Open Platform for Strong Ecosystem
Magento was built on the idea of creating an open ecommerce platform that is oriented towards nurturing a strong community of users, partners and contributors. As such, Magento Commerce allows easy product extensions as well as performance improvements.

Agile Platform for Quick Adaptability
Leverage the agile nature of Magento Commerce to keep up with new developments in technology, changing business models and evolving market dynamics to affect quick and seamless change in commerce experiences.

Innovative Product to Stay Ahead
The real advantage of Magento Commerce to businesses is the benefit of innovation across every area of online commerce. From inventory management to checkouts, Magento users stay ahead of competitors with ever improving features and functionalities.

Magento Commerce Advantages

Magento Commerce gives merchants the entire suite of features and functionalities they need to address the full range of commerce challenges.

• Merchants get access to content creation tools to showcase their products as well as run campaigns. Add to this the marketplaces, ad networks and mobile centric design of Magento Commerce that enables them to design the way their shoppers discover, experience, and interact with their brand.
• Delighting shoppers with exploration experience tailored for them is critical to the success of online commerce. With Magento, Merchants can successfully do this by easily managing product catalogs, merchandising, campaigns, promotions and personalization.
• According to a research by Baymard among US adults, 21% of shoppers abandoned carts because of too long or complicated checkout process. Other reasons for shopper dropouts include inability to calculate total cost upfront, unreliable payment gateway, limited payment options and inefficient payment system. With Magento, merchants are able to avoid these by creating a smooth path to purchase with cart and checkout navigation tools and support for global commerce. An improvement in available payment options as shoppers get to choose how to pay for and receive their products with integrated shopping and payment capabilities.
• What makes Magento Commerce truly special is the way it enables merchants to sell how they want to and from where they operate. A merchant can manage multiple sites, orchestrate omnichannel commerce between online and offline touchpoints, and sell to any type of buyer over a single platform.

End-to-end Commerce Capabilities

The Magento Commerce application delivers the online commerce capabilities that empower merchants and businesses to build the shopping experiences that customers desire. This online shopping platform is deployed on a managed-cloud infrastructure full of pre-integrated cloud services, which offers benefits like built-in security, performance monitoring and optimization, and managed cloud. This cloud infrastructure makes Magento Commerce high performing, scalable and secure. All these without compromising on flexibility, which makes this e-commerce platform so powerful.

The Magento commerce cloud infrastructure also includes cloud development tools that simplify the deployment process. This means agile and rapid development and testing for quick go-to market while encouraging good deployment practices and streamlining the build and deployment process for all environments.

Finally, Magento Commerce is backed up by 24×7 customer support, technical onboarding assistance, and customer success management. Merchants also get business intelligence tools that power data-driven decision making to accelerate growth.

Magento Marketplace: All the e-Commerce extensions you need

Magento was founded on the principle of openness. It has been designed to help businesses benefit from extension of platform capabilities. The Magento Marketplace is full of different third-party solutions that add to the functionalities of Magento Commerce to address the wide spectrum of challenges faced by merchants.

How Magento Commerce has performed over the years

With the above principles in place, Magento has become a global force in commerce. Have a look at the figures below for more details.

Future Ready with Magento Commerce

Commerce has taken a sharp turn towards the digital and online path in 2020 because of the pandemic. This has only added to the growing e-commerce trend. So with many businesses scrambling to fulfil orders leave alone meeting customer expectations, they have been found wanting in innovating for sudden turn of events. With a commerce platform like Magento that is rich in features and functionalities as well as offering endless flexibility, businesses can easily adapt to changing business scenario. Whether it’s B2B, B2C or D2C businesses conducted online, offline, or offline facilitated by digital touchpoints, there is a better ecommerce solution with Magento.

Argil DX is an Adobe Silver Solution Partner and a Magento Business Solution Partner. With expertise in implementing custom solutions that elevate customer experience, we’ve been recognized for our work and innovation. Talk to us to learn more about our Magento offerings.

The post Exceed Customer Expectations Online with Magento Commerce appeared first on Argil DX.

In 2020, customer experience has overtaken price and product as the single most important factor for customer loyalty.

Customers 2020: A Progress Report by Walker

For business leaders and leading enterprises across industries, customer experience or CX has become an extremely important facet of business. So much so that business growth is now being driven by experiences. This realization has given birth to new concepts like experience-driven business (EDBs) and experience-led business (ELBs), and very quickly made them popular criteria for successful business models. As businesses increasingly begin to revolve their activities, be it marketing, sales approaches or operations, around customer experience, there has also been a growing emphasis on CXM.

Customer experience management (CEM) is the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed their expectations, leading to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.

Gartner

Digital and its influence has largely been responsible for bringing in this concept of customer experience management. To be able to design and react to customer interactions in a timely and accurate manner involves effective use of analytics and customer segmentation. Whether it is an online or offline business, digital touchpoints are an effective way of delivering well-crafted experiences. Creation and management of experiences is also something that digital has wildly popularized. So, every business striving to become an experience business will need to have a strong digital foundation that aligns with their business goals.

The Annual Digital Trends Report conducted and produced by Econsultancy in collaboration with Adobe found Customer Experience as the most exciting business opportunity for B2Bs in 2020.

However, increasingly we see a surge in digital adoption without a well-planned roadmap for its implementation and application. Many business leaders have been forced to half-heartedly buy in to digital transformation initiatives. Simply because they feel the need to keep up with their competitors or want to be included in the list of digital friendly organizations. These are both good business improvement thoughts but without expert consulting or an experienced implementation partner who can deeply understand their business goals (both short-term and long-term) and design digital transformation strategy, they have been left with disjointed pieces of technology that serve little or no purpose. There are also increasing cases of organizations purchasing licenses for the most popular and widely used software without considering its purpose and suitability.

Between 2010-2015, CX leaders grew 6x faster than CX laggards.

