AGILEDROP: Index of online excellence put in the context of Drupal CMS

Bowen Craggs & Co is a UK based research and consultancy group which is focused solely on online corporate communications - websites, social media and social channels. A very short introduction of what they do is to be found on their website. In short, they review, measure, and advise how to make the websites and social media channels better for businesses and customers. 

To measure that they developed a Bowen Craggs Index of Online Excellence which was designed as a guide to the best in internet corporate communications. But it is not so much about communications as it is about marketing. Marketing the whole enterprise, not just the products or services it sells. The corporate website will be visited by many different profiles, including job seekers, potential and existing customers, employees, journalists, governments,  and also investors and partner companies. We can talk about a common marketing ground which is engaging its users through various channels. 

The list of all 30 companies which fared the best in the Index of Online Excellence is to be found here. 

The methodology behind results

The company reviews worlds biggest companies by market capitalization and looks for those which use their websites and social media channels most effectively for online communications. The key indicators for positioning companies and their respective online presences are:

1. Construction: it covers navigation, user orientation, web and social media integration, internal search, and web visibility;
2. Message: it covers the strength of the homepage, visual impact, internationalism and company information;
3. Contact: openness to dialogue and easy-to-navigate contact pages
4. Serving society: covering corporate governance, service for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) professionals;
5. Serving investors: the richness and accessibility of materials in which investors and analysts are likely to be interested;
6. Serving the media: providing rich and up-to-date provisions for journalists; 
7. Serving job seekers: maintaining and guaranteeing a strong employer brand to attract candidates, effective browsing experience;
8. Serving customers: ensuring smooth consumer journeys.

If we try to tie the loose ends and allow ourselves to connect the prerequisites of an ambitious digital experience and indicators used for “calculating” the index of online excellence we can make some conclusions.

A short reminder about ambitious websites

What are ambitious websites then? They have a custom business logic, a unique model and they just have to move part of their operations online. Then there is the user experience which needs to be customized in order to serve all the stakeholders a business has. UX for a job seeker or an investor need to be tailored so it fits best both of these profiles. Another vital aspect of an ambitious website is integrations. Those come in many forms and functionalities but their main purpose is to serve the goals the organizations has set itself. Whether it is a marketing automation system which should be connected to company’s CRM to reduce errors and save time at data entry. Or you want to engage with your sports club fans in order to offer them a personalized experience. 

How did Drupal do?

Well, from all the 30 companies which made it on the list only two websites are built in Drupal. By far the most represented CMS is Adobe Experience Manager. What to think of it? 

Well, it is true that ambitious doesn’t necessarily mean the biggest enterprises out there. But it is sure that having an extensive portfolio of clients which are members of the biggest companies by market capitalization can be useful. And beneficial for all those which are building websites in Drupal. Having a list of strong references can sometimes be a great opener at the beginning of the sales process or it can prove itself to be valuable at the latter stages of sales process when talking to potential clients. Either way, ask yourself a question with whom would you rather work, a company or a technology which has an extensive reference list of its clients or the company which to date managed to deliver less than a handful of projects on such a scale?

We at AGILEDROP have dealt with a lot of aspects of ambitious digital experiences in the past years. Collected experiences which we are willing to pass along. Get in touch if you would like to utilize the obtained knowledge in your projects also.