Over a period of 25 years, Kotak Mahindra Group grew from a capital management company to a leading financial conglomerate. It was now imperative for Kotak to have a website that portrayed the complete scope of its activities to its more than 6.4 million customers from India and overseas.
The new face of Kotak.com was to be a gateway to all the business websites and products and services offered by all the companies under the Kotak umbrella, allowing visitors to quickly skim through the plethora of new offers and services. The website also had to serve as a destination that provided answers to common queries like "How do I open an account"?
Part 1: Creating the Gateway
The homepage was designed as a collection of latest offerings from Kotak. The user would be able to filter these based on the nature of service he required or could directly enter his query in a prominent ‘Search’ box. We called this the Skimmer. The Skimmer would show 12 customised offerings at a glance out of a total of 150 to 200 current offerings. The customisation would be driven by an engine that prioritised the offers based on chronology and relevance to the visitor.
To truly establish Kotak.com as a gateway page to the Kotak universe, Kotak.com would have a comprehensive menu system in the primary navigation and an exhaustive footer sitemap.
Part 2: Moving beyond the Gateway
To impress upon the audience that the varied Kotak brands were actually offshoots of Kotak.com, the other sites belonging to the Group were redesigned with elements of the new design. Websites for each business had to have their own unique identity yet be integrated with the other Group companies. Some design elements and colours would remain consistent across all Group sites.
