dormakaba unlocks faster localization with Contentful

Introduction

For a company like dormakaba, security goes beyond just physical access — it’s about providing seamless, reliable solutions that protect businesses and members of their team. As a global leader in access control and security solutions.

Since digital channels are the primary driver of customer acquisition, dormakaba’s success relies heavily on the quality of its website — it’s especially critical that all the information about its offerings is accurate and translated into multiple languages.

As the company continued to scale and enter new markets, dormakaba editors struggled to keep existing content updated and localized, much less create new content. The company was built with a legacy content management system (CMS), which required heavy IT support to operate, slowing content production and impacting brand consistency across regional sites.

“We weren’t able to update content in real-time — it was published in batches,” said dormakaba Global Lead Digital Platforms, Pablo Gonzalez-Cela. “We also lacked the ability to split up global content for localized web experiences."

In 2020, dormakaba and marketers decided it was time to adopt tools and processes that were just as modern and sustainable as the products they sold, which eventually led them to Contentful.

Securing expert guidance and implementation support

The dormakaba team began to explore alternative content management tools and decided to call on an expert to support it with the final implementation. Impressed by its web development experience and local timezone support, dormakaba selected Madrid-based software development company Tailor Hub, a regional Contentful Partner, to help them navigate this exciting transformation.

“We took a wide view when selecting our partner. We wanted one that was technical, with a strong knowledge of websites and modern tools, but even more, we were looking at how easy it would be to work and communicate with them. And Tailor Hub fits that,” Gonzalez-Cela noted.

To kick things off, Tailor Hub and dormakaba created a strategic phased approach for the migration. This would allow most web experiences to remain accessible to customers and prospects at all times.

• Phase 1: They started by migrating less-critical and lower-converting pages of their website‚ like their ‘Investors’ page and ‘About’ page — until all English content was thoughtfully migrated over to the Contentful platform. This content would serve as a template for the regional offshoots that were to come.

• Phase 2: Pleased with the result of this first phase, Tailor Hub helped dormakaba develop a content model that would seamlessly utilize universal content to its 40+ region-specific sites, which are spread across 28 Contentful spaces. This setup would allow editors to establish brand consistency without having to manually copy and paste content across all 33 sites. Having different spaces also gave local teams enough flexibility to create, edit, and translate content to align with the local market. 

During the second phase, Tailor Hub relied heavily on Contentful’s native orchestration features, specifically cross-space references. In less than a year, the company’s group and regional websites were up and running. They also found time to migrate their Customer Portal, a private online space where customers can access their order histories, make inquiries, and track billing.

Unlocking fasted content production

Composable architecture and content types were new concepts for dormakaba editors. Their previous tool featured a WYSIWYG editor — which gave editors a realistic idea of how content and design would look on the front end but prevented content and images from being easily added to other pages. With helpful best practices from Gonzalez-Cela and Pedro Alejandro Pacheco, dormakaba Tech Lead, editors learned about the benefits of composable content — namely reusability — and mastered the basics of the platform.

“We have about 20 web editors situated all around the world that can be autonomous in updating their content with Contentful. Many use it on a daily basis,” noted Gonzalez-Cela. 

Another benefit of the platform is that it streamlines translation workflows. In the past, if dormakaba wanted to create content in four languages, they would write it in English first and then pass it off to a third-party agency to translate. The agency needed a local-speaking dormakaba employee to review the content and ensure that any cultural nuances pertaining to tone of voice were considered. This was a really lengthy, manual process.

Today, that process looks different, thanks to the AI Content Generator app powered by OpenAI. dormakaba uses the app —  which is just one of the many available via the Contentful Marketplace —  to quickly translate content directly within the Contentful interface, massively streamlining the process, time, and budget. dormakaba is now hoping to integrate its own translation tool to train its AI on nuances of its brand, products, and customers to create more refined outputs. When they decide to move forward with this project, they will have no problem integrating this additional tool — or any others —  as Contentful is an API-first platform. 

Safeguarding scalability

With a more user-friendly, extensible CMS with agile content management capabilities, dormakaba is adding new projects to its content roadmap.

“Now, dormakaba has the resources and flexibility to follow through on more of their creative ideas and create even more content,” Diego Méndez, Tailor Hub’s Chief Technical Officer, said, sharing that they’ve already broken ground on a resource page to house that content. They’re also exploring how to add ecommerce capabilities into the platform to accommodate their complex product catalog and the lengthy customer journey that comes with them — and Tailor Hub will be there to lend a helping hand.

“Tailor Hub always goes the extra mile. They challenge us and propose new ideas for how to use Contentful and its latest features to build a better digital experience,” said Gonzalez-Cela.