Toscano.it becomes a Microsoft case study: Gruppo Toscano’s digital innovation featured internationally
Editorial Staff
The project born from a countercurrent choice was featured by Microsoft as an international case study.
The new Gruppo Toscano portal, launched in March of this year, was selected by Microsoft as a concrete example of the application of .NET and Blazor technology to a high-traffic public portal.
Developed internally by Toscano Digital, the Group’s IT company, Toscano.it represents an important step in the digital innovation journey of the real estate player in Italy and confirms the increasingly central role of technology in the world of real estate.
A countercurrent choice for the new Toscano.it
The project was created with a clear objective: to develop a fast, interactive public portal, easily accessible from mobile and optimized for search engines, capable of supporting millions of users and offering clients a simple, transparent, and complete experience.
To achieve this result, the Toscano Digital team chose a different path compared to the most widespread solutions on the market: using Microsoft .NET and Blazor, already used in the development of the Group’s proprietary real estate management system, also for the public portal, instead of the JavaScript frameworks traditionally used for this type of project.
This allowed the team to implement a technology they already knew and reduce fragmentation between different tools, working on a common foundation to bring the new Toscano.it to life.
An unconventional choice, especially for the consumer portal of a large real estate group, but one consistent with the skills developed internally and with the desire to maintain technical control of the product.
A faster, more interactive, and more direct digital experience
The result is a portal that combines three fundamental needs: visibility on search engines, browsing speed, and accessibility.
The pages are built to be effectively read and indexed by Google, load quickly even from mobile, and allow users to interact directly with all home-related services.
Those browsing Toscano.it can search for a home, evaluate and submit a request to sell their property, contact agencies, request appointments, and access mortgage, renovation, and insurance consulting services.
In addition, there is a major new feature: clients can register for the personal area to manage their requests and follow the buying and selling process within a single digital space.
For Gruppo Toscano, technology is a concrete tool for improving the relationship between clients, agencies, and professionals within the network, ensuring clarity, continuity, and access to services at all times.
Why Microsoft decided to tell the story of the project
The launch of the new Toscano.it demonstrated that .NET and Blazor can also be used for highly complex consumer digital experiences, and not only for internal or management applications.
Pietro Montelatici, CEO of Toscano Digital, believed that the development of Toscano.it could represent an interesting case for Microsoft as well: a high-traffic public portal, built with a technology not usually associated with this type of project and applied to a real, competitive, and complex context such as real estate.
From this came a direct dialogue with Microsoft developers in the United States, which led to the publication of the international case study, following an in-depth video call with Microsoft’s ASP.NET Program Manager.
Microsoft: “performance beyond expectations”
Microsoft recognized the solidity of the project also through its results.
The portal, which manages millions of sessions and page views every year, recorded a significant improvement in performance after the launch of the new version: average server response times dropped from 200 ms to 30 ms, an 85% reduction.
The new Toscano.it represents a strategic step in the Group’s digital innovation journey: a concrete example of how technology can be successfully applied to the real estate ecosystem, making the client experience simpler, faster, and more transparent.
