The Challenge
The group operated separate websites for each market, built on different legacy CMS platforms. Content duplication, inconsistent branding, and high maintenance costs were hindering growth and digital transformation efforts.
The Solution
Avantit designed and implemented a unified Umbraco multisite solution hosted on Microsoft Azure. A single Umbraco instance manages content for all 5 markets with language variants, shared media library, and market-specific content sections. The integrated client portal provides personalized dashboards for service tracking and document access.
📋 Overview
A leading European professional services group with offices in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, providing consulting, engineering and managed services to enterprise clients across multiple industries.
🎯 The Challenge
Business context The group ran five separate websites, each on a different CMS platform — WordPress, Drupal and two custom systems. The fragmented approach produced:
- Duplicated content management effort across markets
- Inconsistent brand presentation and an uneven user experience
- High total cost of ownership across multiple hosting environments and licences
- No central analytics or content governance
- Difficulty launching campaigns simultaneously in every market
Technical requirements
- Multisite and multilingual: central management of 5 websites and 5 languages in a single instance.
- Client portal: an authenticated area with personalised dashboards and document access.
- ERP integration: a link to the management system for project and invoicing data.
- Global performance: fast load times across Europe.
💡 The Solution
Strategic approach Avantit consolidated the five websites into a single Umbraco CMS instance with multisite and multilingual capability.
Technical implementation
- Unified content architecture: shared document types and templates, with market-specific overrides where needed.
- Language variants: Umbraco’s native language variants for content in 5 languages, with translation workflow management.
- Client portal: an authenticated area built on Umbraco Members, giving clients access to project dashboards, invoices and support tickets integrated with the ERP.
- Azure hosting: deployed on Azure App Service with a CDN for optimised performance across every European market.
- Headless API: the Content Delivery API enabled so the mobile app team consumes content from the same source.
Timeline
- Phase 1 (discovery and architecture): 3 weeks
- Phase 2 (design and development): 8 weeks
- Phase 3 (content migration): 3 weeks
- Phase 4 (testing and go-live): 2 weeks
📈 The Results
Success metrics
- 💰 Cost reduction: 60% lower CMS licensing and hosting costs.
- ⚡ Publishing speed: content published in hours rather than days.
- 🌍 Market coverage: 5 markets with a unified brand experience.
- 📊 Analytics: a unified group-level digital performance dashboard for the first time.
Business impact Consolidation delivered immediate, measurable results. The marketing team can now publish in one language and manage translations through a simplified workflow, and the unified analytics dashboard gives group-level insight into digital performance across every market.
🛠️ Technology Stack
- Umbraco CMS: multisite and multilingual content management.
- ASP.NET Core: high-performance, scalable backend.
- Microsoft Azure: App Service, CDN and Blob Storage for global hosting.
- Content Delivery API: headless API for the mobile app.
💬 Client Testimonial
“We finally have a unified digital platform that reflects the quality and professionalism of our group in every market. The marketing team now has complete autonomy and the total cost has fallen dramatically.”
Marketing Management European Services Group
🎓 Lessons Learned
- Content governance: defining clear publishing and translation rules mattered as much as the technical implementation.
- Migration strategy: migrating market by market minimised risk and allowed iterative learning.
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