There are so many apps and chatbots that do not serve any real purpose. Most of them spew out digital marketing jargons to the customer without enabling the experiences those jargons represent. A common example would be a situation where you’re trying to get some quick information from an airline website chatbot but it keeps telling you about itself and what it does without providing you answers to your queries. It was simply not designed to really understand customer queries and concerns. Another case would be if you’re being pestered repeatedly by different sales executives from the same insurance company to get you to buy the same policy even after you’ve said NO over and over. What happened in this scenario? Maybe the data collected by the first sales executive was not recorded or the company simply doesn’t have a unified data system from where other executives could know that you’ve declined to buy a policy from them. In both cases, the chatbot and the sales executives were excellent medium for the two companies to put forward their best experiences to you, but they ended up doing the opposite. They had data but they weren’t equipped to turn it into useful insights to facilitate customer satisfaction.

86% of those who received a great customer experience were likely to repurchase from the same company.

Will the latest and the market-termed best technology be enough to make you survive and thrive in a situation like the Covid-19 crisis? Businesses and organizations must choose good experience delivery over shiny tech. There must be a clear strategy for a CXM model that serves customers well. Of course, technology is an important part of becoming digital first or offering that seamless, consistent experience across channels, but technology can only be an enabler. A solid digital foundation is required, and businesses need to realise the importance of innovating their existing processes. You will have to build portals, tools and apps with a strong and flexible backend. Customer experience solutions can be architected only when there is clarity on the requirements by studying user journey and behaviour without being distracted by technology. The focus must stay on the customer and enterprises must be able to provide them with what they need, when they need it the most.

62% of companies will now invest to meet the changing needs of customers.

Customer behaviour is always changing but there are times when there are dramatic shifts. In 2020, businesses across all industries have been required to pivot to give customers the experiences that they need now when they are in self-imposed isolation or quarantine. Some have come out with clear winning strategies and evolved with the situation. While others have been stuck with the experiences they were successful with months before coronavirus brought in a new normal. So, for CXM to really make sense, enterprises need to put the customer first and work on providing good, consistent experiences. There must be an all-in approach, and a balance of Business-Experience-Technology must be found to ensure customer experience management is more than just technology and jargons.

Are you a business owner or a decision maker interested in making your CXM model future ready? Or are you just getting started on customer experience and looking for experts to talk to? Let us know your requirements around CXM to speak one-on-one with one of our customer experience consultants.

The post Customer Experience Management Is More Than Shiny Technology appeared first on Argil DX.

Nowadays, it is perfectly normal to hear someone speak to their device.

“Alexa, what’s the weather like today?”. Then, we ask Alexa to set our room temperature accordingly.

Siri has become the personal assistant for some and they rely excessively on it to take care of their daily schedule and even text or make calls. We are using our voice to the maximum with the help of voice interface technology.

Every business aims at expanding its user base through optimum use of the digital platform. Now, AEM has already been ruling the CMS market by enabling businesses to scale per requirements, whereas voice assistants are currently the talk of the town. With both being the contact point for most of the user online experience, connecting them would significantly boost user engagement.

“A third of American consumers now own an Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Apple HomePod, according to new research by Adobe. But by the end of the upcoming holiday season, that number will hit almost 50%.” — Forbes (September 2018). 

AEM and Alexa (or any other voice assistant) are not a very conventional duo if we look to combine the capabilities of the two. Both have their own varied capabilities and use cases. AEM on one hand enables marketers to seamlessly edit, pull and push content onto their websites ramping up the audience experience, and Alexa on the other hand is allowing people to talk with technology.

However, if we look at the broader picture, both are presenting content to audiences, though through different mediums. With the way virtual assistants are exposed, it is now possible to connect the two content providers. Alexa and Google Assistant provide the capability to make new skills (actions the voice assistants can perform). Developers can easily complement the existing voice assistants with new capabilities of their choice or what the business demands in their AEM website.

Let’s have a look at the use cases: 

1. You are a news firm publishing articles onto the website every hour of the day. The consumer will now have access to latest news with voice search because it’ll be exposing the same articles via Alexa/Google Assistant. “Hey Alexa, what’s the latest news on THEBESTNEWSCOMPANY.com”.

2. Employee Human Resource Management System. “Hey Google, do I have any leaves left?”.

3. Restaurant Business. “Hey Alexa, is there something special cooking at THE BEST RESTAURANT”. 

4. Travel Booking Firm. “Hey Google, are there any rooms left in THE BEST HOTEL in THE BEST TRAVEL PLACE.”

5. As a website admin you might want to know the replication status of content pages or read out reports from the website dashboard. “Hey Alexa, is the new AEM-Voice Optimization page published yet?”

What we are trying to achieve opens a whole new set of opportunities and use cases for developers and the audience to play with. Let us know how Alexa (or Google Assistant) can fit into your domain and we can assist you in exploring the best of both worlds (AEM and Voice Assistants). 

The post Enhance Your AEM Website with Voice Assistants appeared first on Argil DX.

Disclaimer: This is not just another write-up comparing AEM with open source CMS solutions. It’s a meme post too.

But besides the memes, what are we discussing?

Through this article, content authors, marketers, developers, brands and businesses will be able to understand the inherent open source core of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). You will also explore the key strengths of this Enterprise Web Content Management Solution (EWCMS) and its powerful siblings that have been making it the Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for successive years. AEM is also marked as a leader with a huge market presence in Forrester’s Wave Web Content Management System. 

Why do we need to talk about the core of AEM?

The heart of any CMS lies at its core and technology stack. A well-designed technology stack makes management easier for partner companies and opens smooth paths for customization of the product itself. When people talk about AEM, the first thing they see is the licensing cost and the proprietary CMS tag attached along with it. They skip the fact that it is built upon Open Standards or Open Source stack. The open source development gets active contributions and engagement from developers at Adobe as well as other active technology communities.  

Welcome to the bright side of AEM! 

AEM is not just polished and garnished with Adobe’s limelight. It has a multiverse of high-end features that make it stand out of the crowd ever since it came on the scene. 

AEM is not just a content management system but an important part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud (umbrella Adobe Experience Cloud) ecosystem, which is a comprehensive suite offering midsize and big enterprises a seamless experience across all touchpoints and channels. It outshines other CMSes because of its versatility to integrate smoothly with other solutions in the Experience Cloud that offer a complete set of tools for an enterprise. 

