Cobb EMC

Faster Time-to-Publish in 90-Days

Summary

Cobb Electric Membership Corporation is a not-for-profit electric membership cooperative providing reliable electric energy. Formed in 1938, Cobb EMC started as an electric utility with 489 residential members and 14 commercial accounts. Serving approximately 196,000 residential and commercial customers. Cobb EMC is now one of the largest of Georgia's 42 EMCs, and is among the largest of the nation's approximately 900 EMCs.

Cobb EMC partnered with Arke Systems and their digital agency to refresh their online presence and overhaul their web technology using Sitecore.

Challenge

Managing Cobb EMC’s website content is a shared effort between marketing and IT. They experience a typical scenario for companies their size. Marketing develops the creative content and ideas for the website but rely on IT to implement those changes. IT has a full workload keeping up with maintenance, infrastructure, and security tasks. No matter how fast IT can respond to marketing’s requests, there is a delay to getting content up on the website. Cobb EMC had a need to give the marketing department more control over the website content with a solution that passed their security and infrastructure requirements.

Solution

Arke Systems worked closely with Cobb EMC’s IT department to identify the best Content Management System. Once the Sitecore CMS platform was chosen, Arke Systems, Cobb EMC’s marketing department, and Cobb EMC’s marketing agency worked very closely to implement the new website.

Following Arke System’s implementation methodology, specifically designed for Content Management System implementations, Cobb EMC was able to go from creative design to go live in under 90 days.

In addition to the Sitecore platform, Arke Systems implemented an integration to Cobb EMC’s account management portal, which allows their customers to pay bills, manage their energy usage, and communicate with customer support.

Results

With the Sitecore platform deployed, Cobb EMC’s marketing department has been able to make content changes to the website quickly and without technical staff assistance. Cobb EMC approaches their website with a new perspective. Without being limited by time-to-publishing constraints or platform limitations, Cobb EMC is leading their competition and anticipates a direct relation to their top line revenue.