When content meets commerce: How to make it a perfect relationship

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When content meets commerce: How to make it a perfect relationshipSitecore® partners share three secrets to successful engagements

White paper // When content meets commerce: How to make it a perfect relationship

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Contents

Introduction �� 2

A familiar triangle: People, process, and technology �� 2

About Sitecore’s Solution Partner Program �� 2

Meet the matchmakers �� 3

Getting to know you �� 5

Secrets to success �� 5

Secret #1: Push boundaries �� 5

Secret #2: Help opposites attract �� 6

Secret #3: Don’t expect perfection �� 7

Conclusion: Start at the top �� 8

Next steps �� 8

About Sitecore �� 8

Published 11/16� © 2001-2016 Sitecore Corporation A/S� All rights reserved� Sitecore® and Own the Experience® are registered trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S� All other brand and product names are the property of their respective owners� This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore� Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore�


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IntroductionContent and commerce are natural partners� Wouldn’t you rather work with one platform that allows you to manage the customer experience in context, before, during and after the sale? It’s a fact that being able to act on customer data about purchases from your web content management (WCM) system, in real time, is much more efficient than hopping between systems�1 And using interaction data from the WCM—or digital experience platform—to personalize the purchase experience is a lot more effective than typical generic up-sells2 based only on product SKUs� Given the possibilities, what organization wouldn’t want to create commerce experiences that are more personalized and rewarding?

But like any relationship, there can be rough spots� Digital commerce professionals and IT leaders who want to know more about the benefits of integrating commerce capabilities and data with their WCM data and systems can learn much from the ultimate matchmakers: Commerce solution partners who have truly “seen it all�”

From a global panel of Sitecore implementation partners, you’ll learn the top challenges in uniting content management and commerce systems, strategies for avoiding or surmounting them, and secrets for transforming your customer experience� Read on to gain a clear view of how to scale the organizational and technical hurdles your company may encounter as it integrates content, commerce, and context marketing�

A familiar triangle: People, process, and technologyIn personal relationships, triangles introduce tension� The same geometry holds true in digital commerce initiatives, where the interplay of an organization’s people, process, and technology can require a delicate balancing act� Implementation partners are often in the middle of conflicts between the three forces—sorting out political turf wars, process changes, and technical challenges posed by data silos and legacy systems�

About Sitecore’s Solution Partner Program

When Sitecore customers begin deployment, they almost always seek the help and partnership of a solution partner� Sitecore Solution Partners offer professional services ranging from customer experience strategy and persona research; to Sitecore implementation and integration with existing technology; to website information architecture, content strategy, and UX design; to custom application development; and more�

Our 850+ partners worldwide comprise five tiers of achievements with the highest classification being a Global Platinum Implementation Partner� They deliver on our complete vision for customer experience management, at scale, across multiple locations, markets, and timezones� Throughout Sitecore’s history, we have never built a single solution for a customer—it all comes from our partners� And we like it that way�

We’d like to thank the partners who spent time to share their experiences with us for this white paper:

■ Scott Cairney, Avanade

■ Peter Hesseling, Aviva Solutions

■ Barry Loekenbach, Aviva Solutions

■ James Williamson, Bonfire

■ Bert Van Genechten, Delaware Consulting

■ Ken Dong, Delaware Consulting

■ Nick Jones, Switch

■ Amrit Raj, XCentium

Visit our website to learn more about Sitecore’s Solution Partner Program or to find a partner�

1,2 Vanson Bourne research report October 2016�

http://www.sitecore.net/en/getting-started/partners

http://www.sitecore.net/en/resources/index/white-papers/online-commerce-and-plotting-a-course-to-personalization


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Meet the matchmakers

Scott Cairney Digital Market Unit Lead - Canada Avanade Inc. avanade�com

“The development approach is usually driven by the constraints of the organizational structure� Instead, it should be driven by the content and commerce needs of the consumer�”

Barry Loekenbach Business Development Manager Aviva Solutions avivasolutions�nl mercury-ecommerce�com/en

“Due to market changes and competition, our client was best served by a one-platform approach that combined digital marketing, content, and commerce� Together we changed the organizational silos to one team, working in one platform�”

James Williamson Partner Bonfire buildabonfire�com

“I want to move the boundary of where experience ends and commerce begins� ‘Commerce’ is the transactional checkout process� The entire browsing experience before that point is part of the customer experience�”

Ken Dong Sr� Digital Consultant/ Project Manager Delaware Consulting delawareconsulting�com

“Sometimes there’s a mismatch in the business model that the marketing people are promoting, versus what can be delivered on the back end� The real user experience happens when the package arrives at home—did the customer get what they wanted?”

