The Absolut Company Uses The EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud And Microsoft Azure To Support Agile Marketing And Website Development

-- Leveraging the Cloud, Company Distills Web Development to Gain Efficiencies, Lower Costs, and Improve Time to Market; Sites Now Live in Minutes Versus Days

STOCKHOLM and NASHUA, New Hampshire, April 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- EPiServer, a leading provider of digital marketing and e-commerce solutions, today announced The Absolut Company is using the EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud™ running on Microsoft^® Azure™ to develop a new family of websites to support its leading spirit brands, and gain improved time to market, reduced costs, and greater ease of deployment for its web initiatives.

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The Absolut Company grew from the success of Absolut Vodka™, perhaps one of the best-known names in the spirits industry. In a little more than 30 years, Absolut Vodka has become one of the world's best-selling spirits and has created a unique legacy of quality, creativity and originality. Upon becoming a part of Pernod-Ricard in 2008, five more brands were added to the Absolut Company family, including Malibu Rum and Kahlua, the world's number one selling coffee liqueur.

Renowned for its creative and innovative approach to design in all aspects from packaging to advertising, The Absolut Company has used EPiServer technology to create innovative and stand out digital experiences for many years with its websites such as Absolut.com, Absolutdrinks.com, Maliburumdrinks.com and Kahlua.com, and more. However the company wanted to move to the Cloud as it no longer wished to manage servers, and wanted to deploy code without the need to configure servers. As well, the company knew that having the ability to deploy without involving a third-party would provide greater speed and agility.

Working with Nansen, an EPiServer global partner, The Absolut Company selected EPiServer on Azure due to the speed and ease of access to servers, and the ability to get up and running quickly. While they evaluated other cloud solutions, given Microsoft technology was already in use with its EPiServer on-premise deployment, the transition to the Microsoft Azure cloud was an easy choice.

The Absolut Company can now have a site up in minutes as opposed to days. The transition to Azure was done in one week for the first website; in total, ten new websites developed with the EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud running on Microsoft Azure are expected to be up and running next month.

Prior to the cloud, The Absolut Company had to group sites together on single servers; now the speed to go live is faster because they are using one app service for each and every website. Overall performance is significantly improved because The Absolut Company is able to scale dynamically. What's more, it's anticipated that server costs will be significantly reduced.

"We definitely would recommend the EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud on Azure because it is more stable and seamless than other digital marketing platforms," said Fredrik Lagertrad, Digital Manager, Growth, for The Absolut Company. "The solution itself is very customizable and provides exceptional global support. The EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud enables you to use it the way you need to, rather than the product dictating how to use it.

"EPiServer's decision to put its cloud solution on Azure sets them ahead of other solutions; customers have the ability to actually build their product best to run in Azure. One of the key reasons to choose EPiServer is if you want Azure as your cloud solution."

"As enterprises seek to deliver more relevant and optimized experiences for their customers, and to positively impact conversions, they rely on EPiServer's end-to-end multi-channel selling solution to support standout digital engagement. Absolut's site -- www.absolut.com -- is an excellent example of standout digital engagement and best practice content marketing," said Bob Egner, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, EPiServer. "The EPiServer Digital Experience Cloud on Azure supports today's agile marketing imperative for fast iteration and innovation. Customers gain geo-redundancy and the ability to support millions of users and transactions with minimal latency, as well as significant cost savings."

"We commend EPiServer for its cloud-first approach by being a leader in Azure adoption for its global web and digital marketing customer base," said Anders Wendt, Business Group Lead Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft Sweden. The combination of EPiServer's extraordinary web capabilities together with the power of Microsoft Azure enables today's leading marketers and developers to deploy and scale modern web sites and web apps rapidly and with unprecedented ease-of-use."

About EPiServer
EPiServer connects digital commerce and digital marketing to help organizations create unique digital experiences for their customers, with measurable business results. By combining content, commerce and omni-channel marketing in a single platform – The Digital Experience Cloud™ – EPiServer works full-circle for businesses online – from intelligent optimization and lead-generation through conversion and repeat sales – with unprecedented usability and agility. Supported by a network of 880 partners in 30 countries, EPiServer empowers more than 8,800 digital leaders to embrace disruptive, transformational strategies that can deliver standout experiences for their customers – everywhere they engage. Founded in 1994, EPiServer has offices in the USA, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UAE and the UK. For more information visit www.episerver.com.

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