What is the Best Digital Experience Platform for your Organization?
Sacrificing Simple Tech for Simple Business Processes
A digital experience platform (DXP) simplifies many business and technical challenges, both tactical and strategic so that companies can operate more effectively through digital. That directly translates into streamlined internal processes, better employee productivity, cost-savings, and a quicker, higher return on investment.
With all these benefits ripe for the taking, you’d think many organizations would be jumping at the opportunity to implement a DXP. But for many organizations that are still growing in their digital maturity, it isn’t that easy.
Based on a survey conducted by Progress and Pulse, only 12% of marketing and IT decision-makers have landed on a DXP that meets their organization’s specific needs. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that the wealth of different features may actually make the choice harder—35% of organizations have not implemented a DXP because the solutions available on the market offer capabilities they may not even use, and they don’t want to overpay.
Click here to download the Progress and Pulse survey.
There Doesn’t Have to Be a Trade-Off
Companies still transforming digitally — like those in the mid-market — and evolving industries such as associations, education, healthcare, and financial services, are in need of a DXP that is just the “right fit.” In other words, a solution that offers the right set of capabilities to maximize their long-term success, in an ever-changing business environment, without being overly complex or pricey.
If you’re considering a DXP, you’ll need to weed through all the offerings to find the best fit for your team. So, what capabilities should you shortlist as must-haves, and what capabilities are just diversions to your success? By knowing your organization’s priorities, you can find the perfect bowl of DXP porridge — Goldilocks reference, anyone?
What You Should Prioritize Now
Usability
This is non-negotiable. As we’ve all experienced this past year, many in-person processes had to be moved online. Wowing customers, partners, and employees through digital has become the minimum barrier to entry, meaning that if you aren’t exceeding your audiences’ expectations across the channels they prefer, your competitors will.
To meet these heightened expectations, teams need to deliver more campaigns and programs, on a bigger scale, in less time. Usability is key to working productively, collaborating with team members across functions, and streamlining onboarding, all in support of delivering more. And that makes IT happy because they don’t have to support marketer requests and can spend more time working on mission-critical projects.
Cloud-Enabled
Whether your company is cloud-first, half in the cloud, or continues to prioritize on-prem for industry or company-specific needs, you should ensure your DX vendor has the option to move your digital experience operations to the cloud. A cloud-first architecture enables you to be more agile and flexible in your development while ensuring scalability to meet peaks in traffic like on critical high-volume days (like Black Friday).
It’s important to consider the pros and cons of each type of cloud deployment. While SaaS supports more plug-and-play experience delivery, PaaS provides all the benefits of a cloud-hosted environment without sacrificing the ability to customize the platform to meet your needs.
Flexibility and Scalability
Being able to customize your toolset is a defining factor in whether a DXP will be able to support what you need to achieve short-term and long-term. Solutions that are inflexible are not able to support unique business needs, workflows, and strategies. Without having the ability to easily integrate and customize your DXP, you may end up outgrowing a platform that once worked very well for your team. Ensure that as your business evolves, your DXP can match.
Analytics, Optimization, and Personalization
Generic experiences don’t cut it anymore. Advanced personalized, multichannel, always-on experiences have become the new standard for customers across the globe.
That means the targeting and positioning of your campaigns can make or break your marketing strategy in an increasingly digital world. But oftentimes, marketing teams lack the proper insight into all touchpoints, visitor segments, and engaged prospects to effectively target visitors with engaging content that resonates. DXPs with integrated analytics, personalization, and optimization will support you in bringing your marketing and your business to the next level to meet modern-day demands.
What You Should Approach with Caution
One-Stop-Shop Product Suites
Vendors that force you to align with their own product suite rather than leveraging your preferred third-party tools add needless friction to the process of creating engaging digital experiences. One-stop-shop platforms decrease your ability to integrate emerging tools and offer limited customization options. Getting locked in by a single vendor can grow to be more expensive and difficult to maintain in the long term.
In contrast, flexible, extensible platforms support faster go-live times and cost-effectiveness while delivering an architecture that is not “one size fits all” but tailored to your business goals, processes, and technology.
Overly Complex Bundles
A majority of companies tackle digital transformation in a phased approach, meaning they need a platform with capabilities that scale to meet an evolving digital strategy. However, some teams tend to overinvest in overly complex solutions that include capabilities they aren’t ready to use yet. More “à la carte” offerings support businesses as they grow, providing the most cost-effective, ROI-driving solution at key stages of digital maturity.
Lack of Strategic Expertise
Strategic expertise to inform a successful digital experience is critical. Yet, many organizations that are not digital pioneers do not have the necessary internal resources to dedicate a team to focus on driving innovation. Without a vendor that has ample strategic expertise available to assist in outlining your vision, business value, key measurables, and timeframes, your implementation will not have a path to victory. You will see better success and a greater return on investment when joining forces with trusted implementation partners that help you plot your strategic direction and a roadmap for building competitive advantages.
The Right-Fit DXP for Your Team is Out There
Ultimately, if you’re still evolving in digital maturity, set your organization up for long-term success with a vendor that will offer market-leading ease of use, flexibility, and strategic implementation. Look for platforms that support your unique business needs rather than confining your teams and processes to fit the mold of a complex, one-stop-shop solution. This will enable you to minimize costs, enhance operational efficiency and develop a path forward that maximizes the effectiveness of your digital experience.
Sitefinity Cloud | Sitefinity Web Content Management | Sitefinity Insight: Progress Sitefinity enables Falcon-Software to rapidly develop elevated digital experiences to deliver relevant, personalized content through any channel.
Amy Ward
Amy Ward is a Senior Product Marketing Specialist at Progress Software Corporation and is focused on the Sitefinity solution. As a marketer, Amy also is a Sitefinity user and loves to share her Sitefinity stories with other marketers like her.