Nick Jones Business Development Manager Switch switchit�com

“Companies need to have a vision for where they’re going in the next five years� They also must have digital leadership, to prepare the business for change�”

Amrit Raj Managing Partner XCentium xcentium�com

“My advice to companies considering new commerce solutions? Learn from the $50 billion companies that do it well� Do your research and you’ll see that experience management is key, not just customer acquisition�”

http://avanade.com

http://avivasolutions.nl

http://mercury-ecommerce.com/en

http://buildabonfire.com

http://delawareconsulting.com

http://switchit.com

http://xcentium.com


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Customer firstTo minimize the hazard of becoming mired in internal issues and constraints that slow commerce engagements, several partners suggest sidestepping the usual functional approach—developing the site map, catalog, and ordering process based on available information—and instead leading with the customer journey�

Scott Cairney, Digital Market Unit Lead – Canada at Avanade Inc�, says, “Look at the consumer and map out their natural progression toward purchasing or converting, and try to make those steps easier� Orient the project around the consumer and what they want, versus getting a store up, what the marketing people say, what the back end needs to do, and so forth� The development approach is usually driven by the constraints of the organizational structure� Instead, it should be driven by the content and commerce needs of the consumer�”

Cairney’s comments, echoed by other partners interviewed, emphasize the top-down approach that Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies (SBOS™) preaches� SBOS encourages organizations to assess and enhance their digital maturity and helps them forge a strategic vision to achieve a more customer-centric mindset, along with a roadmap for how to get there�

Rewrite historyAmrit Raj, Managing Partner at XCentium, believes that a large part of the organizational challenge of merging content and commerce to address customer needs stems from tech history� “If you look at traditional commerce, it’s been all about transactions,” he says� “People started thinking about digital commerce as an extension of the enterprise resource planning [ERP] system� The traditional view says that commerce originates from ERP and still is managed by ERP; the marketing department was not even involved in commerce� It would be more involved on the dot-com side�”

Ken Dong, Sr� Digital Consultant/Project Manager at Delaware Consulting, further explains the challenge of working with the transactional, legacy mindset� “Bringing content and commerce together is a business model and a data challenge� If the ERP can’t fulfill customer requirements—such as buying 10 items and sending them all to different locations—because it doesn’t have the flexibility to do so, that indicates siloed thinking within the organization� Sometimes there’s a mismatch in the business model that the marketing people are promoting, versus what can be delivered on the back end� This manifests when the package arrives at home—that’s when the real user experience happens� Did the customer get what they ordered, delivered in the way they wanted?”

Most IT partners and suppliers indicate their customers face challenges when using WCM systems� Among the most common are the inability to personalize the purchasing experience (40%)—also recognized as a key challenge for organizations’ online commerce in general—and a lack of insight into the purchasing experience (36%)�

– Vanson Bourne research report October 20163

3 Vanson Bourne research report October 2016�

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http://www.sitecore.net/en/getting-started/maturing-digitally/about-sbos

http://www.sitecore.net/en/getting-started/maturing-digitally/about-sbos





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“A lot has changed in the last five years,” continues XCentium’s Raj� “You’re no longer doing transactions, you’re selling a user experience� No matter which team is leading the digital commerce initiative, important, basic questions need to be asked:

■ Who is the customer?

■ When they come to the site, what are they doing?

■ Where are they in the customer lifecycle?

■ How are you meeting the customer’s needs?

Whether you're selling a consumer product or silverware to a global hotel chain, the answers to those questions matter;

they inevitably include content, commerce, and context� The answers fundamentally inform the way the commerce environment should be built�

Secrets to successHaving delivered hundreds of successful deployments, the Sitecore partner panel's matchmaking wisdom can be captured in three simple, yet powerful secrets� Use them to navigate people, process, and technology challenges within your organization, to help the relationship between content and commerce blossom�

Secret #1: Push boundariesAs with many long-term relationships, the one between commerce and content has settled into unspoken, yet well-understood boundaries that many organizations are comfortable with� But James Williamson, Partner – Sitecore Experience Design at Bonfire, Inc�, believes that’s the perfect reason to shake things up� “Traditionally, commerce has been a product catalog, a discrete tab on the site that takes you out of your content consumption experience and moves you into a separate buying area,” he says� “I want to move the boundary of where experience ends and commerce begins� My view of commerce is that the checkout process is really just a transaction� The entire browsing experience before that point is part of the customer experience�

Williamson emphasizes, “By blurring the boundary in this way, a customer isn’t focused on whether they’re consuming education, information, or inspiration� Or if they’re buying� Or all of the above� They’re just enjoying the experience and getting what they need�”