AEM’s core can’t be more open source

• The core of AEM is laid upon CRX repository, a Java Content Repository (JCR) which is based on Apache Jackrabbit (a project of Apache Software Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source foundation).  It supports versioning, full text search, transactions, event management, data persistence, storage, etc. with the help of an open source society. JCR vanishes the need for an external database by providing features to store and retrieve data efficiently. 
   
• The modular architecture of AEM is provided by OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative), an open source framework which is implemented as Apache Felix. The initiative is highly supported by Adobe developers as well. OSGi is fully utilized in AEM as all the bundles of AEM are managed by OSGi. 
   
• Moreover, Apache Sling provides a RESTful architecture and an open source web framework. It communicates with underlying JCR to complete the entire AEM stack flow. The technology stack of AEM comprising these three key elements is entirely built upon open source. 
   
• MongoMK is a backend storage facility allowing linear scalability. This open source solution is the true spirit of AEM when it comes to big data, high performance and scalability. It handles a massive amount of data for content rich websites or for websites having unanticipated user growth. MongoDB comes handy with AEM and can help in growing and scaling up the deployment to ensure high customer satisfaction. 
   
• Lucene Solr, built on Apache Lucene, is another open source scalable enterprise-search platform that gets embedded into AEM for search functionalities making it easier for users of this CMS. Apart from Solr search, AEM can also use features of Elastic Search which is another Open source platform used for enterprise search.
  
  
• AEM integrates seamlessly with Magento, an open source e-commerce platform used for crafting unique retail digital experiences for brands.
  
  
• AEM project is packed together into a cohesive module (multi-module structure) with many open source dependencies that is in turn managed by Apache Maven. In a sense, for the development of AEM project, various open source libraries are used. 
   

AEM experts contribute to various open GitHub repositories. So, in effect, AEM can be considered as one of the most reliable commercial WCM platforms which openly discusses issues in its forums and portals. 

Not convinced yet? Here’s more for the discerning readers

The release of core components of AEM by Adobe under open source license is a hope that AEM and Adobe might be moving towards the Digital Distribution Model.  

Not a claim, just a HOPE!

This component store within AEM is a playing field for developers. They can submit generic components to be used in AEM such as multiple variants of RTE, Hero, responsive components, etc. This lays the foundation for a new world of exploration, development and vision. These core components would enhance the ease-of-use of AEM for content authors and would open a wide arena for developers contributing to open source communities and portals. 

There is a new hype and renewed excitement in the CMS world around headless CMSes, i.e. CMSes without the front end (head) implementation feature. These CMSes can deliver content through APIs for utilization in Android app, iOS app, Windows and any platform we can think of. It is a powerful feature for web and app developers. With AEM being a hybrid CMS, you get this advantage as well as that of a traditional CMS.

Content and experience fragments in AEM provide a similar feature with an ocean of highlights. Content fragments expose their content in the form of JSON that can be used with any platform. On the other hand, experience fragments are reusable fragments of a page that can be consumed by a third-party system or app to deliver relevant experiences to customers. They can be used to build reusable experiences, delivering content for context-specific variations and omnichannel commerce. So here, AEM can be used for a Content as a Service (CaaS) model.  

The Game of comparisons 

While comparing free and open source CMS solutions with AEM, people are initially tempted with zero software cost but unaware of the inherent costs lying within TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). TCO is the major deciding factor in terms of costs, which includes installation, customization, security, support, upgrades, training, etc. 

The decision to choose the right CMS for your business is often dependent on the business requirement. If your company has a global presence and generates a high revenue, you might want to go for a reliable and secure CMS. A CMS that provides a holistic coverage of every aspect from content management to site analytics, customer personalization, media management, web publishing, campaigns and a seamless integration with third-party leaders like AWS, Salesforce, Facebook, SAP etc. You would want a CMS that offers smooth deployment and speedy revamp time.  

The world of AEM is flexible and agile with a robust architecture finely crafted and curated with the help of open source communities. 

Debunking the myths around open source CMSes

Why would it be difficult to achieve all of the above with a free and open-source software platform?  

This is due to a variety of factors:

• Lack of a holistic approach towards business solutions. 
• Inability to capture the entire market through core features. 
• Unprecedented access for open source developers leading to unpolished or immature codes sometimes resulting in bugs and product issues. 

• Various security concerns and threats due to the “open nature” of development. 
• Large TCO as compared to the initial software cost. 
• Not as free as it’s claimed, the picture is complex. It is more expensive and limited in its scaling capabilities because of the database layer. 
• Extra cost for cloud solutions, database, developer support, consultation costs, etc. 
• No guarantee of timely and continued community support. 
• There is no differentiation in author and publish environments, and system architecture is quite expensive. 
• Most open source CMSes are in their infancy when it comes to creating a holistic digital marketing experience for customers. 
• Lack of many core features such as personalization, mobile support, multi-site management, dynamic content, etc. 
• FOSS CMSes provide various features in the form of modules. You can imagine so many modules! Modules may have internal dependencies which in turn can become unmaintainable and unsupported. It might also require an intensive evaluation and research for the modules that would fit the requirement. 

Why should I choose AEM?

Isn’t it enough to realize that security and updates in open source systems are not a guarantee or authentic all the time? In turn, AEM is guarded by Adobe support 24*7 solving technical and marketing issues and giving online support and training. The extensive seminars, training sessions, documentation and round-the-clock support makes AEM reliable and trustworthy. The solutions to issues in AEM are delivered in the form of service packs and feature packs to ensure a smooth functioning of websites and projects. The updates on the website are effective on-the-fly with ease of management because of different authors and publish servers. 

AEM is a collection of core features and seamlessly integrates with many third-party tools. If used in its entirety, AEM and other Marketing Cloud solutions can give a self-sufficient ecosystem that businesses can rely upon.

So, you might want to leave a lackluster user experience and security hurdles to join the multiverse of AEM.

Argil DX is a boutique digital experience company specializing in Adobe Experience Cloud. We are an Adobe Silver Solution Partner serving some of the most popular brands with a focus on tailored digital strategy and executing it through the Agile approach. For queries around AEM implementation, maintenance or any other exciting ideas, write to us.

