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Transforming a pet retailer with a modernized commerce experience
Pet Supplies Plus
Transforming a pet retailer with a modernized commerce experience
Platforms
Services
Overview
Pet Supplies Plus and Horizontal Digital were honored for their groundbreaking work and business-impacting strategies for the Most Powerful Tech Stack Integration designation for the 2024  Sitecore Ultimate Sitecore Experience Award.
Pet Supplies Plus wins 2024 Sitecore Ultimate Experience Award
Promoted Content
Efficiency. Scalability. Cost savings. Pet Supplies Plus new commerce infrastructure has transformed their operations and customer experience. By modernizing their commerce technology, they will see significant savings from lower licensing costs and less time spent maintaining legacy platforms. 

Looking ahead, Pet Supplies Plus has exciting digital opportunities on the horizon. To continue their commerce success, we are implementing Salesforce Data Cloud so it can be integrated with Marketing Cloud to further improve customer journeys and to help them understand their customers more deeply. We can't wait to see where their new technology takes them on their commerce transformation journey. 
 As the work continues, their team is expected to see increased revenue growth and online conversion rates, with more satisfied pet lovers to top it all off. 
 
A digital transformation worth barking about
The results
Our experts are here to help you create connected experiences that combine the right technology, operations, creative, and data. Let's talk. 
Ready to unleash commerce success?
For pet owners, shopping for food, supplies, and toys should be as seamless online as it is in-store. The new Sitecore Search technology supports smarter search and navigation capabilities to help customers find and purchase products faster, reducing abandoned carts. Additionally, flexible pickup and delivery options across 730+ stores are integrated and supported by the new OrderCloud instance. 
Experiences that create loyal customers
In the fast-moving pet retail industry, speed-to-market is everything. By using their Sitecore Content Hub instance to its full potential, Pet Supplies Plus can now launch campaigns, promotions, and content updates more quickly—without heavy reliance on IT. What once took weeks can now happen in minutes, giving them a competitive edge. 
Staying ahead of the pack
Working closely with the client’s technology, operations, and marketing teams, Horizontal Digital devised a transformation plan that prioritized performance, efficiency, and online ordering experiences. The result? A modernized eCommerce architecture powered by over 110+ custom APIs—built for speed, scalability, and seamless integration. 

Handling the migration of millions of data points and 2 million+ active users, our team ensured Pet Supplies Plus digital experience was future-proofed for growth. A key challenge was unifying disparate legacy applications under one centralized system—a move that streamlined operations and improved brand consistency. 

By improving and fully integrating Pet Supplies Plus new tech stack, they are experiencing: 

Optimized site performance: The cloud-native, headless setup delivered faster load times and improved page responsiveness. 

Omnichannel readiness: A new unified ecosystem is enabling seamless experiences across numerous websites and store locations to support their marketing growth. 

Efficient inventory & order management: Streamlined operations that reduced manual work. 

Stronger website code: This provides protection against security risks with stronger site code that meets ADA requirements.
A tail-wag-worthy tech stack
Despite consistent online revenue growth, Pet Supplies Plus’ old commerce platform was struggling to keep up due to numerous inefficiencies and was becoming costly to maintain.  
Key challenges included: 



Lack of personalization & order management: The outdated system couldn’t support tailored experiences . 

Poor site performance: Slow load times, clunky navigation, and frequent site downtime led to frustrated customers. 

Security vulnerabilities: Outdated code exposed potential security risks, as well as lowered digital accessibility scores.  

Limited scalability: A fragmented system made CRM and content management difficult across a growing franchise network.  

Pet Supplies Plus needed an agile, scalable, and cost-effective solution that could deliver superior digital experiences while supporting their growing commerce business. 

Together we set out to build a modern commerce foundation—one that could scale, perform, and delight customers at every touchpoint.
From outdated to optimized
Would you upgrade your current technology or start with something new? 

For Pet Supplies Plus, a full-service pet retailer with over 730 locations in 44 states, this was no longer just a strategic question—it was a pressing necessity. 

Their legacy eCommerce platform was showing its age: expensive to maintain, slow to adapt, and ill-equipped to support modern digital shopping expectations. Meanwhile, without a headless system and operating on disconnected platforms, it added complexity and inefficiency to their operations. 

