Bahrain Islamic Bank, one of the most prominent Shari'a compliant financial institutions in the region, underwent a comprehensive campaign to modernize their communication with the clientele. As a part of this process Bahrain Islamic Bank re-branded itself and introduced a strategic new marketing and communication plan. Arriving to the assist the BisB team at a crucial juncture in the process, the 4SPOTS team advised an intensive utilization of the online presence to open a new avenue of communication with the target audience and simultaneously complement their offline communication channels.

4SPOTS was entrusted with the responsibility of creating an online presence for BisB that would reach out to a wide cross-section of the online audience and yet cater to the individual requirements of each segment of the target audience. The online presence had to convey the confidence provided by an organization with nearly four decades of experience in the financial sector, operating to the strictest norms of Shari'a compliance, and the individuality offered by the range of its products, tailored to the particular needs of the audience in the region.

The challenge was to create a website that provides easily accessible information about BisB to potential clients, simplifies the banking process for the existing clients and yet remains dynamic enough to be continuously updated with new products, services and corporate information about BisB.

A tactical step backwards is sometimes the best step forward. With this motto, the first steps undertaken by the 4SPOTS team was to audit the then existing online presence of BisB. Understanding the shortcomings of the earlier website, the expectations of the new generation of online-savvy audience whom BisB wanted to reach and the new brand communication of BisB, 4SPOTS team first concentrated on the IA (Information Architecture) of the website. The new IA designed for the website ensured wide and equal visibility for both retail and business products/services of BisB, allowed users ability to access every page on the website within just 3 clicks and simultaneously offered a scalable model that can be updated with products/services/information as per future requirements.

Translating this IA to a pleasing visual presence was the next challenge. The 4SPOTS design team pulled off an online interface that was true to the IA, the brand guidelines and appealing enough to offer a memorable user experience.

The 4SPOTS programming team accepts no compromises in the delivery of the requirements. The team effectively translated the website interface design to a full fledged website in English and Arabic languages. The programming team ensured an uniform online user experience, irrespective of English or Arabic language selection, by judiciously and painstakingly customizing each and every aspect of the Arabic version of the new website to the right-left format.

After an exhaustive QA (quality assurance) process that checks more than 55 individual parameters of the website, including search engine friendliness, website load time and more, the new website for Bahrain Islamic Bank was thrown open to the public!