Sitecore XP: Handling enterprise complexity with ease

It’s not an uncommon challenge for an organisation to have more than one website.

Maybe there are different websites or microsites providing a unique function, maybe there are multiple brands under one business group - all with their own look and feel. It could even go as far as stretching to a global ecosystem of online shops serving multiple regions. And these sites could all have their own content needs or languages.

It’s already looking like a pretty complex digital ecosystem to manage, and it’s a pretty common state of affairs for many global organisations, and a bit head-scratch for those organisations looking to scale.   

Lay it all out

So, what are the challenges that you might expect to come along with a digital estate as complex as this?

It can be expensive

The more sites you have, the more license fees you’ll likely have. Also general support maintenance and development costs and the staff and partner relationship costs to manage each website. This can be significant for complex organisations.

Governance and security

The more digital tools and platforms you have, the more governance and security checks you need. You’ll likely be working with multiple agencies or partners and that adds additional risk when it comes to aligning credentials and standards to your business. Keeping on top of it all is difficult, and it takes just one weak link or out-of-date platform to put your business at risk.

Maintaining quality

It doesn’t take much to feel out of control; maybe a WordPress website has popped up for a market somewhere, or a country has decided to ‘tweak’ your branding; perhaps another website hasn’t been updated in years. It’s a challenge to offer your business entities the flexibility and independence they need, whilst keeping a steady hand on quality control. It’s important that if customers travel through your digital ecosystem it should feel like one journey. All of these challenges should be carefully managed to ensure business and brand consistency and a positive customer experience.

Time and resource

Keeping multiple websites up to date takes time. Some brands or regions might be better at it than others, some may have more budget to spend and those that don’t may feel left behind. Making a group level change to the business strategy or brand can mean that you have to make hundreds of updates elsewhere, making the business less agile or even resistant to positive change.

Spirax Sarco, meet Sitecore

As an agency, we’re well versed in dealing with these exact challenges. Spirax Sarco is a global provider of steam solutions, working across sectors as diverse as oil and gas, to catering and pharmaceutical. We’ve been working with them since 2017 on a huge range of digital transformation challenges.

Spirax has been going for an impressive 135 years and is home to three world-leading businesses and each of these has between two and six sub-brands with between 36 – 61 operating units each. All with their own digital requirements and needs.

Over the last 7 years, Great State has worked collaboratively with Spirax Sarco to help streamline tools and services, make time and budget efficiencies and improve governance and security.

Getting into the detail

We started with the Steam Thermal Solutions brand to develop a platform that supports complex customer journeys for multiple audience types. We harnessed the power of the Sitecore Experience Platform for many reasons, but two key factors stood out.

1. It enabled us to manage brand consistency by providing a centralised platform to ensure uniform templates and standards across all websites.
2. Sitecore XP allowed us to centralise content distribution and translation efficiently across 54 operating companies globally in 23 languages. 
3. Sitecore’s marketing automations and personalisation features allowed us to deliver a tailored and localised B2B experience. 

This product stream delivered a simple, easy to use, CMS that empowers local markets to take control of their own content, allowing flexibility to cater for individual territory needs without compromising brand consistency. It also allowed for the removal of many legacy websites which were outdated and unsecure.

Since then, we have rolled out websites for three other Spirax Group brands and our efficient approach to code and component re-use enabled us to add value back to the business in a timely manner. We delivered against lean deadlines whilst releasing time back to internal teams to enable them to focus on other areas of growth, and from a cost perspective, cheaper builds allowed for hosting and maintenance savings across the business.

For each of these websites, individual brands were carefully applied to pre-existing components, to ensure that each website is a true representative of both its individual brand but also the overarching business strength and status.

By making use of the Sitecore platform licence to host multiple websites on the same instance, we also simplified the digital estate and operational management. Using our component libraries, page builder templates and adaptable design system for new brands helped provide a 3x more efficient web build, and their teams are now free to create new content pages in just a few clicks with no developer admin.

The wider organisation now benefits from the stability of the platform, an average of 99.99% uptime, fully monitored and managed by our support team, with all incidents raised resolved within target resolution time and monthly service-level reporting and quarterly service-level reviews.

The sun sets on legacy platforms

Spirax has now decommissioned the legacy platforms that previously powered these websites, saving thousands of pounds in hosting costs. They now have a consolidated global platform based around a library of reusable components, meaning content editors can seamlessly move between all of their digital properties with autonomy and manage their workload from one place: Sitecore.

In conclusion, Spirax Sarco has found that managing a multi-brand, multi-operating unit, global business does not require a complex and unwieldy digital ecosystem, and the Sitecore Experience Platform has not only solved many challenges but also delivered large scale business efficiencies which are set to grow as the digital ecosystem expands.

Interested?

If you have any questions about the ways Sitecore could support your brands complex digital needs, then get in touch.