To stay ahead in a competitive pet retail market, Pet Supplies Plus needed a partner who could execute swiftly, stay within budget, and bring deep expertise in Sitecore and Salesforce. That’s where Horizontal Digital stepped in.
Key highlights:
Unleashing growth: Modernizing a pet retailer's commerce experience with Sitecore
The situation
The response
Chief Supply Chain Officer & Innovation, PSP
Miles Tedder
Phenomenal work across the board. The smoothness in operations speaks volumes to the effort Horizontal Digital put into this project. We really appreciate it.

Transforming a pet retailer with a modernized commerce experience

Pet Supplies Plus

Cultivating a connected commerce experience
Bachman's
Platforms
Services
Customers now have a much smoother online shopping experience, and Bachman’s is positioned to go up against larger competitors—future proofing their business for long-term commerce growth. 


Some of the highlights include: 

    5% increase in average order value due to website improvements 
    Decrease in overall abandoned website orders 
    Decrease in overall bounce rate 
    Improve page load speed to under one second 
    8% decrease in support center calls, thanks to less troubleshooting of online orders 
    Special marketing promotions can now be managed by one person in half the time it used to take  
    Won Sitecore’s Best Commerce Experience Award in 2023 

Growing successful commerce sales
Zeke Olson
Director, eCommerce Operations at Bachman's
We had a successful deployment this morning, and we're already processing a handful of live PayPal/Venmo orders from Bachmans.com!

Thanks to the Horizontal team for sticking with it and working through any issues, especially while working parallel with other ERP and backlog tasks. They have been thorough and mindful of time constraints and open to sharing their blockers as well.
Before we could transform Bachman’s website into an end-to-end, connected commerce experience, Horizontal Digital first needed to perform an eCommerce platform optimization and experience audit. This involved highlighting areas for improvement in usability, mobile responsiveness, and overall design.  

Next, to increase conversion rate optimization, our team consulted Bachman’s on tangible ways they could improve their holistic purchase flow and checkout process – from home page to final payment.
Implementing Sitecore OrderCloud

Bachman’s needed the right technology as the foundation for their commerce experience. Horizontal implemented Sitecore OrderCloud – a headless platform that makes product search and ordering much simpler. This technology enables customers to view the full expanse of Bachman’s products through recommendations. And as part of the product page enhancements, Horizontal optimized product descriptions, imagery, and recommendations to increase customer engagement and sales. 

Additionally, OrderCloud powers data-driven marketing efforts, boosting customer engagement through initiatives like Bachman's Purple Perks’ loyalty program. With their new, flexible commerce system, they are set to expand their online capabilities, improve content sharing, and launch a wholesale website. 

With this new upgrade, Horizontal seamlessly integrated Bachman's CMS, CRM, search engine, loyalty program, PayPal/Venmo, and payment system, creating a more connected and efficient experience. 
Helping Bachman's blossom into a commerce powerhouse
There were a few challenges Bachman’s needed to overcome before they could meet their commerce goals. 
 
The website's product search and checkout process were slow and cumbersome, with the right products often hard to find. This made providing additional relevant products and upselling customers nearly impossible. Frustrated shoppers frequently abandoned their online orders due to the complexity, opting to go through Bachman’s call center or abandoning the purchase altogether. What’s more, their customer base was starting to lean toward a younger demographic, so enhancing online channels was even more important for business longevity. 
 
These challenges made it clear that Bachman's needed a partner who could help: 
 

    Improve capabilities for their customer and product search 
    Redesign their payment page 
    Differentiate experiences based on new versus existing customers 
    Add new features like location-based delivery fee calculation 
    Implement electronic gift cards and subscription services 
    Integrate services like PayPal and Venmo 
    Migrate their ERP (enterprise resource planning) system 

 
By teaming up with Horizontal, Bachman’s knew that we would be a trusted partner who could provide the diverse technology expertise needed for a commerce transformation and ongoing digital optimization.
Planting the seeds for online growth
Since 1885, Bachman’s has become one of the largest floral and nursery operations in the world – selling quality plants, gardening supplies, and gifts across their digital and retail channels. With the goal to streamline their online ordering, boost company growth, and modernize their brand, Bachman’s partnered with Horizontal Digital. Together, we improved their digital commerce experience and technical infrastructure, increasing overall efficiencies, customer satisfaction, and revenue.  
Cultivating a connected commerce experience for Bachman's
Overview
The situation
The response
The results
Our experts are here to help you create end-to-end connected experiences. Let's talk.
Boost online revenue and drive commerce success

Cultivating a connected commerce experience

Bachman's

Revitalizing a national hospital's web experience for better patient care
National children's healthcare organization
Revitalizing a national hospital’s web experience for better patient care
Platforms
Services
Promoted Content
Through the agile development process, the healthcare client’s website made a transformational change. The complete rebuild of their site to a clean, modern Drupal 10 platform helped improve both their user experience and content publication process.  

