Corporate Communications

Getting the message out for your organization is critical. Find out how this organization easily manages all the most important information.

By Jay Gilmore  |  Updated: May 7, 2014  |  3 min read
Corporate Communications

Corporate Communications into the Hands of the Communicators

Bechtel is the world's number 1 choice for engineering, construction, and project management. Since its founding in 1898, four generations of the Bechtel family have steered the company through 23,000 projects in 140 nations and seven continents. Along the way, they established a reputation for undertaking "megaprojects"-- projects too big, complex, or remote for others. Many of them have become signature projects, including Hoover Dam, the Channel Tunnel, and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.

Bechtel home page

The Challenge

As a longtime Microsoft shop, the existing Bechtel website was managed by the internal IT department, who was responsible for keeping a global enterprise up and running. In addition to needing a new design and content management system, the ownership of the project was transitioning to a non-technical marketing department.

Any proposed solution needed to handle the technical requirements of the site, while being easy to maintain, scalable for traffic bursts and secure. As a globally-visible enterprise, Bechtel had stringent security requirements, including a battery of security tests that any solution needed to pass before being given the green light.

The Solution

As an early-adopter of MODX, Jiva Creative started discussions with Bechtel's marketing department to outline how MODX would fit the needs of the company, and the new site plan.

Eric Lee, a Partner at Jiva Creative, worked to show MODX's flexibility and ease-of-use. Given the different types of information Bechtel needed to present to site visitors, it was important to automate as much of the site as possible. "We did not expect the internal Bechtel marketing team to know which of a possible 100 templates to use for which page. Therefore we programmed MODX to self-assmble pages based on the content they entered." This methodology was key to the ease-of-use Bechtel was looking for.

The project went from specification to testing very quickly. Jiva Creative worked with the Bechtel IT department to run stress testing, penetration tests and security audits against a standard MODX installation. "MODX helped change the mind of some very staunch Microsoft advocates within Bechtel. The Bechtel.com site was the first major system within Bechtel to go open source, and it was a big win." The security, stress and penetration tests turned out to be a non-event in the course of the project.

The current Bechtel.com site continues to be flexible, secure and scalable, serving millions of pageviews a month.

MODX is at the core of our business, and with every installation and project rollout, we convert more and more fans to the platform. It is easy-to-use and flexible enough to handle anything we throw at it.

Stacie Kizziar, Partner at Jiva Creative on MODX in their Business.

Project Highlights

  • Thousands of pages of content managed within the system
  • Custom-built video portal integrating streaming to all device types with easy MODX-based administration
  • Advanced integration with recruiting and HR management software
  • 35+ page templates, easily manageable by internal resources
  • Custom-programmed site templates that adapt to the content available to the page