OB10 is no stranger to making classic mistakes with it’s web strategy. How do you manage expectations of local communities whilst pursuing a global strategy? Perhaps the best example is to learn from HSBC – the world’s local bank. At the heart of HSBC web strategy is the corporate site, followed by country specific sites. In the case of OB10, no provision has been made for a corporate website. Here is the home page of UK website, where the company is head quartered.
And here is the US website. Both attempts to retain a similar look and feel, but fail miserably on certain aspects.
Let’s look at the key differences of these two web pages (just the home pages without taking a detail review):
- Menu bar: UK has a symbol for “Home” where as it is spelt out on US home page. US in upper case, UK in lower case other than first letter. “Partners” position swapped. “About” and “About Us”. No “Customers” on US site. “Government” vs. “Public Sector” is a fair change. “Download” missing from US. “Learn More” and “Support” not on UK site. Almost gives the impression that “much more hand-holding” is required in the USA than in the UK.
- Side bar: different information. Like the “meet our customer” section on US site. Prefer “Join Now” message better than “Register”. News and events combined on US and these are separated on the UK.
- Main image: US is much better than the UK.
- “Deloitte Technology Fast50” is missing from the US site.
Why is there a necessity for country specific websites?
- Terminology, e.g. Government vs. Public Sector
- Legislations and regulations, e.g. VAT
- Language
- Key messages
- Country specific product and service offerings (and markets where applicable).
But why leave out such key messages as “Deloitte”, and news items from the UK site? This mistake could have easily be avoided by providing a corporate website that captured all news and events, and other common marketing messages.
Download page could have been improved significantly by embedding document thumbnails. Of course edocr will be glad to provide this service free of charge, if Jamie wishes to collaborate – be an innovator not a laggard Jamie!