Interview with Craig Murphy, Managing Director - ALT Agency

Craig Murphy  

Managing Director, ALT Agency

Please give us a quick overview of ALT Agency—how did your journey begin, and what inspired you to focus on digital transformation?

ALT Agency started officially way back in 2006, but my journey began 6 years or so earlier when I got my first computer and became fascinated with HTML and early PHP & coding methods.

I never had any formal education in coding or running a business and was diagnosed with Autism which I believe helped me to read code without really learning and to understand business and numbers.

I was just really obsessed with the internet; saw the early and huge potential it could have and went all in.

Looking back, which milestone or project do you consider the most defining moment in ALT Agency’s growth, and why?

A big milestone was around 2017/2018 when we took on what was our biggest project to date at that time for a charity, we had just hired an account manager and project manager, without those 2 hires the business would have been stuck and unable to grow as it would have been too reliant on myself, so they were both essential key hires that freed me up to focus on areas that will grow the business.

What’s your approach to structuring app and software development phases to ensure on-time delivery without compromising quality?

That’s due to our incredible project management team led by Rehan Khan who was one of our first and early hires.

We have a very detailed pre-project management process that allows us to know all the problems a client wishes to solve along with all the solutions lined up and ready to go to solve their problems.

Before we take any project on, 99% of the solutions are in place and the plan to execute upon them is in place this enables us to guarantee on-time delivery and no mid-project hiccups which are very common from those agencies that don’t do their groundwork properly.

How do you guide clients in selecting the right platform and technologies for their projects?

We start off by asking some pretty straight forward questions, “who will be using the platform, what is their experience, do they prefer visual or code editors, do they want the flexibility to move things around, how concerned are they about breaking something, do they prefer something more flexible or rigid” and then from there we narrow it down to 2 or so platforms and do a demonstration that showcases the pros and cons of each.

We put a lot of time in pre-project as quite often when someone is revamping their existing website, 9 times out of 10 they will have frustrations with their existing platform so we spend a lot of time to get it right because the last thing that we want somebody to do is spend a small fortune on a new system that they are completely surprised with and cannot use.

In your experience, which factors are most critical for a business to grow successfully and sustainably in the digital era?

Having a growth mindset and understanding that their website is the first step in their online journey and that constant tweaks over time will compound and really drive a return from the website.

Which project development methodology do you think is most effective for delivering results?

The team usually use the waterfall method with aspects of agile depending on the project/task.

This allows for greater flexibility throughout a project life cycle and should a client wish to change their mind, then it gives the greater flexibility – Of course, we would be lost without our project management tools such as Monday!

Can you share how your solutions have helped improve clients’ businesses or operations?

At the very basic level, our websites help clients get a professional presence online, allows them to showcase their products or services in a simple way and get the phone ringing with new enquiries.

The second type of client is our eCommerce client who on occasion have seen 40% year over year growth and average order value increases of around 27%.

Then we have our crown jewel, a system we created for efficiency within the health services which reduces wasted time and improves efficiency.

Which technology do you believe is most promising for the future of digital solutions and why?

AI search looks pretty exciting right now, it’s very early days but the traffic – accruing to very early reports – is converting a lot better, plus search looks a lot more natural and conversational which can only be a good thing!

How do you envision AI evolving over the next decade, and which industries do you think will be most empowered by it?

I think it will be pretty much everywhere, we are already seeing that, but to what extent is hard to know, I think it will be an enhancer to human skill rather than actually replace humans and it will rapidly speed up tasks for everyone from researchers, to programmers to admins and data analysts.

What plans or goals do you have for ALT Agency in the coming year?

Despite a tough global economy, we are very excited for the second half of 2025, ALT Agency is in a much better position than it was 12 months ago which is great to see as we continue our year on year growth and we will soon become a team of 15 as we have 2 new team members joining us in August 2025.

Your quick feedback on the services of TopDevelopers:

The system and interface has been seamless on TopDevelopers.co!