Barloworld Motor Retail Case Study

The Brief

Challenge & Objectives

Challenge

Launching an internal division at Barloworld Motor Industries to streamline dealership brands through a unified CMS presented multifaceted challenges. Managing diverse brand identities while ensuring compliance with each brand's digital CI and accommodating the nuances of used car sales demanded a tailored approach. Balancing the technical complexities of integrating various controllers' layouts and expectations added another layer of complexity.

Objectives

Develop and implement a CMS system tailored to each dealership brand's digital CI while ensuring seamless integration and compliance. Create a custom control/view specifically designed to align with multiple brand CI for used car sales, enhancing user experience and optimizing sales processes.

Project Scope

Customizing CMS for multiple dealership brands (VW, Ford, Mazda, Isuzu, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes) to comply with individual digital CI and incorporating a bespoke control/view for used car sales.

Tools

Umbraco CMS,C#,ASP.NET, HTML and CSS for front-end design,JS.

Role

Leading UI/UX development, steering the design process, creating views and controls in HTML and CSS, and ensuring alignment with brand CI and project objectives.

Team

Self directed, with feedback from the mentor and peers.

The Research

Research Synthesis

To synthesize the qualitative data gathered from user interactions, I created an empathy map to identify patterns across dealership brands using the CMS system. This helped uncover key insights, understand challenges, and determine actionable improvements for managing digital brand consistency efficiently.

Insights

Dealerships struggle with maintaining brand compliance due to varying digital CI requirements.
There is no unified system to manage and update multiple brand layouts, leading to inconsistencies.
Content updates are slow and inefficient due to the lack of a centralized CMS tailored for each brand's needs.
The absence of automated brand-specific templates results in manual errors and misalignment with corporate guidelines.

Needs

A CMS framework that supports multiple dealership brands while maintaining individual digital CI compliance.
A modular system that allows for easy content updates while preserving brand integrity.
Automated templates and predefined UI components that align with each brand's guidelines.
A scalable solution that accommodates new brands and evolving digital standards.

Going Deeper

Research & Strategy

Plan & Goals

Understand each dealership brand's distinct digital CI requirements and non-negotiables.

Identify common pain points in managing brand assets across multiple dealership brands.

Design a CMS that enforces brand compliance without restricting operational flexibility.

Assumptions → Findings

Tap a row to see what the research found.

0 / 3 revealed

✓ Confirmed

VW, Mazda, Toyota — every brand had non-negotiable CI rules covering typography, colour, imagery, and layout. The CMS had to enforce these by design, not by trust.

✓ Confirmed

Dealerships needed a CMS that enforced compliance while allowing flexibility for promotions and updates. Pre-built, brand-locked templates dramatically reduced errors and approval cycles.

✓ Confirmed

Automated brand updates helped dealerships stay aligned with evolving corporate digital standards. Marketing teams preferred predefined layouts that simplified content updates and removed the risk of non-compliant designs.

Methodologies

Brand Guidelines Analysis — Reviewed digital CI requirements for each dealership brand including VW, Ford, Mazda, and Toyota.
Competitive Analysis — Evaluated existing CMS solutions used by comparable automotive groups to identify gaps and opportunities.
Workflow Evaluation — Assessed current content management practices to pinpoint inefficiencies and manual workarounds.

Stakeholder Interviews — Engaged marketing teams, dealership managers, and designers to surface operational needs and pain points.
Usability Testing — Tested prototype CMS features with dealership teams to assess both usability and brand compliance.
Data Analysis — Reviewed content update cycles and brand compliance reports to identify recurring gaps and failure points.

Design Principle

"Brand compliance by design, not by trust."

When a system is built to enforce the rules, teams don't need to remember them. The CMS makes the right choice the default — and the wrong choice difficult to reach.

The Product