Stylus

Client Overview

Stylus.com is a global subscription-based insights platform delivering trend forecasting and industry intelligence to an international audience.

The platform supports:

• A large archive of premium reports
• Subscription-based access models
• Marketing and content delivery
• Authenticated user experiences

Following its acquisition by GlobalData, the platform needed to scale further and integrate into a broader enterprise ecosystem.

The Challenge

Stylus.com had grown significantly, but its existing platform could no longer support:

• Increasing content volume (100,000+ reports)
• Global user demand
• Complex subscription journeys
• Integration with enterprise systems

Key challenges included:

• Migrating a massive legacy content archive
• Building a scalable and maintainable architecture
• Supporting both marketing and authenticated experiences
• Ensuring long-term flexibility for product evolution

The business required a complete rebuild—not just an upgrade.

The Solution

Working alongside Matter of Form, we redesigned and rebuilt the platform using a modern, scalable architecture:

• Headless CMS: Umbraco
• Frontend (Phase 1): Vue.js
• Frontend (Phase 2): React.js
• Hosting: Kubernetes-based infrastructure

This approach allowed us to:

• Separate content, presentation, and business logic
• Enable faster frontend iteration
• Improve performance and scalability

AI Acceleration Approach

While this project predated full AI saturation, the same principles now apply—and were reflected in our approach:

• Structured content migration pipelines (now AI-accelerated in similar projects)
• Automated data validation and transformation
• Efficient component-based frontend builds

Today, with ~40–50% AI-assisted development, similar projects can be delivered even faster—while maintaining the same architectural quality.

Critically, senior oversight ensured:

• Data integrity across 100,000+ reports
• Scalable system design
• Clean separation of concerns

Implementation Details

Architecture:

• Headless Umbraco CMS for flexible content management
• API-driven content delivery

Frontend:

• Phase 1: Vue.js
• Phase 2: React.js (post-acquisition transition)

Infrastructure:

• Kubernetes for scalable, resilient hosting
• Cloud-based deployment pipelines

Enterprise Features:

• Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Azure AD integration
• Subscription management
• Customer portal functionality

Migration at Scale

One of the most complex aspects of the project was migrating over 100,000 legacy reports.

This required:

• Structured data mapping
• Automated migration scripts
• Validation processes to ensure content accuracy

The migration was designed to:

• Minimize downtime
• Preserve content integrity
• Improve accessibility in the new system

The result was a modern content environment that retained the full value of the legacy archive while dramatically improving usability.

Post-Acquisition Evolution

After GlobalData acquired Stylus.com, the platform needed to evolve further.

We supported:

• Migration from Vue.js to React.js
• Expansion of subscription features
• Integration into a broader enterprise ecosystem

New capabilities included:

• Unified authentication (SSO + Azure AD)
• Enhanced subscription journeys
• Customer portal improvements
• Alignment between marketing and product systems

Results

• Platform scaled for global audience
• 100,000+ reports successfully migrated
• Improved performance and UX
• Enterprise-grade security and authentication
• Delivered by a team of 4, maintained by 2

Key Takeaways

• Headless architecture enables long-term flexibility
• Large-scale migrations require strong planning and senior oversight
• Small, highly skilled teams can outperform larger teams
• Modern infrastructure (Kubernetes) ensures scalability and resilience