Despite the pandemic causing project delays and rapidly evolving requirements, the client and Horizontal locked arms as committed partners. We worked diligently with their stakeholders to ensure we were solutioning all their short-term requests while still delivering on the long-term implementations. Key highlights included: 

    Remapped 7,000+ pieces of content for better user experience 
    
    
    Improved team efficiency with the new content publishing workflow 
    
    
    Boosted SEO and site discoverability to align with business needs 
    
    
    Redesigned their design system and set standards for cohesive branding 

Now, the hospital is even more digitally empowered to put patients at the center of their care journeys.  
Transforming a website through collaborative partnership
Horizontal started by providing in-depth roadmaps and expert recommendations to address gaps in user experience, SEO, and content strategy. Some of the recommendations included improvements such as... 

    Custom dimensions for Google Analytics reporting insights 
    
    
    Data layer implementation to house user information 
    
    
    More organized navigation structure and naming conventions
    
    
    Enabling easier management of price transparency documents, as well as removing outdated embedded scripts for compliance purposes
     

Their content workflow and user experience required simplification by creating reusable components and a faster editorial process, all while maintaining publication control. Additionally, we transformed their content structure from a group of disconnected pages to an organized content hub for easier patient family use.  

With hundreds of medical programs and services pages, keeping this information easy to sustain and scale was key. Horizontal simplified the site’s complex code footprint and reduced the amount of maintenance slowing down their team as we migrated the hospital’s site to the latest version of Drupal.
Strategic enhancements to transform UX and content management
Transitioning from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10, Horizontal didn’t simply upgrade their old site; we envisioned an enhanced way to accelerate their business value through faster, more connected experiences. Our team needed to rethink the site architecture and build a fresh site that matched both their current and evolving needs—all while ensuring compliance with HIPAA and other legal guidelines.    

This meant we needed to solve four key challenges:  

    Transform their site as a business generating tool 
    
    
    Establish user journeys and content hierarchy 
    
    
    Streamline the content management process 
    
    
    Implement consistent measurement and analytics to track success 

 
Going beyond a Drupal upgrade
A nationally ranked acute pediatric care organization and a leader in life-saving health discoveries—pioneering treatments for leukemia, heart surgery, and more since 1901—partnered with Horizontal to update, redesign, and implement a revamped site. 

Over the years, their business needs had changed, and their aging Drupal platform had become unsupported. Patient families, donors, researchers, and the community were struggling to access the programs and services they needed on the client’s website. On top of it all, the pandemic made modernizing their web experience an even greater priority as digital surged to the forefront of patient experiences.
Revitalizing a national hospital's web experience for better patient care
Overview
The situation
The response
Garrett Moedl
Director of Product Marketing, Acquia
Drupal is a powerful and future-ready CMS that gives brands the freedom to scale with their needs. Its flexible API architecture supports exponential content growth across a global multisite ecosystem.
The results

Revitalizing a national hospital's web experience for better patient care

National children's healthcare organization

Unifying multiple websites under one global brand experience
Milliken
Milliken: Unifying multiple websites under one global brand experience
Milliken envisioned their website as a tool to drive deeper customer interactions that lead to greater customer lifetime value.  

Through the Sitecore migration and redesign, Horizontal made this vision a reality. We consolidated the client’s 12 disparate digital properties and migrated content from multiple systems—creating one seamless, user-friendly platform. This made it easier for customers to find the right products, improving retention, repurchases, and the ROI of customer relationships. 

Their team saw significant improvements: increased returning site traffic, higher sales contact form completion rates, reduced bounce rate, and lower site maintenance costs. Reflecting their brand’s connection between curiosity and innovation, Milliken’s new website brings their trusted 150-year-old brand story to life and unifies their customers’ favorite products in one place.
Creating lifelong customer relationships through a revitalized site design
Promoted Content
Reducing the proliferation of domains into a streamlined customer experience required a multi-phased approach.  

