Website Relaunch

Staples was market leader in China, however the business was managed by province, with separate websites and ERP system. I was asked to find a way to launch a single website for China.

• Led 6 week discovery investigation / gap assessment which identified multi-country platform developed by Staples Europe as best option for Staples China.  Shared services model I proposed for China was later also used for South America, Australia and a US Sub-Brand

• Frontend website using Staples Europe public web-platform (ASP.NET / SQL Server);  I was on the ground in Shanghai and in daily contact with Paris based Agile dev team; project completed in 3 months.

  
  

• Facilitated cross-border requirements gathering sessions including Chinese stakeholders and European development team. "Tough but polite" scope control to ensure we hit our aggressive time-line

• Oversaw Chinese team developing new interface to connect customer and order feeds with provincial ERP systems (ETL / XML); including defining use cases and co-programming to bug fix ETL connection

  
  

• Heuristic review and on-site usability testing to confirm European platform would be accepted in China.

• Trained and managed internet merchandising team to prepare launch content and pricing

• Integrated web customer service support, creating first call center team with China-wide responsibility