"Even our most critical editor is excited"

Thanks to a new Content Management System, NU.nl, the biggest news site in The Netherlands, is now able to maintain and edit the high number of its news sources much more efficiently. The migration took place at the end of 2008 and went unnoticed by the average of 1.5 million daily visitors of the site. "This is a great compliment to the builder of the application, Ibuildings," says Joris van Lierop of Ilse Media, the parent company of NU.nl.

In order for NU.nl to cope with its rapid growth, a powerful content management system was needed. Van Lierop describes: "Over the years, our CMS had accommodated various sites in addition to NU.nl, such as NUfoto, NUjij, NUzakelijk, NUsport and NUbijlage. It was therefore high time for an extensive migration. As a result, editors can now change articles more quickly and on different NU-sites. Even our most critical editor is enthusiastic about the change."

Focus on users, not technology

When developing the new CMS, Ibuildings focused primarily on the editors’ daily operations. Van Lierop explains: "At the heart of the change were users, not technology. Ibuildings investigated how our editors were working, and regularly consulted with them to understand their daily processes. This resulted in a CMS that gives maximum freedom to our editors – which is necessary in a hectic environment such as ours, where everything revolves around the latest news." To ensure the quality of the CMS system, NU.nl ordered an external code audit to test it. "The conclusion was that such robust and secure software is usually found only in the banking sector. That says quite a bit…"

Right on schedule and within budget

Van Lierop is very satisfied with how the migration process was carried out. IT projects such as this are often difficult – something that Van Lierop knows all about: "Migration is usually a nightmare for publishers, but this one was not problematic at all. The entire process was completed on time, within budget and according to our requirements. Especially the completion of such a large project within the planned six months really is exceptional. Usually something like this takes at least twice as long."

Rare quality

Ilse Media has worked with Ibuildings in the past, too. Van Lierop describes the reasons behind choosing Ibuildings: "We chose Ibuildings not only because of the results for the end users, but also because Ibuildings as a supplier is very cost-effective. In addition, during previous joint projects, Ibuildings has already proven to deliver well on time and within budget limits. This was certainly the case again, and it's a rare quality in our world," says Van Lierop.