A.O. Smith Intranet
The C2 Group partnered with A.O. Smith to develop a new, internal-facing website to better serve evolving employee needs across the globe.
The Challenge
Business growth and global expansion over the course of 15 years found hot water and boiler system leader A. O. Smith in need of a new, internal-facing website to better serve evolving employee needs across the globe. This intranet, AOSNET, serves to unify the company and its international employee network, supplying documents, policies, corporate news and happenings, benefits information, and help desk requests in multiple languages across seven countries. For more than four years, The C2 Group has provided A. O. Smith with technical leadership and long-term digital strategy for its web properties. In addition to redesigning the public-facing site and providing A. O. Smith’s managed services, C2 was tapped to help transform the ordinary corporate intranet into a highly usable and engaging employee destination.
Winning the hearts and minds of a global employee audience.
Serving the needs of more than 6,000 employees across the globe, AOSNET’s appearance and functionality could no longer keep pace with company’s needs as a former Fortune 500 business. Aged in appearance and architecture, site elements and templates failed to provide the flexibility for content creators to enhance the site on their own. Requiring a VPN to log into the site, AOSNET further restricted employee access and engagement by not adjusting to display appropriately on mobile and tablet devices.
Facing the challenges of a 15-year global expansion, A. O. Smith transformed its outdated intranet with C2's expertise into AOSNET, a dynamic, mobile-responsive hub serving over 6,000 employees in seven languages.
Facing the challenges of a 15-year global expansion, A. O. Smith transformed its outdated intranet with C2's expertise into AOSNET, a dynamic, mobile-responsive hub serving over 6,000 employees in seven languages.
Facing the challenges of a 15-year global expansion, A. O. Smith transformed its outdated intranet with C2's expertise into AOSNET, a dynamic, mobile-responsive hub serving over 6,000 employees in seven languages.
Solution
The new AOSNET acts as a corporate town square, providing on-demand access to information and employee services. A more intuitive interface applies a revised architecture with a refreshed and responsive design – validated through user testing. Employees can now log in securely from anywhere on any device. Multilingual capabilities allow the site to display content for employees in seven countries, including the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, China, India, Turkey, and the Netherlands.
C2-administered CMS training better equipped the more than 50 content editors responsible for sustaining the site. Other features include an API-driven stock ticker integration, index-fed news and events, and a “People on the Move” section dedicated to employee-specific news and happening. C2’s user experience design team took an innovative approach for the typical “Contact Us” functionality. This approach, marked by its simplicity and attention to user needs, replaces the mundane, one-size-fits-all form submission with a drop-down menu that appropriately routes benefits questions, general inquiries, systems information, confidential employee concerns.
Leveraging Ektron’s multisite and multilingual capabilities, a mega navigation features customizable quick links and menus which display content by user through Ektron Groups. Integrating with Active Directory provides a personal ID holder for all employees and feeds personnel listings and details, replacing the need for tedious hand-entry. With eyes on future enhancements and growth, C2’s team provided a scalable platform for incorporating social media, global training features, and the expansion of AOSNET China – with global, U.S., and China-specific content all managed within one CMS interface.
Since launch, the new AOSNET has been well-received. What was once a used-as-needed corporate intranet is now a highly usable centralized hub for all employee-related information and services.
