Bloom Media - a full service digital agency

Multiple sites, multiple regions, one CMS!

The Client

Tyco Fire & Security is a significant business segment of Tyco International Ltd, providing electronic security and fire protection solutions to customers in over 100 countries, with annual revenue billings of $11.5 billion and 90,000 employees. Tyco Fire & Security products and services are used to safeguard fire fighters, fire prevention, deter thieves and protect people and their property - a leader in their market place!

Tyco Fire & Integrated Solutions (TF&IS) which is another subsidiary of Tyco International is a provider of high end systems which range from fire detection, high level traffic monitoring systems, public area surveillance to the protection of marine and chemical assets.

Project definition through target audience engagement

TF&IS had various websites within the EMEA region which were using a variety of different site designs, information architecture and content management systems. To enforce the brand's international position the site designs needed to be aligned centrally across multiple market sectors but also allow for a good degree of flexibility to service the specific needs of a local market with respect to products and services.

The key challenge was to engage users across a hugely diverse spectrum, both regionally and culturally and pull together a consensus of requirements that could be fulfilled using functionality that would be applicable to all stakeholders across the EMEA region. Users from the target audiences were recruited and interviewed about their requirements, a detailed understanding of their motivation, the tasks they wished to perform and the content they would value was acquired and this insight was used to define the brief.

The Project

Usability Derived Templates, Multi Lingual CMS Integration

The pilot website would be for the UK market, however, consideration would have to be given to common functions which would be rolled out across all the markets in EMEA.

Insight taken from a usability study highlighted that users wanted to be able to contact individual 'experts' for each of the multiple industry sectors. We suggested the development of an advanced enquiry mechanism allowing users to contact an expert directly for a particular sector. Following our design process, and taking into the account user insight, a suite of templates were created. Synergy was maintained across all regions from a brand and product perspective ensuring flexibility to allow local regions to customise their products and services.

Following the successful launch of the UK site, we have deployed German, French, Austrian and Norwegian websites.

Traffic and leads hit the roof!

Within the 1st month of the UK pilot site being live we saw the new site increase traffic by 300% and leads by 120%. A user centred information architecture combined with effective design allowed users to access content easily advocating user engagement and with our 'ask the expert' enquiry mechanism users felt more confident in placing enquires on the site.