Migrating from Sitecore for a better digital experience
Outgrowing a legacy system to unify Pennon’s digital estate
Outcomes
- + 39.5%engagement across key pages
- 89.33%reduction in SES' platform subscription costs.
- + 55%increase in first time form fills
The Challenge
Following Pennon Group’s acquisition of SES Water in January 2024, the business set out to deliver a best‑in‑class, consistent customer experience across its growing portfolio of water brands. As Pennon continues to bring water companies into the Group, a key strategic priority is to take the strongest elements from each brand and apply them consistently, ensuring customers receive the same high-quality digital experience regardless of brand or region.
However, the SES Water website was built on a legacy instance of Sitecore, which had become increasingly difficult and inefficient to manage. Basic content updates were challenging to perform, and the CMS lacked the flexibility and usability that Pennon’s digital team was accustomed to when working with other brands such as South West Water and Bournemouth Water, which were already running on Optimizely.
This created frustration for internal teams and limited the ability to keep content accurate, timely, and customer-focused. At the same time, as a regulated water utility, Pennon needed to remove unnecessary duplication of technology costs, including multiple CMS licences, hosting, and maintenance arrangements, so that greater investment could be directed towards infrastructure and customer initiatives.
The Solution
To address these challenges, SES Water was migrated off Sitecore and onto Pennon’s existing Optimizely-based digital platform, which already supported multiple water brands within the Group. The platform had been deliberately architected to enable new brands to be onboarded efficiently, while still preserving brand individuality.
Using this approach, a new SES Water website was created by applying a bespoke visual theme, incorporating SES Water’s branding, including logos, typography, and colour palette, without the need for extensive new development. Existing, proven components were reused wherever possible, as there was strong alignment between SES Water’s functional requirements and the capability already available within the platform.
As a result, Pennon’s digital team can now manage SES Water alongside other brands from a single, composable, headless architecture, significantly reducing operational complexity. Content is quicker and easier to update, internal teams are working within familiar tools, and the platform is positioned to support future brand integrations, including forthcoming acquisitions such as Bristol Water.
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Project Details
- Client
- South West Water
- Sector
- Utilities.
- Platform
- Optimizely.