Gates

Strategic Opportunity

Gates needed to modernize a decade-old B2B buying experience while strengthening the brand and marketing channels supporting it. The opportunity was to build the new experience around customers’ purchasing needs, addressing the complexity of the business without passing that complexity on to buyers.

The work grew from a global corporate website engagement into a multi-year partnership spanning digital strategy, replatforming, regional experiences, and the redesign of Gates Connect, its B2B ecommerce channel.

Approach

I led creative and experience design direction across an evolving portfolio of Gates initiatives, helping connect brand storytelling, customer needs, and the technical requirements of a global business.

The engagement began with gates.com, supporting a corporate presence across regions, countries, and languages. Working with cross-functional partners, we helped establish the SAP platform foundation, data and catalog structure, and design approach needed to support the experience. Following launch, we systematically introduced enhancements, features, and optimizations, extending the work into additional subdomain experiences as business needs expanded.

Gates Connect brought a different level of complexity. Redesigning this established B2B purchasing channel required the team to navigate significant technical hurdles and operational requirements while keeping the customer’s buying journey at the center of design decisions.

We used extensive pre-launch user testing to evaluate the redesigned experience with its intended audience, identify friction, and refine critical interactions. This helped the team assess readiness for a substantial change to a channel customers depended on.

Outcome

The partnership delivered a modernized global corporate presence and a redesigned B2B ecommerce experience, supported by a shared platform foundation and ongoing strategic direction.

Gates Connect launched smoothly following extensive user testing, with continued enhancements after launch. Across the broader engagement, the multi-year relationship enabled the team to build on previous work, respond to expanding business needs, and continually improve the digital experience.