How NHP is redefining customer engagement with a composable approach and XM Cloud

Note: Video transcript has been edited to provide a summary of this episode.

Sean: Hi everybody. Welcome to Digital Visionaries, where we uncover how forward-thinking leaders are building the future of digital experience. Today, we're speaking with Robbie Attard and Allen Rigby from NHP manufacturing and distribution, a brand that's redefining customer engagement. We're going to explore how Sitecore XM Cloud and composable architectures are reshaping B2B digital journeys, and what the next chapter in the manufacturing and distribution experience might look like.

Sean: Gentlemen, thanks for joining me. Robbie, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Robbie Attard: I’ve been here at NHP nine and a half years and helped them through their digital transformation–and we're still going.

Sean: Allen, tell me a little bit about your role at NHP.

Allen Rigby: I've been with NHP for 15 years. Now, I don't come from IT or digital. This is something which I've moved into as I've spent some time with the company. I started as an engineer. I spent a lot of time in sales, a lot of time in marketing. And then when we restructured to better support our digital transformation, I was approached and asked as somebody who always had something to say about the website, would I like to own it? And I, of course, said yeah.

Sean: Always nice to get that rounded experience before jumping into roles like this. Robbie, let's start with digital transformation at NHP and how has this become a core business focus?

Robbie Attard: We're quite fortunate at NHP that digital transformation and technology really now has a big seat at the table in terms of driving business change.

Over the past nine years I've been here, we've got a lot more strategic discussions early at the table, which is from a technology perspective and the issues are really focused now on business outcomes rather than just implementing and managing the technology. And there's a real thirst at NHP for adopting new technologies.

Sean: And in terms of the actual product set as well, for folks to have a really good sense of the type of industry and business you're in, can you give us an outline of that space as well?

Robbie Attard: We are a Microsoft shop, so right across the board we're a very heavy Dynamics user, both finance and operations. Whilst we don't have thousands and thousands of seats, like a lot of other customers, we use the product very broadly. Obviously that and the Sitecore composable suite that we're implementing now–they're probably two key applications that we use.

It really drives customer experience and fulfilment. So we use it quite broadly and we're now really leveraging the composable benefits and the integration that we can between all those systems.

Sean: Allen, Robbie mentioned there that focus on customer experience, how does that translate into meaningful change within a manufacturing and distributor context like you have at NHP?

Allen Rigby: We are really focused on the digital customer experience as much as we are on other elements of our customer experience, and in that respect, Robbie and I are both very lucky that we don't have to work too hard to get executive support for initiatives, whether they're based on customer feedback, or whether they're based on initiatives that we determined from our customer base that would be beneficial.

One of the things that I focus on is to open up the feedback loop and establish some feedback and communication from our customers just to make sure that we know exactly what it is that they are finding valuable and what they need, so that we can deliver that. That not only improves the digital customer experience, but also the entire omnichannel experience.

Sean: What led NHP then at that point, to choose Sitecore's composable stack, and I think, what role does XM Cloud play in your strategy as well?

Robbie Attard: We have been a fairly long-term Sitecore customer, and one of the things that we did do as we were going through our digital transformation was implementing a new PIM.

The amount of products and the amount of data that we had to refactor was quite a big task. As well as that we weren't looking to have to plan another Sitecore legacy upgrade. So we were at the crossroads there for a while. So we looked and challenged ourselves on, how can we do this a little bit differently?

Because some of the feedback we're getting from the business, you really haven't delivered any functions and features of really any value for quite some time. You’re too busy underneath the iceberg instead of being on top of it. So we looked at ways that we could do that incrementally, obviously then we looked at the composable suite.

Sean: It is great to hear that focus on the customer experience, but also on the business outcomes that it's driving for NHP, we're obviously technologists and we're very focused on technology as well, but I love to see those impacts on overall business outcomes. Also, manufacturing and distribution businesses often have broad, complex customer bases. How are you using data and content to personalize at scale at NHP?

Allen Rigby: It's very interesting that you say that. Oftentimes when we're talking to customers and other Sitecore partners about our business, we start with our breadth of customer. So it's a very complex customer base.

We sell to a lot of different customer types who have a lot of different needs. And many times, some of our customers will value add to our products and then sell those on in some other form to more of our customers.

