Central control frustrates local teams. Full autonomy destroys the brand. The workable model sits deliberately between the two.
Every multi-market web programme negotiates the same tension. Group marketing wants consistency and reporting. Regional teams want speed and local relevance. Architectures that ignore either side get routed around.
The model that works is delegated authority within guardrails. The centre owns components, tokens, templates and measurement. Markets own content, campaign assembly and local SEO — inside templates they cannot break.
Technically this means a shared component package, a content model with market-scoped permissions, and a publication workflow that runs automated accessibility and performance checks before anything goes live.
Politically it means writing the governance model down and having it signed by both group and market leadership before the first migration. The architecture is the easy part.