The challenge: too many websites, and a new need to win clients

By 2023, the Chamber's digital presence had become an obstacle to growth. Twelve historically distinct departments operated 23 separate websites — each with its own governance, its own technology, and its own duplicated content. Product information for the Chamber's training programs, consulting services and business-creation offerings was managed in Excel spreadsheets running to roughly 20,000 entries. Technical debt was compounding faster than the in-house team could service it.

At the same time, two structural shifts forced the Chamber's hand. A regionalization process was consolidating the twelve departments into a single regional organization, which meant 23 sites no longer made sense organizationally. And a regulatory change had moved the Chamber from a fully public institution — the mandatory step for any artisan registering a business in France — to a partly private service provider. The Chamber used to automatically receive every new artisan's contact details as part of the registration process; overnight, that automatic flow of new clients stopped.

As Christophe Rigot, Deputy Director for Communication, put it, the question facing the organization was strategic, not cosmetic:
 

"How do we move from a collection of websites to a unique platform that could evolve with our organization, our customers, and new technologies?"

The answer needed to do three things at once:  unify the customer experience, support a brand-new lead-acquisition strategy to replace the lost automatic client pipeline, and meet a non-negotiable government accreditation requirement covering the Chamber's training programs. Without that accreditation, roughly half of the Chamber's activity could not continue.

The solution: Ibexa DXP as the foundation of a long-term ecosystem
 

The Chamber chose Ibexa DXP as the technical backbone of what it deliberately called an "ecosystem" rather than a website. The headless, API-first architecture made it possible to serve very different audiences — established entrepreneurs, business creators, apprentices as young as 13, their parents, career-changers, and institutional partners — from a single platform with shared governance. Integrator Almavia CX supported the implementation.

The Chamber rolled out the new ecosystem in three deliberate phases over two and a half years:

• MVP focused on the entrepreneur audience on the main domain
• Apprentice-focused subdomain six months later, with its own design system and CTAs tuned for a much younger audience
• E-commerce module six months after that, launching services 24/7

Around Ibexa DXP, the team built out a full ecosystem: 

• a brand-new PIM replacing the Excel sheets, 
• e-commerce integrated with Payplug for payments and billing,
• Salesforce for lead and customer management
• online appointment booking
• analytics through Google Tag Manager with consent management
• Ibexa connect scenarios stitching the whole stack together.

WHY IBEXA

• Headless and API-first — the architecture the Chamber's multi-audience, multi-channel ambitions required
• Native PIM, content and e-commerce in one environment — same back office, same processes, lower training overhead for non-technical contributors
• Fine-grained roles — letting subject-matter experts (who know the products but not digital tooling) safely contribute
• Direct access to Ibexa's technical teams from day one of the project

What flexibility looks like in practice

The clearest evidence that the Chamber chose the right foundation is what happened after launch. The team discovered "lead products we didn't quite really expect," as Kiérane Favreau, Head of Web Marketing, observed — services and training programs that customers wanted to buy online but that the Chamber had assumed were too complex or too niche for digital self-service. Where the team had forecast 10 e-commerce purchases per month, they consistently see around 100.

The first purchase came in within an hour of launch. The team initially assumed it was a colleague testing the checkout — it wasn't.

Just as importantly, the platform has absorbed change without re-architecture. A sticky toolbar with four CTAs (including the team's highest-converting form, a web callback) gives the site app-like feel on any device. Forms open in modal windows rather than embedded inline, keeping pages light. Taxonomy-driven personalization filters content by the visitor's department and surfaces dynamic recommendations based on behavior.

What's next: the platform earns its "future-proof" label
 

The Chamber's roadmap shows what a DXP foundation makes possible when you stop thinking in terms of "the website" and start thinking in terms of "the platform." In Kieran's words:

"We have built a future-proof web ecosystem able to improve continuously, develop new web services, and able to receive an extensive usage of the platform."

Three expansions are already underway:

• AI optimization — moving from a search-engine-friendly website to an AI-consumable one, so the Chamber's content is discoverable by generative AI tools as well as Google
• Conversational service — integration of the "Jenny" chatbot (also used by the French Ministry of the Army) to handle frontline inquiries
• A custom Salesforce customer portal with dynamic related content pulled from the Ibexa-managed website — enabling cross-sell, upsell, and personalized news and events for each artisan
• Gamification with Qualifio — in 2026, replacing static forms with quizzes, dynamic content and gamified journeys to qualify audiences in a more engaging way

None of these initiatives require rebuilding the platform. Each is an extension of the ecosystem the Chamber put in place — which is the test any DXP investment ultimately has to pass.

AI technology was used as a supportive tool to assist with [drafting/brainstorming/summarization], while all final content was reviewed/refined by the Ibexa marketing team.