NTT Ltd’s new global website

"You guys are amazing! Really. I have good experience with NTT and consultants and you guys are the best! By a long shot.”

Brian Murdoch, IT Senior Platform Specialist, NTT

NTT is a leading global technology services company that delivers its services in over 200 countries and regions. The technology giant prides itself in using technology for good, delivering industry leading services that have a positive impact on people and communities.
NTT partnered with Kagool to bring together a portfolio of distinct branded organisations and create a new, distinguished, global entity. The project set out to create a top-five technology and business solutions provider that is able to deliver capabilities on a global scale and do great things for people, business and society.
The Sitecore powered solution offers clients access to a more comprehensive range and greater depth of skills across multiple technologies, managed services and capabilities. NTT’s aim to deliver world-leading solutions to clients meant they needed a digital presence and strategy to match their ambitions.

The challenge

NTT are well known in Japan but not across the globe.
Their aim is to become recognised as one of the top 10 global mega-brands by 2025.

Kagool were appointed to support a website integration programme as well as develop a technical solution leveraging Sitecore, in a phased approach. The first two phases of the project focussed on the design and development of a robust technical solution.

Kagool were briefed to:

• Quickly establish a globally recognised brand identity. The new global brand was due to be launched on 1^st July 2019 and needed to be able to become recognisable instantly.
• Empower key stakeholders to evolve the brand prior to go live. The challenge was how to manage that effectively within timescales. This meant designing and building the Sitecore solution with components that provided quick and efficient brand agility.
• Create a strategy for seamlessly migrating content from affiliate sites. With the aim to ensure those affiliate sites would not lose out on market share, lead generation or service lines. We needed to use our SEO specialities to analyse organic traffic volumes to mitigate against loss of traffic, as well as analyse which content areas, and therefore service lines, were performing most effectively.
• Enhance customer journey and conversion. Contact opportunities for visitors were previously limited to one form, NTT want to create more engaging experiences for users at every touchpoint. We introduced new forms and personalised CTAs across all products and services to allow customers to contact at point of interest, thus driving conversions.

The approach

Future proofing using Helix principles

With the likelihood of future growth in front of a global audience it was important that we built a website that would be future proof. Sitecore 9.1, built using Helix principles, was a perfect remedy for this. It will future proof the website and lay the foundations for further development.

We ensured the re-use of templates and components for further sites and micro-sites. As part of the deliverables, we also developed a Tour de France micro-site for NTT as part of their team sponsorship, and a corporate site for the newly created holding company, NTT Inc.

Collaboration

With the tight deadline given, the decision was made to work through requirements and build using an agile framework. This meant identifying and refining scope as we developed. Our design team provided design concepts for the NTT brand team to use as a foundation for the new brand entity. This was fed back to the product team who created the backlog which the development team delivered, focusing on specific goals and features for each sprint.

Our search marketing team provided strategic input around approaches to URL structure, keyword research, redirect strategy and full SEO technical specification to input to the backlog.

As a global technology company, it was important to NTT to use their own hardware and infrastructure. Our technical architects collaborated and consulted on architecture design with NTT and Sitecore to provide an optimal solution to meet their global needs. The requirement involved multiple cloud-based locations and databases, and integration of development, UAT, SIT and production environments.

Summary and next steps

How we did it

• 4,690 hours of work
• 23 team members across 9 disciplines
• 4 countries and time zones
• 3 websites from scratch
• 5 months end-to-end delivery
• 1 Global infrastructure

Since the launch, website usage is steadily increasing

• Average 1,000 searches per month on NTT branded keywords, from increased brand awareness
• COVID-19 response initiative received 8,000 views over a 3 months period​
• 5,780% increase in Form Submissions from an average 170 per month to 10,000 per month.​
• 150% increase in direct traffic, to an average to 7000 daily visits within 6 months of site launch
• 41% increase in page views within the first 3 months
• All three websites were delivered on time on under budget.
• Since go live, the product owner teams on both sides continue to collaborate to define ongoing work inline with NTT’s business goals.
• We have created a micro-site toolbox to enable their content teams to quickly and easily add new micro-sites to support their campaign strategy and are about to deliver theming functionality across 17 components giving more visual flexibility.

We are also working on lead generation planning via integration with Eloqua.

“We were looking for a very strong Sitecore delivery partner. Kagool boasts a number of Sitecore MVP’s as well as well as having a solid track record in delivery...

...Kagool’s agile methodology aligned with NTT Ltd’s own approach to delivering projects and we were also impressed with Kagool’s SEO capability”

Senior Manager - Marketing Technology Services, NTT

About Kagool

Kagool is a top tier Sitecore Partner that helps enterprise organisations with digital strategy, website development and all aspects of digital marketing. Kagool has offices in London, Manchester, Cardiff and New York. For over 20 years Kagool has been partnering with companies to successfully deliver innovative projects that drive their businesses forward.

We have one of the UK's largest teams of Sitecore specialists. Our team of highly skilled digital specialists includes 5 internationally recognised Sitecore MVP's, that are ready to find smart answers to digital challenges in web design, development, UX, Sitecore SEO, PPC or digital strategy.

Kagool's Microsoft Gold Partner accreditation means that customers can benefit from a unique set of Sitecore services, from web design and development, to 24/7 support and managed hosting on their private cloud, Amazon Web Services or MS Azure.