Zero-One Design vs Harvey Nichols – there can only be two winners!

Harvey Nichols Careers

With the launch of the new Harvey Nichols recruitment website, we see the completion of a project that all of us here at Zero-One Design are particularly proud of and an end product that the board of Harvey Nichols are exceptionally happy with. Everyone here has put their heart and soul into this project over the past months - although that should come as no surprise to any of our customers as that is the way we work here: the website is the cornerstone for any business so we make sure we get it right; we like everybody to be happy!

Zero-One Design has, over the years, become renowned for our innovative work on recruitment websites. We sit proudly at the pinnacle of our industry after carving out a niche for ourselves. Yes, we design various kinds of websites for any and every industry sector but, over the years, recruitment has become our bread and butter. From simple jobsboards for start-ups, to fully responsive sites with the very latest in recruitment software for nationally and internationally recognised recruitment consultancies and in-house recruitment for multinational corporations, we have successfully carried out contracts for businesses all over the world. We have also begun adding universities to our portfolio who are looking to play a more active role in the recruitment of their graduates by forming partnerships with businesses in their local area.

Harvey Nichols is a client of ours that really doesn’t need much of an introduction; it’s a name everybody knows. It is a luxury retailer that has been at the very top since the doors to its world famous Knightsbridge store opened way back in 1831. That’s even before we started designing websites! They came to Zero-One because they didn’t have a HR site that matched their recruitment needs. With sites in several cities now and a great many opportunities opening up all the time in retail, hospitality, logistics, design and in their head office, they needed a more functional, more responsive site. They also needed it to fit in with their existing branding. They wanted to know if we could handle such a contract. Can we handle it? This is what we do!

It involved a stringent procurement process. We had to beat off competition because this was an attractive contract and obviously others were trying to get it. We had to deliver a number of samples for them to choose from. We had to go through our terms and conditions and update them to match expectations. We sent our in-house professional photographer to provide images of various locations and staff members. We had to match their existing branding; from the font, the spacing, the colour scheme, to the size and shape of the live buttons, we had to get everything right. Most of all we had to observe very strict timescales and delivery dates.

The main difference between doing business with a small outfit with less than 10 employees and a large firm like Harvey Nichols is the amount of people involved in the decision making process. Smaller companies have a decision maker and you deal with them alone. Bigger companies are different because you have to please a lot more people. Every decision has to pass through various departments who may all have a different vision of what the finished product will look like. You are dealing with The Board itself, the IT Department, the HR Department, the Marketing Department…did we miss anybody? All of them have a say in the project so if anything, any part of the process, doesn’t match everyone’s approval then you may find yourself back at the drawing board once again.

On the plus side, you start off with very detailed and precise information from larger organisations. This is good because you have a definite direction to head in, this saves time and effort. Often, with start-ups and smaller outfits, this is not the case. They have a limited vision of what they want the finished website to look like so they give you a free hand in designing the site and their branding. This was not a problem with Harvey Nichols as explained above. Another useful point was the timeliness of communication. You get feedback when you request it, instead of waiting days or weeks because the small business owner has other things to do.

Here at Zero-One Design we are proud of the site we have produced for Harvey Nichols and we have enjoyed working with them. We’d like to thank them for their business and for making the whole process run as smoothly as it did, it has been a pleasure.