Empowering KB Home's Digital Transformation

KB Home is a homebuilder that prides itself on forging deep relationships with clients as it guides them through the often-fraught home-buying process. Seeking to mirror this personalized approach online, the company partnered with Stellar to create a home-buying platform that combined the convenience of online shopping with the trust and confidence of working with a KB Home team member in person.

Buying a home is the single biggest financial decision most people will make in their lifetime, and it comes with a corresponding amount of anxiety. That angst is amplified when searching through home listings online, where there is no one to guide buyers through the process. Despite this, home buyers are increasingly dependent on digital experiences to inform their decision-making. Virtual tours of properties are a mainstay, and many buyers would be lost without the ability to view and compare listings online.

KB Home was determined to address this digital imbalance by providing a home-buying platform that meets all the needs of the modern buyer. However, their old content management system (CMS) couldn’t match that ambition. For eight years, KB Home relied on a legacy CMS that had grown increasingly misaligned with the organization’s evolving needs. Content publishers and editors found the system limiting, lacking key features that would allow them to effectively manage the company’s vast digital presence. Other users reported the software to be clunky and inefficient, hampering productivity. Not to mention that KB Home’s 32 divisions, each operating as a distinct company within the larger organization, have unique content needs and workflows that the legacy CMS cannot accommodate.

The project started with an extensive discovery phase, conducting in-depth requirements gathering sessions with stakeholders from KB Home’s IT and marketing teams. This collaborative approach allowed Stellar to gain a nuanced understanding of the company’s complex organizational structure, as well as the diverse needs of its various divisions.

Armed with these insights, we guided KB Home through the evaluation of ten potential CMS platforms. The goal was to identify a system that offered a rich feature set, intuitive user interfaces, and the flexibility to scale with the company’s growth. After careful consideration, Stellar and the KB Home team chose a platform based on its ease of use, ability to integrate with KB Home’s CRM, data visualization platform, and finance and sales tools, and its capacity to port over the custom applications used by the divisions for mass data management.

The latter was particularly important due to the vital role of KB Home’s in-house solutions. Conscious of the need to maintain alignment and a shared vision across all of the company’s divisions, our team worked to migrate the custom apps in a way that guaranteed frictionless data synchronization and normalization, regardless of which group was utilizing them. The result was a cohesive ecosystem in which data from these proprietary systems flows seamlessly into the organization’s centralized digital repository, eliminating data silos and enabling a holistic view of operations that had previously been unattainable.

We also recognized that the success of the CMS implementation would hinge not just on technical configuration, but also on effective change management. The team worked hand-in-hand with KB Home’s IT and marketing departments to design new content workflows customized to each user group, establish clear governance models, and develop comprehensive training programs. These initiatives were crucial in empowering users across the organization to embrace the new platform.

Data migration was another critical piece of the puzzle. With a significant volume of content and data housed in the legacy system, Stellar developed a phased migration strategy starting on day one. This approach ensured that data was clean, structured, and ready for the new CMS well before the final cutover, mitigating risk and ensuring a smooth transition.

On the front end, our design team helped craft a visually stunning, user-friendly website that showcased KB Home’s properties and streamlined the home-buying process. The site’s modular architecture, underpinned by the new CMS, allowed for efficient content updates and personalization. It also gave KB Home’s divisions the flexibility to manage their own content, while adhering to brand guidelines.

Throughout the engagement, we served as a bridge between KB Home’s IT and marketing teams. By facilitating open communication, fostering a shared understanding of goals, and promoting cross-functional collaboration, we helped the company navigate the organizational change that is inherent to any large-scale digital transformation.

• Digital Strategy
• Content Strategy
• User Experience
• Visual Design & Branding
• Front-End Development
• Back-End Development
• Systems Integration