Defining the disconnectAvanade’s Cairney echoes the need for client organizations and their solution partners to rethink the boundaries between content and commerce� “Today, the [digital] place that I go to get interested in a product or brand is not the place where I can buy it,” he says� “The thing that attracted me to the engagement site, the ad or the social post, is one or more levels further removed�

“That disconnect is typically a problem because it’s hard to tie those two points—the point of engagement and the point of fulfilling my desire to buy something—together� The place

Getting to know you

Here are some important questions to ask your digital commerce leaders before embarking on a major online commerce initiative:

1. Who is your customer, or how do you segment your types of customers?

2. How do your different customer types engage with your digital properties? Do you know their lifecycle or interaction history that leads to a purchase?

3. Where does your brand’s commerce experience begin?

4. Is there a mismatch between your business model and what your systems and tools can deliver?

5. Which groups within your organization are focused on selling the product? Which groups are focused on the end-to-end customer experience?

6. Is your organization operating under a legacy organizational structure? How closely are marketing and IT working together?

7. Where is your business heading in the next five years?


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where I buy the product or service is highly structured and built around constraints, like available product data, instead of being built to help the customer in their journey�”

Adopting personalized commerce experiencesSome companies are well on their way to marrying content with commerce� One of these leaders is Homefashion Group, a market leader in flooring, wall, and window decoration� With a mission “to make enjoyable and contemporary living accessible for everyone,” Homefashion Group has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Sitecore partner Aviva Solutions, which recently introduced a new website for the company featuring experiential commerce� The site allows customers to shop for all manner of home furnishings based on their lifestyle and surroundings� Among many other features, the site’s window treatment section is a standout, providing visualizations of curtains, draperies, shades, and blinds� A built-in configurator makes it easy, and even fun, to choose the right dimensions�

Barry Loekenbach, Business Development Manager at Aviva Solutions, says that Homefashion Group was convinced to start the project with e-commerce accelerator Mercury� It was a head start for the project team to start with customer experience and the possibilities of contextual commerce� The result—an immersive, personalized digital experience online and in stores� “Homefashion Group saw the advantage of an integrated system with much less of a learning curve, instead of separate learning curves for the content management system and for the commerce system� This introduced the possibility to integrate different roles in their organization, which were previously separate�

“Homefashion Group was looking for a new solution that not only combined content and commerce but also their customer community� How? Use relevant content from real people and authentic situations from their social community through brand loyalty� So every single item, like a couch for example, is shown for different personas along with customer photos taken in their homes�”

The new website has fueled Homefashion Group’s success: each week over one million people visit the company online and in its stores� One in four Dutch window treatments and 2,500 km laminate per year is delivered by Homefashion Group, an impressive market share for a country with 16�4 million inhabitants�

Secret #2: Help opposites attractIt’s no secret that in the digital realm, IT and marketing organizations sometimes can be at odds� Sometimes turf wars can break out as different groups jockey to own their company’s digital initiatives� But departmental disconnects are caused just as often by disconnects stemming from legacy technology, data silos, and simple lack of communication� No matter the root cause, tensions can escalate when developing commerce properties, as sales, merchandising, and operations groups are added to the mix�

Breaking down organizational silosOnce again, the Sitecore partners emphasize the importance of overcoming legacy organizational structures� Cairney from Avanade explains, “Large food and consumer products companies have many marketing organizations and brand managers� They’re worried about brand perception� They’re not focused on selling the product, which is handled by another group� A lot of e-commerce sites have evolved that way, responding to the transactional need separate from the marketing component� Slowly these two viewpoints are coming together, but legacy organizational structures make it difficult to quickly bring commerce and experience together under one digital umbrella�”

“Successful commerce requires a connected enterprise; it’s not just a marketing or digital initiative,” XCentium’s Raj continues� “We work with our clients on value chain maps that show how marketing, digital, product, IT, customer service, sales, operations, and accounting functions must be connected in order for commerce to drive real value�” Again, given the ERP-weighted legacy of most commerce initiatives, “commerce would be driven only by IT and finance [because those groups control the ERP system], or by marketing, but not bringing all the other functions together�”

Focusing commerce initiatives on the customer journey, not functional territories, can go a long way in breaking down organizational silos� Loekenbach from Aviva Solution recalls that Homefashion Group’s IT organization was the first to see the potential of bringing together content and commerce� He says, “It all started with the head of Homefashion Group’s IT department, who was excited about Sitecore’s approach� During these discussions, the new marketing director, Jeroen de Punder, was hired� That's when the project really took flight, together with the idea of the social community�”

http://www.homefashiongroup.nl/en/


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Loekenbach adds, “There’s a need to provide rich content with products� In the past, organizations have tried to incorporate that into their catalogs, which we think is a bad idea� Integrating experience content with product content is a much more flexible way�”

