CN, a North American railway, brings its business closer to its customers by providing live, updated information on every operational facet of customers’ shipments. It is an evolutionary approach in websites for customers who want it all.

About CN
CN is a leader in the North American rail industry. More than just a railroad, CN is a transportation company offering integrated transportation services including rail, intermodal, trucking, freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution.

Situation Analysis
The previous site design and architecture was outdated and cluttered. There was no existing database or content management system (CMS) and all content was built and updated in HTML. A current inventory of 2,500 pages was taxing to manage so content had to be condensed to 1,500 pages while maintaining multilingual communications in four languages. The functionality of the existing online customer tools (eBusiness) also required upgrades to establish a positive customer-centric experience. The CN website was mainly used by customers to carry out tasks regarding their shipments. However, it provided a confusing architecture to find information regarding how, what and where things could be shipped.

A complete redesign, reengineering and implementation of a third party CMS (RedDot) was required.

Goals
Due to the complex nature of the inherited assets in the existing site, the CN project required initiatives to be rolled out in phases. The infrastructure, navigation, appearance and usability of the website required immediate attention. Secondary goals addressed recruiting needs, investor relations reporting, corporate information and news, and customization of relevant target marketing messages. And finally, the eBusiness site required a redesign to better integrate with the new public site design.

Challenges
The true challenge of this project laid in the need for trust and transparency between parties in order to reach a common goal.  The zu team worked diligently with CN on coordinating a seamless project. Because the content was provided by CN, and the CMS integration was done by the CMS vendor, this created a need for zu to develop a strategy that would support third party CMS integration by acting as an intermediary between the CN web team and CMS vendor. zu Systems Analysts developed functional specifications that were  complex in nature and zu Developers had to undergo extensive training in order to clearly define the third party CMS requirements. Converting 5,000 pages of content required editing and proofing resources in four languages.

Solutions
The design and information architecture solutions were developed by zu and applied to the frontend of the new site. In order to create an intuitive user experience, simple and clean design enhancements were implemented and the information architecture was rebuilt to facilitate typical customer tasks and information needs. zu provided CN with the tools to update specific real estate in the website by assisting with the configuration of the CMS. This created more autonomy for CN to craft custom messaging when required and further eliminated HTML updates that once fell on IT. Customization tools were applied to the eBusiness components in order to create a customer-centric website which would enable the CN ecommerce sales channel to better achieve financial targets. zu created a strategy that enabled marketing users to insert tailored banners to communicate key information to investors and analysts.

Solution Summary

• New site design
• New site information architecture
• Technical strategy
• Functional specifications
• Development of cascading style sheets (CSS)
• Integration and support for third party CMS (Red Dot)
• Integration of third party data feeds and components
• Functional programming
• Reintegration of web analytics
• Content editing, proofing and insertion of 1,500 pages in 4 languages
• Integration of Google Search

Result
Despite an economic downturn in 2009, CN’s public website page views increased 25% year-over-year compared to its previous website. A service-oriented site allowing visitors and customers to quickly determine how, what and where they can ship was achieved.

Where You Fit In
The CN case study is an example of what zu values in a client-business relationship. The process of evaluating needs, providing strategic advice and working together to reach collective goals is what zu does best – regardless of a project’s size. With some of the freshest minds in the game, zu will find innovative ways to take your business to new heights. Combining captivating design with effective online tools will give your organization a fresh, new appeal.

“zu’s dedication, flexibility, creativity, and expertise made our project successful.” -Paul Clarke, CN eBusiness

Obviously, I have not used every single CMS available. I have used a few, both commercial and open-source, as well as building my own. Off-the-shelf CMSs have some great features. The app is usually well-tested, mature and very stable. There are often many advanced features that are built-in such as flexible workflow and multi-language support. Many are quick and easy to setup for small projects. However, you are also getting a lot of other undesirable things. They are usually tough to customize, especially the admin interface. You often have slow turnaround time to fix bugs. There are often many features which you don’t need on every project which adds unnecessary complexity for the users. And the instructions are often non-intuitive. Additionally, many off-the-shelf CMSs work great for the IT guys, but non-techies have troubles understanding the interface and find them difficult to update. This is very evident when you support an off-the-shelf CMS.

If you, or your interactive supplier, build your custom solution correctly, you can have the best of both worlds: a stable, feature-rich CMS that perfectly meets your needs.

A custom CMS is not always a cheap solution, though. I don’t advocate trying to build a custom CMS for a client that is not willing or able to spend the money. However, a custom solution can be built for the same price it takes to purchase and implement a large commercial CMS. Using some pre-built components will be necessary to keep costs in line. There are many open-source frameworks and libraries that can be used to speed up the development process and therefore keep costs down.

To develop a competitive-cost CMS, you need the right interactive firm, team and people to build the solution. There are many inexperienced or inadequate web developers who promise the world, but can not deliver. Much of this is due to inexperience. Most custom CMS solutions fall short of delivering the tools promised in an easy-to-use system. This is why companies fall back to pre-built CMSs; they are scared to spend a large sum of money and end up with a terrible solution—or, even worse, no solution at all.

How can a company get around these fears?

Experience
If your web developer has a track record of providing quality solutions, then it will be easier for your company to trust that the project can be delivered.

Process
There must be a well defined process from start to finish. This will allow the developer to provide the client with more accurate timelines and estimates.

Communication
From the web developer’s perspective, you must keep the client informed at all stages of the project and be completely honest in communication. If there are problems or delays, advise your client. By hiding those and then failing to meet targets and deadlines, a web developer is only going to cause mistrust with the clients.

Documentation
For the developer and client to agree on a timeline and price, they must both understand what exactly is going to be build. The developer must provide on paper exactly what the system they are going to build.

One thing a business may be wondering is how big the project must be to make a custom CMS worthwhile. I cannot answer with a number or any definite rules. I will just say that every project is different and every project has a different solution. There is a lot of work that must go into breaking down the problem and finding the best solution. This process in itself can cost lots of money. If you want to provide service to a range of project sizes and types, you cannot support only one solution. You must be open to all solutions.