First, SaaS and PaaS
"As the cloud continues to make more of both marketing and IT tasks to the cloud, these departments need to know how they can interface, both dependent upon and independent of one another. SaaS, or Software as a Service, allows the technical and non-technical departments to make quicker adjustments to the customer experience," Gregg Shupe, Digital Experience Though Leader, Progress. "Much like SaaS, Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers similar advantages - the ability to utilize software without the budget of IT building and managing the application. PaaS is a cloud-based infrastructure which IT can install software applications but not have to manage the server, operating systems, security, etc. While PaaS does require some involvement from IT, it is limited to the software application itself. PaaS does allow for IT to implement customizations and 3rd party application connectivity, which can help marketing teams extend the capability of their software features and functions."
Second, Headless CMS
"Traditional content management systems allow non-technical teams to create web pages, change content on their website, and upload marketing collateral, all without entering one line of code," said Shupe. "When we talk about "Headless," this means the CMS does not have a front end, but only has the database. We use Headless CMS to send content to multiple destinations, including some physical ones, without having to store content in each of the destination locations. Here's an example: a retail company has a website and their own brick-and-mortar stores. Each store has their own Point of Sale (POS) technology - where you pay for your items and receive a receipt - which is connected to the retailer's headquarters. The marketing team is running a campaign to promote a new service for the retail store. There is a web page which offers details about the new service. In order to promote this new service, the marketing team creates content to appear on customers' receipts, which directs them to the webpage. Using a Headless CMS, the marketing team can manage all the content on the web and the content on the receipt in one place, even repurposing content for both. Headless CMS gives non-technical teams the ability to manage content wherever it is seen."
Third, Connectivity
"Modern customers expect to have consistent brand experiences wherever they interact with companies. This means companies must intentionally create customer experiences which are connected across all digital touch points, even on touch points they don't own. In order to distribute experiences consistently and deliver on customer expectations, IT must connect to these touch points for content (text, images, video, templates, etc.) to be rendered on different platforms. For example, a customer should not have two disparate experiences on social media as they would on their own website. In short, it's how companies move their information across the internet," said Shupe.
Fourth, DXP
"The modern customer demands so much from companies: personalization, instant access, consistent experiences, etc. The experiences companies create for the internet, mobile, smart TVs, watches, and cars impact the way customers engage with companies. We call these "Digital Experiences," customer experiences which are digitized. To create digital experiences, we need technology which takes data sources and connects them to a cognitive cloud service where the data is prepared for adaptive experiences to be delivered to specific devices. This process of using technology to create digital experiences is called a Digital experience Platform (DXP). DXPs utilize multiple technologies to ensure a company is delivering consistent, influential, experiences to their end-users," said Shupe.
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