Introduction
Allmatics collaborated with an Australian company specializing in political and economic analysis and consulting within the Asian region. This company serves a range of prestigious clients, including major corporations and the European Union.
Our task was to design and develop a new portal that enables their team of analysts to publish daily posts on various topics in different formats. Additionally, the portal needed to facilitate sending publications to clients via email.
8
Australia
Media, Consulting
PRD (Product Requirements Document)
CMS (Content Management System)
Responsive Web Application
Key Deliverables
- PRD (Product Requirements Document)
- Backend (CMS system)
- Client-side Frontend: Responsive Web Application and Web Client Cabinet
- Server Environment
- External Mailing Service Configuration
- AI-based optimisation for CMS backend
Project Phases and Timeline
Completed in 1 month
Completed within 5 months
Completed in 2 months
Completed in 1 month
Business Challenge
Initial Problem
The primary challenge we faced was revamping the company’s outdated website, initially built on WordPress around 2015 – 2016. The existing Content Management System (CMS) no longer met the company’s needs. The previous CMS, built on WordPress, had several limitations:
- It wasn’t designed to handle the complex functionalities required by the company.
- As the platform grew in data volume and complexity, it lost the necessary flexibility and became sluggish and inefficient.
The company wanted to add more advanced features, but the technical limitations of WordPress impeded their progress. Our task was to create a new, efficient, robust, and scalable platform for content creation, editing, and performance tracking, ensuring ease of use for both end-users and the internal team.
Project Goals
We were tasked with developing a comprehensive platform with both an administrative and client-facing section:
- Administrative Section: This part of the platform is used by analysts and editors for content management.
- Client-Facing Section: This area is where end clients access their subscriptions, perform searches, and apply filters to find relevant content.
Product Discovery, Detailed Business Analysis and Custom Software Development
We conducted a comprehensive business analysis and discovery phase to identify the company’s requirements. This included formulating technical specifications and developing the new project architecture from scratch. The new architecture was custom-built to meet their specific goals and tasks, avoiding unnecessary elements found in WordPress. This approach provided greater speed, security, and a tailored functionality for their needs.
Key Implementations
- Data Migration: One of the most challenging aspects was accurately migrating data from the old site to the new one. This involved transitioning to a new technology, specifically Laravel, with a completely new database architecture. The client had a vast amount of historical data from 2015 to 2022 that needed to be migrated, including client information, company details, and publications. A critical challenge was mapping the old and new categories accurately during the import process, especially since the new site had a different categorization system.
- Collaborative Design: In collaboration with a renowned Swiss design agency, we oversaw the design phase of the project. The design agency executed the design work, while we managed the process to ensure alignment with the project’s goals.
- Optimized Admin Panel: We developed an admin panel optimized for user experience (UX). This panel provided various permissions for different user roles, such as analysts, editors, senior editors, and administrators. It allowed for the creation and management of different types of publications, supporting their specific workflow from content creation to publication.
- Email System Optimization: We built and optimized a robust email system for user notifications, newsletters and reports. This system supports both automated and manual email dispatches, including daily, biweekly, monthly, and semi-annual reports. We also conducted extensive work on email deliverability, addressing challenges related to high-volume email dispatches.
- Subscription Management: For users seeking deep analysis, we developed various subscription management formats. The user-friendly system allows clients to access personalized dashboards and filter content according to their specific needs, such as longer analyses, short reports, or sector-specific insights. This targeted approach improves productivity and effectiveness by reducing information overload.
- Smart Search Engine: We implemented an advanced search engine with morphological search capabilities. This feature enhances the user experience by accommodating different spelling variations (e.g., “optimize” vs. “optimise”) and understanding contextual synonyms and abbreviations (e.g., “artificial intelligence” and “AI”). Additionally, the system can distinguish relevant terms within specialized local programs and categories that frequently change names.
- Analytics System: We developed an overarching analytics system for the management team to track data across different sectors. This system provides insights into which departments are most productive and effective in content creation.
- Auxiliary Content System with AI implementation: An optimized content system for the European Union was also developed. This system facilitated specific content segments and business processes, exchanging data with the main project via API. We will detail this in a separate case study.
Impact on Business
Ultimately, this comprehensive overhaul allowed the client to strengthen their focus on B2B operations as planned. As the business expanded, there arose a need to widen their audience and even adjust their business model to include a greater focus on the B2C segment. Currently, we are working on developing individual subscription systems to support this new direction.
Measurable Business Outcomes
The newly developed platform significantly improved the company’s ability to manage and deliver content.
Key benefits included:
- Enhanced Performance: The new system is much faster and more reliable.
- Improved User Experience: Both internal users and clients found the new platform easier to use and more efficient.
- Greater Flexibility: The company can now implement advanced features and scale the platform as needed.
Conclusion
Allmatics successfully enhanced the content management capabilities of this Australian political-economic consulting firm. Through meticulous product discovery and custom software development, we delivered a solution that met their current needs and provided a scalable foundation for future growth.
This case highlights the importance of choosing the right CMS and the potential benefits of custom software development. By addressing specific business challenges and implementing tailored solutions, companies can achieve significant improvements in efficiency and performance.
For more information on how Allmatics can help with product discovery, custom software development, and product idea valuation, please contact us.