The post Open Source Core of Adobe Experience Manager appeared first on Argil DX.

That brings us to the question: what is a headless CMS?

When you hear the term ‘headless’, you automatically imagine a body without a head. Not such a pretty sight, right? With a headless content management system, it’s a much better picture.

Imagine the content provider (backend) as the body and the presentation layer (the frontend) as the head of a CMS. Unlike a traditional CMS, the content provider of a headless CMS is independent of the presentation layer. This provides immense flexibility to create, edit, delete or manage content from a single place.

But… could there be a content management system better than a headless CMS?

There is hybrid CMS. Now, what’s a hybrid CMS (AKA decoupled CMS AKA hybrid headless CMS)? And how does it improve on a headless one?

This type of CMS offers the advantages of a traditional CMS as well as a headless CMS. You get a UI with templates and components to build landing pages without any technical assistance.

ATTENTION, marketers!

Marketers can use this default frontend to create content using the tools they’ve grown used to. It’s not just marketing that benefits from adopting a hybrid content management system. Developers are able to deliver content to all types of devices, channels and touchpoints. This helps you power the content of smartwatches, AI speakers, mobile apps and other innovative technologies.

Different Techniques of Using a Hybrid Headless CMS

1. Full CMS and REST APIs

Create clean presentation-independent content and deliver it through page managers (sites console, assets console) or through REST endpoints as required. Here, marketers get the freedom to easily create and manage their content while developers have the flexibility to create a frontend for their mobile apps or different endpoints.

2. Page Fragment as JSON or HTML

This CMS allows marketers to fully take charge of creating content. They can even create page or experience fragments using page editors like content fragments. And endpoint developers can directly pull this content either in HTML or JSON format and render it straight to the apps.

This technique gives marketers the power to define reusable content as well as experiences utilizing familiar techniques and tools.

A hybrid CMS offers dual benefits to endpoint developers. You can get complete HTML as well as data in JSON format on the same page. So, a developer can manipulate the output HTML and cast it the way they want. And if there’s no need of changes, then the HTML can be directly used at the endpoint.

One of the best hybrid headless CMSes that offers easy-to-use functionalities and features is Adobe Experience Manager.

How is a Hybrid Headless Better Than a Headless?

• API Driven Content Delivery: Hybrid CMS is a traditional CMS plus a backend repository that enables omnichannel delivery in every required format using APIs.

• Future-proof CMS: The ability to provide adaptable results without even knowing the recipient device makes it more reliable for upcoming technologies.

• Marketer-centric: Unlike pure headless systems it has a user interface so that marketers can get a ‘what you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) editing experience.

Challenges of Working with a Hybrid CMS

Like every good thing that comes with a price, opting for a hybrid headless or headless CMS comes with its own obstacles.

• Tech Team Problems: As the number of endpoints increases, there is an increase in the diversity of requirements due to the difference in the working of different receiver devices. Handling these becomes more challenging for developers and there is a need for more expert hands on deck.
  • Solution: You will need to either have a team of multi-skilled developers or expand the skillsets of your developers.

• Data Formatting: API response format must adhere to every receiver endpoint. For every device, delivering the data in different formats can create problems.
  • Solution: You’ll need to proactively discuss with your team of developers and endpoint representatives to agree on a specified format.

Since the advent of smart devices and interfaces there has been a struggle for presentation-independent content creation and delivery. This problem that marketers and developers have been facing is now an opportunity to provide flexible content management systems like AEM.

Find out what makes AEM an opensource core CMS in our next blogpost. Subscribe to our Digital Insights to get it delivered straight to your inbox.

The post What is a Hybrid CMS? How can it Help Your Business? appeared first on Argil DX.

Even with great ideas, excellent tech support and massive data, it can be hard to create, manage and launch your websites and campaigns on time. It becomes especially difficult if your web content and assets are siloed because you are using different solutions or products for different needs.

Won’t you love to have an enterprise content management system that enables you to easily access all your data and assets from one place?

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), a part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, offers a set of solutions that is comprehensive enough to perform all your marketing activities through and from it to provide a “unified experience”. The Adobe CMS takes care of the monotonous daily activities of web authors and marketers. This leaves you with more time and energy to focus on the creative side of your digital marketing strategy.

More power to you, digital marketer!

Is your legacy CMS holding down your digital marketing plans? You want to let go of it… but what’s the best available option?

Let’s say your organization has grown much bigger than it was 10 years ago when you joined fresh out of college. So, you’re now the marketing head who’s been pushing for a redesign of your enterprise websites, apps and customer portals. They don’t reflect your brand anymore and are unable to help you deliver your marketing needs as efficiently. To do this, you want to migrate to a more powerful web content management system that simplifies digital asset creation, delivery and management.

AEM has an omnichannel foundation and offers marketing friendly templates and flexible developer tools. This enterprise CMS solution boosts the productivity of both teams and enables them to sync up seamlessly as they can access all digital assets in one repository. Obviously, you enjoy a strong IT-Marketing cohesion to go live with your new website in record time, on all devices.

Hurray! You have launched a cool new website. What next?

You haven’t explored the full power of AEM yet. The real fun with this enterprise content management system is about to start.

You now have a versatile and powerful content management platform. You can create competitive content and deliver it to your customers the moment they need it. This helps you keep relevant content flowing on time and gives your customers a reason to come back for more.

Or swiftly design and push out immersive landing pages that make your campaigns stand out. Like when your CEO wants you to showcase an awesome tool, developed in-house, within a week. Or attract industry attention to popularize a sales and marketing event that your organization is hosting.

What about optimization, personalization and customer experience (CX)?

You’re most probably looking to dash ahead of your competition in the customer experience race. This becomes more achievable with the massive personalization voltage that AEM brings to your marketing arsenal. Some of the exciting features of this web content management system include drag-and-drop components, WYSIWYG interface, reusable content and visual search. Now you can easily customize your product pages or customer portals for the holiday season sale with minimal effort and quicker than your competitor. If that isn’t enough, you can perform the same activity for mobile devices, applications or in-store screens to offer your customers a seamless digital experience.

