Situation
Our client, an international prestige beauty company, wanted to empower one of its ‘high growth’ brands to bolster its market recognition and build its market share within the UK by delivering a re-platformed and re-designed website.
The old website was hindering the performance of the brand team for a number of reasons. The team was unable to update the existing website – edits and updates required a code change and engineering support. There was also inconsistency in the look and feel of the site across different geographic regions. The old website was also limited in terms of the functionality for customer communication.
The client needed a partner who could help solve these issues and deliver a digital experience for customers that would help this high growth brand increase its market share.
Approach
Valcon UK was selected to co-ordinate delivery and launch activities due to its stellar project delivery record and expertise in SAFe. To facilitate this, Valcon – deploying a SAFe methodology – coordinated effort across four client scrum teams to deliver a re-platformed and re-designed website by the end of the 2022 financial year. Valcon regularly reported progress to the client and planned, organised and controlled launch activities in collaboration with stakeholders.
There were some key factors of the Valcon approach to ensure targets were met. For example, daily stand-up calls tracked the progress of website development and testing, resolved blockers and managed cross-team dependencies. Valcon prioritised the development of ‘must have’ features for the initial website launch to ensure the deadline were met. A weekly meeting with leadership provided updates on progress and escalated critical issues. As the launch date neared, Valcon increased the frequency of its communications.
Valcon created the launch plan in collaboration with stakeholders from multiple business functions and geographic regions and worked with them to identify launch pre-requisites and ensure launch activities were scheduled. Valcon implemented a rigorous ‘Go / No Go’ process ahead of the launch, which helped identify key stakeholders and ensure criteria was met to obtain approval for launch.
Results
- Delivery of a ‘fit for purpose’ solution: a collaborative team environment and consistent communication meant impediments were resolved, dependencies managed and the solution was deployed before the agreed deadline.
- Independence: Valcon ensured a content management system (CMS) was a priority for the initial launch, which gave the brand team the independence to management their own website.
- Developing a unique customer experience: features will continue to be developed for the global cart and checkout meaning the team can hone a unique and tailored customer experience.
- Creation of business value: a month after launch, consumers were spending 48% more time on the website and there have been an additional 250 transactions. If this trend continues, the website will drive an incremental increase in revenue of £300K this year.
