Date
Dec 2025
Client
Lotterywest
The Challenge
When Lotterywest set out to modernise their corporate website, they recognised that their existing content management system required developer involvement for routine content updates and page layout changes. This dependency limited the content team's ability to respond quickly to market opportunities and constrained their digital agility. As technology had evolved significantly since their platform was originally implemented, Lotterywest saw an opportunity to adopt modern approaches that would empower content authors with greater independence and position them for future growth.
The primary challenge was the heavy reliance on developers for even routine content updates. Content authors found themselves constrained by rigid templates that required developer intervention to modify page layouts or introduce new content patterns. What should have been simple content changes, adjusting page structures, adding new sections, or refreshing visual presentations became bottlenecked through development workflows. This developer dependency slowed their ability to respond to market needs and limited the content team's autonomy to experiment and iterate quickly.
The Solution
Mechanical Rock and Lotterywest collaborated using example mapping sessions to thoroughly understand requirements, ensuring each component met both technical standards and business needs. This collaborative approach fostered crucial knowledge transfer, preparing the Lotterywest team to independently maintain and evolve the platform after handover
The design uses cloud-native architecture leveraging AWS infrastructure with Sanity Studio as the headless content management system (CMS). It was paired with an Astro server-side rendered (SSR) application hosted on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS). This approach provided automatic scaling capabilities to efficiently handle traffic fluctuations, scaling up during peak periods and scaling down during quieter times for optimal cost efficiency.
The cornerstone of the solution was a comprehensive catalog of reusable components that empowered content authors to construct pages independently. Working together, the teams developed pre-built, tested elements that maintained design consistency while eliminating the need for developer intervention on routine page updates. Content teams can now drag, drop, and configure components to create new pages or refresh existing ones, all without writing code or waiting for developer availability.
Robust content governance is crucial for any CMS, and this solution achieved it through seamless integration with existing corporate authentication and authorisation systems. This integration delivered role-based access controls (RBAC) and custom workflows, ensuring proper control over content editing and publishing without compromising usability.
Outcomes
- Content authors gained unprecedented autonomy, able to create and publish new pages without developer support.
- The component library reduced page creation time significantly, transforming what once required development tickets into self-service content authoring.
- The cloud-native architecture handled traffic spikes seamlessly while optimising costs during quieter periods, ensuring consistent performance without over-provisioning resources.
- The ability to quickly iterate and launch new content gives Lotterywest the agility to stay ahead in the competitive lottery market, turning technology into a genuine competitive advantage.
- Through the collaborative development model and knowledge transfer, the Lotterywest team built the internal capability to maintain, extend, and evolve their digital platform independently.
- The component library and modern architecture provide a scalable foundation for future digital initiatives and evolving business needs, ensuring the investment continues to deliver value as requirements change.
Conclusion
Today, Lotterywest operates a highly responsive CMS that maximises their technology investment while empowering teams to create engaging digital experiences. The partnership established a new standard for content management, demonstrating how thoughtful architecture, collaborative development, and user-focused design can transform both technology capabilities and business outcomes.