Telerik-Sitefinit : Success Stories

Government

UK Public-Private Partnership Builds Intelligent Customer Data Platform with Sitefinity

Charged with supporting a diverse regional business audience as well as delivering central government policy, it needed an intelligent digital platform to improve business engagement. Sitefinity enabled the partnership to create this BI platform and deliver better user experiences.

PRODUCTS:Sitefinity

Story

Challenge

The Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership (SWLEP) is a UK public-private sector partnership consisting of the councils of Wiltshire County and Swindon Borough and regional businesses. Ranked #12 of the 38 LEPs in England, the partnership aims to accelerate the economic growth of the region to position it as the top county for residents, tourists and businesses alike.

However, key data was spread across siloed and disparate systems, which made effective communication with the LEP’s audience a major problem. To address this challenge, SWLEP needed to create a customer data and business intelligence platform that united all these disparate systems and enabled a better understanding of customer needs.

Solution

Working with digital consultancy Rika, SWLEP established the project’s strategic objectives, business requirements and opportunities for innovation. After an in-depth selection process, Progress® Sitefinity™ CMS Online Marketing Edition was selected to form the foundation of the digital experience platform, beating both Sitecore and Umbraco due to the platform’s ease of use and scalability.

Sitefinity empowered SWLEP’s operational ambition with Sitefinity Insight, enabling the council to achieve its aggressive goals via an efficient, scalable and easy-to-use platform. Key wins enabled by Sitefinity include:

• Simplifying the integration of different tools and systems via built-in data connectors

• Improving content management across multiple sites with a user-friendly CMS

• Support for SWLEP’s Microsoft technology preference as a .NET CMS

“Sitefinity coupled with Sitefinity Insight was just the most fully featured, flexible and cost-effective solution,” said Kristina Angelova, Director, Rika.

Sitefinity was integrated with other critical systems to create a comprehensive customer data command center, leveraging:

• Sitefinity CMS, a platform for content creation, publication and management

• Sitefinity Insight, a fully featured personalization and analytics tool for optimizing customer journeys

• HubSpot, a customer system of record and communication platform for transactional and marketing emails

• Google Data Studio for data visualization and dashboarding

Result

The new platform has empowered SWLEP’s marketing activities across the board, providing integrated BI for smarter targeting. The improvements to marketing communication have resulted in greater awareness of the SWLEP and Growth Hub services. This has lifted the organization’s relevance and credibility among business leaders, with the Growth Hub becoming a premier content hub for regional businesses.

The council is also working extensively with Rika to capitalize on new personalization opportunities. For example, the council is developing persona-based content using audience behaviors for Google Ads campaign with personalized landing pages.

“The Sitefinity-powered customer data platform brings consistency and intelligence,” said Ian Durston, Program Manager, SWLEP. “Our new digital platform allows us to properly understand the needs of the region’s businesses and provide effective and valuable support for their growth, which has been transformative.”