP, CRM, field service, finance, work management, the integrations between them, and whatever was custom-built in 2014 by someone who has since left.

When nobody owns it: your MSP handles infrastructure, each vendor handles their own product, and the space between them belongs to nobody. That's where things quietly break.

Defined project
AliveCommerceCustom builds, integrations, portals and legacy modernization on a fixed budget.
Continuous
Champion1Unlimited support and management. Flex, Manage, or Foundation with active build.
Web & revenueEverything a customer touches first

The public site, the storefront, landing pages, the ordering experience, and the accessibility obligations attached to all of it.

When nobody owns it: the rebuild cycle. Launch, drift, decay, rebuild — and four years of unmade decisions each time.

Defined project
AliveCommerceWeb and e-commerce builds, AODA and accessibility work with a fixed deadline.
Continuous
DARWINThe web layer managed monthly, working alongside your marketing team.

The two shapes.

A defined project

We work fixed-budget, scope-controlled. The budget is set before anything starts, scope changes get surfaced and priced before anyone does the work, and there is no invoice you didn't see coming.

The objectivity part is concrete rather than a slogan: we take no vendor commissions and no referral fees on anything we recommend, and we will tell you when the answer is to buy nothing and keep what you have.

Right when the work has an ending — a migration, a build, a compliance deadline, a rescue.

Continuous ownership

A fixed monthly fee, which means we make no more money by doing more work. A traditional agency profits from scope; we profit when your systems need less intervention. It's the only structure we've found where neither side has to take the other's word for it.

The fair objection is what stops us coasting. Two things, both agreed in writing rather than promised: defined service levels covering response and resolution, and a rate review that looks at how the relationship actually went and moves the price in either direction.

Right when the work never ends — the software layer, the website, the way information moves.

Still not sure?

Two questions usually settle it. Answer them on the homepage and we'll point you at the square.

Thirty seconds
Use the configuratorPick the parts of the business, the shape of help, and your rough size. It will tell you when the answer is none of this.
Two minutes
Start from the symptomTen things clients describe most often, each routing to the layer and program that handles it.
Before you call
Who we're not forThe situations where we'd tell you to hire someone, keep your current vendor, or do nothing.
Twenty minutes
Just talk to usTell us what's breaking. Faster than a form, and we'll say plainly if it isn't a fit.

Who this is for.

Our clients usually run 30 to 50 people in the office and often as many again in the field, the shop, the warehouse, or on the road. Headcount is a poor proxy for what we do.

What they have in common is either active operational pain, or the foresight to invest before the pain arrives. Most often it's the first one — something broke, someone left, or an auditor asked a question nobody could answer.

We work with owners and CEOs at the smaller end, and with COOs, operations directors, VPs of sales and growth, IT directors and continuous-improvement leads as the size goes up. Often all of them, eventually.

30–200

people, counting everyone — not just the office

  • Manufacturing
  • Distribution and wholesale
  • Logistics and warehousing
  • Construction and engineering
  • Trades and contracting
  • Franchising and multi-location
  • Non-profits and associations

Tell us what's breaking.

We'll tell you which square of the grid it lands in, roughly what it costs, and whether it's worth doing at all — including when the honest answer is that you don't need us.

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