Barnes & Noble Education

Background

While it stored reams of potentially useful information, the Barnes & Noble Education intranet didn’t feel useful. It was hard to find what you were looking for. Users were often presented with long lists of links to a variety of resources that may or may not have been current or relevant. Stymied by lack of access to the information they needed, store managers at thousands of stores across the country simply picked up the phone to call headquarters. Over and over again.

Solution

During a two-day onsite workshop, StitchDX and Barnes & Noble identified high-level needs and objectives for their new intranet. Key stakeholders of both Barnes and & Noble Education and their subsidiary, Barnes & Noble College contributed to a holistic intranet map that worked for both companies.

StitchDX then worked through a meticulous discovery and design phase to create functioning prototypes and detailed technical requirements. With this level of detail in hand, StitchDX delivered a site that meet the requirement on time and on budget.

When Barnes & Noble launched their new intranet portal in the fall of 2019, it was a drastic improvement over the preexisting intranet. The new portal, which included BNED and their subsidiary Barnes & Noble College (BNC), boasted a beautiful interface, a dynamic news page, and the ability for groups to easily create and modify pages. With more than 450 stores across the country, BNC, in particular, required effective channels for distributing vital instructions and documentation.

Equipped and ready for the emerging crisis

As universities and colleges across the country began to close down in early March due to the pandemic, BNED and BNC had an advantage. They were able to act quickly and effectively by utilizing their new intranet as the internal hub for their COVID-19 response for employees.

Corporate Communications began by posting messages from senior leadership to the entire enterprise. Operations posted specific instructions in a different channel on how stores should begin winding down their stores and transitioning to remote work where possible. When the updates became a daily feed, BNC added a customized news block to the home page spotlighting their COVID-19 content. When the volume of content became too much to handle in that space, they created a dedicated “COVID-19 News & Resources” page. This has been mission-critical for getting important information out to stores and distribution centers.

At every step of the way, StitchDX was there by BNED’s side, helping create new features and channels for communication.