Volkswagen AEM Platform
Websites integrate editorial content, vehicle data, and applications
The leading automobile manufacturer Volkswagen group operates many websites worldwide as well as intranet and extranet presences. As one of the first major Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) projects in Germany, pro!vision - a subsidiary of diva-e - relaunched the Volkswagen sales and marketing platform for the VW Brand website and worldwide market presences. The AEM CMS enabled VW to run highly integrative applications for their web presences and their customer and partner portals. Adobe AEM provided the professional solution for the successful presentation of editorial content, vehicle data and the secure integration of complex backend systems. Data from various legacy applications was merged into the integrated web presences. The core function of the country-specific Internet presences were the online car showrooms which displayed the entire VW model range. The required vehicle data was taken directly from the vehicle production.
markets
vw partners
sites worldwide
AEM pages (approx.)
Objective
Optimizing user experiences and editors' work
The main goal was the graphic redesign and to improve the further processing of product data for interactive sales. Instead of continuing to manually transfer product data to the online car showrooms, product and marketing data should be more closely integrated in the future and the showrooms should be generated "data-driven". This aimed to create the basis for product and marketing data to be used by other applications such as the Auto Configurator in the future.
Implementation
Generating car showrooms automatically
A hierarchically structured repository, the so-called Marketing Object Model (MOM) based on Adobe CRX, was developed to map the VW product catalogs. It contained all the information related to models, equipment, prices and the associated media objects used for the online presence. Technical product data was automatically imported from various backend systems. The technical data was enhanced editorially with marketing texts, images, videos and legal information. The models for the car showrooms were automatically generated from the technical and enhanced data.
Result
Acceleration and cost savings
Costs were significantly reduced due to optimized and accelerated workflows, a shortened time-to-web and the global reusability of the marketing material. The AEM CMS also allowed the markets a high degree of flexibility while maintaining the corporate design and guaranteed a globally consistent brand image. In addition to the graphic relaunch, the project also included a change in technology and upgrading the CMS platform to version 5.6. The results at a glance:
Global CMS platform for approx. 90 markets
Websites for over 600 VW partners (dealers, authorized workshops and parts suppliers) in Germany
Unified CMS platform for the entire group
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Integration of numerous backend systems
Integration of the national subsidiaries' own applications
Implementation of a Sales Product Repository (Marketing Object Model)
Development of an own media library
Mix of editorial content and integrated applications
Car showrooms as the core of the Internet sites
Ensuring performance with over 1 million pages in the system
Integration into the IT landscape at VW
Partner in the project
