Raphael Nolens invited us into a cycling journey into Web Analytics in Düsseldorf, playfully showing us the stages Pioneer Europe went through in order to fully reap the benefits of the online channel today.
It all started out with a leap back in the past where ever since 1996, Pioneer Europe had been going through redesign projects, year after year. Faced with different cultures and quality issues – some sites were down for half a day before anyone actually noticed, which was acceptable at the time – Pioneer decided to set up a European Web Governance Team back in 2001.
The fixing of the leaking buckets started with performance issues, as the websites where too slow. In 2002, 12 new websites where released, running under a single centralised database and a homogeneous web design, across all countries.
Since then, Rafael has been working hard to improve the Internet presence through a continuous improvement cycle.
The challenge mainly relied in the fact that international companies are not organised to work together. That’s where the bicycles started to show up: you have to peddle hard and together, working as a team. A sprinter does not hold the same responsibilities as team members trying to push their team leader across the finish line.
In the light of non aligned strategies across countries, pan European companies tend to follow different strategies ranging from DIY to zeppelins that gobble up a lot of euros, are highly inflammable and need to be rebuilt each year.
Pioneer saw this differently and more specifically in the light of small & effective ways of spending those euros sensibly. Like climbing up a curved road zigzagging through, assuring that onward movement, brought by your team of climbers and sprinters. And indeed, as Avinash would say, small is beautiful 😉 (more…)
I love Europe! I couldn’t say it enough and it’s kind of encrypted into my genes, being Dutch, French-speaking, living in Belgium and managing 
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