June 2010
UNIVEG.com, a fresh website in more than one way
When a company grows at the pace the UNIVEG-group has been doing over the past few years, chances are that it outgrows its corporate website in no time. New businesses are added, parts of the vision are modified, decision structures change, a new corporate identity is born,… and the original website isn’t necessarily equipped to accommodate such growth… That’s when a fresh start is in order, both on the inside and the outside.
There was an obvious reason for the UNIVEG group to tackle the outside - the look and feel - of the previous website: a new corporate identity. If that were the only motivation, a thorough make-over would have done the job, but the company has also changed tremendously in a very short period of time. The group made some large acquisitions all over the world and currently consists of 56 very complementary, but also still very diverse companies.
Company finder
The previous website’s back-end didn’t have a database with the group’s companies, making an intervention of the web design agency necessary for every change in the list of companies. Because the companies are the heart and soul of the group, the company finder occurs wherever relevant throughout the site. It has been integrated with Google-powered maps and can be updated easily in the site’s content management system (CMS).
Did someone just say CMS? To CMS or not to CMS, that is the question. The answer seems straightforward: content is king, the client is king,… so why not let the client manage his content? True, but only after we’ve drawn some lines in the sand. After all, too much freedom leads to anarchy, or in the case of websites: a messy site… Finding the right balance between freedom and structure (not to use the word ‘restrictions’) is an exercise that’s different for every client.
Structural freedom
Having compared various solutions in the past, we found the ExpressionEngine content management system to offer a sound balance between structure and freedom (including freedom on the designer’s side). With the experience we had in building our own websites with it, we managed to convince the UNIVEG group this would be a good choice for them.
Another novelty, a necessity in any large company, was the content approval flow in the management system. Content editors add or update content, which has to be approved by content administrators before the changes can go live.
It’s fresh, it’s so fresh…
Overall, the new website does a better job at playing out the assets the UNIVEG group identifies itself by: its products, its worldwide presence that helps guarantee their freshness, its efforts for sustainable development, its presence at trade fairs and events,… and certainly also its employees. Employee quotes feature prominently throughout the site, stimulating visitors to apply to any of the vacancies; applications which are then processed and delivered to the right person automatically via the content management system.
To make a long story short: have a look at www.univeg.com.