Magistrenes A-kasse

How does an Unemployment Insurance Fund drive successful business on the internet when the market conditions have changed? The Danish Masters Unemployment Insurance Fund (MA) took on the challenge when they replaced an outdated website with a new model taking on the increased competition and listening to members requests for digital services and easily accessible information on the net. The technical choice was the Sitecore CMS with Codehouse as the technical partner responsible for development, implementation and ongoing maintenance.

The Challenge
For Magistrenes Arbejdsløshedskasse (MA) their website isn’t merely an online product catalogue or a quick information board, it is an integrated part of their business. Members are able to find important information about unemployment benefit, vacation, rules and regulations that can have a crucial impact on their lives. Additionally, the website allows for online registration and a self-service system. The websites user-friendliness, feature/functionalities alongside the entire website experience can be crucial in whether members choose to stay with MA over one of the competitors.

With increased competition among Unemployment Insurance Funds MA’s entire web-presence was faced with a big challenge. Their site was made up of a copy-heavy, outdated approach and a design that no longer complied with the modern web-consumers expectations to user-experience. The increased competition that MA’s website faced created new demands for a more offensive marketing channel, and the website had to be user-friendly, clear and easy to access, enabling visitors to quickly find the relevant information, rules and forms.

The Solution
Codehouse quickly established a close relationship to MA where wishes, ideas and expectations were tossed and turned and decisions acted upon:

“We really appreciate how Codehouse has shown the engagement to come up with constructive solutions that we hadn’t thought of ourselves – as opposed to just delivering exactly what we asked for. That energy is what creates added value for us.” – Hans Jørgen Wulff, Communications Consultant, Magistrenes Arbejdsløshedskasse

MA’s new website is built on one of the world’s leading Content Management Systems, Sitecore CMS, giving web editors the freedom to manage, edit and add anything from copy to images and Flash files. Codehouse has implemented and tuned MA’s Sitecore CMS with an array of bespoke web applications to improve navigation and boost usability.

“Codehouse has kept focus on making Sitecore work to fit our needs and hasn’t tried to sell us all sorts of other add-on products.” – Hans Jørgen Wulff, Communications Consultant, Magistrenes Arbejdsløshedskasse

Due to a sizeable amount of .NET magic, an easy, accessible search engine (“The Rules Guide”) was developed enabling visitors to find what they seek with only two clicks. The website also contains a registration form for all MA’s events, updated in real-time such that the form is removed from the page when the event has been fully booked. The form and the maximum number of attendees are managed directly from within Sitecore CMS.

The web design comes via the Danish advertising agency Gefuhl with Codehouse doing the implementation. The top menu has come alive with some clever use of jQuery and the big banner in the middle of the site is a Flash element. In addition, Codehouse has optimised the website by configuring a Google Analytics account enabling MA to monitor and analyse traffic.

About MA
Magistrenes Arbejdsløshedskasse is the Danish Unemployment Insurance Fund for academics in the fields of humanities, natural science, IT, communication, health, social science, psychology and education.

MA has existed since 1974 and has more than 52,000 members today.