Cisco Systems: The best enterprise technology website of 2019

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For the 2019 Web Globalization Report Card, we studied the following 13 enterprise technology websites:

  • Autodesk
  • Cisco Systems
  • DHL
  • FedEx
  • HP Enterprise
  • Huawei
  • IBM
  • Intel
  • Oracle
  • SAP
  • Texas Instruments
  • UPS
  • Xerox

Cisco Systems emerged on top this year. It launched an updated design over the past year, which smartly retained the generic globe icon in the header for indicating the global gateway. Maintaining the global gateway in the header may seem trivial, but I assure you, it is not. Too many companies will demote their global gateways to the footers during redesigns not so much because they don’t care about global navigation but because there is not always an “owner” of that gateway who fights to keep it in the header.

Three of the companies listed above launched new web designs over the past year. And I’m pleased to note that more than half of the websites in this category now use a globe icon to indicate the global gateway.

Cisco Systems

Over the past year, Cisco launched a refreshed web design that positioned the logo in the center of the header — and includes a bolder global gateway icon. Shown below are the before and after home pages for .com:

Cisco uses geolocation to improve the discoverability of some local websites. Shown below is one such overlay:

Displaying the country code within the blue button is essential to conveying its purpose — particularly for visitors who may not be fluent in English. In addition, displaying the country code educates visitors to go directly to this address on return visits.

Cisco was an early leader in supporting local-language blogs, and I’m pleased to see the latest iteration — this for Spain:

Notice how subject matter experts are given a high profile. This type of content is exactly what will keep people coming back for more — and also attracting more subject matter experts to contribute.

Intel finished second overall. The centered logo (now in its second year) remains centered even when working with a right-to-left script, such as Hebrew:

Huawei increased its linguistic reach over the past year, adding support for three additional languages. It also launched a new and improved global design (which varies to some degree by market).

To learn more, check out the 2019 Web Globalization Report Card.

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John Yunker

John Yunker

John is co-founder of Byte Level Research and author of Think Outside the Country as well as 19 editions of The Web Globalization Report Card.
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