The Best Upgrade Success Stories
Key Takeaways
- Organizations unified complex multi-site ecosystems, cutting complexity and improving consistency at scale.
- Teams gained stronger technical foundations, better performance, and reduced long-term maintenance.
- Marketers got real control over content, commerce, and customer journeys without developer dependency.
- Upgrade wins span healthcare, travel, financial services, sports, and more, proving the platform delivers across industries.
The idea of a platform upgrade can be daunting, but it can open up a whole new world of possibilities for marketers that often quickly prove to be transformative. The best Xperience by Kentico upgrade stories for 2026 show the positive effects of a platform upgrade in practice across industries, from healthcare franchises and tourism to financial services and sports. Each organization had different goals, but the outcomes point in the same direction: long-term success.
Common goals for these upgrades include the improvement of operational efficiency, stronger SEO and site performance that stands out in AI and traditional search and getting access to a stronger technical foundation that can support expansion. These stories show how an upgrade can reshape both day-to-day operations and outcomes. Take a look at what each organization achieved and get inspired to make your own upgrade in 2026.
Reasons For Upgrading
Before upgrading, each team had reached a turning point with their legacy platform, whether driven by risk, ambition, or simply the need to grow.
Some were managing large networks of sites across disconnected systems, making it hard to keep experiences consistent and scalable. Others needed more advanced features but were held back by older technology that couldn't support modern capabilities like AI. And even organizations with strong, high-performing sites recognized that staying competitive meant continuously evolving.
Across these situations, the reasons for upgrading were strikingly similar:
- Improving operational efficiency by unifying complex ecosystems
- Creating a stronger digital foundation that can support new technologies
- SEO enhancements, better performance and increased engagement
- Helping marketers with a more user-friendly digital platform
For every team that had outgrown their platform, upgrading gave them the tools and confidence to market more effectively.
Unifying Complex Digital Ecosystems
For many organizations, one of the biggest motivators for upgrading was the need to reduce complexity. Managing multiple sites, vendors, or disconnected workflows makes it harder to stay consistent across channels, and even harder to maintain control when it's time to scale.
Upgrading to Xperience by Kentico helped solve this by giving teams a unified foundation that centralizes content management and digital marketing. Bluebird Care and ACF Fiorentina are two strong examples. Both teams faced the same core challenge: disconnected systems making it hard to stay consistent and in control. Upgrading gave them a single platform to work from.
- Bluebird Care managed two corporate sites and 250+ franchise microsites. With assistance from Ridgeway, they used their upgrade to centralize content management and keep every site consistent.
- ACF Fiorentina, with help from Exetera, unified their systems and digital presence across web and mobile, reducing operational costs and simplifying fan interactions through centralized contact data.
Building a Stronger Foundation for Performance
When digital demands grow, platform performance can't be an afterthought. Speed, reliability, and efficient management are the foundation everything else is built on. Upgrading to Xperience by Kentico gave these teams a stronger technical base to work from, while making day-to-day management less of a burden.
Each team had reached the limits of their current platform’s capabilities, making upgrading the logical next step.
- Toyota Belgium, working with Blastic, upgraded to strengthen security, improve site performance, and maintain access to ongoing platform support.
- Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions (MEIDS), partnering with BizStream, needed a smarter way to manage multilingual content across six regions while reducing long-term maintenance through a versionless platform with built-in support.
Upgrading for Better Personalized Experiences
Another clear theme across each upgrade story is the role of personalization and user-centered design in strengthening engagement. The ability to craft more intuitive digital journeys, surface insights for creating relevant content, and help users easily make decisions is a common driving force for upgrading.
Upgrading also opened the door to more precise marketing and improved customer experiences. These Site of the Year winners show what becomes possible when the right tools are finally in place. A shared thread between these two: upgrading gave their teams the capability to move faster, work more efficiently, and create experiences that actually reflect how their audiences want to engage.
- National Association of Independent Schools, working with ByteMinds, streamlined their marketing automation and content workflows to operate more efficiently and effectively.
- Bob W., partnering with IDHL, improved search, refreshed their brand, built orchestrated customer journeys, and gained the ability to reuse content across their platform.
Commerce Improvements for Customers and Marketers
Customers expect commerce experiences they can trust. With growing demands for speed and personalization, legacy platforms often struggle to keep up.
This is especially true in travel, tourism, and transportation, where digital commerce serves millions of customers who expect seamless service every day. Translink and BridgeClimb Sydney both upgraded with a similar goal: enhance commerce and stay compliant. Across both stories, the upgrade wasn't just a technical improvement; it was a direct investment in the customer experience, making every interaction faster, more reliable, and easier to trust.
- Translink, working with MSQ DX, built a headless-ready foundation that improved ecommerce capabilities and strengthened compliance across their platform.
- BridgeClimb Sydney, partnering with Webcoda, upgraded to increase online bookings, improve conversion rates, and deliver a more accessible customer journey that makes it easier to discover, understand, and book a climb.
Behind the Scenes: Improved Control for Content Teams
Aside from creating better experiences for customers, a common theme across these upgrade stories was the positive impact on internal teams. A successful upgrade changes how marketers, editors, and content teams work behind the scenes.
With Xperience by Kentico, managing content, maintaining governance, and publishing faster becomes the new normal. Low-code editing, centralized content management, and reusable components help teams bring ideas to life without relying on developers for every change, giving marketing teams real control over their digital execution. These stories serve as great examples:
- Beacon Bank, formerly Berkshire Bank, partnered with ZAG Interactive to upgrade to a flexible, scalable CMS to better align customer journeys with business goals while improving content management and ADA compliance. The result was a site that was easier to use for customers and easier to manage for internal teams, without the technical barriers of their legacy platform.
- Andrews Federal Credit Union, collaborating with SilverTech, upgraded to access Xperience by Kentico's new digital marketing features and strengthen their foundation for ongoing improvements. Their new platform is easier for marketers to manage, making it easier to update content for members whether they're researching loan rates or finding a nearby branch.
Stay Ready for What’s Next
As Kentico Xperience 13 approaches end of support, upgrading to Xperience by Kentico gives organizations a clear path forward, with the digital marketing and content management tools they need to make a measurable impact in any industry.
As every upgrade success story shows, moving to Xperience by Kentico can unlock stronger ROI through AI-powered capabilities, a unified platform, and a flexible foundation that brings digital marketing and content management together in one solution.
Whether the goal is to consolidate hundreds of sites, modernize legacy architecture, stay competitive in a demanding industry, or remove barriers that slow teams down, Xperience by Kentico helps organizations turn their upgrade into a strategic advantage.
Get ready for your upgrade
Upgrading from Kentico Xperience 13 to Xperience by Kentico gives your marketing and development teams a unified and future-proof platform with native AI that reduces complexity, and helps you create more impactful customer experiences.
