Amplexor develops Tessenderlo Group’s new website using Tridion software
The WCM specialist uses the innovative 'agile development' approach
Leuven, October 30th 2008 - Amplexor, a specialist in enterprise content management (ECM), has developed the Tessenderlo Group's new website. For this, Amplexor's experts have integrated SDL Tridion's WCM solution, which enables the user-friendly creation of complex and multilingual sites. The project's implementation was based on the 'agile development' principle, which allows the swift adjustment of different parts of a complex project.
New design and extended research functions
At the end of last year, the Tessenderlo Group undertook an in-house analysis to determine the needs of the operational and functional departments (e.g. those of human resources, Investor Relations, etc.) regarding the new website to be developed. After the evaluation of the project proposals from the various potential partners, it was decided to select Amplexor. Michaël Vandenbergen, Corporate Communications Manager of Tessenderlo Group, explains: "The project proposal from Amplexor was the one that best met our requirements. As the official partner of Tridion, the company also benefits from having great experience of the WCM system, which allows us to build several multilingual sites on a single platform."
In May this year, the Amplexor specialists began to develop the new site, which went live only six months later. Peter De Rudder, Project Manager at Amplexor, was in charge of the implementation. "Thanks to the faceted navigation within the Tridion 5.3 environment, the visitor can quickly and intuitively find simple things, such as products or contacts,' he says. "This website has a new and fresh design, in which we integrated Google Maps and Google Analytics. As a result of the close collaboration with the client, we were able to complete the project in record time." In all, three developers and a project leader spent 175 man-days on this task.
The Tessenderlo Group's management also decided that all its subsidiaries' sites will in future be built using the same Tridion technology and will match the structure of the general site www.tessenderlogroup.com, with a view to achieving a single online image for the group. Michaël Vandenbergen adds: "SDL Tridion's BluePrint technology facilitates the fast migration of all the other websites, but without compromising the integrity of our brand."
Agile development
For this project, Amplexor opted for a completely new approach, known as 'agile development'. According to Peter De Rudder, "With the traditional approach, a project is first completed and then adjusted. But we decided on a system that facilitates a quick meeting with the client every two weeks. This allows us to deliver ‘small' versions, which we adjust or improve each time at the end of the meeting, in close cooperation with the Tessenderlo Group."
Clearly, this way of working offers greater flexibility and the project can be adapted far quicker to meet the client's wishes. This results in significant time-savings in the project completion. Michaël Vandenbergen says he too is very satisfied with this way of working: "Thanks to the frequency of our meetings, we were able to adjust the project a lot quicker. The communication between our team and Amplexor's project team was excellent. We are very satisfied with the fast and fluid implementation of the project."