A CMS that you can bank on when you grow and grow

As your company’s business expands even more and starts targeting global sales, you need to manage multiple websites, including multi-lingual sites. It isn’t an easy task when you have to make changes to around 50 websites or more at once. However, AEM’s amazing Multi Site Manager and translate automation workflow helps you make speedy changes to the content of your secondary websites while maintaining your master website as it is.

But is AEM a future-proof solution?

There’s still a lot more you can do using this hybrid CMS. It isn’t for being just another CMS that AEM is a Leader in Gartner’s July 2018 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management for the eighth year in a row. AEM is always updating and growing in terms of features and OOTB components with every passing year. With Adobe Experience Manager, creating “content-led experiences” for your customers is as quick as a few clicks.

Read about AEM and other marketing solutions in the Adobe Marketing Cloud in our blog. Feel free to contact us for implementation and integration of Adobe solutions.

The post Is AEM the Best Content Management System for Your Digital Marketing Strategy? appeared first on Argil DX.

Looking at the fast-changing trends in the way we think of the e-commerce landscape, there is a tremendous rise in the usage of e-commerce terminology and implementation. As we have already observed, there is a huge surge in the number of organizations focusing on digital transformation. As a result, these two words are becoming seemingly interconnected in a lot of ways. 

Say for instance your business has started transforming digitally to keep up with the evolving business models and your competitors. Then, you would also require implementing and conducting all your transactions digitally. Hence, incorporating e-commerce becomes a key factor in the digital transformation journey. 

Why Embrace E-commerce? 

It has also become of utter importance for traditional retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers to embrace technology. We have been seeing a huge decline in the footfall in brick–and–mortar stores and this rate will only grow. To satisfy the scaling demand for technology in online retail and wholesale, you must implement omnichannel, multichannel, marketing tools and e-commerce solutions (all these come under the umbrella term digital transformation). 

To put some weight to the argument, let’s walk through an example of an “e-commerce company that happens to sell pizza.” (Yes, you heard it right!) 

It is well known that Domino’s had both an image and a sales problem in the mid-2000s. While they made vast improvements in their product quality, what they did in terms of technology and e-commerce innovation was groundbreaking. While we see in today’s scenario a lot of organizations are talking about digital transformation, what Domino’s has done over the past decade is overwhelming. It is surely a case study for everyone to refer to see how digital transformation leads to business value and improves customer loyalty. 

Some of the key ingredients in the digital transformation initiative: 

• Top–to-bottom buy-in in the initiative of every stakeholder is crucial 
• Relentless dedication and monitoring results to improve 
• Leveraging digital marketing and storytelling to let your customers know about your huge step and investment 
• Believe! Believe! Believe! 

We have noticed a revolution in the way content was consumed 10 years before and now. Looking back, it’s incredible to see just how digital our world has become. 

Keeping in mind the swift changes in the e-commerce trends and beliefs of the major brands in the brand establishment, I would like to highlight some more points to keep in mind. 

Maintaining an Omnichannel Brand Integrity

“The greatest need right now is around the entire concept of unified commerce.” 

Greg Buzek 

Studies show that 90% of the total retail sales are still happening in-stores. This implies that for large brands the question is not about in-store or online, but how to maintain the brand integrity across the multiple touch points, multiple digital and in-store channels. 

Contradictory to the statement above, online retailers like Amazon having no physical presence are still worth trillions of dollars and are estimated to double in just few short years. 

Focus on Digital content

Quality e-commerce offerings and product content surely help in boosting in-store and online sales. Great digital content is not just about selling more online. In fact, 81% of the shoppers tend to go through online reviews before they make any purchase and 60% of the shoppers check their mobile devices and compare while in store. 

It becomes imperative in the competitive digital world for brands to focus on best-in-class product content, including product descriptions, videos, images, and rich media. It not only helps in boosting in-store sales but also driving sales online. For many of today’s e-commerce advertising efforts, great content is a must-have for digital campaigns, with high-res images, videos, and other digital content. 

Speed to Market 

Embracing technology and transforming digitally has really reduced the downtime for companies to reach out to customers. Whether it’s launching a new product, service or offers, brands leverage the advantages, digital e-commerce transformation has to offer. While it took them years to design, strategize and launch a product, now they can do it all in months or even days. 

One industry-leading example would be, PepsiCo – they have created a whole new division focused on the intersection of e-commerce, digital marketing, and content. This division has already started earning them profits. With the right tools, PepsiCo has been able to speed up their time to market and launch products from three months to two days or less. Conclusively, it means better shopper experience and increased sales. 

Digital Transformation in the E-commerce World 

Digital transformation, which focuses on optimizing the overall customer experience across each touch point, is currently one of the hottest topics in our industry. Keeping in mind the rising demand and the need for the e-commerce companies to escalate their customer experience the following points would help you in understanding the benefits, challenges and guiding you through your journey: 

Security and Privacy of Customers

E-commerce merchants face growing challenges in protecting themselves and their customers from ever-increasing fraudulent activity. Many transactions that take place online are tracked but still many go untraced. With the online frauds becoming a greater threat day by day, online businesses need to act fast to take full control. Although, as fraud prevention techniques become more sophisticated so do the fraudsters and their attacks. Increasingly fraudsters are moving towards the dark net where they can buy payment and account or identity information. Simple rules and static checks are not enough to stop these fraudsters. A robust security audit and contingency strategies are a must to have.

Advanced Analytics 

Traditional analytics tools were more focused on analyzing the historical data for insights and informed decision making. However, there is now a growing need for these tools to predict and forecast future events and behaviors. 

Advanced analytics goes beyond the basic business intelligence, gleaning deeper into relevant insights, conducting forecasts and predictions for business strategies, and generating recommendations. These new analytics tools can churn out insights from a comparatively huge number of datasets (Big Data analytics), semantic analysis, visualization, data mining, predictive analytics, and location intelligence. Integrating these tools into the financial business processes can drive Digital Transformation and empower enterprises to include first-party and third-party data into their analytics. 

