Over the past year and a half, Veho’s websites have undergone a major transformation. The first site to be renewed was Veho.fi in late spring 2024, and during the spring of 2025 the revamped websites for the Baltic countries were also launched. Behind these renewals lies a broader overhaul aimed at improving the customer experience and reducing the number of websites.
North Patrol is a consulting firm specialized in the design of digital services and information systems. We shape ideas into a vision and service concept, find the best architectural and technological solutions, design a functional user experience, and compete to find the ideal partner for implementation work. We do not sell implementation projects, nor do we sell licenses; we are genuinely on the side of the customer.
31 May 2025
Veho is one of the longest-established players in the Finnish automotive sector. The family-owned company has imported Mercedes-Benz vehicles since 1939. Today, Veho is responsible for the import and retail sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and commercial vehicles not only in Finland but also in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as for their retail sales in Sweden. In autumn 2024, Veho’s selection was expanded with the addition of fully electric Smart passenger cars.
The automotive industry has been in upheaval in recent years, with electrification being one of the major drivers of change. While a large share of customers still want to explore vehicles in person and purchase a car with the help of a salesperson at a dealership, the overall direction is clear: more and more purchase decisions are being made online, and cars are increasingly being bought online as well.
Veho’s previous website environment was highly fragmented and did not provide customers with a clear purchasing journey. Combined with Veho’s ambition to offer first-class service to its customers, the need for a website renewal was evident.
Major questions had to be resolved before the tendering process
Veho had already refined the concept for its digital customer experience together with DK&A, and North Patrol’s primary assignment was to help Veho define the new web service and help acquire a partner to build it. From the website perspective, however, there were several issues that required further clarification before the tendering process could begin. In practice, there were two key matters to resolve, one conceptual and one technical.
Veho had decided that both passenger cars and commercial vehicles would be brought under the same brand. In the previous setup, commercial vehicles had been under the Veho Trucks brand on a separate website, but as part of the renewal they would be integrated into Veho’s passenger car retail website, which in Finland, this meant Veho.fi. It was also important that both lines of business would be treated as equally important on the website.
The challenge was that the customer base, information needs, and use cases differ significantly between commercial vehicles and passenger cars. At the same time, Veho was aiming for a five-star online customer experience, so mixing content from both businesses in one single structure was not a good solution.
A compromise for the service concept emerged in workshops
Alternative approaches were developed in workshops together with Veho’s key stakeholders. Customer profiles that Veho had identified earlier served as the foundation as we explored information needs and service approaches through them. We then reviewed different service scenarios using concrete examples.
In the end, the challenge of fitting passenger cars and commercial vehicles onto the same site was solved with a so-called wayfinder. On the homepage, visitors choose which area they want to explore, and only after that are they shown the content and services relevant to their choice.
This solved the major conceptual challenge, but the project team also had to take a position on many smaller questions that nevertheless have a major impact on the customer experience. In order to make the idea of the complex site easier to understand and validate, we modelled the service concept as a clickable Figma prototype.
With the conceptual questions resolved, we still had one important issue to solve in order to write a good requirements specification, namely the matter of architecture and technology.
Content editor experience was a key factor in the technology selection
Veho’s retail operations had previously relied on numerous websites in different countries, utilizing different technologies and managed by different partners. This whole setup needed to be simplified. In addition, the web services were connected to many functional systems, such as vehicle search and service booking, which had to work seamlessly together with the new website in order to deliver on the promise of excellent user experience.
We evaluated several technical approaches in the project, weighing technology options not only in terms of features and capabilities, but also costs, supplier landscape, and content editor experience.
In the initial discussions, headless had been raised as one possible solution model. At first glance, a purely headless CMS solution might have been a good choice given the number of backend systems and data repositories involved, but it would also have required compromises from the content editor’s perspective. The new platform needed to be as easy to use as possible while also giving content editors enough freedom to create rich, marketing-oriented web pages.
There was no simple off-the-shelf solution available. The right answer had to be found outside the most obvious boxes.
There is a reason why WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system, and with the Gutenberg block editor it has become even easier for content editors to use. On its own, however, it would not fully meet Veho’s needs. But when combined with functional applications embedded through JavaScript, it becomes a tool that gives content editors flexibility while also solving the technical requirements and enabling customers to be served in one place.
From tendering to content production and implementation
With all the major questions tackled, we were finally able to move on to the original task, which was defining the website requirements and running the tendering process. North Patrol’s consultants prepared the requirements specification and the necessary documents for the request for proposals. North Patrol also supported Veho during the vendor selection process by evaluating proposals and providing background support for vendor meetings.
After a comprehensive tendering process, Veho selected Hion Digital as its new web service partner. Veho’s long-standing partner Crasman has also played a major role in delivering the new web services. While Hion and Crasman rolled up their sleeves and started preparing the technical implementation and designing the new look and feel, Veho began planning the content with North Patrol’s support.
Continuous development also from a content perspective
The technical renewal has been extensive, but the conceptual change has also been significant. The website renewal has required a major effort from Veho’s marketing team and content editors. Although the Finnish site and now also the Baltic sites have been launched, the content work does not stop there.
Veho’s goal is to offer its customers the best possible online experience. Achieving that requires ongoing monitoring of website analytics, listening to feedback, and continuously developing both the site and its content based on what is learned.
