The Corporate Banking frontline team at the Client’s refers to a Products and Services site for their day to day information. The legacy sources consisted of five different sites, none of which was truly up to date in terms on content and technology used. The challenge was to offer a maximum of user experience with fast loading speeds and to make sure, information was always up to date. This became especially virulent with new financial regulations entering into force that had significant impact on the work of the team.
An assessment of the situation revealed several areas of improvement. Relevant information was scattered across five different sites and thousands of pages, leading to out of date information being referenced. The underlying version of SharePoint itself was outdated, making it necessary to migrate to the latest SharePoint version. Overall the user experience and the user journey had not been at the centre of the legacy platform’s design; this caused frustration of the team and led to considerable loss of time and a lack of product understanding.
The client chose WM Reply to bring in their extensive experience and expertise with Microsoft SharePoint and the design of compelling user experiences. WM Reply supported them to consolidate five separate sites into one global hub, hosting all relevant product information. The standardisation of the design and layout across the site simplifies navigation, updating and maintenance of the platform while adding to the corporate identity overall. The implementation of an intuitive search function significantly improved the user experience. A custom developed, new geographical tool gives users an easy access to all products sold by geographic location.
Thanks to the fully mobile compatible design, the site is future proof and pays respect to the users’ changed usage patterns.
To make sure, information updates are carried out in a timely manner over 100 product managers were enabled to self-serve/upload and manage their own information. To support them, WM Reply developed a simplified content Management template to help inexperienced SharePoint users to upload their content.
WM Reply supported the client to successfully build and deliver the migration from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2013 with minimal disruption of the client’s processes. In the course of the update, over 2,000 pages could be replaced by less than 200, making the new site more proportionate to the product offering.
Four legacy sites were decommissioned. Overall this project led to significant improvement on how the information is structured and of how easily product features, availability, decks, responsible point of contact can be identified.
By training over 150 product managers, super users and owners, WM Reply ensured that the management of the new site was implemented into the banks internal processes.