CLEANING UP WITH A GLOBAL WEB SITE

How a Global Cleaning Equipment Manufacturer Wrapped Its Arms Around a Dozen Languages and Made the Process Manageable

Imagine you are the Web site administrator for a global company with a presence in six regions around the world … your customers speak at least 12 region-specific languages … the company has diverse product offerings … each area has its own distinct mix of products and pricing … and each region has its own existing business processes.

Now imagine that you are the only person responsible for uploading content, adding new pages, programming new sections, not to mention managing the corporate Web strategy for this growing, New York Stock Exchange-traded conglomerate; and did we mention that there is still only 24 hours in a day? This is the predicament Dan Platt found himself in when he joined Tennant Co., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of indoor and outdoor cleaning solutions, including industrial and commercial sweepers and scrubbers, as well as specialty coatings.

Tennant is based in Minneapolis with direct sales in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan and distribution partners in more than 80 countries. The company needed a robust Web site solution that would provide not only a comprehensive corporate site, but also a number of unique, local sites in areas such as Japan and The Netherlands. And it required a tool that allowed day-to-day management by team members in different divisions and geographic locations.

“When I joined the company, the Web site was seven years old,” explained Platt, Tennant’s marketing Web producer. “And needless to say, it was at times an overwhelming task to be a one-man department and still stay on top of site updates, as well as find the time to develop and program new areas.

“This was combined with the need for the company to project itself online as an international market leader. The old site fell far short of doing that and didn’t offer us the flexibility we needed to quickly grow and expand the site,” he added.

With the goal in mind of designing, populating and launching a fully functional, accessible Web site that could be updated just as easily by users in Minneapolis, as in China, Germany or Australia, Platt assembled a taskforce. Its members represented global marketing, sales and service, training, IT, human resources, customer service and corporate communications. They set out together on a seven-month odyssey to accomplish Platt’s goal.

Not Just a Technology Problem

Platt stated that the old site was not viewed solely as a “technology problem:” “The company realized that while the old site was not necessarily a barrier to our ability to grow and expand our product offerings, it was an obstacle to telling that story to our customers, prospects and investors. That’s why it was critical we had input and guidance from every department, not just IT and marketing.”

Tennant’s team went through an exhaustive process to determine how to create a Web site that supported Tennant’s corporate vision as well as its three primary lines of business – equipment; service, parts and components; and floor coatings.

The team quickly concluded that the solution had to allow Tennant the ability to update all parts of its new site in house, but without requiring IT to be involved at the everyday, microscopic level. Wanting to empower employees around the globe to update their own “local” Web sites, ease of use and flexibility were critical factors – plus, the site had to work seamlessly with Tennant’s existing IT environment.

The team analyzed a number of content management software packages, narrowed it down to two and in the end, chose Tenth Floor – a national interactive marketing and technology firm and its content management software suite, BASE-10.

“Tennant had a number of unique challenges that most businesses do not face when implementing a new Web site,” said Richard Prendergast, Tenth Floor vice president and managing director, Minneapolis. “They have multiple employees in multiple locations around the globe; each region has its own distinct product offerings and pricing, as well as its own way of doing business.

“Tennant recognizes the value of localizing its products and offerings to customers in each region – understanding that its success is reliant on selling and servicing products in a variety of business cultures with varying practices and processes,” he added.

The Result

Working closely with Platt and his team, Tenth Floor’s BASE-10 suite allowed Tennant to create unique content for six geographic regions worldwide in 12 region-specific languages, resulting in 14 unique, local Web sites. The sites include distinct sections for all of Tennant’s product offerings, as well as information specific to industries such as aviation, government, healthcare and manufacturing.

“Our new site now reflects our position as a global leader in helping our customers create a cleaner, safer world and truly leverages our 135 years of knowledge and industry experience,” Platt said. “I can safely state that no other industry site offers the depth, reach and access to key resources and information that our site does.”

During the seven-month process, Tennant employees produced more than 335 pages of new content, including 170 product-specific pages and more than 30 expertise-focused pages. And these numbers continue to grow. The company was also able to add a “resources” category, where visitors can easily access case studies and frequently asked questions.

Tennant’s North American site (www.tennantco.com) launched in the middle of May, with Spanish and French versions going live in June. The entire site will be complete in late July. This means that employees in North America, Europe, Japan, China and Australia will be able to update 14 local sites in North American English, European English, Australian English, North American Spanish, European Spanish, Canadian French, European French, Japanese, Chinese, German, Dutch and Italian.

The learning curve for employees becoming familiar with BASE-10 and its tools was greatly decreased because the software suite mirrors Microsoft Word, a program which is known universally, Prendergast explained.

Tennant has streamlined the process of pushing out information from its Minneapolis headquarters to its other global sites. BASE-10 allows Tennant’s Minneapolis office to easily notify each region when updates have been made to the North American site. Additionally, they are able to output an Excel spreadsheet of updates once a month and share it with all regions. Each office then decides locally what updates they want incorporated into their site. Changes are translated locally from the spreadsheet, fed back into BASE-10 and uploaded to the individual site.

“Regardless of how easy and practical BASE-10 is for our employees to use, one of the key factors in the success of this project was the team at Tenth Floor,” Platt stated. “They consistently exceeded expectations. As the project progressed, changes and customizations needed to be made at the regional level, and priorities changed – Tenth Floor didn’t miss a beat. I never heard the words ‘out of scope’ or ‘can’t be done’ from them.”

Platt said that Tennant will continue to partner with Tenth Floor. Once the corporate sites are successfully launched and in the hands of local content managers, the company will work with Tenth Floor to develop a partner site for its large national accounts, allowing those customers access to sales tools, pricing information and more. Additionally, Tennant plans to incorporate BASE-10 into its intranet environment, as well as build a site for its sister company Nobles Industries, a manufacturer of floor care equipment.