British Council Overhauls Web Presence with Open Text Solution
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Open Text(TM) Corporation, provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software, said that British Council has just completed one of the most complex Web strategies in the UK with the help of Open Text's Web content management software. The government-backed agency responsible for providing educational opportunities and cultural relations in Britain, has worked on a project to revamp its online presence. By consolidating its websites onto one content management system, British Council expects to save USD $2.3 million by 2005.
Operating in 230 offices across 110 countries, British Council is one of the most culturally diverse and geographically spread organizations. Three years ago, British Council suffered from a chaotic collection of 240 disparate websites scattered across the globe with 200 HTML authors, 80 Internet service providers (ISPs) and 50 new media companies. Using Livelink Web Content Management Server from Open Text, British Council has moved 180 of the existing websites into a single system hosted in Manchester, UK.
In 2001, British Council conducted market research to find out what its site visitors and customers thought of its online presence. The results showed that the websites had an unpopular, inward looking format, which was weakening its brand. The Open Text solution addressed this issue with its unique object-orientated approach to handling data, which separates the presentation layer from content. This functionality has allowed British Council to develop 80 site templates with a single brand identity, and allows content authors to work on the same item in multiple languages.
The software's easy-to-use interface lets British Council's 800 non-technical authors around the world produce and update content directly onto the website. Now, British Council can ensure each website is completely relevant for the respective country and contains the most up-to-date information, whether in Jordan or Japan.
Ian Barnes, Global Web Manager at British Council, said: "The solution has simplified our content authoring processes. We can now edit in more than 30 languages, using different browsers and channels. We have websites all over the world providing access to educational opportunities and creative ideas from a contemporary UK. Therefore, multilingual capability was really crucial for us. The beauty of Livelink Web Content Management Server is its ability maintain one object but allow many instances depending upon the language or channel you want your customer to read. Therefore, you only have one website, no matter how many languages you have. For example, we have been able to create a website in Arabic and English -- we have been able to seamlessly switch the template layout depending upon the language being read, all from the single site."
So far, British Council has launched 180 of its global websites with many more still in development, including versions in languages such as Basque, Catalan, Galician, Welsh, Dari, Finish, Azeri, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Thai, Indonesian, Chinese simplified and traditional, Japanese and Scots Gaelic.
Brenda Morris, UK Managing Director for Open Text, concluded: "British Council is a great example of how organizations are making the most of the functionality in Livelink Web Content Management Server. Now British Council can cost-effectively manage vast amounts of content, uploaded by multilingual authors around the globe, thanks to our object treatment of content and user-friendly interface."
Solutions such as British Council's will be among the broad range of capabilities Open Text will present at its upcoming North American user conference LinkUp Phoenix 2004, being held this year in Phoenix, Arizona, November 15-18. For more information, go to: http://www.opentext.com/linkup/
About British Council
British Council is a government-backed agency dedicated to connecting people worldwide with learning opportunities and creative ideas from the UK and building lasting relationships between the UK and other countries. Run by the British consulates, British Council has 109 offices worldwide operating in 92 countries. For more information, visit www.britishcouncil.org.
29.09.2004, Open Text Corp.
