CUSTOMER STORY
MarTech Company Scales Its Data-Driven Publishing with Shared Document Infrastructure
MHC NorthStar CCM powers on-demand, highly variable publishing without slowing product innovation
Industry:
Marketing Technology (MarTech) / Data-Driven Publishing
Location:
United States
Solution:
Primary Use Case:
Self-service, on-demand generation of dynamic, data-driven product and sales materials by clients
Document Types:
Catalogs, proposals, product sheets, policy documents, and more
A leading MarTech company and data-driven publishing software provider helps enterprise brands generate accurate, data-driven communications through self-service, on-demand publishing experiences.
Through the platform, clients operate within branded environments tailored to their business, where distributed users and partners produce dynamic catalogs, proposals, product sheets, policy documents, and other communications on demand. These outputs are not static—they are dynamic, data-driven tools used to sell, configure, and manage the business.
The Challenge:Scaling Variability, Not Just Volume
Initially, document logic was embedded directly within application workflows and tied to live business data, pricing, regulatory requirements, and brand standards. But as the company grew, the challenge was not generating more documents—it was managing increasing variability across data, users, and publishing requirements:
- Multiple user types requiring different pricing, messaging, and imagery
- Live integrations with evolving product and pricing data
- Industry-specific regulatory and content requirements
- Thousands of distributed users generating materials simultaneously
Managing variability became an architectural challenge rather than simply a production task. With document logic embedded in the application, even minor updates created engineering dependencies and began to interfere with core product releases.
That complexity also showed up in document production itself. In one instance, a nearly 500-page document required nine months of manual effort to produce—evidence of how difficult it had become to manage the data, approvals, and variability behind the output.
Hardcoded exceptions and one-off logic introduced what the company called “variability debt”—short-term fixes that increased long-term maintenance complexity.
CUSTOMER STORY VIDEO
See How This MarTech Platform Cut Publishing Time from 9 Months to Days
“As the platform grew, we needed a way to keep documents evolving without every change becoming an application release.”
~ Senior Executive, MarTech Publishing Software Provider
The Solution: Owning the Experience, Not the Engine
To scale variability without slowing product innovation, the company re-architected its platform around MHC NorthStar CCM as shared document infrastructure. Rather than embedding document logic into the application, the company adopted a data-first publishing model that separates data, experience, and rendering into distinct layers:
- The company manages the user experience, workflows, permissions, and business logic
- MHC NorthStar CCM handles rendering, layout, and production
Through its proprietary interface, the company transmits structured XML data to MHC NorthStar CCM. The platform processes conditional logic, layout, pagination, and high-volume rendering, then returns finished outputs seamlessly into the user workflow.
This architecture allows the company to:
- Model variability through structured data—not hardcoded logic
- Evolve templates independently of application releases
- Maintain full control over the branded user experience
- Scale across clients without duplicating workflows or templates
This model has enabled the company to scale complexity without compromising control of the user experience or slowing product development.
“We didn’t want rendering logic tied to release cycles. We wanted the freedom to evolve templates without touching core product code. Treating document generation as a shared service infrastructure gave us both.”
~ Senior Executive, MarTech Publishing Software Provider
Key Capabilities in Use
MHC’s embedded capabilities deliver key benefits to the publishing platform:
High-Volume, On-Demand Rendering:
Generate documents ranging from single-page assets to complex, multi-page publications at scale.
Real-Time Data Integration: Ingest live data from PIM, ERP, pricing, and industry systems so documents reflect the latest information right up to publication.
Controlled Personalization:
Enable flexible pricing, messaging, and content variations based on business rules and user roles.
Scalable Template Management:
Maintain reusable layouts independent of product release cycles.
Key Benefits and Results
By leveraging MHC NorthStar CCM as shared document infrastructure, the company has:
Sustained a 20+ year publishing architecture without rebuilding its document layer
Reduced a 500-page publication cycle from 9 months of manual effort to days through data-driven automation
Enabled thousands of distributed users to generate accurate, brand-governed communications on demand
Expanded into new industries with complex regulatory and data requirements
Preserved product development agility by keeping rendering logic outside core application code
Scaled variability and complexity without slowing product innovation
Conclusion:
For this leading MarTech company and data-driven publishing software provider, document generation is a strategic platform capability embedded in operations—not functionality confined to application code.
By treating document rendering as shared infrastructure and adopting a data-first architecture, the company has built a system that can evolve with changing data, new industries, and increasing complexity—without requiring constant rework.
This foundation not only supports current scale but positions the organization to take advantage of emerging innovations in AI, automation, and personalized communications—without disrupting its core platform.
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