SA Small Business
Redeveloped website for the subsidiary of the South Australian State Government supporting small businesses and driving the South Australian economy.
Redeveloped website for the subsidiary of the South Australian State Government supporting small businesses and driving the South Australian economy.
The State Government was seeking to develop a new digital product to provide easier access to relevant information and resources for small businesses.
The project was undertaken by the DSD Digital Transformation Strategy, which aligns to the Premier’s Digital-By-Default policy. This policy aims to improve the way the government bodies interact with the public. Under the Digital-By-Default policy is the ‘Rip it up’ initiative, which it aims to reduce public facing government forms by 25%. The initiative focusses on reviewing all citizen and business facing forms to reduce length, remove duplication and only seek information required to provide the service.
As well as these initiatives, the project is part of ‘Simplify’, a large-scale, high-profile red tape reduction initiative which brought the community and the public sector into a conversation on how to make government more efficient and remove red tape.
DSD Small Business approached The Digital Embassy and acknowledged the requirement for a complete redevelopment of their site, featuring:
The key objective of this digital initiative was to help small businesses navigate the vast DSD information sources in a user-friendly way.
There were a few requirements of the website development project which were challenging to execute.
The first was in order to assist in providing relevant content to small businesses, the search function had to provide context and filtering options, by business type and location. This was more complex than a standard search function therefore required more development.
On top of this, the content management system needed to have the capability for role-based permissions and publishing approval workflow, which is why DSD Small Business chose to use the Kentico platform. This was so different staff had access only to necessary areas of the website applicable, to their role in the department.
There were design requirements around the number of mandatory items in the header, for example, translation services, email, number and a logo. This posed a challenge as the website was designed primarily to be mobile-based so there was limited space to work with. The design also had to be modern and uncluttered despite this requirement.
Finally, user journeys also needed to be streamlined throughout the website and this needed to be tailored to the needs of specific audience types.
The contract was awarded in May 2017 and development commenced in June. The project was broken down into a phased approach, with Phase 1 being the primary requirement for deployment in November 2017. Ongoing development of future phases will continue throughout 2018.
Kentico was used to meet the requirements Small Business Gateway portal. The advanced built-in feature set and security model enabled the successful product development the portal and its ability to align the Marketing, Communications & Stakeholder Engagement directorate with existing business divisions to enhance the user journey through all information pertaining to Small Business.
The website has successfully been launched to improve the way the government interacts with the public by delivering online forms for grants and now facilitates improved communications and collaborations within the small business industry. The website experienced a 1,400-visitor increase upon launch, as well as 63.08% increase in new sessions.
- Andi Hind – Digital Projects, The Department for Industry and Skills
We have long been acknowledged on national and international stages for our award winning work in design, development, strategy and performance. We are proud that this website has been recognised by respected web industry leaders and that we have produced a result our client loves.
