At the begin­ning of my intern­ship at Uhlmann, I joined the DXP project without knowing what to expect. Digital Expe­ri­ence Plat­form (DXP) – the term alone sounded exciting and promising. But what lay behind it was not just a tech­nical plat­form, but a project that I was able to expe­ri­ence first-hand, with all its chal­lenges, moments of success and, of course, lots of new expe­ri­ences.

From idea to real­i­sa­tion – a student’s perspec­tive

Our website at the time could be compared to an old car: outdated, slow and not partic­u­larly user-friendly. Visi­bility declined because the page struc­ture and content did not meet the require­ments of search engines and the navi­ga­tion was like a labyrinth.

One of my first and most impor­tant tasks was to support the relaunch of the website. We analysed the existing website, iden­ti­fied weak­nesses and devel­oped solu­tions that were inte­grated into the new Digital Expe­ri­ence Plat­form (DXP). As a team, we planned the content and struc­ture of the new website to improve the user expe­ri­ence (UX) and increase rele­vance and quality. The UX describes all of a person’s percep­tions and reac­tions when using or expecting to use a product/system. At the same time, we devel­oped a clear and intu­itive navi­ga­tion to increase the inter­ac­tivity of the website.

Another key aspect of my tasks was testing the modules in the system and trans­fer­ring existing content to the new DXP, which allows customer enquiries to be collected, provided and converted into sales oppor­tu­ni­ties as part of lead gener­a­tion. By intro­ducing the new digital corpo­rate design and clear user guid­ance, I trans­ferred the existing data and infor­ma­tion from the old website to the new plat­form.

Another impor­tant part of the project was the devel­op­ment of an edito­rial process for the creation and regular updating of content. This process should clearly show the steps and be effi­cient and struc­tured.

Mastering chal­lenges, cele­brating successes

Of course, not every­thing went smoothly. One of the biggest chal­lenges was recon­ciling the different perspec­tives and require­ments. What worked well for one depart­ment didn’t always work for the others. But it was precisely this collab­o­ra­tion that showed how impor­tant an open dialogue is. Solu­tions were found together, and the end result was a plat­form that met all require­ments.

Of course, there were also some partic­u­larly moti­vating moments. For example, when a complex work­flow finally worked, a long coor­di­na­tion process led to a clear result or the first test runs of the plat­form received posi­tive feed­back.

Figures, data, progress: an overview

The result of the project is impres­sive: The new DXP is not only a plat­form of various networked solu­tions and tech­nolo­gies to offer (poten­tial) customers a high-quality and stan­dard­ised expe­ri­ence across all digital chan­nels, but also a reflec­tion of the collab­o­ra­tion at Uhlmann. The successful imple­men­ta­tion has created a basis on which future projects can build.

It has now been live since July 2024 – Uhlmann’s DXP – a result that everyone involved can be proud of. Because it shows: At Uhlmann, the focus is not only on inno­va­tion and tech­nology, but above all on the people who make these inno­va­tions possible.

But that’s just the begin­ning

We have created a solid basis for the Digital Expe­ri­ence Plat­form, which is now being expanded further. The „MyUhlmann“ customer portal is currently a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. an initial func­tional version. In order to create added value for our customers, we need to inte­grate addi­tional func­tion­al­i­ties. We are currently working on bringing the infor­ma­tion on e-learning onto the plat­form.

There are also ongoing projects such as the expan­sion of modules, the expan­sion of content and the search engine opti­mi­sa­tion of content.