How to connect people and know-how across almost 100 countries

Picture yourself working for a company having offices all over the globe and being able, by using an online application, to put together in a jiffy the best possible global team to work on a project based on their current experience and know-how. Such application is used by the Grey Group, belonging to the world’s biggest communication services group present in 99 countries and employing 8,000 people.

Bruketa&Žinić&Grey for the global Grey Group

Their New York-based office has recently hired Bruketa&Žinić&Grey to redesign and enhance user experience in their application called Grey People Finder. It is an online database incorporating all Grey Group employees globally.

The purpose of this application is to do away with the distance between the agency offices and to search not only for people but also for their know-how and skills. This is just the first phase of the project the aim of which is to build the future of in-house cooperation among the agencies within the Group.

From the analysis to user experience enhancement

This application is not new, but it was underused, so the agency’s task was to make an in-depth analysis of the current state of play, to enhance user experience and to create a visual language setting the standard for any future project phase.

The Agency’s team carried out an in-house survey within the whole Group to see how users, their fellows around the world, use the existing application and to make their needs assessment. The findings were used to evaluate the current ideas, set the future course of action and make key changes to reactivate users.

Two basic functionalities of the app

The Grey People Finder has now been simplified to include two basic functionalities – a search engine and seven different segmentation filters allowing narrowing down of employees according to their locations, specializations, industries they worked in, clients they were engaged with, their agencies, functions and skills.

The objective was to maximally simplify the search and the number of clicks, so the Agency created a custom component for filtering users in the form of automatic drop down menu. Furthermore, a special avatar was included as well signalling user activities according to several processes – feeding, browsing, loading and saving of results.

The effectiveness of the application will depend on how often and for which purpose the fellows within the Group will use it. In the post-survey phase, the Agency set up advanced analytics too and specified user stories to be tracked, so that accordingly the application could be optimized using additional iterations.

Bruketa&Žinić&Grey / Ivan Kovačević (Digital Director), Ivan Zebić (UX/UI Art Director), Krešimir Lončar (UX/UI Designer), Robert Petković (Analytics Lead)