We're talking about electrical wholesalers, switchboard builders, systems integrators, OEMs, and also their customers. So it's sometimes a little complex for us to navigate. We'd always captured information and data on user interactions, but we didn't really use it to alter the experience of that customer.

And I mentioned before that so many of them have different needs.

Some examples could be customer channel or segment based homepages. So we now have seven homepages that you'll see different variants depending on who you are, and those are tailored to the needs of that customer. Some of them may be pre-sales product information and others might just be “where is my product that I've already ordered?”

So we make sure that we make that as accessible as possible.

Sean: We've talked about personalization and the promise of personalization for many years in marketing, but it's great to see that impact really filtering down into businesses like manufacturers, and distributors as well, because like you say that the breadth of products is so large, you do need that personalization for those different customer types, right?

Allen Rigby: Yeah, definitely. And I mentioned a little bit earlier about opening the feedback loop for customers. Unless you really understand what it is that they need, you can't tailor their experience otherwise. You are telling the customer what they want rather than asking them what they want –and delivering that.

Sean: Yeah. Let's shift to composable and composability. How has that shift to a composable architecture changed your approach to digital operations Robbie?

Robbie Attard: We might answer this in two ways, so I'll try and answer more from a tech perspective.

So I think some of the things around shifting to composable from a technology perspective, you really need to start to think differently. What are the other things that we tried to do and will allow the feedback that we had from the constant upgrades that we were doing. It was very long and there was lots of turnaround time for our marketing team.

To maybe get something that they didn't quite have, we had to develop something. So first and foremost, we really try to think in terms of autonomy. So making sure that we've got that self-sufficiency in mind once we hand something over to our marketing team so they can actually do their marketing without needing developers.

Robbie Attard: I think you also need to think a lot more broadly now because composable solutions rely on many other systems and solutions to work together as well. So you can't just think about that one little piece anymore. You need to think about the entire puzzle. Reusability too, making sure that we're building things no matter what channel we use with that consistency in mind.

So just making sure the customer can get that same experience, doesn't matter which channel they're coming through, and really making sure of that. We're thinking about the outcome or the outcome we're trying to achieve as we're building these things now, and there's a real focus on how we measure the success and embed that sort of thinking whilst we build and adjust when necessary.

Sean: Allen, if you want to expand on that from a customer perspective or marketing lens?

Allen Rigby: Robbie touched on so many points that they've improved our processes in within the business that the customers are starting to see as well. And a lot of it is being able to respond faster, experimenting in production rather than having to put everything through lower environments.

The delivery cycle and our ability to adapt has shrunk right back. So we're definitely making some changes and Robbie touched on a lot of those within the business that do flow through to the customer, and we're really starting to see that now. Now, whether it's our ability to turn a marketing campaign around in a super quick timeframe because our marketers are able to do that work in production without having to put things through law requirements or, the ability to implement things like AB testing, to really gather data about what's working with our customers.

We are seeing a lot of business improvements and we have feedback from customers as well as stats.

Sean: What ways from an XM cloud perspective, are you seeing that agility increase and how does that unlock almost like a digital dream team across marketing IT and sales?

Robbie Attard: We're starting to see some of that, and certainly what we're now able to leverage off the Sitecore suite as well as our CRM and marketing tools is really creating that digital ecosystem for us. And the combination of all those systems put together is really showing us the huge potential that we now have, and we're unlocking more and more ways to gain insights and add real true value to our customers.

Allen Rigby: So during the XM Cloud implementation, we really understood the value of designing and building for things like flexibility, reusability, personalization, what have you. And so now all of that discussion happens beforehand. The designers are involved with our developers during refinements. And that flows all the way through to testing and deployment.

So that's really helping us to develop less and market more as a business with the insights and the leads being gathered.

Sean: We absolutely love to hear that because I think it's almost like a misconception now that these teams are not actually working together. I think we're starting to see that at our large customer events and prospect events like Sitecore Symposium. We talk to technical teams as well, and they're laser-focused on making the marketing and sales teams effective, and I think that's a huge shift for a lot of businesses. You talked about some of those benefits. What are some of the most underrated or surprising wins that you've seen since adopting Sitecore’s stack?

