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Choosing Contentstack CMS pays off for Harbor Capital Advisors

The development team was getting pressure from the marketing team to revamp the website and its CMS. It was estimated that it would take a year or more to make the changes with their legacy CMS.

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75%
faster to publish content
75%
reduction in developer time
75%
increase in published content
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Harbor's development team was getting pressure from the marketing team to revamp the website and its CMS. When they looked at updating their legacy CMS, it was estimated that it would take a year or more to make the changes, which was way too long. Harbor decided to look into using a headless CMS. After evaluating an exhaustive list of companies, they chose Contentstack.

The solution

One of the main reasons for choosing Contentstack was that it offered a simple, straightforward user interface that didn’t require reading the documentation to use. Contentstack also included other options like modular blocks that were not available in other CMSes.

When it came to the overall project management framework and onboarding, Harbor appreciated having a project success manager and a solution architect to point out what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s going to scale.

“I think the onboarding was one of the better experiences that I’ve had compared to other vendors, said Pradeep Tekkey, senior vice president of Information Technology.

The project execution was far shorter than anticipated. It included adopting many new technologies, such as the React.js framework and the back-end architecture of integrating data using GraphQL and implementing Gatsby for fast page loading.

“One of the biggest benefits of Contentstack is the ease of use. I think anyone in our company could go into the system, and if they know the content type, they can manage the content,” said Jason Hagen, software architect at Harbor Capital Advisors. With their previous, traditional CMS, the publishing process was significantly longer. Now with Contentstack, publishing is over 75% faster. What took days now takes minutes.

One of the biggest benefits of Contentstack is the ease of use. I think anyone in our company could go into the system, and if they know the content type, they can manage the content.

Jason Hagen | Software Architect, Harbor Capital Advisors

With their previous, traditional CMS, the publishing process was significantly longer. Now with Contentstack, publishing is over 75% faster. What took days now takes minutes.

“Contentstack listens to its customers. Our content editor suggested some features in the product’s online chat feature, and a couple of the features made it into the system. That was pretty cool,” Hagen said.

With Contentstack, Harbor is producing more content, such as news articles and webinar announcements. “Using the previous framework required a developer to publish new content," Tekkey said. "It was a drag on developers because they had to be part of the process, and the fact that the developers are not required is a significant efficiency for us.”

With Contentstack, Harbor is reducing its developer’s time by at least 75%.

Other than publishing new funds, the previous site was mostly static content. After Contentstack, the site changes weekly,sometimes daily.

“This is made possible by Contentstack’s intuitive interface," Hagen said. "It allows content editors to compose new pages and even create entirely new sections with a couple of clicks and then neatly bundle all the changes into a release to deploy in a single batch and do all of this without requiring a developer.” Another benefit is the ability to reuse content, Tekkey said. “Contentstack helps us use the same content in different places. We are using some of the content stored in Contentstack with the other marketing production applications. We are extracting value from the Contentstack platform. We’re aggressively making changes to the website. We’re trying to draw people in, and we haven’t done that before. We can spin up new pages faster now than they could previously.”

Contentstack listens to its customers. Our content editor suggested some features in the product’s online chat feature, and a couple of the features made it into the system. That was pretty cool.

Jason Hagen | Software Architect, Harbor Capital Advisors

The results

  • Reduced developer's time by more than 75%
  • Expanded content production
  • Increased site change frequency to weekly, sometimes daily

Company

For over 30 years, Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. has served as a gateway for clients to access talented, institutional caliber asset managers through active, cost-aware investments. Harbor identifies specialists in each asset class to manage portfolios and applies a comprehensive oversight program to monitor their performance and ensure their decisions are in their clients’ best interest. Harbor offers the benefit of an institutional caliber portfolio manager, in addition to a professional adviser to maintain manager accountability. As of October 31, 2019, Harbor managed $45 billion assets under management.

Industry

Banking & financial services

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