BDR Thermea delivers content faster with Sitecore XM Cloud

It’s all about speed for BDR Thermea, as the company chooses a composable approach based on Sitecore XM Cloud to drive its digital ambitions forward.

Q. Tell us a bit about BDR Thermea.

BDR Thermea works to bring a sustainable future closer with smart indoor heating and cooling solutions. We develop and supply innovative products and services that enable the global shift towards sustainable energy carriers. We have some of the world’s best-known and longest-standing brands, and our 6,000+ employees serve customers in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Q. What were the drivers behind your digital transformation?

Our sector is going through a huge transformation. We’re transitioning from manufacturing carbon-producing boilers and products to heat pumps and hydrogen hybrids, and with this move to new product types, we’re also moving to new commerce models.

Traditionally, we’ve always been a B2B2C company, but we’re now moving to a B2B partner business. We want to offer better digital experiences to the installers that we work with to help them address their challenges in the energy transition, plus B2C is likely to become more important. To support these changes, we need strong digital foundations that provide the agility to pivot the business at speed.

Q. What were the business challenges that led you to a composable approach?

We had been working with Sitecore XP for around six years, and it had proved reliable, but we had customized the solution to each country’s needs. We wanted a standardized global solution that was easier to upgrade and offered a rapid time to market.

Following an enablement and discovery exercise, we recognized that to drive the business forward, we needed a composable solution. Composable architecture allows us to build in strength and agility at a foundational level so we can move at the desired speed in the future.

Q. Why did you choose Sitecore XM Cloud?

We conducted a technical discovery exercise and a proof of concept (POC) with Sitecore XM Cloud. We soon realized that it had all the capabilities we needed to move so much faster in our digital strategy. And when I told our COE that we would never again have to upgrade our CMS system, he basically rubberstamped it on the spot.

The POC allowed us to see the future of composable and how it would work for our organization. Our implementation partner, Accenture / Avanade, would go back to Sitecore every time we had a query or issue and they would get things resolved. It was at this point that we knew that Sitecore was the right solution partner for us, and the trust we have in Accenture/Avanade provided us with the confidence we needed to build our business case.

Q. How was your experience with Sitecore’s early adopter program?

We were a bit nervous. With early access, we weren’t sure whether the functionality we needed was going to be there, or if we’d be held back. But Sitecore has been supportive and open throughout the whole process, with ongoing conversations about what they’re working on. It really feels like a real partnership. In fact, our overall experience with the Sitecore team throughout the transformation has been incredibly positive.

Q. What have been your biggest challenges so far, and how have you overcome them?

With the energy transition moving at pace and changing customer needs, we needed to deliver our new websites as quickly as possible while aligning with our long-term business goals. Sitecore and our composable approach give us the foundation we need to achieve both short- and long-term goals at an accelerated pace.

Q. What’s the current status of your project?

My team is currently hard at work migrating content as the first website is due to go live next month. We have a two-year roadmap for migrating the next 10 to 12 websites. Following our success so far, the team thinks they might even be able to complete the migrations earlier, as Sitecore is even easier to use than they expected.

Q. How will XM Cloud support your future digital strategy?

Before XM Cloud, general content management took up all our time. Being able to think about our e-commerce journey going forward is great. We can now have sensible conversations about where we’ll be in a few years’ time, rather than just the next quarter.

Q. What outcomes are you expecting to achieve with XM Cloud?

It’s all about speed. Instead of taking a day to make an update, with XM Cloud we’re able to achieve the same in an hour, and instantly preview and then publish it. The team is looking forward to being able to do things so much faster. We are also looking at improved site performance – in the POC we saw cool web vitals as the speed of our sites went from 52 to 98.

Once we’ve got the foundations in place, we’ll be able to leverage personalization, A/B testing, and even generative AI. It’s exciting times, and we’re looking forward to working with Sitecore more. Sitecore is a Ferrari – and we’re ready to drive it to its full potential!

BDR Thermea’s first site using XM Cloud is now live and can be found here: Remeha.co.uk