Last week Passle hosted the inaugural CMO Series Live Conference. The keynote speech was hosted by my colleague Alistair Bone, joined by the fantastic Crossley Sanford - Managing Director, Marketing & Communications at Ankura. Crossley delved into the recent website build and how Ankura were able to successfully navigate a tricky project. 

Identifying the need for a new website: 

The start of the journey was establishing whether there was a need for a new website, this process was ultimately focused on identifying a 'North Star', where did they want to get to throughout the process. The 'North Star' for Crossley and the business was ultimately ROI. A key element for this was understanding the customer journey and how a customer would navigate through the website. By establishing this and their 'North Star' it allowed Crossley and her team to gauge opinions of the Ankura professionals, as well clients. 

Shifting focus & mindset towards the rebuild: 

Ultimately, it became critical to take people with you on the journey. For Crossley, this started with the BD & Marketing team but progressed to understanding the needs of all consultants at Ankura. From junior members of staff right the way up to the firm's leadership, Crossley & the team contacted all professionals to establish gather their input, this resulted in firmwide buy-in as everyone had a say throughout the process, while they weren't able to achieve absolutely everything, it became obvious what the non-negotiables were. 

The key takeaways: 

• Take the required time to prepare & complete the rebuild. Crossley attributed the success to the due diligence the team carried out & setting expectations throughout. 
  
  
• Involve all key stakeholders - gauging the opinions of all individuals resulted in a collective buy-in as everyone had felt consulted during the rebuild. 
  
  
• Establish a 'North Star' - taking the time to understand the customer journey and what the customer journey should look like allowed the team to plan accordingly.