FAST AND CONSISTENT WEBSITE PERFORMANCE
Brose as a leading automotive supplier improves website performance and expands its global network.
The initial situation
Slow loading webpages
Brose was founded in 1908 and is the world’s fifth-largest family-owned automotive supplier. The company develops and produces innovative mechatronic systems for vehicle doors and seats, as well as electric motors. The Brose brand stands for customer proximity, performance, innovative strength and quality. In fact, every second new vehicle worldwide is equipped with at least one Brose product. Brose has already received several awards, both for its innovations and as best employer.
The Brose Group is once again ranked as one of Germany’s best employers in the automotive industry. This was the result of the “Top Automotive Employers 2015” study by the international Top Employers Institute. The mechatronics specialist is thus among the Top 5 companies to be honoured. The company employs around 24,000 people at 60 locations in 23 countries and generates a turnover of around EUR 5.2 billion.
Brose’s website and content management system are hosted in Germany. Unfortunately, the website was very slow to load in globally important markets. In Asia, for example, it took up to 12 seconds and in the USA up to 7 seconds for the old “brose.com” page to be displayed.
Consequently, Brose wanted to set up a new website with a new content management system to ensure maximum performance. Given that 80% of website visitors are looking for entry-level opportunities in the company, the focus was primarily on an intelligent job filter, a page with job postings and personal contact details, as well as a targeted job search with a “Top Jobs” function.
The challenge
Maximum performance
Jörg Horn, project manager behind the website relaunch at Brose, explains: “In the automotive industry, we are known as a fast and quality-conscious company, and our Internet presence should also reflect this. As the market leader, it’s not good to have a slow website.”
At the same time, staff working from home and in remote locations such as Asia were also experiencing problems accessing key applications – including those for mobile device management and the supplier portal – via the corporate network. Some employees experienced significant delays when trying to access these applications from their mobile devices.
In terms of functionality, design and compatibility with mobile devices, the old website could no longer keep up with current and future developments. The objective was, therefore, to create a new, future-proof and globally accessible website. Above all, it should reflect the dynamic image of an international and family-run company, support mobile devices, enable fast access speeds around the world and take into account the requirements of both applicants and search engines.
The solutions
Deploy websites and applications quickly
Despite the optimisation of all images and the new layout, the new page did not pass initial load tests. Although Brose did everything it could to ensure fast loading times, the company also used the adaptive image compression function in Ion. “The function takes into account the bandwidth of the mobile device and loads the image in the appropriate compression. This ensures a relatively fast display, even if the connection is poor” says Horn.
Remaining visible for search engines
Since deploying Akamai Ion, Brose has been able to reduce load times by an average of 60% worldwide, including 63% in China and 80% in the US. For visitors accessing the new website from mobile devices, the differences are even more impressive: what previously took a good 10 seconds is now displayed in less than one second. Employees can now access applications via their mobile devices just as quickly as those who are near the server.
Solutions
Expanding global reach
Thanks to the performance improvements, Brose was able to increase its reach. Bernd M. Schell, project manager for online communication, explains that before the changeover, the website was mainly visited by people from Germany. Now, almost 50% of visitors come from other parts of the world. “Google and other search engines consider the speed of a website, compatibility with mobile devices and other factors when ranking. Thanks to G&L and Akamai, we have been able to optimise our focus and our website is now displayed equally fast all over the world. We have also become more visible to search engines and potential customers and employees.”
Why Akamai + G&L?
Making the right decision
After weighing up the options, Brose opted for Akamai’s Web Performance Solutions Ion and Global Traffic Management (GTM), which are offered by G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH. “Akamai says it is the market leader in content delivery, and the company’s focus on the Chinese market is more or less unique. We particularly liked the fact that we were offered a wide variety of services” explains Horn.
Working with G&L, a company specialising in online content delivery and acceleration, Brose was able to define and test its configuration requirements and then implement Ion and GTM. G&L possesses more than 15 years of experience in integrating and configuring Akamai’s Web Performance Solutions for acceleration, availability and optimisation. This includes websites for major events such as the Olympic Games and football championships.
The company
Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co. KG
Brose is the world’s fifth-largest family-owned automotive supplier. The company develops and produces innovative mechatronic systems for vehicle doors and seats, as well as electric motors. Around 24,000 employees at 60 locations in 23 countries generate a turnover of approximately EUR 5.2 billion.
Coburg, Germany