How MVC Development with Kentico 12 Will Help Your Business

Choosing a technology for your projects is an important decision that can have monumental consequences. You want to give your clients the best solution possible, in the shortest amount of time, with the least number of bugs. And you need to make sure it’s all built using a sustainable, stable architecture that won’t need rebuilding in a year. You keep hearing about MVC and how great it is, but you and your development team have zero experience with the framework. As if a business owner didn’t have enough to deal with, right?

If you’ve followed any Kentico channel for the past year, you know we’ve been making a VERY big deal about our support for MVC. You may have heard things like:

“It’s the future!”

“Every new feature coming to Kentico will be MVC first!”

“MVC is going to help you build amazing Kentico sites.”

“Building your sites with MVC will lower your corporate taxes and secure that lucrative 20-year deal!”

OK, so maybe that last one wasn’t actually printed. But you get the picture, right? We believe that MVC is the future, and we want to help you get there as soon as possible. We’re cranking our technical articles out as fast as we can to help your developers transition to this new methodology. Our Kentico 12 documentation is going to be packed with best practices and samples for many areas of the platform.

But what about the people running the show? We know that you as a business owner have many questions about this transition, and we want to help you get the info you need. In this article, I’m going to give you several reasons why your team should be looking to MVC as the future and what it means for your business.

Let’s get to the topics!

Future-proof Technology

Here’s a fact you may not know: MVC isn’t a new concept. It was created up in 1979, and many developers have long focused on using it for their applications. Nowadays, more and more organizations are realizing it’s a more scalable and sustainable methodology that has proven it can stand the test of time. And when it comes to technology, that means a lot! By selecting MVC for your Kentico sites, you’re investing in your future and ensuring your clients are getting the best platform possible.

Microsoft has made it no secret that their focus is MVC from here on out, which means adopting this development pattern will be essential to your business’s success. In addition, almost every new JavaScript and front-end technology is tuned specifically for the component-based approach, which means your sites will be able to take advantage of nearly any library or technique that comes around. This means more options for your developers, and the ability to build on your solutions in the future. And it means that the platform won’t need to be rebuilt any time soon due to support ending for the underlying framework.

Greater Talent Pool

Let me guess: You have all kinds of trouble trying to find new developers and designers. No one you interview has any Web Forms experience, but everyone wants to use MVC and other new technologies. Sadly, you’re not alone. While Microsoft’s legacy .NET platform was revolutionary for its day, its time has long passed, and more and more developers are wanting to focus on modern and emerging frameworks for their career.

By transitioning your Kentico development to MVC, you’re opening yourself up to an entirely new demographic of talent. Anyone with MVC, PHP, JS, or practically any other language experience should already have the skills they need to build amazing Kentico MVC sites. This means you will be able to screen tons more people, find the very best candidates, and get them started on the platform faster than ever. And as a bonus, this results in less ramp up and more billable work out the gate! I’m sure you would like to spend a lot less time interviewing and more time securing new business.

Happier Developers

The employee benefits don’t end at new hires! Your existing developers no doubt want to expand and modernize their skills, and switching to MVC is perfect for that. They will learn a solid programming foundation that will allow them to leverage new JavaScript frameworks, dynamic and powerful components, and nearly any service they need as they build their Kentico projects. This means less fighting with the technology and more time innovating, creating, and coding in some sweet Easter egg. And when you let your developers roam free in the technology playground, they’ll be much happier and fulfilled. Say goodbye to turnover!

Now, you probably have a great set of devs already, but not many MVC skills in house. Don’t worry! There are PLENTY of resources available to get them up to speed and productive. And speaking from personal experience, the learning curve isn’t impossible. Any competent .NET developer should be able to grasp the concepts and get going with MVC with a little guidance. Check out sites like Pluralsight, Lynda.com, and the Microsoft’s Channel 9 for great tutorials and articles on building applications with MVC.

Faster Delivery

With every technology shift, there’s going to be a transition period. The time spent learning a new platform or framework means some lost hours and education. But once it’s completed, you’re going to be left with some serious technical horsepower that your developers will be able to apply to every project moving forward. By separating design and functionality, teams can work in parallel to create your Kentico applications. This means faster delivery and lower costs. Plus, with MVC’s modular nature, you can create reusable components and capabilities, allowing you to use them over and over.

With MVC, you’ll start creating applications in a whole new way. By compartmentalizing functionality, your developers will begin making components that are reusable and flexible. They’ll work in parallel much easier, execute tests to ensure accuracy, and your deployments can be a breeze. Plus your upgrades will be smoother! Because your team will have full control over the presentation of the site, they’ll be able to determine the best course of action for updates to minimize downtime and ensure optimal performance.

Full-feature Marketing

Think that switching to MVC means no more powerful marketing features for your Kentico site? Absolutely not! We’ve added almost every marketing feature into our MVC support, which means you can still build captivating, personalized experiences for your users with MVC. We've included some of the best functionality from Kentico 11, like Activity logging, Campaign tracking, Content personalization, Personas, and even Marketing Automation. And we’re not stopping there! We are continuing to develop more marketing-rich features into the platform to keep your clients and marketers productive and happy.

With Kentico 12 and MVC, you’ll be able to provide your clients the same full-featured marketing experiences they’re used to in previous versions, while taking advantage of everything else the framework has to offer. It’s a win/win for your development and marketing teams, as everyone gets the best platform and features to work with.

Get Ready!

Agency owners have a lot to deal with, and knowing how to select the right technology for their applications is an essential skill for their success. In this article, I wanted to highlight several ways in which developing with MVC can be great for your business. With the right planning and resources, your development team should be able to adopt this methodology for their Kentico projects and create amazing solutions for your clients. The process will take a little time to complete, but once you are done, you will have a capable, knowledgeable team. And Kentico will be here to support you every step of the way!