Case Studies

How MSC Transformed Content to a Scalable Growth Driver

4 min read

Published on May 12, 2026

Solutions: DXP – Digital Experience Platforms

Industrial Products

How MSC Transformed Content to a Scalable Growth Driver

MSC Industrial Supply Co. is a leading North American distributor of a broad range of metalworking and maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products and services, and production fastener and hardware products and services. Their marketing and knowledge content play a critical role in helping customers discover solutions, learn best practices, and make more informed purchasing decisions.

As MSC continued investing in digital innovation, the organization recognized an opportunity to transform its content framework, strengthening how content supports customers while enabling internal teams to operate with greater speed, confidence, and consistency.

To advance their content capabilities, MSC partnered with Jakala to support their migration to Contentful as their new CMS. This migration has led to greater content editing efficiency, increased autonomy and self-sufficiency of MSC’s teams, and an overall greater experience for content editors and end users.

Better consistency.

Consolidated a variety of bespoke page types for product collections into one flexible, structured template, providing consistency for users and allowing for prominent marketing and content strategy use cases.

Empowered content team.

Evolved from development-dependent updates to a content strategy team with full autonomy to create, publish, and optimize content.

Improved governance.

Enhanced oversight over both the design system and content model to support scalability and long-term growth.

Advancing capabilities to support a more connected customer experience.

As a trusted partner delivering products, services, and expertise that help customers run better, MSC aspires to become the industry standard by creating a seamless experience that fuses content and commerce.

While MSC continued strengthening its position as the industry’s go-to source for knowledge, the organization saw a strategic opportunity: create a more unified, scalable, and customer-centric approach to managing content across its platforms.

The company’s legacy knowledge base site supported MSC’s needs over many years, but the growing demand for operational speed, personalization, and editorial flexibility required a more progressive and extensible foundation. MSC envisioned a future where teams could work with greater autonomy, content could flow seamlessly across channels, and knowledge and marketing experiences could be tightly aligned.

To support this vision, MSC’s primary goals for the project were twofold:

Implement an extensible CMS and enhance the governance process to ensure content is timely, consistent, and effective to better serve their customers — and to empower internal teams to own and optimize their content in support of business and user needs.
Migrate the knowledge base content to coexist with static marketing content within Contentful, enabling content strategy and architecture to be streamlined, cohesive, and engaging.

By implementing a unified tech stack and establishing a cohesive, future-ready foundation, MSC aimed to further leverage content into a strategic growth driver.

Jakala supported MSC’s migration through a blend of strategic consulting, technical execution, and hands-on team enablement.

Our approach included:

Technical Consulting
Strategic Discovery with a deep focus on Content Design and Content Modeling
Content Model Implementation
Experience Design: designing templates and components
Front End Development of Component Library
Migration Planning
Migration Execution
Migration Consulting

Establishing the Content Model Foundation

Before introducing new capabilities, MSC and Jakala partnered to evaluate the full landscape of existing content and determine how to structure it for future growth. Over many years, content needs have evolved rapidly, reflecting MSC’s growth, expanding expertise, and increasing demand for new formats and use cases across teams.

The first challenge was aligning content to MSC’s evolving business and customer needs: conducting a detailed inventory to assess what was still relevant, what should be retained, and how to group it into highly structured content types. From there, the team refined the referential relationships through taxonomy and modeled the content within Contentful in a way that would allow for continued scaling, support future use cases, and deliver a streamlined editorial experience.

The process required attention to detail and ongoing dialogue about what was, what is, and what could be when it came to content. Transitioning to a highly structured, governed model required exploration and pressure testing to ensure the new system supported both existing content and user experience and the organization’s future strategy.

This effort brought together a cross-disciplinary team, including content designers, UX designers, solutions consultants, solutions architects, content editors, content managers, and marketing directors. The team collaborated closely to ensure the model was robust, adaptable, and aligned from every angle.

Expanding the Model for Expertise-Rich Marketing Content

Once the foundation was established with the static content model, focus shifted to integrating the MSC Knowledge Center's expert-driven and marketing-focused content into Contentful. We assessed the full body of Knowledge Center content and mapped it against the existing static content model, identifying overlaps, gaps, and opportunities for alignment.

A cross-functional team collaborated to inventory, evaluate, and evolve the model to support this new layer of dynamic, article-based content. Through this expansion, Contentful now serves as a unified platform capable of managing both evergreen marketing pages and evolving knowledge content, ensuring governance, scalability, and a consistent editorial experience across the ecosystem.

This integration delivered major forward-looking advantages:

Customer-first delivery: The Knowledge Center can now publish timely, relevant content at the pace customers expect—strengthening MSC’s role as the industry leader in expertise.
Empowered teams, faster delivery: Content teams can launch new ideas quickly, keep experiences fresh, and adapt to market needs without bottlenecks.
Competitive advantage: Speed to market is now a differentiator, enabling MSC to outpace competitors in delivering knowledge-rich digital experiences.
A foundation for growth: With a unified CMS and governance model, new content and experiences can be launched faster and with less friction.

Supporting MSC’s team throughout the process

One of the most vital parts of a successful replatform and migration is often one of the most overlooked: the support and enablement of internal teams who need to learn and operate the new system. We partnered with MSC through immersive training to build confidence in the new system, equip the broader team with a clear understanding of the content model, and accelerate adoption across the organization.

Our long-standing partnership with Contentful allowed us to expertly advise MSC and collaborate directly with the Contentful team, coordinating workshops alongside MSC’s training and even securing beta access to a new feature to confirm its fit for their needs and help inform Contentful’s product roadmap.

You helped us anticipate problems we didn’t even know to look for, especially around content modeling, and guided us to smarter, more connected solutions. The partnership with Jakala has been incredibly supportive and collaborative every step of the way.

- Emily Griffin, Content Strategy Manager, MSC

01

Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings

By consolidating systems and eliminating the need for external platform support, MSC was able to reduce platform complexity and associated support overhead, freeing up budget and resources for higher‑value strategic initiatives. Efficiency gains were felt immediately by internal teams. Tasks like editing or publishing updates can now be completed quickly and easily.
02

Fully Self-Sufficient Content Teams

Through our collaborative workshops and training sessions, MSC’s content team developed a deep understanding of how to manage and scale within Contentful. The transition equipped them with the tools and confidence to manage, evolve, and scale the new CMS independently, while also encouraging proactive problem-solving and intuitive content modeling.
03

Enhanced Experience and Positive Feedback

The new design and governance model have been met with overwhelmingly positive internal feedback. Stakeholders praised the clean, modern design and consistent experience across the site, while suppliers and partners recognized the improved usability and filtering capabilities of the Knowledge Center.
04

A Foundation for Connected Digital Experiences and Growth

Leveling up with a headless CMS was a major milestone, and the ultimate success is that the foundation is now in place for continued scalability and governance. The Contentful implementation created a more cohesive, connected digital environment where content owners are equipped to act quickly, make informed updates, and enhance the user experience, further supporting users throughout their purchasing journey and contributing to MSC’s overall revenue growth.