Be the E-commerce Brand Customers Love to Interact with 

The consumer behavior is changing drastically and the way they interact, and trust brands have also changed whole together. Consumers are assuming more control over their purchase decision and are aware of the best and worst practices. They can now compare brands and provide feedback on the service in real time. Observing these scenarios and the fast-changing landscape of how business was done a few years back and now, adopting and embracing Digital Transformation is a must for any emerging and growing brand especially in the E-commerce arena. 

The post Digital Transformation for a Fluid E-commerce Experience appeared first on Argil DX.

When it comes to digital transformation and related customer-experience making processes, cybersecurity cannot be taken lightly or reduced to an afterthought.

Ever-advancing digital technologies are making every aspect of life easier. The integration of IoT, Artificial Intelligence, collection and utilization of data, mobility, etc have brought a great level of convenience that was tough to picture about a decade ago. However, all these have also increased the risk of security breaches across all platforms.

Tech enthusiasts often consider innovation as an opposing force to cybersecurity, while that is not so. It is a common misconception, as companies believe they will have to encounter major security breaches if they lean too heavily on innovative technologies.

Understanding the Importance of Cybersecurity

the more a digital firm widens its services and clientele, the more they are prone to cyberattacks…

Digital transformation is a phenomenon that all firms must undergo if they aspire to be ahead of the game and provide utmost customer experience. In order to reap the maximum benefits from a digital transformation implementation, tech firms need to understand the vitality of adopting proper cybersecurity measures.

Evidently, the more a digital firm widens its services and clientele, the more they are prone to cyberattacks, given their rising popularity. Take IoT, for instance. It undoubtedly increases business efficiency but simultaneously adds many unsecured devices to the network. Moreover, cloud platforms are also at the risk of cyberattacks as they turn to third-party providers for an array of services.

Security Breaches that made Headlines

To further delve into the importance of cybersecurity, it is necessary to shed light on major data breaches that have happened recently, due to the negligence of companies and poor security measures.

We all remember how data security became a sore spot for Facebook after it put users in a volatile position by unknowingly leaking their personal data to hackers. In fact, Facebook has earned quite a bad reputation for itself in terms of cybersecurity by violating the members’ privacy on numerous occasions, going as far as getting more than 87 million records breached. Nobody wants to be in the sticky situation Mark Zuckerberg found himself in.

Another instance is the whole Aadhaar debacle, which will unfavorably go down in history. The service violated private information like names, addresses, personal photos, phone numbers, and email addresses stored by Unique Identification Authority of India. In addition, it also gave access to software through which anyone could attain the ID card for any Aadhaar number. This enormous security breach exposed up to 1.1 billion records of citizens registered throughout India. Cyberattacks like these have contributed to users distrusting firms and cancelling their subscription in favor of safer alternatives. 

nobody enjoys being constantly worried about their online data or using complex and elaborate password-protected services.

Prioritize Cybersecurity for a Seamless Digital Experience

In addition to understanding the negative aspects of taking something as great as cybersecurity lightly, realizing its importance also carries some noteworthy benefits.

Improving the security features of a firm can significantly contribute to organizational growth. It gives firms the liberty to authorize their offices or all employees full access to the organization’s network and assets through mobile devices and the internet, regardless of their location. Such kind of mobility and increased employee productivity are only possible if the firm identifies suitable security measures, implements them and upgrades them regularly, especially tech services that deal with identity management. 

Moreover, a secure environment and services also benefit the customers, which develops trust and dependency. This, in turn, is beneficial for companies as it increases traffic and popularity, giving them access to more clientele. 

Undoubtedly, nobody enjoys being constantly worried about their online data or using complex and elaborate password-protected services. A good security system enables advanced measures for authentication, based on multiple factors. This creates a seamless experience which turns out to be user-friendly and easily accessible for customers. 

Cybersecurity is Worth Investing in 

When it comes to digital transformation and related customer-experience making processes, cybersecurity cannot be taken lightly or reduced to an afterthought. The consequences hold monumental impact, and the damage can often be irreparable. The goal should be to direct a certain percentage of your transformation budget towards cybersecurity initiatives. Organizations should focus on advanced security measures and technologies that enable them to thrive and prosper, while empowering the clients through safe and secure services.

The post Effective Digital Transformation: Identifying Security Challenges and Implementing Relevant Measures appeared first on Argil DX.

“People buy experiences, not products.”

Talking about the acquisition of Marketo, Narayen gave away the three factors that are key in successfully carrying out M&As – a shared vision, people and culture. Bringing forward the main agenda of the Summit yet again, he talked about customer centricity and the importance of identifying your customers in terms of B2B or B2C, and the blurring line between the two. The road to realizing a fulfilling customer experience is understanding who your end customers are, how they are using your products and using digital to engage with them. This creates an awareness that helps build better products focused on customers.

Narayen ended his brief but insightful stay on stage with the message,

“Digital is either gonna be a headwind or a tail wind and when it’s a tailwind the power of digital really enables you to serve your customers so much better.”

Building Strategy on What People Do – Not What They Say

“Experience changes everything,” Steve said as he used examples of Uber and Airbnb to explain how experience has made all the difference in how we do business. We do not see any ads for the services these companies provide because their marketing and selling is the experience. Contrasting Coachella and Fyre Fest, he talked about how the former has been able to do much better than the latter due to delivering great experience time and time again with amazing music and content.

“Experience is the line between epic and epic failure.”

CRM’s flaw comes from the fact that it is built for salespeople and relies on their input and perceptions of customers. And going forward, the bestselling strategy would be one that is based on what people do and not what people say.

For everyone in the B2B business, it’s about making every experience epic – to make customers come back for more. It’s the role of B2B marketers to do this with intensity to drive incredible engagement. The goal behind Marketo becoming a part of the Adobe family is to drive the next generation platform, Adobe Experience Cloud. This platform gives marketers the tool to deliver engaging content to the right person at the right time and right place, and adapt to change and time.

The creative power of Adobe has supercharged Marketo Engage with ads, analytics, content and commerce from the Adobe Experience Cloud. Marketo is now, more than ever, ready to change the game with Account-based experience (ABX).

Account-based experiences start with data and B2B marketers need a different set of data. Now, this will be facilitated by the strategic partnership involving Adobe, Microsoft and LinkedIn, which will help marketers gain deeper insights at a granular level and engage with buyers.

