SOS International

Background

One organisation, too many solutions:

SOS International's websites in Sweden, Norway, and Finland were all solving essentially the same problem: getting users to call. No webshop, no subscriptions. Just a content hub with clear calls to action and strong SEO, helping the right users find their way when it mattered most.

But the three countries each ran on their own platform. That meant three times the maintenance, three times the service agreements, and no way to share content or components across markets. On top of that, the platforms were due for renewal, both technically and from a security standpoint. Whenever something needed updating, it had to be done in three places.

SOS International wanted a way to bring it all together. The ambition was both practical and strategic: fewer systems to maintain, lower running costs, and the ability to manage content across markets from a single place.

Solution

Reuse, not rebuild:

The answer was to reuse whatever could be reused. All the components built for the Danish site could be applied directly: menus, sections, content blocks, performance setup. The only thing that needed adapting was the visual theme.

The Danish site runs in yellow and grey. SOS International's other markets run in red, white, and blue. A new colour theme per country, along with a few market-specific tweaks, made it possible to build three new websites on exactly the same foundation, relatively quickly.

One CMS, five sites:

What is clever about the solution is not just that it is working, it is that day-to-day operations have become significantly simpler.

Editors log in from a single place and choose which market to work on: the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, or Finnish site. If a piece of content needs to be shared across borders, they simply switch over to the ready-made template. At the same time, the setup allows for local adaptation, for example, keeping the webshop exclusive to Denmark, where subscription sales apply. Similarly, the information architecture has been rethought for each country based on what local users are looking for: quick access to help, contact details, and a strong local SEO presence.

Impact

Three websites in four months

Sweden, Norway, and Finland went live together, four months after the work began. Time to market was fast, since the foundation was already in place.

• Three new websites launched simultaneously within 4 months
  

• Platform maintenance costs reduced by approximately 50%

• One unified Umbraco solution powering 5 websites across four countries

• Editorial maintenance consolidated in one place, with a shared component library

• All five sites upgraded to Umbraco 17 simultaneously, future upgrades happen in one place and roll out across all markets