sci: smooth sailing on the digital seas

Shipping Corporation of India has a fifty year history of services to the nation. A government organisation, India largest shipping company today operates around one third of the Indian tonnage. Its operation spans the globe and its range of services includes everything from super tankers and containers to consultancy services. As is to be expected with an organisation with this varied a history, the divisions were many and the information banks huge. What was lacking was a portal that could effectively disseminate the info to the public. 

For SCI, an open call through a tender was the preferred mode for selecting a vendor. We at DZINE knew that this was a project we could do justice to and showcased our work. Suffice to say we won the tender. What followed was a drive to collect data from the various stakeholders. To get a better understanding we met with the many teams that would use the website as their voice to the world outside. Since SCI’s operations spanned many physical locations across the breadth of India our offices got cracking and talked to most of the divisions there as well. Administration, finances, logistics, accounts, regulatory and even the CSR teams gave their views. 

It was apparent to the DZINE team that with the amount of data being displayed the problem was to serve it in such a way that the person conducting the query was brought to the relevant page in a minimum number of clicks. This problem was solved with a simple solution. Without disturbing the existing setup which gave a breakdown of their divisions and functions we cross-referenced all that information onto a new segment called Services. Voila! Problem solved. Now a user searching for a service could quickly get in touch with a division that had the onus of providing it without moving through a labyrinthine organisation chart. 

SCI prides its self on its transparency and so it was a foregone conclusion for us to showcase our client’s strength in that respect. We put up a complete listing of all the agencies that regulated the SCI’s operations in the easiest to find spots and set out links for them as well. 

We seldom stop when we are on a roll, so in keeping with the spirit we decided to check for something we could add to the deal. We decided that it would be nice if the many tenders that SCI brought out could reside on the portal itself. Finally we put up on the bells and whistles. We created a section for the investors and populated it with the quarterly reports and AGM reports. We designed the site to give a feel of a smooth sea, albeit one of useful and easily navigated information. The colours were chosen from the palettes of the open sea itself. The visuals were given a maritime feel. 

All this would have of course not been possible without a robust engine. Like all the behemoths the SCI runs, their website too was powered by a star. The genius of BrewMaster, our proprietary content management system made data management a cinch. The stability of the .Net platform was harnessed and handed over. As a last measure we even trained team members from within SCI to use BrewMaster to update and manage the users and content on the system. 

Like all sea-faring vessels, a successful journey is never done. The last port of call is only the start of a new journey. This journey for us was the same. We have recently looked at the data from the site and found that the tenders section is a huge hit. While going to press, the efforts are in place to make the procurement section even more user friendly and intuitive. So our travels begin yet again. For you who might be our next travel companion, click here to see the results of the SCI journey.