Sector(s)

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Organizations Involved

Boerenbond is the largest professional organisation in the agricultural sector for farmers and horticulturists in Belgium. Its main focus lies on advocacy, education and information, services for members, alongside representation services and enablement of cooperation in production, supply and sales. Boerenbond is responsible for a variety of subsidiaries, including Dag Van De Landbouw (Agriculture Day) and Innovatiesteunpunt (a support center for the sector). Even though all associated organisations have the same underlying values and objectives, they are marked by individual corporate identities.

About the project

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Challenge

Although each subsidiary already had its own (legacy) website, there was a lack of overall structure. Boerenbond wanted to achieve a consistent online presence across its different organizations. After a workshop track with all stakeholders, we decided to set guidelines on the following aspects: 

  • Concept and design

  • CMS architecture

  • Project management

An additional challenge for Boerenbond was the need for a fast lane for high-priority updates. Key points: extremely fast release time, manageable by a small internal team. Agility, speed and ease of maintenance were key drivers.

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Result

Boerenbond teamed up with Dropsolid to co-create its digital future and to continue developing and enhancing existing online platforms. Combining resources and knowledge resulted in higher efficiency in development, maintenance and project updates. Boerenbond can now choose to involve our Dropsolid consultants as it sees fit. This on-demand approach is a textbook example of co-sourcing.

This This approach is technically supported by the Dropsolid Platform, which we use to develop, deploy and maintain over 20 Boerenbond websites. The platform enables structured web development. All developers use the same set of standards and deployment of new features is done in an automated fashion. The platform is connected to development, pre-production and production environments. New features are tested, approved and deployed in a ‘continuous integration' flow.

The result for Boerenbond:

  • Excellent balance between the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), efficiency and room for individual corporate branding by subsidiaries, all made possible by using the Dropsolid Platform and its Rocketship installers

  • 50% cost savings for adding additional websites on the platform

  • Boerenbond's web team is less dependent on external partners thanks to internal knowledge-building and co-sourcing

Boerenbond was looking to intensify its collaboration with external suppliers. The on-demand use of our Dropsolid consultants allows the organisation to keep a tight check on its IT costs and call on a specific profile when needed. Additional cost savings were possible through advanced automation and use of our platform.

  • The Dropsolid Platform was installed and connected to development-, staging- and production environments.

  • Existing websites were migrated to the platform.

  • The Boerenbond website was enhanced with several new features, including a newsfeed, activity calendar, search module, subscription flow and preference centre.

  • We created a default install profile to speed up development of additional websites.

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Why Drupal was chosen

Drupal was chosen because it provides all possibilities needed for the various separate websites and projects of Boerenbond. With Drupal Boerenbond was able to integrate their existing content infrastructure solutions and custom Single sign-on software. That’s why they only need to log in once to access all their 20 websites. This way they can implement that integration across different projects, while still having the flexibility to allow those projects to fit their own needs.

Technical Specifications

Drupal version: