Editorial
CMSWire advanced its reputation as a leader in the digital experience space this year at its second annual DX Summit in November.
The conference at the Radisson Blu Aqua hotel in Chicago brought together the world’s foremost digital customer experience leaders and practitioners — those who are defining the next generation of digital customer experiences and creating the teams that make them a reality. We'll be returning to the same venue next November for DXS17.
Between now and then, CMSWire reporters and contributors will continue to keep you well informed about the technologies, strategies and experts that are driving digital experience.
CMSWire Hits
Before we look ahead, let's take a look back at CMSWire's Top 15 digital experience stories of the year.
No. 15
Bill Galusha, senior product marketing manager at Lexmark Enterprise Software, gave readers 6 Ways Robotic Process Automation Supports Digital Transformation.
New technologies and business models have the potential to upend entire industries, threatening well-established companies in verticals like banking, insurance, retail, government and more. Corporate leaders know they need to raise the bar and deliver on promises around digital transformation, but many are struggling.
The key is a balancing act between short-term success and longer-term project initiatives that may take many months or even years to deploy.
No. 14
CMSWire reporter Scott Fulton dug deep to explain how Microservices Are Making Inroads: Replacing the CMS Monolith.
Those with the newest architecture are constructed using APIs — functions that communicate with browser-based clients individually. Imagine shopping at a supermarket but getting one grocery item at a time and walking back out to your car each time, and you’ll get the picture.
Now when a supermarket or any retail establishment gets popular, it adds space. If it gets really popular, it adds locations. But for an old-style monolithic application, increasing the number of instances — the equivalent of constructing a new facility each time — is the only option. And that becomes cost-prohibitive at a certain point.
No. 13
Ankesh Anupam, a senior consultant at Wipro Digital, explored How Machine Learning Improves Customer Journey Mapping.
Customers today have a number of choices in front of them — and organizations are still struggling to provide consistent, personalized and easy experiences. To provide personalized experience, organizations need to identify the customer’s needs and preferences. Eventually, they will be able to use that data to predict customer behavior.
No. 12
CMSWire Chief Editor Noreen Seebacher and reporter Antoinette Siu explained Forrester's contention that Your Best Investment Is Digital Customer Experience.Forrester analyst Ted Schadler, who led the study, concludes that “digital customer experiences are half of what it means to be a digital business. The other half is digital operational excellence.”
No. 11
Howard Tiersky, CEO and founder of FROM, the digital transformation company, advised How to Structure Your Digital Team: 15 Critical Roles.Because of its complexity, many large enterprises and global brands undergoing a digital transformation struggle to structure their teams. To accomplish the task, they need to answer several questions.
No. 10
Pierre DeBois, the founder of Zimana, discussed How Adobe and Google Are Shaping the Future of Digital Analytics.
Keeping up with the proverbial Joneses can be exhausting among suburban neighbors. But when your neighbors are analytics powerhouses Adobe and Google, the work of keeping up falls to the entire neighborhood of marketing managers.
No. 9
CMSWire Chief Editor Noreen Seebacher talked to Digital Futurist Brian Solis, asking Can Digital Transformation Move Beyond Buzzwords?
Despite the ubiquity of words like "omnichannel" and "seamless customer experience," most companies are still operating in silos, without a clear strategy to provide personalized experiences to segments of one. Positive customer experience (CX) — the cornerstone of the so-called Age of the Customer — is more aspirational than actual.
No. 8
CMSWire reporter Virginia Backaitis took a look at Salesforce Einstein: A Big Advance for AI or Dumb Tech?
Salesforce officially unveiled Einstein on a Sunday evening, just before rival Oracle’s OpenWorld conference began. It is hard to imagine that Benioff was doing anything other than trying to preempt Oracle's debut of its own AI-type technology Adaptive Intelligence Applications.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Jun
6
The Future of Social Media: Emerging Trends and How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
The impact of emerging technologies like AI on social media
Webinar
Jun
7
The Building Blocks of Personalization
This webinar will explore how personalization can create powerful ecommerce shopping experience.
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Jun
8
Attracting—and Keeping—Your High-Net-Worth Investors
Join PwC to dissect their recent survey findings on a specific customer subset — high-net-worth investors.
Webinar
Jun
13
The Future of Contact Centers with AI at the Helm
Learn how to balance human intuition and interaction with the potential uses of AI to create delightful and lasting CX
Webinar
Jun
20
3 Steps to Unlock Your Customer Data and Drive Revenue
Discover how Twilio Segment’s #1 Customer Data Platform helps implement data-driven strategies.
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On demand
AI for Marketers: Optimize Personalization Across the Funnel
Understand the benefits of utilizing AI across your entire marketing stack
No. 7
CMSWire reporter Dom Nicastro explained how the “best next digital experience” will require monolithic infrastructures to be replaced by more “modular, granular and atomic” technologies in Gartner: Microservices Are Pulling WCM Into the Future.
Gartner authors Mick MacComascaigh and Jim Murphy concluded cloud services will win in web content management, and “microservices with a high level of interoperability will enable WCM elements to be coupled with different sets of third-party technologies, depending on the requirements of the current phase of the customer's journey.”
No. 6
CMSWire reporter Dom Nicastro shared news about Sitecore's acquisition by EQT in New Majority Investment Values Sitecore at $1B.
A Stockholm, Sweden private equity investor has acquired a majority stake of the Copenhagen Web CMS provider in a transaction that values Sitecore at about $1.14 billion, company officials announced today. Investor EQT will take the majority stake from Sitecore founders, investor Technology Crossover Ventures and other minority shareholders.
No. 5
James Davidson, 7Summits’ leading digital strategist, offered an interesting message in Digital Customer Experience Isn’t Child’s Play. Just Ask Lego.
As a consumer, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been wowed by an exceptional digital customer experience. Last week was one of those times, thanks to Lego.
No. 4
Robert Gara, co-founder of WompMobile, sparked conversation with his story, Responsive Design Is So ... 2013
Thank you responsive design for bridging the gap between information, user and device, but your reign as the development technique of choice is past its prime. While that statement is likely to offend an entire industry built on the promise of responsive solutions, user demands and habits are forcing a rethink of mobile best practices.
No. 3
CMSWire reporter Dom Nicastro explained shared the news that Gartner Booted OpenText, SDL and HP From its WCM Leaders Quadrant.
This year marks the second time in three years Gartner moved OpenText and SDL from the leaderboard. SDL sold off some of its assets this year. In addition, HP sold its customer experience software suite to OpenText this spring.
No. 2
Digital transformation is more than buzzwords: It's a critical component of business survival, according to digital analyst, speaker and author Brian Solis. CMSWire Chief Editor Noreen Seebacher shared his reasoning in an article that explained How to Be More Agile, Competitive & Innovative in a Digital Era.
"Digital transformation is one of the most important movements in business today. But at the same time, it’s also one of the least understood and consistently debated across the enterprise and throughout the industry," Solis said.
No. 1
Material design, card-based minimalist design, microinteractions and more: Nick Patel, head of marketing at WebbyMonks, touched a nerve with his post on Top Web Design Trends for 2017.
Here are some fast emerging web design trends you can expect to see more of in the year ahead — trends that will propel your website to the top in user experience.
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