He announced an industry-based partnership with Drift built around conversational “account-based marketing (ABM)”. With this, organizations can now deliver personalized VIP experience at scale by using intelligence in their Marketo database to power personalized, real-time conversations with your target account on every website visit.

The Future of B2B Marketing: ABX

Marketo VP Matt Zilli took the stage to talk about the art and science of marketing. Breaking the bounds of marketing by marrying the creative (the heart and soul of marketing) with campaigns is what he stressed on before introducing new product innovations at Marketo.

The session began with a showcase of the ability to access Experience Manager assets from Marketo Sky to blend content and campaigns to enable faster personalization of every campaign.

The importance of data was highlighted yet again in the Summit with Matt talking about creating amazing B2B experiences using data, intelligence and insights. Marketo Platform becoming a part of the Adobe Experience Cloud is going to unlock a new data-rich experience for consumers. All of your data in one place regardless of source or type, a unified profile of every person and every account in words marketers speak and understand to create connected experiences.

Bizible will help marketers tell the untold story of data through analytics. Predictive Audiences for events will use the power of Sensei to help you target the right size of audience for your marketing campaigns.

Making ABX achievable to all is a challenge as most times marketers are unable to decide the account to go after. Account Profiling will help you find accounts outside your database that you can target. This helps you kickstart your account-based experience strategy. Target your key personas using paid media by sharing your account list with LinkedIn. Combine all these and you get a comprehensive solution to manage Account-Based Experiences.

According to Jessica Kao, Director Client Services Digital Pi, the first challenge in successful implementation of ABM is bad data, which is usually incomplete or filled with holes. Secondly, the lack of holistic coordination across various touchpoints. Thirdly, a lack of organizational alignment – the lack of understanding between your Marketing and Sales team as an example.

Boosting AI with Parallel Computing through GPUs: The Nvidia Story

Alix Hart, Global Head of Digital Marketing at Nvidia, told the audience how Nvidia is delivering intelligent experiences to customers, from avid gamers to AI researchers.

She told the audience about the three ways Nvidia is moving the needle of digital transformation. One is creating a unified customer view by bringing both digital and in-product data together. Two, they created lead scoring models improved with Marketo and built programs for the middle of the journey, to get the most engagement with customers. Third, they transformed insights by turning feedback data into insights. They improved their social media listening model to learn how customers engage with them emotionally.

They also came up with a customer segment scorecard to better understand engagement with each segment to optimize content faster. Nvidia’s goal, Alix informed audiences, is to make sure that they are connecting with and engaging customers intelligently.

Taking Customer Experience Beyond Numbers

The Summit was built around discussions on customer-centric models of business operation, marketing and innovation. Empathy, purpose, problem solving, people and culture came out as the cornerstones for building truly amazing customer experiences by leveraging data, AI, ML and other relevant tools, technology and innovation.

Looking Forward to the Next Summit!

We too put our best foot forward and exhibited our ADX Tools and our demo on Customer Experience Transformation using an AI and ML powered tool that is designed to blend online and in-store retail experiences. Thanks to everyone who visited booth 771-A and showed their genuine interest in our innovations and ideas.

It was another great day of learning for Team Argil DX. Summit 2019 had some mind-blowing innovations that wowed us and upcoming technologies that left us excited about Adobe’s next digital experience conference, Summit EMEA.

Related Blogs:

Digital Transformation: A Combination of the Right Technology, People and Process

Customer Experience Management: The Key to Success in the Digital Era

Stepping up the CX Game in Retail

The post Account-based Marketing (ABM): Reinventing B2B Marketing appeared first on Argil DX.

She discussed the reinvention of roles within Adobe where market researchers evolved into data analysts and designers became “content machines” to meet changing requirements. She emphasized the need for people who weren’t afraid to experiment and challenge the status quo. And to set the process right and flexible for transformation, Adobe is rebuilding itself on a culture of testing – approximately 50 tests being conducted per month.

“Marketing has never been more valuable.”

Ann Lewnes, CMO Adobe

Highlighting the central role of marketing in digital transformation projects, she talked about how Adobe pushed 75% of their marketing budget to digital in the beginning of their own transformation journey. Marketing plays a vital role in the Discovery phase of the customer journey and is 100% accountable for customer acquisition.

“A great idea and a great piece of creative is at the center of every amazing experience,” she told the audience while establishing the need for setting the creative bar high.

Inclusivity and Conventional Wisdom in Innovation

To make gaming more accessible and inclusive for all, Microsoft went ahead and created the Adaptive Controller for Xbox. Even the packaging is easily accessible – a lot of thought went into it too.

“When everyone plays, we all win.”

Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

To Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen’s question on the requisites for getting digital transformation and innovation right, Nadella talked about the need for a sense of purpose, mission and culture. An evolution from the mindset of “know it all” to “learn it all” or as Narayen called it intellectual curiosity, he said was key in driving innovation. It is also important to empower your own people within the organisation and arm them with the right technology to improve collaboration.

Talking about getting business transformation right for enterprises, Nadella emphasized the need for a clear view of industry trends, bringing in business model shifts along with tech shifts, and a customer centric approach. The leap on products and business models is what has driven change at Microsoft.

On the power of AI to drive innovation, he talked about the opportunity for companies to create new products taking advantage of developments in AI.

He stressed the need to break down silos, bring products together and pull in capabilities to enable organisations to gain “digital independence with us,” which should be the mission of enterprises.

Transformation should be about driving “deep personalization with trust”, and in that endeavour unlocking the power of data is critical. The Open Data Initiative (ODI) of Adobe, Microsoft and SAP is bringing together data in an actionable way.

He concluded by stating that a combination of CMO and CIO efforts will be capable of creating a “no-regrets system” of investment – one where you don’t have to be right all the time – in the digital age.

Data and Insights in Acting and Entrepreneurship

If you’ve been following this year’s Adobe Summit closely, you would’ve already guessed that we’re talking about none other than Reese Witherspoon.

During the conversation with Ann Lewnes, she spoke about the radical improvement in insights on engagement that professionals in the film industry get now, as compared to the old days. This is a result of the interaction actors, producers and directors can have with the audience with the help of technology and digital platforms. The expansion in storytelling is because of this.

