“ We have been using Sitecore since 2006, and one of the main benefits we’ve seen is the incredible flexibility – we can do more with the site than ever before. We feel that the site and structure, and team in place at ClearPeople will allow us to do whatever we want or need to do in the future. „

- Andrew Levey, Marketing Manager, Toshiba BCD

Challenge

The volume of content on the website had significantly increased since the site’s initial launch. Toshiba BCD required a solution that could save editorial time, was easy for non-technical people to use and would allow for future enhancements.

The major challenge was therefore not only to provide Toshiba BCD with an easy-to-use CMS, but it also had to be compatible with the strict rules that the corporate hosting environment requires for publishing and staging control. In addition, The requirements for user interface flexibility and standards compliance made this a challenging project.

Solution

ClearPeople implemented Sitecore CMS for Toshiba BCD, which includes some of the following features:

• A highly efficient publishing tool
• Adherence to Toshiba global web and security guidelines, including: 
      - Fully protected staging and intranet environment 
      - Separate (web-farm server) public facing internet/extranet environment  
      - Preview and Publishing control 
      - Workflow control
• World class adherence to web standards
• Clean, elegant and flexible user interface
• Password protected areas (Extranet) for Toshiba partners
• Flexible form control
• Flexible brochure download form controls

Result

ClearPeople’s expertise in developing for Sitecore CMS meant that a working solution was quickly implemented.  The new website was successfully launched after a ten week design and development process. The set-up of the CMS in a complex environment went smoothly. Sitecore’s administration interface exceeded the expectations of BCD’s editors in terms of usability. After a few hours of training, a handful of editors were able to create new content items. The web team has since been actively updating and maintaining the content of the site.

Three years after Toshiba BCD started using Sitecore to manage their web site content and partner portal, they have been able to get information into the most user friendly format as possible, while allowing partners to find the information they need quickly.  The site has grown and they have incorporated a number of additional features:

For customers:

• Using post code search and Google maps API, customers can easily find local partners.
• Toshiba is using aliases for web pages so they can track marketing activities.  For example, they will use a specific URL on a page or advertisement so they can track responses.

For partners:

Segmentation: Toshiba BCD has also been doing more segmentation with partner logins: this allows, for example, direct partners access to a price list, while indirect partners get their pricing from distributors. Quick validation: Partners can now register on the portal, and once the email address is validated and Toshiba BCD approves the partner, the partner can immediately log on to the portal.

Corporate policies: Toshiba has internal processes and policies that must be followed, and Sitecore has enabled them to follow those exactly as needed without a huge amount of work. ClearPeople is able to easily implement rules as needed to ensure that Tobshiba guidelines are being adhered to.

“Sitecore is really easy to use and we can get things up on our site quickly. The combination of the flexibility of Sitecore and the expertise from ClearPeople has been invaluable,” says Levey.

Moving forward, Toshiba BCD plans to expand their partner portal to create more of a community, with forums, blogs, and other social networking features that Sitecore offers. They are also looking into expanding the partner portal area into a customer zone, to allow customers to register for things such as user guides, new product release information and customer loyalty offers.

Says Levey, “We have been using Sitecore for three years now, and one of the main benefits we’ve seen is the incredible flexibility – we can do more with the site than ever before. We feel that the site and structure, and team in place at ClearPeople will allow us to do whatever we want or need to do in the future.”

Technical Description

The Toshiba BCD website was developed using Sitecore CMS with Oracle Database Connector, a web-farm server and staging module. Three years later, they are now running on Microsoft SQL Server. In addition, a number of other standard and custom modules were also employed - such as Lucene search. A roadmap of additional features is already planned, such as fully indexed document search and possibly online forums, proving the ability of extending the functionality of Sitecore CMS.

Toshiba BCD’s editors utilise a range of the Sitecore admin features on a day-to-day basis, including workflow and controlled publishing.

Furthermore, Toshiba’s own security standards have been followed, and exceeded, by implementing a strict approach to database access on the public facing servers. Updates cannot be done via the public servers.  Instead, any required updates, such as a partner registration or a user profile update, are published via a web-service to the internal environment. Updates are tightly controlled and published either automatically or through a custom defined workflow, depending on the security scenario.