INA Schaeffler KG and FAG Kugelfischer AG & Co oHG with a new Internet presence on the basis of FIRSTspirit integration platform for uniform web presence of all Shaeffler Group companies
INA Schaeffler KG and FAG Kugelfischer AG & Co oHG are presenting themselves with a completely reworked web presence on the basis of the FIRSTspirit integration platform. For planning and project coordination of the new web presence the companies of the internationally active Schaeffler Group, which manufacturers precision elements for the machine tool and automobile industries, was accompanied by pulsaris business consulting GmbH. Now visitors to www.ina.de/www.ina.com und www.fag.de/www.fag.com find a platform that is clearly more user-friendly, more informative, and more modern.
The Schaeffler Group is one of the world's leading providers in the roller bearing industry and is a recognized partner to virtually all automobile manufacturers. Worldwide, approximately 58,000 employees generated turnover of 7.2 billion Euro, at more than 180 locations, in 2004.
The new setup of the Schaeffler Group Internet platforms is based on a company-overlapping strategy with the goal of harmonizing the web presences of INA Schaeffler KG, LuK GmbH & Co. oHG, and FAG Kugelfischer AG, the core companies in the group. The new LuK presence has been online since last November. The basis for the major project is the establishment of FIRSTspirit as group-wide technical CMS platform with distributed, decentralized data maintenance for all participating companies. Company-overlapping content is managed in a shared database with the help of FIRSTspirit. This includes central overlapping applications, such as job offerings, location search, and sales contact search, online library, databases for researching environmental and quality certificates, as well as press pool and event pool.
The international orientation of the group demands that all Internet content be stored multi-lingual. A central project requirement was Unicode capability of the Content Management System, since the Asian area represents a particularly important future market for the Schaeffler Group; a market that is already being addressed with country-specific press releases.
In the project coordination the Shaeffler group was supported by pulsaris business consulting GmbH, an independent IT and e-Business consultancy based in Pliezhausen Germany. pulsaris specializes in the areas of IT consulting and IT management.
pulsaris created the overall project and budget planning for the project release and after selection of software and service providers is responsible for project management.
Among the other service providers the company Visual Communication should be cited. They are responsible for the design as well as content and technical fine specification of the Schaeffler Group Internet sites.
Looking ahead
Starting in 2006, approximately 30 of the Schaeffler Group national companies will be successively converted to FIRSTspirit. Thus the multiplicity of historically developed web technologies will be completely unified in the individual countries. In this process editorial content will be translated into a total of 23 languages, and all 30 national company web sites will be equipped with centralized content pooling capability that will control automatic distribution of "should have" and "can have" content from a "master project".
