Overview:

This website was designed for our client, a European information management provider, that had recently acquired a US-based company offering similar services. Still, the organizations had vastly different workflows, customers, and policies that would need to be carefully reconciled. Change management in merger integrations requires business leaders to be very intentional about the strategies and tactics used to reduce uncertainty fueled by personnel changes and culture clashes.

Challenge:

On the surface, this website redesign project seemed very straightforward. However, thanks to the portions of my undergraduate studies covering business essentials, I knew that successful merger integrations often require planning that thoroughly considers the leadership team (including alignment from the top), current and desired future work culture, jointly-managed strategic priorities, a holistic examination of old and new operating models, and how to define reasonable success targets based on baseline performance measures.

I used this knowledge to contextualize the scope of work proposed by the client, and in turn I was able to ask questions and offer recommendations based on the client’s larger merger integration goals. In the end, we devised a plan to update business materials to align more cohesively with changing brand standards and messaging by leveraging multiple web technologies in conjunction with the website redesign project.

Strategy:

I conducted UX discovery research to guide content, branding, and information architecture requirements. For example, the website project started with a content and design audit of both the original site and the parent website, which helped inform the information architecture.

I was also able to shape design priorities resulting in branded email templates used to communicate key aspects of the merger integration. Both the website and email templates adapted the look and feel of our client while retaining other elements to provide a sense of continuity. By leading whiteboard working/sketching sessions with our designer, developer and copywriter, we looked at interactive, functional and branding elements from the parent website that could be effectively adapted on the new website.

I also managed our QA/QC process to ensure the website was optimized for easy consumption of information, regardless of the size of the viewing screen.

The final product was rooted firmly in our client’s brand family without becoming a carbon copy.