Reese talked about how data has enabled her to successfully manage her clothing brand, Draper James. In her entrepreneurship journey, she has also benefited from content streaming services – engaging personally with her audience to gain key insights.

And data has forced her to adapt.

“If you don’t evolve, you expire.”

Reese Witherspoon

On launching Hello Sunshine, she emphasized the need she felt to fight misogyny and stand up for her colleagues after reading the misogynistic script of a sought-after film role.

The Impact of Technological Transition on Football

Drew Brees, quarterback New Orleans Saints, took the Adobe Summit 2019 attendees through his journey as a footballer, parent and the ups and downs in his footballing career during his conversation with Pam Oliver, Sr Correspondent, NFL Reporter, Fox Sports.

While talking about the relevance and necessity of technology in football, he explained how the shift in technology has also led to a change in match preparations. From tackling films of VHS tapes to clicking buttons on computers to pull up matches, practice methods and plays, the use of technology in football has come a long way too. The one-click information processing system has enabled a more efficient preparation and better game strategy creation.

He ended by emphasizing the need to be grateful, humble and respectful. When asked about how he would like to be remembered, he spoke about what he feels is a great approach to life,

“I would love for people to say that I did it the right way, that I left it better than I found it.”

Drew Brees

Day two ended with Bash where The Killers gave us an amazing performance.

Team Argil DX is excited about Day 3 of the Summit and is eagerly looking forward to it. You’ll find us at Booth 771-A of the Community Pavilion at the Adobe Summit 2019.

Related blogs:

Reinventing B2B Marketing: Account-based Marketing (ABM)

Customer Experience Management: The Key to Success in the Digital Era

The post Digital Transformation: A Combination of the Right Technology, People and Process appeared first on Argil DX.

Day 1 of the Adobe Summit 2019 gave the record 17,000 attendees a lot to cheer about.

Shantanu Narayen, CEO Adobe, kicked off the Summit focused around Customer Experience Management (CXM) as the driver of business growth. Adobe introduced new integrations and features across Adobe Experience Cloud.

Look at some of the highlights of the keynote.

1. Adobe Commerce Cloud and Marketo introduced
2. Adobe Experience Platform made generally available
3. A new version of Adobe Sensei unveiled
4. Partnership with ServiceNow, and Microsoft and LinkedIn announced
5. Marketo Engage, the B2B marketing automation solution, added to Adobe Marketing Cloud

While the open and extensible Adobe Experience Platform enables real-time customer profiles, ServiceNow will enhance it with rich customer support data. Adobe’s  partnership with Microsoft and LinkedIn will create account-based experiences (ABX). All these are being done to improve the customer experience management capabilities at the enterprise level.

Narayen spoke about the transformation within Adobe itself over the past few years. The defining chapter in this transformation journey for Adobe was moving to a cloud-based subscription model that placed the customer experience at the centre of all projects. He talked about the data-driven operating model (DDOM) dashboard that has become a single source of truth and democratized their data.

“Our success has been predicated on the core belief that digital transformation starts by reimagining the entire customer journey.” – Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO

Some well-known organisations were recognised for reimagining customer journeys, and their own journeys were discussed during the keynote.

Best Buy: Among other changes that the organisation brought about, investment in customer experience to offer the best in-store experiences and using data to drive the company forward were key.

“We are not in the business of selling products or doing transactions with you. Our purpose is to enrich lives with the help of technology,” Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly said.

Intuit: Moving from desktop to cloud-based SaaS was the beginning of Intuit’s digital transformation journey. This company focused on making clean data available to all employees to deliver rich customer experiences.

“IT played a major part in laying down the right infrastructure and data pipes,” CIO of Intuit, Atticus Tysen told Adobe CIO Cindy Stoddard.

Suntrust: SunTrust CMO Susan Johnson discussed disrupting financial institutions though digital with Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis. She talked about using intelligence derived from data to reach people creatively. The power of AI in helping Suntrust target people in need of their services was also mentioned. She praised Adobe for being key in their mission to lead with purpose.

“Think of what Fitbit or Apple have done with fitness, [and that’s what] we want to do with financial fitness,” she added.

Chegg: Chegg has been helping students learn on-demand and in a personalized manner through its subscription-based service. Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig emphasized the company’s focus on data and analytics to reach students on the right channels at the right time. This has enabled them to lower cost of acquisition cost from about 63% to approximately 80% renewal rates.

“Young people demand good experiences, and they don’t have tolerance for bad experiences,” Rosensweig said.

Many illuminating takeaways from the keynote session on day one and Argil DX is delighted to be a part of Adobe Summit

2019. Looking forward to the Transformative Leadership keynote on day two.

Related blogs:

Reinventing B2B Marketing: Account-based Marketing (ABM)

Digital Transformation: A Combination of the Right Technology, People and Process

The post Customer Experience Management: The Key to Success in the Digital Era appeared first on Argil DX.

My experience has been that the focus is primarily on new features and getting those new features into production as quickly as possible. If security wasn’t in the original requirements or specifications, chances are that it was not addressed or possibly not even thought about. This could open your website or WCMS up for attacks.

For those companies that do take steps to try to keep their website secure, they typically run some canned security scan which checks for cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. That’s definitely a good place to start. What about application servers like CQ5? The standard SQL injection tests aren’t likely to occur, but that doesn’t mean that your CRX repository is safe from being queried. Why? Because CQ5 comes with an out of the box query selector which allows queries to be sent via HTTP requests. If this query isn’t properly blocked, any data in your CRX repository could be exposed. This includes user names, encrypted passwords, and custom source code.

We, at Zap Technology Solutions, have created a security scanner which is specifically geared toward scanning CQ5/AEM-driven websites. It’s not a replacement for the scans that check for XSS or SQL injection, it’s a supplemental scan to specifically look for security issues that could be present on CQ5/AEM-based sites.

If you’re curious about your organization’s CQ5-based website’s security, scan it for FREE at http://scan.zapts.com. You may be surprised at the results.

After scanning your site, we’re happy to assist with analyzing the scan’s results and talk about ways to close the security holes that are found.

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