The sheer scale of Microsoft still amazes me to this day. I have been a regular at the Redmond campus for the past few years since I started my role as an Optimisation Consultant with Webtrends. Microsoft is an amazing place of innovation, complexity and continuous change. It really exemplifies the definition of an enterprise business.
Microsoft has been using Webtrends as its solution for digital optimisation for many years – well before my time. The partnership dates back to the Widemile era – a testing and optimisation services company that was acquired by Webtrends in 2009. After that, the technology became Webtrends and we’re very proud to have such a long-standing relationship with Microsoft.
Now, while we have all of this history with Microsoft, they haven’t given us a free pass when it comes to vendor assessment and selection. In fact, the company went through a rigorous RFP last year and evaluated Webtrends against all of our competitors. You can read more about their evaluation as part of our just-released Microsoft Success Story.
“We considered a wide range of factors including security, privacy, interoperability, features, functionality and support. Webtrends checked all those boxes and we knew they could help us pull together an enterprise-wide strategy while providing individualised support to the various business units across the company.”
– Michael Sheppard, Sr. Program Manager at Microsoft
Webtrends has a history of working with companies to develop an Optimisation Center of Excellence and a culture of experimentation. This is what sets Webtrends apart from other testing solutions: a combination of strategy and expertise, integrating the right people, process and technology. (If you want to learn more about Webtrends and how our Services team can help you grow your career and meet the aggressive goals of your organisation, feel free to email contact us).
Back to Microsoft. Organising an effective website optimisation program can be challenging for a company with thousands of employees and dozens of independent business groups. Microsoft continues to select Webtrends to help guide them through this important process as they scale their experimentation program and incorporate self-service website testing into the DNA of their marketing organisation.
Below are some of the initiatives coming out of the website optimisation program at Microsoft:
- Consistency – The optimisation program at Microsoft is chartered with evangelising digital best practices, aligning marketing with sales, and unifying the customer experience across dozens of independent business groups through its Center of Excellence.
- Web Analytics – Data is the heart of every discussion at Microsoft, and the experimentation program incorporates data into every optimisation conversation. Microsoft leverages A/B testing and multivariate testing to not only test new hypothesis, but also tease out insight into their customers and identify new opportunities for growth.
- User experience – While each site has its own goals and objectives, there seems to be one overarching theme across the organisation: to inspire people worldwide to love Microsoft through compelling online experiences.
- Integrations – The flexible nature of the Webtrends platform enables the technologies to seamlessly integrate with other systems. Digital marketers are using more tools and technologies than ever before – but the real values comes from integrating these systems and leveraging Webtrends to take action.
While my Webtrends colleagues and I are technically “vendors” at Microsoft, we are undoubtedly an integral part of their team. We are trusted advisors who are at the table when discussing digital strategy and optimisation priorities. As Microsoft continues to change and grow, our nimble team of digital strategists, consultants and developers adapt to support them. This is a partnership that I am very proud of. Please take a few more minutes to read about it in-depth in our Microsoft Success Story.
