ITW.

ITW’s website ecossystem consisted of an Umbraco CMS, InRiver as PIM, and an additional ETL/PIM system, which worked as an overall integration engine. The site was serviced and maintained by 3-4 different digital partners and ITW experienced severe operational and performance-related challenges, along with a large backlog of unsolved tasks and functions building up. The digital platform consists of 12 different sites across four languages and multiple national versions, which were based on a complex data model with an unsecure and unflexible on-prem hosting setup. In other words, ITW’s digital setup was overcomplicated and inefficient in terms of the system architecture, data flows, processes, hosting and supplier setup.

After Kruso was chosen as digital partner for ITW Construction Products, our primary focus was to ensure stability, date security, and optimization of performance. To make sure we got it all right, we started to develope a technologic strategic roadmap for a controled and efficient transformation of the digital platform. We enhanced and simplified the infrastructure between the CMS and PIM-system by optimizing Umbraco and removing a rigid caching layer, immediate result - 4 times faster response times than the original setup. We also rectified many existing functions and launched several new functions. In terms of hosting we have transferred the entire solution to Azure cloud with a setup of local CDNs and various cloud technologies for easier administration, auto-scaling, and cost-management. We are now truly ready to look ahead with more strategic initiatives, where we have already established a strategic UX- and analysis program alongside several refactoring and optimization tasks planned as a solid rooted strategic process.

Results after first phase reflects the strategic considerations and goals we made in our strategic road map. One of the most important results of this phase is that ITW now is far more able to work agile with the solution because of a largely simplified and integrated technical setup and governance around it. Part of this is also a significantly improved editor experience and deployment process. The digital platform is a key driver in ITW’s product promotions, lead generation and sales process, thus focus was of course also on performance. In this phase we succeeded to improve the performance with 400 pct. – goes without saying that this is crucial for the user experience and conversion of sales leads. In general, ITW has obtained faster time to market and lower cost when launching new subsites, new development and other initiatives – which gives an optimal starting point for future sprints. Finally, we also looked into ITW’s hosting setup. Here we provided a more secure, scalable, and stable solution by migrating to an Azure cloud hosting setup. We are extremely proud and excited about this partnership, and we cannot wait to take next steps in reinforcing ITW’s position not only as a global leading manufacturer for the construction industry – but also as a digitally driven organization.