First, Horizontal conducted stakeholder interviews and in-depth discovery sessions to align on an understanding of what barriers customers were experiencing across the entire user journey. After 50+ interviews across 10 different teams, the most critical content and functionality was identified—creating the best MVP roadmap and establishing a baseline for redesign. 

Horizontal then set out to identify customer interaction patterns and audit usability issues to restructure their site’s components and enable new features (like product filtering and global search abilities). 

    Through close collaboration with Milliken’s team, Horizontal: 
    Created a digital experience that expresses Milliken’s brand story and values. 
    Tied together their disparate brand sites under one main Sitecore platform. 
    Centralized their asset repository across multiple domains to reduce maintenance costs and personalize content. 
    Simplified the user experience for faster, easier interactions. 
    Enhanced the site’s language translation, search capabilities, and multi-regional infrastructure for content delivery. 
    Built a framework for tracking customer engagement across channels. 
    Prepared the website for self-service and consistent lead nurturing.

Crafting the formula for greater connected customer experiences
The new Milliken website experience needed to streamline the customer acquisition funnel and easily showcase the wide breadth of offerings across verticals, all while elevating and celebrating the Milliken brand. 

The sheer number of websites and platforms for Milliken’s global brands created confusion for users navigating between digital destinations. This fragmentation led to customers encountering irrelevant products and information, detracting from the overall user experience.
From fragmentation to unification for a stronger digital identity
Growing pains are a normal part of the process for even the most established companies as they expand and innovate. But with the right partnership, growing pains can turn into growing opportunities. 
 

Milliken has been a leading manufacturer of flooring, textiles, chemical, and healthcare products for 150+ years. Despite their rich history and innovative advancements, Milliken faced significant challenges due to rapid growth fueled by new acquisitions and numerous product launches.  

As a result, the company's digital presence had become fragmented, with 45 websites spread over more than five different platforms. This decentralization hindered new customers from efficiently finding the right products and taking the next step to contact a sales rep. Milliken recognized the need for a streamlined solution to enhance customers’ experiences and unify their online presence across their owned brands.  
Milliken: Unifying multiple websites under one global brand experience
Overview
The Situation
The Response
The new Milliken.com truly embodies our brand ethos, filling the space where mystery and science meet, all unified under a singular brand...
Digital Lead for Milliken's Marketing Center of Excellence
Richard Freeman
The Results

Unifying multiple websites under one global brand experience

Milliken

Bringing the immersive underwater experience alive online.
SeaWorld® Yas Island, Abu Dhabi
Platforms
Services
Euan Mitchell
Digital Marketing Director, Miral Destinations
Seaworldabudhabi.com offers visitors a high-tech and immersive digital experience like no other, so it’s crucial that our site has the same ‘wow’ factor. As the window into our theme park, the site gives guests a shiver of excitement as they quickly and easily curate and book their own adventure and dive into our underwater wonderland.
Promoted Content
The site was ready to withstand unprecedented traffic during the hugely anticipated opening of the MENA region's first Marine Life Theme Park. Bookings have exceeded revenue expectations and guests are making the most of their visits, booking multi-park experiences in addition to the one-of-a-kind SeaWorld Abu Dhabi. 
A digitally advanced site that’s already making waves
The results
Customer centricity places the user at the heart of every decision, and that’s where Horizontal Digital began formulating its product plan. The discovery phase started with understanding the business goals through a series of stakeholder interviews and workshops to identify and align on the main vision of the product.

A deep dive into the customer’s mind, the business strategy, and in-depth competitor research and benchmarking, allowed Horizontal Digital to create the product strategy and roadmap for the future. The team then embarked on the implementation of an insight-informed digital strategy to deliver visually engaging UI and intuitive UX in an agile and phased out approach until the park opening.

The Experience Design team weaved their creativity into the site with captivating, flowing design that takes the user into a digital underwater world detailing all the various adventures on offer from the tropics to the poles.

Visitors to the site are also educated about SeaWorld Abu Dhabi’s conservation and animal welfare initiatives – a key objective of the Marine Life Theme Park experience.

On the back end, Sitecore XP provided the SeaWorld Abu Dhabi digital marketing team with a user-friendly CMS to upload content, along with a powerful analytics engine for them to track the performance of their pages and digital journeys.

The Technology team created over 50 reusable components that SeaWorld Abu Dhabi’s digital team can easily populate to build their own future pages and campaigns.

