---
title: "Crain Communications · Appnovation"
url: "https://www.appnovation.com/work/crains-achieving-publication-optimization-with-agile-article-migration"
description: "How Appnovation built a core platform and agile article migration for Crain Communications, powering 20+ publications for 6 million business leaders."
---

# How a core platform shapes the digital brands of more than 20 publications.

Based on both our company’s experience and Drupal project portfolio, and proven prowess in building solutions across multiple applications/publications, Crain Communications' engaged Appnovation to…

![Person reading a news article on a tablet at a table with coffee](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/0eaa91e8b1fa84f8c1a2271d9134b123b5b8d0f0-1440x600.jpg?w=1400&auto=format) 

*   130K+ articles migrated.

On this page

## Engagement

Client

Crains Detroit

Industry

Media, Sports & Entertainment

Services

Engineering & Platform Development · Strategy & Insights

## On this page

## Challenge

Crain Communications is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate, delivering news to more than 6 million global business leaders. Crain Communications' uncompromising journalists, industry experts and business insiders share one vision: to produce stories, communities and platforms that empower their audiences’ success.

Crain needed a core site to be built for one of their flagship publishers, but more than just a website, they wanted a digital experience. This was not just a one time thing, but a blueprint for future Crain platforms and websites.

## Solution

Based on both our company’s experience and [Drupal](/company/partners/acquia.md) project portfolio, and proven prowess in building solutions across multiple applications/publications, Crain Communications' engaged Appnovation to design, create and deliver a core solution: A multi-layered development project, with migration at its core, and agile development as its driver.

When you are dealing with a company’s flagship, primary publication, one that was intended to act as a catalyst for extending [Drupal](/company/partners/acquia.md) across 20 or more publications in the Crain's publishing stable, the work is critical, and the client rightly expecting the best from Appnovation.

Appnovation worked closely with the Crain’s team throughout the project, from inception to completion, to carefully craft a solution using [Drupal 7](/company/partners/acquia.md), before, ultimately implemented this core product onto Crain’s Detroit site.

In addition to delivering the core product to Crain, Appnovation also provided quality assurance, post-launch, across Crain’s various other partners, thus ensuring that Crain received all the support they needed in working with their new core product.

## Result

Using adroit IT skills, our agile development process was put into practice. With time at a premium, our experts created a seamless migration process, with corporate agility never far from the centre of what we were delivering. 

## More work

[See all our work](/work.md) 

[![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/391248ecb6c067f847af3dbbc4dd29c26c0ed18b-800x600.png?w=640&auto=format)](/work/accelerating-pfizer-s-ai-initiatives-with-forward-deployed-engineering-squads.md)

### [Accelerating Pfizer's AI Initiatives with Forward Deployed Engineering Squads](/work/accelerating-pfizer-s-ai-initiatives-with-forward-deployed-engineering-squads.md)

Building Pfizer's AI Engineering Capability at Global Scale

AI Health & Life Sciences 

[![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/bc1c71e02bbff70aabce93456124587600a8d447-2400x1800.png?w=640&auto=format)](/work/leading-trucking-workforce-platform-launching-ai-powered-search-experience.md)

### [Leading Trucking Workforce Platform - Launching an AI-Powered Search Experience](/work/leading-trucking-workforce-platform-launching-ai-powered-search-experience.md)

Leading Trucking Workforce Platform - Launching an AI-Powered Search Experience

AI Government & Non-profits 

[![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ey850001/production/1055bf49ef95426084cad4a951c00e7c38e4a9ff-2400x1800.jpg?w=640&auto=format)](/work/virginia-tech-building-future-agricultural-intelligence.md)

### [From Vision to Platform: Transforming Agricultural Data into an Interactive Decision Intelligence Experience](/work/virginia-tech-building-future-agricultural-intelligence.md)

From Vision to Platform: Transforming Agricultural Data into an Interactive Decision Intelligence Experience

AI Government & Non-profits 

## Ready to build something similar?

Talk to our team about your platform, adoption, or transformation goals.

[Talk to our experts](/company/contact.md) [Email us](mailto:contact@appnovation.com)