Robbie Attard: So one of the first ones we stumbled across was really when we implemented Discover for our product search. We had a lot of noise previously around the way our search was bringing results up, not showing the right products, and all those sorts of things.

But now, searching for the most relevant products just comes much easier. So all the other things that we want to surface, we're going be able to do that much easier in Sitecore Search.

Sean: Really nice to see. Any other surprising wins that you've seen over the past while?

Allen Rigby: One of my favorite ones– I've really noticed a huge uplift in what I call the digital acumen of staff who aren't technical but are generally involved with the website or using it directly. So product managers are really involved in how their products look on the website.

They're shifting their focus to the documentation and the brochures and thinking how do I make sure that my customer can find my product in the fastest possible way? And with, few roadblocks. So that's really good for them to see and to get involved in that. And it's not just the product managers, customer service are promoting the use of the website to customers.

Robbie Attard: I think the other thing is we're getting good feedback from our customers. They like what we're doing. So you know, Allen talked before about, the customer feedback loop. And we do take that very seriously. Generally, the feedback you get on your website is always negative.

So we're getting plenty of positive feedback, either directly from customers or from sales reps saying the customers are really starting to utilize the platform a lot more.

Sean: Love to hear that. From a digital asset management perspective, what role do you see that playing in your digital experience evolution?

Robbie Attard: We've been able to really enable the storage and delivery of a lot more content and variance of that content, so now we can serve up to our customers the content that they want to see. So that's speed to market. Getting better insights on what content's working better or worse is also really important.

Now we can actually trust that our customers are getting the right information that they need when they need it to be utilized.

Allen Rigby: I'm noticing that business stakeholders really want to put their assets, documents, and information into the DAM because they can see the benefit of making this as available as possible to anyone who wants it. So we've had, I think we called it a hackathon, where our engineers, spent a period of time gathering as many of these assets as they possibly could put into the DAM.

I think that the end result is something like 3000 new assets put into the DAM, in that period of time. So there's certainly a drive within the business, which is really good to say.

Sean: I love to hear those implementations, especially where your product set is as wide and as diverse as it would be in NHP. Let's shift the focus to what's next and what we call our visionary section of the interview here. Looking ahead for both of you, what do you think the digital customer experience is going look like for manufacturers and distributors over the next couple of years?

Robbie Attard: I think a big thing for us is really removing the road blocks and the friction between customers being able to choose the right products and us understanding where they are in their purchasing cycle as well. And that's something really important, especially from a digital point of view. We haven't been able to do that, but now we can really gain insights to what they're looking at on the website, and who they're talking to from a sales perspective.

That's something that we really want to continue to do and to learn and get better at that sort of stuff. And it's also expanding our reach to customers who might not directly purchase with us, but they might be the ultimate decision maker. And how do we get the right information to them in the right hands?

And then how do we leverage that information to actually assist them in making their purchase decisions?

Allen Rigby: For me it's really about transparency, so transparency in information, in communication, and also in capabilities. It's making sure that the customers, and I touched on this a little bit earlier, making sure the customers have the same information that we do at the same time.

So we're not withholding anything from the customer. But not only that, making sure that we're communicating with them in a proactive manner.

Sean: How do you see the manufacturing space? Do you see that moving more towards–almost like a consumer–or a B2C ecommerce type experience in terms of purchasing? Is that something you're thinking about at in NHP?

Allen Rigby: The answer is yes and no. In some way they do because they want to be able to do all the things themselves, but there's a lot more to a B2B transaction and a relationship than that. So just giving that Amazon experience is not going to be anywhere near enough.

Robbie Attard: I think, that's the challenge with, especially in our industry, and Allen talked about types of customers we have and how diverse they are, and it's not even that, it's the people who work within those industries as well. There’s different needs for different people and just making sure that we can deliver all of that is a challenge.

Sean: I think everybody from the outside in would think that people are wanting to move towards that type of a model. But I think a lot of times, the value add is in those relationships you have with those kind of complex needs, that you can tease out with the customer, right?

