Ehaus Joined Up Working is Key to Success

20 Mar 2012 Posted in News

Ehaus can offer clients much more than a website, as High Street bookselling giant Waterstones has discovered.

“The Waterstones Compass Media Watch website employs a network of skills and resources that are unique to Ehaus,” comments MD Matthew Pollock, “and it is all so seamlessly sewn together the staff at branches of Waterstones up and down the country can navigate across an unprecedented wealth of information at the click of a mouse.”

The job involved the creation of a specially branded version of web-based resource, Books & Media, built by Ehaus. Books & Media carries up-to-the-minute information on books featured in the press, on TV and radio and on the internet and is backed up by the resources of industry leader in data creation on books, music and DVDs, BDS.

After a trial period, during which Ayesha Graves, Coordinator of the Waterstones intranet, identified how Books & Media would benefit Waterstones by bringing greater efficiencies to a busy department, Matthew Pollock met with Ayesha and colleagues and set about creating 'Waterstones Compass Media Watch' so that it was indistinguishable from Waterstones’ intranet.

“The elements that have gone into Compass Media Watch demonstrate well what Ehaus can offer,” continues Matthew. “We build elegant and robust websites to meet a client’s needs. That’s our expertise. But we could bring so much more to help and support our client. The resources of Harry Doherty’s Books & Media, the excellence and experience of BDS, the skills of a team of leading design professionals and overall project leadership and co-ordination through Barry Smith of West10 Entertainment.”

Control, Ease, Elegance, Market Penetration

The result for Waterstones is control of their marketing down to local level while encompassing a national overview, ease of access to media-rich information, elegance of presentation both on screen and also through resources such as high resolution images for printing, and market penetration through targeted, relevant and up to date information.

Prior to using Compass Media Watch, Susanne Ard, from Waterstones’ Store Communications Team, would spend a large part of Monday creating information from weekend papers about relevant books, and sending the information out via the company intranet.

Now, through Ehaus’ creation of Compass Media Watch, the comprehensive coverage of books featured across the press, TV, radio, film and the Internet allows much more reader focus to be developed across Waterstones’ 296 stores and over 4000 staff in the UK and Europe, and this is achieved almost instantly as soon as reviews or features are published or broadcast.

Waterstones Staff Find Compass ‘Invaluable’

Staff at the Waterstones store at George Street, Altrincham said that they used it extensively and found it 'invaluable', while Katie in Haywards Heath branch wrote, “loving the new Compass Watch - great stuff!” “The new service looks amazing, very useful, thank you!” wrote member of staff Neil at the Falkirk store, and Emma in Brentford said, “The service is great- so time-saving”.

Through Harry Doherty’s editorial team, the service is updated by 1pm on Friday through to Sunday, so Waterstones can be sure that its branch managers and staff are able to address customer queries about books they'd read about in the papers while staff can also create window displays based on books in the news.

“Without the rock solid reliability that Ehaus provides, Books & Media could not have become the success it is today, supplying valuable information on books featured in the media to the trade, publishers and libraries in the UK,” says Books & Media Managing Editor, Harry Doherty.

“BDS is proud to work in such close association with Ehaus,” comments Eric Green, Business Development Director at BDS. “The breadth and depth Ehaus can offer clients is remarkable and the integrity and commitment Matthew Pollock and his team display toward all their jobs is exemplary.”

The Waterstones deal represents another major success for Ehaus following hot on the heels of a prize nomination through clients Yale Books, the completion of a new internet and e-commerce site for Irish book chain giant Easons, and the smaller-scale but no less significant expansion of Ehaus services onto mobile platforms.