Building Enterprise Level Website: Lessons on branding perfections

When Ascenda approached us, they had a clear operational problem: their existing website had become a bottleneck. Content updates took weeks, design changes required full development cycles, and their marketing team was constrained by infrastructure that couldn't keep pace with their enterprise clients—American Express, HSBC, Uber, and Marriott. They needed content management infrastructure that could match the sophistication of their loyalty-as-a-service platform.

The Operational Challenge

The requirements were clear - they needed infrastructure that could:

• Enable operational independence - marketing teams deploying content without developer involvement
• Maintain enterprise quality - pixel-perfect design consistency across hundreds of pages
• Scale globally - supporting multiple languages and regional variations
• Deliver performance - sub-second page loads expected by Fortune 500 clients

This wasn't just a website redesign - it was building the operational infrastructure that would power their marketing operations for years to come.

Our Approach: Next.js + Prismic CMS

After evaluating several technology stacks, we recommended a modern JAMstack architecture built on Next.js with Prismic as the headless CMS.

Why Next.js?

Next.js provided the perfect foundation for an enterprise website:

• Static Site Generation (SSG) for blazing-fast page loads
• Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) for real-time content updates
• Image optimization out of the box
• Edge caching through Vercel's global CDN

Why Prismic?

Prismic's Slice Machine architecture aligned perfectly with our component-driven approach:

• Reusable content slices that marketing could mix and match
• Preview functionality for reviewing changes before publishing
• Scheduling for planned content releases
• Multi-language support built-in

Building the Component Library

We developed a comprehensive library of reusable React components, each designed to be both visually stunning and highly performant.

Professional Design Components

Every component was built with attention to detail:

• Hero sections with dynamic backgrounds and animated text
• Feature grids with hover interactions and micro-animations
• Testimonial carousels with smooth transitions
• Data visualization components for showing loyalty program metrics

Lottie Animations

One of the standout features was our integration of Lottie animations throughout the site. These lightweight, vector-based animations added life to the pages without sacrificing performance.

"The animations bring our platform's capabilities to life in a way that static images never could. Visitors immediately understand the value we provide." — Ascenda Marketing Team

The Careers Page: A Special Challenge

Ascenda's careers page required special attention. They wanted something that would attract top talent while showcasing their culture and values.

We built a custom animated experience featuring:

• Interactive timeline showing company milestones
• Department exploration with smooth transitions between teams
• Employee testimonials with video integration
• Real-time job listings pulled from their ATS

The page became one of the highest-performing in terms of engagement metrics.

Terms & Conditions: Solving the Content Pipeline

One unexpected challenge was the legal content. Ascenda's legal team worked in Microsoft Word, but the website needed clean, styled HTML.

We solved this with an innovative Writage integration:

1. Legal team writes/edits documents in Word
2. Documents are exported to Markdown via Writage
3. Our build pipeline processes the Markdown
4. Content appears on the website with consistent styling

This eliminated the copy-paste errors and formatting inconsistencies that had plagued previous workflows.

Results and Impact

The new website launched to immediate positive feedback:

Infrastructure Lessons

Building Ascenda's content infrastructure reinforced principles we apply across all operational systems:

1. Operational independence matters — Infrastructure should empower teams to operate without bottlenecks
2. Performance is operational — Slow systems create operational drag that compounds over time
3. Architecture enables scale — Good infrastructure decisions in month one determine what's possible in year three
4. Integration over isolation — Systems that connect with existing workflows see higher adoption

The Ascenda platform demonstrates how thoughtful infrastructure can transform operations. What was a weeks-long process now takes hours, enabling the marketing team to move at the speed their enterprise clients expect.