It has taken almost nine months of hard work, but after a very intense and thorough sourcing process, we are thrilled to announce that we have selected the Drupal CMS, running on Acquia platform with our new implementation partners Manifest…and I couldn’t be more excited!

Why Drupal?

Drupal is a CMS used by some of the largest and most complex sites in the world, including 71 of the top 100 universities in the world. It has one of the largest open source communities in the world with over 1,000,000 passionate developers, designers, trainers and strategists using it and working together on common problems. It gives us an extremely powerful platform on which to innovate and deliver incredible experiences that not only bring people to Dundee, but also bring Dundee to the world.

Why Acquia?

Acquia is a platform built specifically to run Drupal, with its founder and CTO being the person who first built Drupal. They power some of the highest trafficked sites in the world like the Oscars and Grammys and are used by institutions like the University of Oxford and every Ivy League school in the US. They provide a fast, secure, and resilient architecture that will enable us to deliver fast, high-quality experiences to our users around the world. Acquia was also named a CMS leader by Gartner for the fifth consecutive year.

Why Manifesto?

One of the core tenets of this project is that we won’t parachute a company to deliver something that will then leave us with the ball in our hands. We wanted a partner who would not only enhance our existing capabilities but where possible transfer knowledge into the team. Manifesto is an agency that has worked with large charities, local and central government, as well as a variety of other companies. What struck us the most was how far they go to not only understand their clients but integrate into teams as they deliver projects.

What will happen next?

Over the next few weeks, we will be speaking with Acquia and Manifesto to define exactly what we will deliver and when. This is a huge task and will take some time to complete, but we will be as open and transparent about progress as we always have been. There will not be a big bang launch, but rather a gradual go-live where we release the new while dismantling the old.