Legrand Webfactory

The Client

A global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures, Legrand provides a wide range of products and solutions for commercial, residential, and industrial applications. With a presence in numerous countries worldwide, Legrand maintains an extensive digital ecosystem to communicate with diverse stakeholders including distributors, installers, specifiers, and end users. The company's websites contain critical product information, technical documentation, and customer support touchpoints.

The Situation

Legrand needed to enhance its digital presence to serve internal and external stakeholders better. The company wanted to accelerate its time to market for new digital features, minimize security and performance risks, control the total cost of ownership for its digital properties, improve the business impact of its websites, and enhance digital operations. Legrand needed a solution that would provide global consistency while allowing for local content management and updates without requiring technical skills at the country level. The company aimed to create a robust, secure, and efficient digital platform that would drive business growth while delivering a superior digital experience at scale.

The Challenge

Integration and user experience concerns topped Legrand’s list of challenges when  implementing its Webfactory project:

• Integration challenges with existing systems like Product Information Management (PIM) and Salesforce
• User experience concerns requiring intuitive design and seamless functionality
• Complex content management needs involving the transfer of content from old websites to the new platform
• Performance optimization requirements for improving site loading speeds and enhancing search functionalities
• Training and adoption challenges to ensure teams could effectively manage and update content without technical skills

The Solution

Legrand initially partnered with SQLI, who established the technical foundation and infrastructure for the Webfactory project, before Acquia partner, Capgemini, took over as the integration partner. The teams began by setting up the platform using standard modules and templates provided by the Webfactory, establishing a stable and efficient foundation for Legrand's digital initiatives. Other initiatives included:

System integration: The teams integrated Webfactory with existing systems — like PIM and Salesforce — ensuring accurate product information and consistent customer data across all channels.

Platform enhancements: The solution continuously improved, enhancing product findability, load speed, and overall user experience while maintaining global consistency across all websites.

Content management: Acquia Content Hub boosted editorial efficiency, SEO performance, and brand enhancement by allowing seamless content sharing across multiple websites.

Risk minimization: The project maintained consistent site performance and centralized IT control for enhanced cybersecurity, protecting the brand's reputation and building customer trust.

Governance structure: Regular project management activities included daily and weekly project meetings, monthly steering committees, and quarterly feature and content committees with country Single Points of Contact (SPOCs).

Performance monitoring: The teams implemented agile practices and a global performance dashboard to track traffic, engagement, behavior, conversions, SEO, and customer experience.

The Results

The Legrand Webfactory project allowed the organization to deploy more than 60 websites, creating a consistent global digital presence. Additionally, the project:

Increased engagement: Website traffic doubled, indicating substantial growth in user engagement with Legrand's digital properties.

Enhanced resource utilization: Document downloads doubled, showcasing improved access to technical resources and support materials.

Improved customer interaction: Customer contacts doubled, reflecting enhanced engagement and satisfaction with Legrand's digital experience.

The project successfully met its objectives by providing secure rollouts through an industrialized platform, continuously improving the common platform to enrich user experiences, and maintaining global consistency across all websites. The solution minimized risks by centralizing IT control for enhanced cybersecurity while controlling the total cost of ownership through cost predictability based on usage patterns. 

With the Webfactory platform, Legrand has improved the business impact of its websites by enhancing lead generation and conversion to sales points, improving analytics, and better performance monitoring and benchmarking.