Allen Rigby: By all means. And I think that’s the work that we're doing in the martech and digital space. It’s really there to try and support and enhance and uplift the efforts about our sales and marketing teams. It's removing some of the noise, so that they're able to do what they do best. So that they can build the relationships, so that they can handle the complex inquiries, and so that they can essentially answer the sort of questions and make the kind of connections to the customers, that a website may not be capable of doing.

Sean: Let's move the conversation onto AI. It's obviously the biggest trend of 2025 and beyond. How do you envision the role of AI evolving in manufacturing digital experience and personalization?

Robbie Attard: Some of the key ones for us is really getting some real-time metrics and real-time recommendations on what our customers are doing on the site, what they're looking at, and then how we can help them with their decisions. There's so many ways that we can put products together, especially when we're custom building and we do that and that's been, the manufacturing side of our organization. All that data that we do have now is how do we actually really tap in that, find the trends, look at the opportunities, and how do we really harness those insights? That's pretty hard for a human to really understand. So hopefully AI can help us do that.

Allen Rigby: We've spoken about personalization, but AI can allow for hyper-personalization. We edit and we talked a little bit about B2B versus B2C before and in a B2C environment, sometimes just knowing your customer's product affinities is enough to move the needle and to move the needle quite drastically.

But a complex B2B market, you really need to understand and adjust for a user's role within their business. So it's not just this customer. It’s a contractor, or it’s an estimator who works for a contractor. So what is it that they need? In that particular case, they're primarily pre-sales rather than post-sales.

So they're more interested in making sure that, they can find the right product for their project, which is also going to be at the right price and we can deliver it at the right time. Whereas, others within that same company are going to be more interested in the post-sales, whether that be, the transport side of things or product management side of their project.

It really is understanding what AI can help with from all of the data that we collect from the customers and from our CRM. And obviously, the other side of that is building an environment framework that can adapt to that.

Sean: And I guess continuing on that theme, if you had unlimited budget and no legacy constraints, what digital capability would you invest in next?

Robbie Attard: The obvious answer is use more AI. But if I think about it, I think the biggest investment that we could do is really invest in our people.

Sean: I love that insight because I think you're touching on something that's so important with technology in general, which is the strategy. Having that in place initially, figuring out what methodology needs to be implemented and then focusing on the technology. I think so many businesses will focus on the technology first, and it's so easy for us to do that as a company as well, to focus on the technology. We sell software, we sell technology, but you need to really figure out how it's impacting your employees, your customers.

Sean: Allen, anything you would add to that point?

Allen Rigby: The tech shouldn't come first and it just makes me think about a lot of the conversations we have about perspective initiatives or developments.

Oftentimes the conversation starts with tech. What is it that we need to build to achieve a particular outcome?

That conversation gets steered towards people first, then process, and then technology. And we find in a lot of cases it's really helping with our development front log because a lot of those can be achieved with people or process changes rather than going straight to tech. But by the time that something makes it into the front log, we know that the technology is going to add to those changes that have already been made within, the people's approach or our processes before we get to the tech.

Sean: Great insight there, gentlemen. Let's take this to the lightning round. We've got some quick-fire questions for you about manufacturing. What's the biggest myth about digital and distribution and manufacturing?

Allen Rigby: I think it has to be that customers don't want digital, that they would prefer to have somebody in front of them. I think that they want both. They want it all and they want it now.

Sean: XM Cloud in one word?

Robbie Attard: Agility

Sean: Personalization, game changer or table stakes?

Allen Rigby: That’s a game changer.

Sean: What's the next big thing you're watching in customer experience and digital experience tech?

Robbie Attard: For us it's collaborative ecosystems, so for us to be able to provide optimized ways that we can navigate through our complex supply chains to enhance the value proposition to our customers.

Sean: If your digital stack were a power tool, which would it be and why?

Robbie Attard: An oscillating multi tool. It can handle a variety of tasks easily and anyone can use it.

Sean: It's the one-stop shop that is absolutely fantastic and a really nice way of plugging Sitecore also.

Guys, Allen and Robbie, thanks so much for your insights into the digital future of manufacturing. Your journey with XM Cloud is a really powerful reminder that innovation doesn't just live in consumer tech. It's alive and thriving in industries like yours–manufacturing and distribution. I think for anybody navigating digital complexity and B2B, this conversation is full of actionable perspective.