20+ Websites, 1 million+ stories, 1 Drupal 8 Platform
Publishing / Media
Case description
https://www.srijan.net/multiple-brand-website-component-based-developmentCrain Communications is one of the largest privately-owned media companies with more than 50 leading business, trade and consumer brands in North America, Europe and Asia. They deliver content to more than 6 million global business leaders.
But being a media conglomerate came with its own set of challenges in the digital space. Managing a number of websites, each operating on a different CMS, was a huge roadblock when it came to rolling out new digital initiatives. Disparate technology systems also introduced operational inefficiencies and rising cost of maintenance.
Case goals and results
What Crain Wanted To AchieveWhen Crain approached us, they had the sole objective of eliminating their digital sprawl and setting up a unified, scalable and highly configurable digital platform. They wanted this platform to enable business teams to effectively narrate the distinct brand stories and offer a rich customer experience. And despite all the sophistication, they wanted the backend simplified enough so content editors can take control of the websites, reducing dependencies on their IT teams.
What Srijan Delivered
Srijan built a unified, scalable Drupal 8 platform that drives Crain digital presence. We rolled out 20+ websites onto the new platform, 4 of them within 6 weeks. We migrated 1 million+ stories dating from 1995 without compromising on the best practices across SEO, performance, and media management.
With a central publishing platform on Drupal 8, we reduced the development time by 50% compared to an earlier estimate (if websites were done independently) and at a much lower cost.
Challenges
Building a single Drupal 7 website for one of their lowest traffic brands had cost Crain millions of dollars, in a previous engagement. As is common in such cases, there was a doubt being casted on Drupal’s capability itself and proprietary CMSs were being considered.Srijan and Acquia together, changed this. Acquia’s thought leadership helped clear all doubts about Drupal’s capability as the platform of choice in such large scale digital transformation projects. Srijan’s time-tested execution processes, component-based architecture approach, and the wide media-industry experience, won the mandate of Crain’s CIO.
Community contributions
The entire development team was active on drupal.org during the course of this project.The https://www.drupal.org/project/adobe_analytics was built for Crain and contributed back to the community.
Some of the team members on this project, who were most active in contributing patches include: https://www.drupal.org/u/dhirendramishra
https://www.drupal.org/u/panshulk
https://www.drupal.org/u/hardik-rawal
https://www.drupal.org/u/arpitr
https://www.drupal.org/u/ashutoshsngh
Apart from code contributions, the Crain case study has been showcases in various conferences and meetups, as an example of enterprise scale Drupal 8 implementation in the media and publishing industry. ex https://www.drupaleurope.org/session/it-takes-village-transform-digital-platform-large-publishing-conglomerate
Why should this case win the splash awards?
This case study is featured on https://www.drupal.org/case-studies. The main reason this case should win the award is that it highlights how Drupal 8 shines at the enterprise level. The Crain implementation utilizes some of the key Drupal 8 concepts, specially in the context of media and publishing:* how we used paragraphs, block API, panelizer, layouts etc to build a platform that allows each publication to build/configure (NOT develop) and manage their own sites.
* how configuration management, blocks as entities and other Drupal 8 concepts enabled us to build such a platform.
* how TWIG enabled us to use Patternlab to do independent front end development as well as set up a Global styleguide for Crain.
More details and URLs can be found here: https://www.srijan.net/multiple-brand-website-component-based-development