Connecting with your customers begins with educating, enabling and engaging everyone in the organization. This workshop will share how to accelerate CX through critical resources, tools, human-centered design thinking, co-creation and other activities that you can implement right away. Diane Magers will help you encourage agility, innovation and collaboration by empowering creativity in your organization and emphasizing structure into an enterprise-wide transformation that places customers at the heart.

1. #DXS16
The Microsoft.com Global
Operating Model:
Home Page Case Study
Jeff Litvak
Director, Site Operations, Microsoft.com

2. #DXS16
Agenda
#DXS16
• Organizational context
• Global operating model defined
• Microsoft Home Page case study

3. #DXS16
Organizational Context

4. #DXS16
Organization and Function
CORPORATE
MARKETING
MSCOM TEAM
TRAFFIC AND CONTENT
STRATEGY
BI/ANALYTICS DESIGN SERVICES SITE MANAGEMENTSITE OPERATIONS
• SEO
• Content strategy
and consulting
• Tagging specs
• Site reporting
• BI platform
evangelism
• Targeting segments
• Experimentation
• Design
• Specialized dev
• Accessibility
• UX alignment
• Pub, prod, dev
• Loc/globalization
• Targeting tagging
• Field engagement
• Center of
excellence
• Business
development
• Stakeholder
relations
• Project
planning/mgmt

5. MSCOM Vision
Our mission is to engage and convert visitors to Microsoft.com,
throughout the customer lifecycle, to heavier purchasing and usage
across the Microsoft ecosystem of devices and services.
most-visited site
in the world
Over 1 billion
visits/month
Referrals to
Microsoft store
14th

6. #DXS16
Microsoft.com by the numbers (per month)
All Microsoft.com
(xxx.microsoft.com)
Home Page
(www.microsoft.com)
1.52Billion
VISITS
32.34%
CLICKTHROUGH RATE
1.09Billion
VISITORS
3.23Billion
PAGE VIEWS
26.57Million
VISITS
21.24%
CLICKTHROUGH RATE
21.06Million
VISITORS
37.61Million
PAGE VIEWS

7. Microsoft.com Site Operations Portfolio
Flagship
Events
Corporate
Stakeholder
Special Projects
#DXS16

8. #DXS16
Global Operating Model and
Microsoft Home Page

9. Brazil
Israel
Home Page Overview
• 98 markets spanning about 65 languages
• 20 percent local content (one highlight
panel)
• Several content bands configurable by
market, campaign or content
• Content updates rarely go in lockstep;
more likely to have scheduled updates by
tier or market
• Not all products are available in all
markets
#DXS16

10. United States
France
• 98 markets spanning about 65 languages
• 20 percent local content (one highlight
panel)
• Several content bands configurable by
market, campaign or content
• Content updates rarely go in lockstep;
more likely to have scheduled updates by
tier or market
• Not all products are available in all
markets
Home Page Overview
#DXS16

11. Differing Subsidiary Operating Models
*© 2016 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved.
*

12. #DXS16
Global Operating Model and Microsoft Home Page
• Centralized cost structure: Corporate team has the budget to get the work done
• Corporate may reject a subsidiary request to run a local campaign
• Facilitate global adoption of services such as digital experience platform, BI, design, targeting.
Stakeholders using MSCOM services necessarily use our platforms and processes
• New campaigns are (usually) reviewed by local markets before publication
Initially met with skepticism by subs – perceived lack of control. Now endorsed because they don’t
have to deal with dev, localization and publishing logistics

13. #DXS16
Global Operating Model and Microsoft Home Page
UX ALIGNMENT PROCESS GOVERNANCE
Two guiding principles
HOME PAGE DEV PRODUCTION PUBLISHING
Central marketing
80% Content
create/scheduled
100% Page dev, production,
localization/globalization and publishing
CORPORATE CENTRALLY

14. #DXS16
Principle One:
UX Alignment
1. Alignment Experiences

15. #DXS16
Aligned Experiences
Visitors to Microsoft.com should have a globally consistent, locally relevant experience

16. #DXS16
1. Alignment Experiences
2. Process Governance
Principle Two:
Process Governance

17. #DXS16
Process Governance
Global directives
• Standard URL structure
• Brand and UX/UI guidelines
• Geo-redirection and targeting rules
• Content strategy and editorial calendars
Alignment with local priorities
• High quality content localization
• Locally created offers, case studies, industry
news, etc.
• Ongoing optimization

18. #DXS16
Select the most effective imagery
• Aligned with target audience
• Choice between lifestyle or illustration
• Culturally appropriate
Process Governance

19. #DXS16
Process Governance
Playbooks, training modules and
ongoing reviews
• Brand guidelines for Microsoft and its products
• Style guide for colors, images and fonts
• Length and integration of text into page design
• Correlation between content and campaign goals
• Legal requirements for co-branding

20. #DXS16
Process Governance
Review content to prevent
(unintentional) issues
• References to inappropriate content (violence, drug,
alcohol, etc.)
• Graphics considered offensive in certain cultures
• Cultural insensitivity

21. #DXS16
Summing Up
• Unification of DX platform, governance, BI, localization/globalization, user
experience, targeting segments and optimization made the effort worthwhile for the
corporate team and subs
• Simplifies budgeting but doesn’t necessary reduce costs
• Subsidiaries will still try to go beyond parameters – and will often make a good case
for doing so – but the rules need to remain firm
• Need a single line of communication to the subs – everyone tries to game
the system
• At a company of our size with such strong businesses, cross-group adoption is
difficult – but worth the effort