Alcon

The Client

Alcon is a global leader in eye care, developing and marketing innovative products for vision conditions and eye diseases. The Systane brand represents one of Alcon's key product lines, requiring a strong digital presence across multiple global markets. Before this project, Systane maintained over 300 market-specific websites, creating management challenges and inconsistent user experiences.

The Situation

Alcon urgently needed to consolidate its fragmented digital ecosystem for the Systane brand. The company managed over 300 market-specific sites, creating excessive operational overhead, delayed time-to-market for updates, and inconsistent user experiences. Alcon aimed to develop a unified global multilingual website while maintaining necessary market-specific functionality. The company set an ambitious goal to reduce the total number of sites to fewer than 20 by 2025.

The Challenge

Alcon encountered several significant challenges in this consolidation effort:

• Overcoming existing Acquia Site Factory symlink configuration constraints to enable selective overrides for consolidated markets
• Maintaining the functionality of single-market sites during the transition period
• Ensuring seamless integration and accessibility improvements from the initial launch
• Balancing immediate functionality needs in active markets with the gradual transition to the unified solution
• Managing content localization requirements across diverse global markets

The Solution

Alcon worked directly with Acquia and their design, content, and development teams to implement a comprehensive solution. The approach focused on:

Custom configurations: Alcon built custom configurations to override Acquia Site Factory symlinks for markets migrated to the global site, allowing selective control while maintaining the overall architecture.

Platform optimization: The team leveraged Acquia Site Factory and Acquia Site Studio to empower marketers and content partners across global regions, enabling efficient content management without technical bottlenecks.

Scalable consolidation: Alcon deployed a scalable approach to consolidate content while preserving necessary localization for diverse markets, ensuring each region maintained appropriate messaging and regulatory compliance.

Accessibility enhancements: The project prioritized accessibility improvements from day one, addressing numerous pre-existing issues to create a more inclusive digital experience.

Phased implementation: The solution supported active single-market sites and the new consolidated global platform, allowing for a measured transition without disrupting ongoing operations.

Acquia's platform enabled rapid deployment, streamlined content management, and robust security features, aligning perfectly with Alcon's mission to create a unified, efficient digital presence for the Systane brand.

The Results

The MyAlcon Systane Global Website project delivered significant measurable outcomes:

Site consolidation: Achieved a 33% reduction in the number of sites globally in 2024, with a projected 99% reduction by Q2 2025.

Operational efficiency: Reduced operational overhead by 51%, allowing teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than managing fragmented systems.

Accelerated market expansion: Streamlined the rollout process, enabling 2-3 additional markets per release as content gets translated and added.

Enhanced accessibility: The unified platform addressed numerous pre-existing accessibility issues, creating a more inclusive user experience.

Market leadership: The modern, unified design positioned Systane as a digital market leader in the eye care industry.

The unified global website now serves as the digital foundation of Systane's growth strategy, balancing brand consistency with necessary market localization. The successful consolidation demonstrates the effectiveness of Alcon's strategic approach and Acquia's powerful platform capabilities. The Drupal-based solution positions Systane for continued efficiency gains and improved customer experiences across global markets.