Horizontal Digital also integrated Coveo AI – a market-leading AI-powered enterprise search platform - into the new site allowing for advanced search, recommendation, and personalization functionality, to make each customer journey truly unique.
A booking experience as exciting as SeaWorld Abu Dhabi’s realistic realms
The SeaWorld Abu Dhabi digital experience offers guests their first glimpse into the region's only Marine Life Theme Park, so it had to make a truly impactful impression.

The ask was therefore to use the latest UI principles to create a visually beautiful journey that brings the wonders of SeaWorld to life online.

In addition to drumming up excitement, the site's primary aim is to encourage users to book tickets to the park and to other attractions on Yas Island. This meant the deployment of best-in-class UX to create a seamless, intuitive booking experience that made it possible for users to purchase tickets in only a few simple steps.

Underpinning the spectacular front end, there needed to be a sophisticated tech architecture that could combine the power of customer data, analytics, AI and marketing automation needed to bring the SeaWorld Abu Dhabi adventure alive online. Sitecore Experience Platform™ (XP) was the obvious choice given its unrivalled ability to deliver personalized, cross-channel experiences.

Once live, the SeaWorld Abu Dhabi digital marketing team needed a CMS that made it easy for them to build their own pages using a pre-existing library of components. XP puts this control in SeaWorld Abu Dhabi’s hands, making it easy for the team to upload their own content and pull their own analytics.
Making a magical first impression
Designing a digital experience that’s fitting of the Middle East's first Marine Life Theme Park means delivering a kaleidoscope of colours as vivid as a coral reef, mesmerizing full-screen visuals and a user experience as exciting as a deep-sea scuba dive.

Hot on the heels of building the award-winning Yasisland.com, Horizontal Digital was raring to go when it came to creating the online destination for the newly-opened SeaWorld Abu Dhabi – the latest addition to the capital’s premier leisure and entertainment hub, Yas Island.

The region’s first Marine Life Theme Park features 8 immersive realms, over 15 interactive rides & experiences, more than 20 live characters and performances, over 100,000 marine animals, and the world's largest multi-species aquarium. 

One of the main objectives of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi is to educate visitors on the importance of conserving our underwater world which is why it established Yas SeaWorld Research & Rescue – the MENA region's first dedicated marine research, rescue, rehabilitation and return facility.

The park’s unwavering commitment to animal welfare has made it the first facility in MENA to be recognized with a Global Humane certification. This is down to initiatives like the Animal Care Center that allows guests to watch veterinarians and marine experts in action.

The theme park’s enthralling “One Ocean” narrative talks to the interconnectedness of life on earth and in the ocean. The story begins the minute you click on the new site and are taken on a journey from exploring the wonders of the deep to booking tickets to see the real thing.
Bringing the immersive underwater experience alive online
Overview
The situation
The response

Bringing the immersive underwater experience alive online.

SeaWorld® Yas Island, Abu Dhabi

Putting car buyers in the digital driving seat
Mahindra Auto Digital
Platforms
Services
Promoted Content
By significantly improving the speed and efficiency of Mahindra’s digital platform, we were able to help the client deliver thousands of unique and compelling user experiences via a single, efficient and scalable platform.

When it comes to the success of the project, the numbers speak for themselves:

1. The site performance was improved to withstand more than 10,000 concurrent users per second with zero downtime.

2. Additional sales demand of 25% was supported.

3. We achieved a 30% cost reduction for Mahindra in infrastructure optimization.

4. The client experienced a 50% faster time-to-market for new online products.

5. Mahindra’s digital team now has 100% business ownership of content management with no technical team involvement.

This strong foundation will allow Mahindra to accelerate its marketing capabilities in a cost-effective way for both the core brand and future launches for years to come.
Online sales soar and development now in the rearview mirror
The results
Our team is here to help you achieve results. Let's talk.
Want to create a connected commerce experience that drives sales?
Dhyanendra Bhangre
Head of Technology (Digital), Mahindra Group
Horizontal has helped us to stay ahead of the curve by enhancing the customer journey across our Mahindra Auto digital platform. This led to overwhelmingly successful online launch of Scorpio-N and our XUV400 electric vehicle. The extensive work done by the team in stabilizing and enhancing the platform resulted in more than 10,000 bookings in the first week of the site launch. Best of all, our team is empowered to create our own world-class digital experiences both now and in the future.
Our ambitious mission was to create a digital experience powered by Sitecore that could handle web traffic from thousands of visitors per second as well as developing Mahindra Auto’s ability to rapidly deploy new microsites for upcoming launches.

