Sector(s)
Dexa developed 12 custom and component-based websites with Drupal in just three months.
Client Overview
Based in Belgium, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev) is a worldwide drink and brewing company. The company owns approximately 630 beer brands in 150 countries — including Canada’s largest brewery, Labatt Brewing Company, with over 170 years of tradition. The company's portfolio includes regional, national, and global brands. Today, it produces several alcoholic beverages in addition to beers.
Project Overview
To meet the client's demand and the company's marketing needs, which needed delivery before the peak summer season in Canada, we developed twelve websites in just three months, working in a multi-site environment. To do this, we created a component library in Drupal used to enable the development and delivery of the sites for twelve different brands in record time.
About the project
Client Requirements
Labatt Brewing Company brought us a challenging project: to develop and deliver multi-language websites for twelve different brands in only three months.Building multiple websites in a short time frame came with a number of challenges:
- More than 20 professionals were developing modules separately — modules that needed to ultimately work together, creating management concerns.
- Each of the 12 brands had individual stakeholders, complicating communication.
- The new sites would need to go through the company’s design vendor, who was responsible for creating and approving the layouts.
The Solution
We immediately started developing in a multisite environment of Acquia Cloud. After mapping the standard features that each site needed, we used the Hoegaarden site — developed and published in only 15 days — as a base to create a Drupal component library. Developing it in this way ensured that when the teams updated a master library component, it would be automatically updated on all brand sites.
To streamline the process and meet the deadline, we implemented brief daily meetings where all developers explained what they had done the day before, what would be done that day and any impediments or difficulties in moving forward with the project. These quick meetings empowered communication; even though each developer was responsible for a specific task, everyone was aware of the component library codes as a whole. This allowed our team to share findings, provide insights on technical difficulties and easily determine materials needed from AB InBev or its design vendor.
The Results
AB InBev ultimately launched all 12 sites on time, positioning the company to take advantage of the peak summer season. In October 2021, we were selected as a finalist for the Acquia Engage Awards 2021 in the category Quickest to Launch, with Labatt Brewing Company’s project.
Why Drupal was chosen
When it came to decide which tool to accomplish this project goals, Drupal came on top as it provided the necessary reusability and implementation speed. This was possible due to the use of Multisite, which provides modular templating capabilities that fits well with any company Design System while allowing each project to have their own branding and custom components.
Our team focused on implementing Labbat's Design System on Drupal before creating the first site. This allowed parallel implementation of the sites of the brand and ultimately the delivery of many websites in a tight schedule.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
