A personality test helps the visitor find a heating system

Best Practice: How Viessmann Makes Its Corporate Website More Flexible

Best Practice: Viessmann

The Viessmann Group is one of the leading international manufacturers of heating, industrial and cooling systems. Viessmann has an international orientation. Some 55 percent of turnover is generated abroad. The family business employs 12,100 people in 23 production companies in 12 countries and is represented by sales companies and agencies in 74 countries.


Viessmann was looking for a new CMS in order to be able to react faster and more flexibly to the respective market requirements with 75 country pages. "Infopark's CMS made us curious and we are very pleased with how easy it is to create new content or new pages," says the Viessmann project manager.

Viessmann, one of the leading international manufacturers of heating, industrial and cooling systems, commissioned us to relaunch its corporate website. With the old website, the contents of the German pages were translated and then transferred to all other 74 country pages. This no longer did justice to the different international market developments and customer requirements. The individual maintenance of so many pages was not possible with the old CMS. "We were not able to reflect the particularities of the different markets. In addition, the old content management was too slow and too cumbersome. In our search for a modern CMS, Infopark was convincing," reports Colin Miller, Product Marketing Manager at Viessmann and project manager of the website relaunch.

The new CMS makes it easier for web editors 

Viessmann had many requirements for the new CMS. It should support native multilingualism and the individual country pages should be able to be adapted more flexibly. ERP systems, databases and assistance functions were to be integrated and the machining processes largely automated. The main focus was on simple operation by the editors.

Viessmann is now using our Scrivito content management system. Scrivito was developed by Infopark for digital agencies and medium-sized to large companies. It differs from other CMS in that it is 100% cloud-based. It therefore does not require a company to host its own servers, which then have to be administered by the IT department. This eliminates the need to worry about timely updates and security patches. Greater flexibility was particularly important for Viessmann. 

“We are very fond of how easy it is to create new content or new pages. The editors do not need any special technical knowledge for this," Colin Miller confirmed. He emphasizes the use of small, reusable widgets as program elements with which editors can very easily add new functions such as Google Maps to the pages. 

Viessmann Corporate Website on Scrivito

Viessmann had many requirements for the new CMS. It should support native multilingualism and the individual country pages should be able to be adapted more flexibly.

The web pages become more current and more informative

Visitors to Viessmann's website expect more information and more help, for example in finding the right heating system. We developed an assistant for this purpose, which then gives interested parties a recommendation for a heating solution on the basis of questions. If he is looking for a suitable plumber in his area, another assistant on the page will help him. This function is linked to a Viessmann database with contract partners and the visitor also receives the location of the plumber with the Google Maps widget.

The new CMS will enable each country website to be better adapted to different market requirements in the future. This way, the preferred products can be placed in the foreground and the different information needs of consumers and B2B customers can be better addressed. The editors are supported, for example, by ready-made processes for creating new landing pages for country-specific campaigns. In the background, the functions are integrated into automated processes and reduce the administrative effort.

With Infopark's new CMS, editors can now insert new functions such as Google Maps into their pages much more easily with the help of small, reusable program elements (widgets).

Flexible handling of changes during the project

"Thanks to its simple operation, editors no longer need as much time to add new content or adapt content. In addition, the processes are well adapted to our needs. This was also successful because the employees were involved in setting up the new CMS at a very early stage and were able to make their suggestions," says Colin Miller, describing the advantages for Viessmann.

The intensive involvement of end users is a general project principle for us at Infopark. Because we work with an agile project methodology, we divide large projects into many small work packages. This allows us to deliver individual functional elements at short intervals, which are then tested by the employees. This enables us to receive important suggestions for improvement at a very early stage. Our project methodology also includes an intensive exchange with the customer, for example with a 15 to 30-minute video conference every morning at the same time. We talk about the progress made on the project and clarify current requirements, as the details usually change several times during the course of the project. This makes us very flexible for changes during the project.

Colin Miller, Viessmann's project manager, confirms how important good cooperation is for project success, "We already knew the agile project method. Nevertheless, the cooperation with Infopark surprised us positively. Infopark is not only very flexible, but also very reliable.” He therefore has confidence in Infopark's team that the further steps of the project will be implemented successfully. He praises the project results achieved so far and the form of cooperation: "We work very closely together and are a team. This also makes it more fun. I can recommend Infopark as a project partner.”

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