The end product had to maintain brand integrity, deliver personalization, and grow customer loyalty by building on and improving the site they knew and loved, rather than being a wholesale redesign. This solution allowed for a thoughtful and strategic realignment of people, processes and tools to take a much more nimble and modular approach to site ideation and creation.

Working closely with the Mahindra Auto team, we:

1. Implemented transformational optimization to the online booking/user flow with intuitive UX and UI.

2. Load tested and strengthened the site’s ability to withstand thousands of concurrent users in the booking flow.

3. Instituted Azure Service Bus – a cloud messaging system for seamlessly connecting apps and devices across public and private clouds, thereby speeding up sessions.

5. Deployed Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) to enable Mahindra Auto to streamline and accelerate future development on Own-Online.

6. Gave Mahindra access to a large SXA library of reusable components and UX templates, empowering the client to quickly build their own consistently on-brand microsites for new products and launches, without the need for expensive custom coding.

7. Created a component library specific to Mahindra corporate identity, that made the various system integrations as well as marketing content available from downstream systems and various channels.
Empowering Mahindra Auto to create their own high-speed CX 
Launched in 2020 as a groundbreaking digital sales site on Sitecore Experience Platform (XP), Mahindra Auto Digital allows customers to buy a car in four easy steps without having to visit a physical dealership.

The platform allows customers to explore and personalize their vehicles, get instant exchange quotes, find finance and insurance solutions and conduct payment – all in one simple online session. Furthermore, the platform also allows customers to lease a vehicle.
Mahindra wanted to take the digital experience to the next level by improving site performance and functionality, designing a customer experience that surpassed the expectations of its digitally-savvy customers. 

Horizontal was tasked with fine tuning and refreshing the existing site, to supercharge its speed and ramp up the number of online sales – while laying the foundation to leverage Web3 technologies for a fully immersive customer experience in the future.

Before the site overhaul, pages took too long to load, making it a frustrating experience for customers. By transforming the architecture, Horizontal was able to speed up processing time to create a truly interactive and real-time experience for Mahindra customers.

The team added convenient functionality like email and SMS notifications of order booking and cancellations, and a MyBookings section on the site where customers could easily manage and track their orders.

In addition to streamlining the booking flow, Horizontal also implemented a microsite development architecture that allows the Mahindra marketing team to design their own microsites or brand launch pages rapidly.

The Mahindra team put this new functionality to the test when they built their own brand site for the highly anticipated launch of the “Big Daddy of all SUVs”, the legendary Mahindra Scorpio-N in September 2022. The Horizontal team was on hand to make sure that the brand site matched up to the car’s unmissable design, thrilling performance, advanced technology, and intuitive features.

Also, the Horizontal team was asked to have the main website ready for the launch of Mahindra’s first all-electric SUV, the XUV400, as a backup in case of any issues on their Launch Portal which exists separately and stores booking data offline. This allowed the business team to switch the Launch Portal out and use the main website if needed. After the launch, the team was able to migrate all bookings and users onto the main site quickly and seamlessly.

During the course of the project, Horizontal had to solve for three key challenges: 

1. Mahindra Auto needed to be able to accurately measure and elevate the value of their investment in their digital platform.          
                                                                                         
2. Mahindra Auto’s pan-India network of 270+ dealers and 900+ touchpoints are all integrated with the platform. In the past, this meant that the existing site was slow and often struggled to withstand millions of hits which would be a real problem when Scorpio-N, India’s most powerful SUV, hit the market with a flash sale, not to mention the XU400.

3. Additionally, the site relied heavily on systems integrations with other provider partners, such as banks and insurers, to deliver the full “Own-Online” Digital experience, again slowing the customer journey down.
Putting the sting back into the tail of Mahindra Auto
Imagine being able to buy a car online in five minutes without stepping foot in a showroom?

Horizontal Digital made the impossible possible for Mahindra Auto, one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, by reimagining the online booking flow to create a fluid, personalized experience that puts digital-first customers behind the wheel of their own buying journey.

Learn more about how we helped Mahindra Auto disrupt the car buying process by becoming the first Indian automobile manufacturer to completely transform their online purchasing journey, making it as fast and exciting as a real-life test drive.

