Project Management Capabilities

Sato: Then we started working on the website renewal...

Murakami: You established a structure that made it easy for us to do our work.

Orikasa: We wanted to develop the website while taking the perspective of our overseas customers. To enable this, we decided to ask our Sales Management Headquarters to join the website development team and promote the project while incorporating sales viewpoints. I think that's one of the reasons why this renewal went so smoothly.

Murakami: It's not rare to have people outside of corporate communications take part in a website project. However, the attitude taken in such cases tends to be one of "let's all provide input" and to include a representative from each of a company's business divisions. The problem is that this runs the risk of things getting complicated and out of control because each business division has a different agenda. In this NSENGI project, the basic team consisted of three members from public relations and one member from Sales Management Headquarters. A person representing a business division would participate only in meetings that concerned that division's business area. Other than that, the representative from Sales Management Headquarters would take the lead and handle any required consensus building with the business divisions. We appreciated that this system was established as it made things easier for us.

Orikasa: It was very good that we were able to create content with a sales perspective as well as manage the schedule while having the business divisions share information with Sales Management Headquarters, exchanging messages with them, like, "Business Division A is doing such and such, and we'd like to try the same thing," or, "Things are moving forward at such and such business division, but we are behind schedule."

Kobayashi: It was good that we were able to check progress through the weekly meetings. The test site where pages under development could be seen in real time was accessible at all times to those concerned. I think that made it easier for the business divisions to cooperate.

Murakami: I think things flowed smoothly overall because the people involved were very interested in what we produced and showed concern about the result. Generally speaking, people in business divisions or those on site are not very interested in or concerned about website production. However, in this project, we received great cooperation from the people at NSENGI business divisions, persons on site and even senior management. It made things very worthwhile for us on the production end. It also gave us a sense of mission toward making something strong.

Orikasa: Project management is our strength! (Laughs) It also helped that we continually reported our progress to senior management and made sure that we didn't have any last-minute upsets to our work. (Laughs)

A Further Renewal of the Global Site to Unify Design with the Japanese Site

Murakami: This project went on for a year and a half after it started. When we made the Japanese-language website, we matched the design with the design of the global site. At the same time, we prepared a different home page that incorporated the latest trend at that time. After the Japanese-language website was completed, we went back to the global site and transferred the Japanese-language home page design to it so as to unify the design and finalize the project. That left a big impression on me.

Orikasa: I remember saying to you, "Please make a final all-out effort to make this a website that Arc Communications will also feel proud of as a designer." As it turned out, the home page of the global site was changed in a short amount of time after the renewal was first published. I believe that this was a good decision. Site visitors' impressions are determined by the home page, so I wanted to be very particular about it.

Sato: Website design trends are always changing drastically, so it is never too early to take another look to revise things. And even more than that, I felt that I had a clear understanding through this project of your wishes and tastes. That's why, when you said, "Let's change the home page of the global site," it was easy for me to form an image of what needed to be done. If I may say so myself, I felt quite proud that, according to our plans, you directly approved our first proposal. (Laughs)

Ohsato: We appreciate getting requests like that. New things, good things, are continually appearing in the world of the Internet. Under such circumstances, we grow by collecting new information on a daily basis. We are always thinking about bringing that to the table and providing even better work to our clients.

Orikasa: What we hadn't considered was that websites continually evolve. Before now, after we had designed our website, our work was basically over, aside from making corrections to errors in published information or releasing news. By working with you, we realized that websites are a continually progressing medium.

Always Publishing Up-to-date Information

Sato: Is there anything that you expect of us in the future?

Watanabe: Being on the sales end of website designing, I hope to see us involved in initiatives related to website schemes rather than simply in website production carried out after receiving an order. We want to contribute to the production of websites that can be used for a long time, while we catch changes in trends and make related proposals to the client.

Murakami: I appreciate that you are now aware that website-related work is not completed with site opening. A website is like water--it can easily get stagnant if you neglect its upkeep even a bit. Of course, you do have to think about costs, but I feel it would be great if it could be a website that would continually transmit new information after clearing the budgetary elements.

Orikasa: I was very frank and expressed my opinions and desires very freely during this past site renewal project. Thank you for always being so attentive to what I had to say. I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Sato: We appreciate your wonderful cooperation as well. Thank you very much for spending so much time with us today.

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