The challenge
When TalkTalk Business demerged from TalkTalk Group, it inherited legacy infrastructure, tangled systems, and an identity still tied to its former parent.

Its enterprise and wholesale customers expected continuity. Yet the business ambition demanded reinvention.

Athlon partnered with TalkTalk Business to build that reinvention from the ground up. An entirely new digital-first brand identity living on a high-performance enterprise platform.

This had to be delivered in a few months rather than the year-plus a project of this scope would normally take. All without disrupting a single live client or wholesale contract.

The impact (first 6 months)

• 193% increase in engagement sessions
• 9% increase in engagement rate
• 12% increase lead-to-opportunity conversion
• All while holding 100% uptime and a 100/100 Lighthouse Accessibility score

How we thought about it
This wasn’t a just redesign. It was TalkTalk Business’s moment of independence.

They needed a platform that gave a newly separated enterprise brand its own identity, voice, and a foundation built to scale for years to come.

A compressed timeine
Most enterprise replatforms have the luxury of time and an existing brand to evolve. TalkTalk Business had neither.

The unique combination of a new digital identity, a compressed timeline, and zero tolerance for disruption to live customer services, is what made this a genuinely different problem to solve.

Isolating risk
Our answer was a phased migration architecture that let the new platform be built, tested and deployed in stages. This isolated risk to live services at every step while the wider brand experience was being invented in parallel. 

Built on Contentful and structured around 127 reusable, accessible components, the result gave TalkTalk Business’s marketing team full publishing autonomy, without waiting on developers.

A strategic north star
Every decision, strategic, visual, and technical, was shaped by one question: how do you make enterprise connectivity feel simple without making it feel small?

Discovery workshops with marketing, product and technology stakeholders shaped user journeys that guide customers naturally from understanding to enquiry. 

Design and engineering
Visually, clean layouts and purposeful interactions reflect the confidence of an established enterprise brand, not a business finding its feet.

Accessibility wasn’t audited afterwards; it was engineered in from day one. Around 250 accessibility features sit across the platform’s 127 components, including 147 keyboard focus indicators and 42 ARIA labels, dialog roles and live regions, independently verified through Lighthouse, axe-core (0 violations) and Pa11y. 

The result
100/100 Lighthouse Accessibility scores across every key page, and 100% uptime since launch.

Better conversion
In the first 6 months following launch engagement sessions increased by 193%, engagement rates improved by 9%, and, most tellingly, lead-to-opportunity conversion increased by 12%.

Even as overall lead volume fell following changes to marketing investment and the removal of eCommerce functionality. Fewer, better-qualified leads converted at a higher rate: proof that the platform itself is doing its job.

Operational efficiency
Operationally, the shift to Contentful has transformed how TalkTalk Business works day to day. Marketing teams can stage, preview and publish content instantly, unlocking faster campaigns and reducing reliance on development resources.

Lower costs
The commercial case is just as strong. Annual hosting costs have dropped by 88%, while the modular architecture makes future development quicker, cheaper, and more sustainable to maintain.

Accessibility as a design principal
Accessibility here wasn’t a compliance checkbox; it was a design principle. Every customer, regardless of ability or device, can navigate the platform by keyboard, screen reader, or with reduced motion preferences enabled.

Internally, the platform changed how TalkTalk Business’s own teams work: faster publishing, better governance, and greater independence from developer support.

Better for the planet
And with a leaner, more efficient digital estate, reduced hosting demands, reusable components, and an optimisation-first mindset, the platform is built to last longer and cost less to run, reducing both technical debt and environmental overhead.