The all-new Mahindra Auto Digital Platform not only allows customers to buy a vehicle online, but also features different functionality like built-in calculators and configuration tools so that they can customize their car. Buyers can get finance and take out insurance for their vehicle in a completely end-to-end online experience, all from the comfort of their home.
Mahindra Auto: Putting car buyers in the digital driving seat
Overview
The situation
The response

Putting car buyers in the digital driving seat

Mahindra Auto Digital

Unifying two brands for an enhanced digital banking experience
Cadence Bank
Platforms
Services
Promoted Content
The HZTL team established client confidence with a successful launch of the new CadenceBank.com. This has resulted in a desire to continue our partnership into 2023, where Cadence is aggressively pushing past a MVP toward a more connected site across the unauthenticated and authenticated states — all to support their mission of becoming a top 10 digital banking experience.
Collectively, Cadence and Horizontal understood that the first impression of the new digital experience meant everything.  
To ensure we lived up to our top tier ambition, we conducted a thorough discovery phase to understand the site experience strategy, website design vision and overall path forward. This included:

    Executive stakeholder interviews
    Site experience strategy
    User segment matrix
    Feature Matrix
    Design vision workshop
    Technical discovery including technical audits and stakeholder working sessions

Based on this foundation, our team of digital strategists, personalization specialists, measurement specialists, content strategists, UX and visual designers, copywriters, content strategists and technical leaders assembled to launch the brand-new bank experience. Deliverables during this phase included:

    Sitemap development
    Content migration plan for the two legacy sites
    Content matrix for 40 high-visibility pages across the new site which lead to content development for these pages
    Technical blueprint
    Measurement strategy for key metrics supporting business objectives
    Personalization roadmap and strategy – highlighting a select number of crawl rules to implement following site launch
    Implementation of a new site design system, which included design for 40 new components, responsive page design for 15-page templates and a digital style library for technical implementation

And during the implementation phase, we successfully incorporated 6 MVP sprints — during which the development team set up 4 environments including: Dev, QA, UAT and Production environments that live on Sitecore 10.2. New features were also added to better serve customers — ranging from dynamic, on-site maps to fraud identity alert and plenty more. Additionally, in the weeks leading up to launch the HZTL team content mapped and authored 300 pages of content for site conversion.  
In tandem with the integration, Cadence wanted to amplify their digital experience and leverage their on-site reputation for banking that delivered ease and simplicity across every touchpoint.This meant revitalizing the brand identity and streamlining the experience for its various audiences. All while showcasing Cadence’s breadth of products and services and conveying confidence, stability and technical innovation at every opportunity.
Providing the best experience
Being a financial institution isn’t exactly easy. There’s immense pressure with watching over someone’s individual fortunes, helping families finance their forever home, providing companies the capital they need for new developments…the list goes on and on. And of course, there’s oversight and mandatory regulations from various institutions that must be adhered to.
And when two banks come together…things get more complicated.

This was the case when BancorpSouth Bank acquired Cadence Bank in 2021, becoming a top 50 bank in the U.S. And while the new venture chose to keep the Cadence name, an updated website experience was needed to communicate the full breadth of banking services available to both personal and business customers — while also reassuring customers that they could continue doing business as usual.
 
Let’s just say it
Overview
The Situation
The Response
The Results

Unifying two brands for an enhanced digital banking experience

Cadence Bank

Leveraging a best-in-class digital experience to control their own digital destiny.
PODS
Platforms
Services
Promoted Content
Horizontal partnered with PODS to re-imagine the customer and prospect journey across all digital touchpoints. While doing so, we architected an all-new, cloud-based digital experience platform powered by Sitecore, capable of supporting marketing sites, campaign destinations and customer portals — all to be onboarded via a progressive roadmap. Along the way, we trained PODS' internal technology and marketing teams on Sitecore best practices so they could leverage their new, best-in-class digital experience capabilities independently and control their own digital destiny.
A real-time, personalized solution
PODS offers moving and storage services to residential and business customers across the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. Successful expansion, including rapid growth of both local and long-distance moving services, created a new challenge: their homegrown digital technology solutions could simply not keep pace with demand.


    Residential and business customers were treated the same with little efforts made to distinguish their specific needs
    
    Digital experiences across public-facing marketing sites and authenticated customer portals were disconnected
    
    Technology struggled to support demand; downtime and performance challenges were normal

Helping a global leader move into the future
Overview
The Response

Leveraging a best-in-class digital experience to control their own digital destiny.

Work

Case Studies