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Helping a $1bn turnover logistics giant cement their new position as smart supply chain solutions with a new, growth proof, UX driven website in just 6 weeks.

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THE CLIENT

Never has logistics been a more important part of the economy and daily life. With retail and consumer expectation changing at such a rapid rate the supply chains to provide for these changes have had to evolve and innovate to keep up. Since 1833 Menzies Distribution has been delivering to every high street across the UK with an unrivaled reputation and history within newstrade. To keep pace with the rapidly changing market, Menzies are now the UK’s most innovative logistics company and have rebranded to reflect their positioning as a smart supply chain solutions provider.

THE CHALLENGE

Change is hard to implement at speed in large organisations. So with a new brand and proposition to roll out before the end of the year, Menzies needed a digital partner that could bring their vision to life in just 6 weeks and manage a project of this scale.
With a blend of excellent UX lead design, experience bringing brands to life and the process and management to deliver to tight deadlines, the Menzies team trusted Wonderful to create a new site as a platform to build their proposition from. Difficult to update and expensive to maintain, the existing Umbraco based site was not giving the Menzies team the control they needed over such an important brand touchpoint, at such a crucial time. 
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“The structure of the site, the services and customer markets it reflects was a key component to reflecting the new proposition and site success.”

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THE SOLUTION

Clarifying the complexity
Our first priority with any UX project is to always thoroughly understand the objectives, context and goals for a project. With this project in particular there was the need to understand the complexities of the change in brand positioning, the changes required to the offering and to coordinate a range of stakeholders. To understand these complex needs our online discovery workshops brought the brand agency, client stakeholders and our team round the table. Out of this we created a clear site structure considering the user types and journeys that we defined.
Structured for growth
We focused the site user flows around their new ‘smart supply chain solutions’ proposition. Building out from the goals to the initial user entry points. The structure of the site and the services and customer markets it reflects was a key component to reflecting the new proposition and site success. The site needed to communicate services in the right balance and context whilst consolidating many existing brands and services into one website. This structure not only had to reset the way that Menzies described their service but also enable future mergers and acquisitions to be seamlessly absorbed into a clearly defined framework.

Designed to disrupt, built for control
The rebrand of Menzies Distribution positioned them as disruptors, redefining how supply chains operate in a modern world. The design needed to reflect the energy and momentum behind this but also the brand pillars of smart, agile and sustainable. We achieved this by using strong colour, contrast and movement throughout, to disrupt perceptions and leave an impression.

With a fully responsive front end, the experience was built to work just as well for mobile and desktop formats. Control over content has been placed back in the clients hands with a Wordpress CMS based build, giving full control over the content on the page and the blocks that are used to contain it. We also ensured that all forms and other interactions on the site were integrated seamlessly with existing systems, giving the client full and simple control over the site and any data gathered by it. Monthly penetration testing, maintenance and enterprise level hosting ensure that the site remains reliable and secure.

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On time and budget
With just 6 weeks till the site needed to be live, managing the process efficiently and at pace was critical. Pace however does not need to mean compromise. By creating a clear blueprint and roadmap for the project and then delivering this through sprints of work, we were able to deliver this ambitious project to the deadline. High levels of client, agency collaboration enabled us to make the right decisions, quickly.

Alongside creating a new site, there was a huge amount of content and existing pages to migrate. This process was helped through the use of our content migration platform and collaboration with our digital team to ensure SEO domain authority was transferred accurately and the site optimised for SEO performance once live. This ensured that come our live date, the site was ready, optimised and full of content. remains reliable and secure.

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THE RESULTS

The site launched to great success amongst the Menzies Distribution board as well as the users, a major corporate website delivered on time and budget against a short timeline. The time invested in site architecture was soon validated with the acquisition of Bibby Logistics shortly after the site went live. Site performance has also seen a significant improvement, maximising the benefit of any marketing activity:
 
First month stats:
  • Bounce Rate down by 22% 
  • Number of Sessions per User up 11.84% 
  • Average time on page up 17%
  • 96% Site Technical SEO Health Score up from 72% 
 

"We needed a digital agency that could partner with us as we repositioned the Menzies Distribution brand and went through significant change. Wonderful have not only brought our new branding to life through our website but the management of the project ensured that we delivered to a very tight deadline, on budget. Collaborating with their team on this project has not only produced great results but was also an enjoyable experience that we would highly recommend to anyone else."

Jill Perkins, Head of Marketing and Communications, Menzies Distribution