How Fortnox Maximized Their Site Production Process’s Efficiency
Fortnox AB is a business platform, connecting people, businesses, and organizations for over 20 years. With smart technical products, solutions, and services, Fortnox helps businesses to start, grow, develop and connect them to hundreds of external parties, and businesses in Sweden.
We spoke with Rikard Demitz-Helin, a product owner for Fortnox’s web team, also known as Team Greenhouse. Demitz-Helin has been with the company for about a year and was recruited for the specific role of starting a new commercial website and implementing Storyblok as its CMS. He and his team are responsible for implementation, analytics, search tools, and other resources that support the content creation process.
Origins & Roadblocks
Before Storyblok, Fortnox was using a monolithic CMS, which limited their ability to run their website effectively. The increased workload on the development due to the tightly-knit monolithic infrastructure meant deploying campaigns promptly was a struggle, leading to missed opportunities. Having to contend with on-going tech issues due to the outdated and inflexible setup, it was hard to predict what other parts of the site might accidentally be altered by edits and made for a monolithic system that was too rigid to be used effectively and efficiently in the long run.
Finding Storyblok and making the switch
With these issues in mind, Fortnox started searching for a new CMS solution. For help in the decision-making process, they reached out to a consultant firm. The firm offered several options that fit Fortnox’s requirement for a headless CMS.
While considering which system was right for them, the team evaluated their options from both a developer’s and editor's point of view. Their rigorous search came to an end when Storyblok emerged as the best fit. When it comes to why Storyblok won out, the reasons came down to ease of use: the simple yet powerful system meant that the developers, editors, and designers could work closely yet independently within an interface that supported their shared goals.
This aspect was particularly supported by Storyblok’s visual editor. Other headless CMSs couldn’t offer a comparably easy way to manage content, making them difficult to work with.
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The Visual Editor in Storyblok is amazing to work with as an editor or as a user. That is one of the absolute biggest upsides.
Settling into the new system
Fortnox mainly uses Storyblok to power their main marketing website as well as all of the content within, some of which is fetched via API from other platforms. In fact, Demitz-Helin estimates that 90% of their content is powered by Storyblok, including:
- Product data used in the checkout process, such as descriptions and images
- Company-specific metrics are provided to users upon login
- Curated blog articles organized by Storyblok’s tagging system
As for how many Fortnox employees use Storyblok, there are currently 40 participants. Demitz-Helin estimates that half of these are developers and the other half are editors. Storyblok has proven to be a robust system that can handle daily changes and additions, making production more efficient for both teams.
It’s pretty much magic. If content editors want to do a new blog article, go ahead! Just write it and publish it. We don’t have to be involved.
Another Storyblok feature that Fortnox has found useful is Content Types. Content Types allow developers to provide editors with a standardized format to create pages. For example, the developer team can set up a template product page that uses the exact same component every time. Then editors can use this structure to create customized yet consistent content. This makes production easier and faster while also presenting a polished result.
Moreover, Storyblok is able to provide all of these features with a minimal learning curve. In fact, Fortnox found that users were mostly able to adjust to the CMS just by using it and exploring themselves. As such, they decided they only had to provide new team members with a brief introduction rather than a formalized training session.
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I don’t scratch my head around Storyblok
Rikard Demitz-Helin Product Owner for Team Greenhouse | Fortnox -
The Visual Editor in Storyblok is amazing to work with as an editor or as a user. That is one of the absolute biggest upsides.
Rikard Demitz-Helin Product Owner for Team Greenhouse | Fortnox
Key Takeaways
The power of an easy editing experience should not be underestimated. This is especially true when you’re handling a lot of essential operations like Fortnox does daily. A minimal learning curve, efficiency, and editor independence can make all the difference between a clunky content creation process and one that empowers both developers and editors. Fortnox found all of these qualities in Storyblok. By embracing the most streamlined features possible, the company is free to continue supporting its clients without missing a beat.
