The primary goal of the Merck Manual is to enable the organization’s Global Medical Knowledge 2020 initiative: “To provide free access to accurate and reliable medical information on every continent by 2020.”

To expand access to the textbook and improve its use, Merck understood that it should eliminate the print version. As a result, the company needed to redesign its online platform, which was no longer providing the necessary scalability, capabilities and analytics. Avanade was selected to execute a complete rethink and ground-up rebuild of the new Merck Manual.

The new Merck Manual site includes a fully featured site search, multilingual support in ten languages, comprehensive analytics, SEO, social media links and integrated multimedia. It allows non-technical administrators to control the site’s content and appearance without requiring custom development.

The solution leverages a content management system (CMS) to deliver the customer experience, while Sitecore — a Microsoft ISV developed on a .Net framework — is central to this solution. The production, development, testing and back-up servers for this site are all on Microsoft Azure, ensuring high performance, redundancy and scalability.

The Merck Manual project is a great example of how digital transformation can be leveraged for the common good of people across the world. In addition to Merck’s goal of providing free access to accurate and reliable medical information on every continent, the company is targeting an outreach of up to 3 billion professionals and patients by 2020.

The site’s audience has continued to grow in every Merck market, with current traffic at more than 290,000 page views per day.

Learn more how Avanade’s digital marketing solutions leverage Sitecore to create enriching customer experiences.