Recovering Hodder’s online presence and preparing for the future

Supporting teaching and learning worldwide from KS3, GCSE, IGCSE, IB and A level through to numerous vocational qualifications, Hodder provide innovative, quality resources that students, teachers and parents can rely on.

Suffering from poor integrations and an outdated website that no longer served the needs of their business or users, Hodder’s existing Kentico implementation was far from in peak condition. They required the support of an expert Kentico agency to recover their online presence and prepare them for future growth.

Battling an internal website that no longer served the needs of their business or users, Hodder needed a better solution to manage their expansive digital estate. An experienced Kentico web agency with a penchant for deep, technical challenges and robust integrations, we inherited Hodder’s Kentico 9 website from another agency.

Sat on an outdated Kentico version, upgrading their site to a more recent version would be a large job which would ultimately lead to a full site rebuild. With such an expansive and complicated digital estate, to restart from scratch would be a disruptive undertaking and the business couldn’t simply sit still while it was delivered. Hodder needed to regain control of their website, making it work the best it could in the medium term while planning for the future.

Embarking on the extensive recovery of the Hodder website, the first challenge was to work out how to retain their digital estate, followed by what steps would get them where they wanted to be.

Getting to grips with the estate, the technical debt and unravelling the integration problems, we were able to better understand the current site infrastructure and how it had been built. Looking at their estate as it stood, we explored how it could be simplified and improved.

After gaining an understanding of their multiple audiences, part of our initial assessment was that the site needed to cope better with the support needs of their Scottish region, also known as Hodder Gibson. As this region follows a different curriculum, a separate site was needed for the Hodder Gibson brand, mirroring the approach already taken for their Singapore region. This enabled deployment of a better-quality build and for another standalone site that also served the Scottish region, named TeeJay, to be consolidated.

This was also created the perfect opportunity to modernise the look and feel of the Hodder Education site as taking Hodder Gibson out into its own site meant that some sections needed addressing. Working within the confines of the Hodder brand, the design was refreshed with meeting rising user needs in mind.

By far the most extensive work we’ve done with Hodder has been on integration management across their estate, including a CRM, SAP, multiple product management systems and downstream systems. Significant efforts have focused on back-end improvements, streamlining and making efficiencies that ensure the site is more usable while enabling Hodder to get greater value from it in the here and now.

Working closely with their many global partners and agencies involved within the multiple systems, we have made tremendous improvements which can be carried forward into their next website.

Working with Hodder for around four years, their digital estate stands in much better condition than it previously did. We have successfully made their existing website work better for them to support their business and demonstrate value in the here and now. With a cemented partnership, we’re working towards the rebuild they desired but with a stronger online offering that supports their needs in the meantime.