When Dollar Rent A Car wanted to create local websites for every
one of its 600+ locations, all managed through a single content
management system, it turned to StoneHenge Partners.
The background
A Fortune 1000 company in the travel industry, with annual
revenue of $1.7 billion and 1,475 stores in 70 countries, Dollar
Thrifty Automotive Group depends on its consumer websites, dollar.com and thrifty.com, to generate nearly
half of its sales each year. In 2008, the company made a strategic
decision to emphasize online local marketing to attract a broader
base of neighborhood customers.
To do this, the company embarked on a web initiative: make it
easier for customers to find local stores through search
engines.
The challenge
The company needed its web content management system enhanced.
The goal was to enhance search engine optimization so that a
customer could find, through search engines, the company store
nearest his destination.
The challenge was to build an enhancement to the website's CMS
that would create a 3- to 7-page microsite for every one of its
locations. Each site must have location-specific content, but all
sites must be manageable through a central interface. And of course
all content must be search-engine friendly.
The company turned to StoneHenge Partners.
Dollar CitySites home page for Orlando, FL, developed by
StoneHenge Partners
The solution
StoneHenge Partners architected a solution that repurposed
existing code objects, adapted existing page templates, and
interfaced with existing data sources within the CMS. We also
connected new external data sources for location-specific content,
such as weather and local events. And we created new objects, such
as a "storefront display" of location-specific product lines.
The project was scoped, monitored and managed through
Function Point Analysis. It contained 105 function points,
grouped into 5 iterations, requiring a total of 1,448 hours to
design, develop, test, deploy, and hand off to the client.
The results
User requirements were captured and a Functional Size
Traceability Matrix was developed in November, 2007. Development
began on 12/17/2007, and was completed on 2/20/2008. The
results:
- Each of the five iterations hit its milestone to the
day.
- The project was delivered on time and on
budget, as promised.
- 30 days after launch, the client had reported
zero defects requiring warranty
work.
"Truly estimating a project's timeline accurately is really hard
to do, in my experience," said Tony Ray, Dollar Thrifty Director of
Internet Marketing Technology & Operations. "Being able to hit
the delivery date was huge. The project was a huge success."
Ray said he felt continually informed of the project's progress
because of the disciplined project management practices of the
StoneHenge Partners team. "They had daily 15-minute stand-up
meetings with the developers, and they called in the specific
end-users from the business units as needed." It was never 'meeting
for meeting's sake,' he said. "You have to have that communication
so the end user gets what he needs. It's critical."
The project worked. Locality-based searches through search
engines such as Google showed a significant jump in traffic almost
immediately, with a continuing upward trend of local searches
leading to the microsites over the next few months.