Harnessing the power of the optimal Digital Experience Platform, or DXP

Digital transformation can be defined as any set of application task-oriented capabilities that serve to drive a product or service out the door — whether it is a web, portal, mobile, or other digital experience. In the race to outperform the competition, refining and optimizing the user experience and engagement is an intrinsic part of its delivery. So once the senior team is fully engaged, there are clearly-defined project goals, the technology users and stakeholders are identified, and a broad technology stack is in place, there is one essential tool required to facilitate a digital transformation: a Digital Experience Platform (DXP).

A DXP is a platform-based set of technologies that provides many and various users with consistent, secure, and personalized content across multiple digital touchpoints. It plays a critical role in enabling brands to create personalized digital journeys for their customers. This tool is rapidly escalating in popularity and, with a growing DXP market, newcomers are spoilt for choice.  Some key considerations can narrow the focus for an ideal DXP to create next-level customer interaction.

Navigating the DXP market

Just as each business has a unique transformational goal, the challenge is to find the DXP most suited to an organization’s specific needs. The choice is usually based on issues such as scale, flexibility, security, and performance, along with additional factors such as training needs.

It’s rare to be undertaking a full transformation unless you are a start-up, so you will be looking at a process or processes within your business to introduce or improve. The digital transformation journey for most companies is therefore a gradual one, mastering improvements each phase at a time. A scalable DXP is therefore advisable to support the businesses step-by-step at each stage of digital maturity.

 A composable DXP is recommended

A composable DXP, meaning when a DXP is assembled from a series of best-of-breed solutions, is highly advantageous to future-proof your technology stack. Gartner also forecasts in its 2021 Insight Paper for Application Composition Technology that, “By 2023, 60% of mainstream organizations will list composable business as a strategic objective and will seek composability in new application investments”. You can customize and scale your DXP, integrate third-party tools, and your platform can react to external forces such as market changes, for added flexibility. Some monolithic DXPs can result in vendor lock-in to a suite of products that could lead to problems later on, including costly support and customization.

Prioritize vision and measurement

Strategic expertise should rank equally as high in the selection of DXP vendor as an evaluation strategy. This means mutually-agreed measurements for success that align with the organization’s overall digital transformation goals. Future-proofing your business means factoring in any industry-specific changes and future organizational needs. The transformational leader needs to know what success will look like for the business and have clear targets to be able to assess periodically, not just annually, that things stay on track.

Key DXP features for consideration

• Usability is critical, in terms of exceeding the expectations of the technology users across digital touchpoints. If customers can’t use the technology, and engage, and if collaboration is inhibited across digital functions — the digital campaigns are ineffective. Failure in user understanding also puts added pressure on the IT team.
• Cloud support should also be a priority – To maximize the success of a DXP implementation, companies will already be migrating IT systems to the cloud or considering doing so. A more flexible cloud-based architecture is cost-effective, has hassle-free integration, and will dramatically improve your digital experience operations — especially particularly when handling fluctuations in data volume.
• Analytics, optimization, and personalization are also important as customers today expect individualized experiences, consistent across all the channels they use. Precise campaign targeting means marketing success. A DXP with integrated analytics, personalization and optimization will help the marketing team gain full visibility of all the segments, prospects and touchpoints they need to target visitors with impactful content.
• Security needs to be a core feature and your DXP must offer the highest levels of cybersecurity and compliance.
• Multi-language support is a perhaps obvious, but often overlooked feature – true personalization and language flexibility will facilitate the highest engagement levels.

To maximize the potential of a DXP, ensure that the DXP fits the needs of the business to deliver content and digital experiences to the customer in an agile and flexible way. By meeting customers’ increasing standards for continuous digital experiences, this business tool can enable an organization to convert mere digital processes into real business success.

 

 

Article contributed by Phil Dunlop, General Manager, EMEA, Progress