Aligned around mutual goalsNick Jones, Business Development Manager at Switch, had a similar experience working with a large technology company in Australia� He says, “The key stakeholder in our large Sitecore project has been the national IT manager, but we also speak frequently to the national marketing manager� We have been pleasantly surprised at how everyone at the company has rallied around a mutual goal of empowering resellers and consumers�”

The project incorporates Sitecore® Experience Platform™ 8�0, Sitecore® Experience Database™ (xDB), and Sitecore® Commerce powered by Commerce Server� “Our client is using Experience Profiles and analytics to set up goals and value scales to measure engagement,” Jones continues� “They are very pleased to now see which resellers are true advocates, to guide attention and investment�”

Jones summarizes, “To successfully merge content and commerce, companies need to have a vision for where they’re going in the next five years� They also must have digital leadership, to prepare the business for change� There’s a lot of positive energy around this high-profile project�”

Secret #3: Don’t expect perfection Nobody is perfect, a fact that is abundantly clear in mature technology environments, which are replete with data silos and other remnants of business growth, particularly through acquisitions� Williamson of Bonfire says, “It’s like the difference between Uber and Hertz� Uber is a new company, born in the cloud and on the smartphone� Hertz was founded in 1918, renting a dozen Ford Model T's�

“Most companies are like Hertz, not Uber, with corresponding amounts of legacy data and technical debt,” he continues� “There are easily a half-dozen systems that hold bits of information we want to bundle into a ‘golden record’ that presents a complete view of the customer, which often is simply not possible�”

Bonfire and the other partners have realized significant success with XP's database capabilities—Sitecore xDB� “[Experience Database] affords a relatively easy way to get a 75 to 85% view of the customer, which is much more than most organizations have� Many companies have so much legacy system technical debt that xDB quickly emerges as a system of record for customer data� It can be much easier to extend xDB with custom fields to capture customer information in addition to omnichannel interaction data,” says Williamson�

“Another common challenge is point solution proliferation,” Williamson continues� “This typically comes from organizations trying to work around current system limitations by ‘renting’ functionality that should be native to a modern enterprise customer experience management platform� We’ve seen bolted-on third-party services for mobile, search, personalization, testing, automation, and other campaign and digital marketing offerings�”

More ways to combine content and commerce Raj from XCentium agrees that having the right platform at the core of the commerce initiative is critical to success� Returning to his ERP analogy he says, “Sitecore’s approach of adding content to commerce is fundamentally superior to what we see the ERP vendors doing; they’re adding a product catalog on top of a transactional ERP system and marketing it as a ‘silver bullet’ to CFOs and CIOs� Sitecore starts with

“To successfully merge content and commerce, companies need to have a vision for where they’re going in the next five years�”

– Nick Jones, Switch


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strong content management and combines it with the proven capabilities of Sitecore Commerce, making true experience management possible in commerce environments�”

He sums up, “My advice to companies considering new commerce solutions? Learn from the $50 billion companies that do it well� Do your research and you’ll see that experience management is key, not just customer acquisition�”

Conclusion: Start at the top A number of the partners noted that the process used by the Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies team was extremely useful in aligning organizations around a vision of combined content and commerce� “The old-school notion of starting with a sitemap or product catalog has to be replaced with positioning the customer at the center of the conversation, starting during the planning phase,” Bonfire’s Williamson says� “[To do this,] SBOS says you need buy-in from the top down� When you get stuck in the middle of the organization, working with unreceptive departments, you need to get up to the top of the organization�”

Using the simple secrets of Sitecore’s implementation partners—push boundaries, help opposites attract, and don’t expect perfection—IT leaders and digital commerce professionals can “start at the top” of their organization to work through the challenges presented by people, process, and technology� Aligned around the shared goal of improving the customer commerce experience, they’ll then see their organizations benefit from today’s happiest tech relationship: the marriage of content and commerce�

Next stepsFor more specifics around how your customer experience can be improved when content and commerce data and systems are tightly integrated, read our white paper “Revolutionizing the commerce experience�” It outlines five examples of how natively integrated content-commerce systems deliver a far superior overall experience for your customer, your marketing and commerce departments, and your brand in general�

About SitecoreSitecore is the global leader in experience management software that enables context marketing� The Sitecore® Experience Platform™ manages content, supplies contextual intelligence, automates communications, and enables personalized commerce, at scale� It empowers marketers to deliver content in context of how customers have engaged with their brand, across every channel, in real time—before, during, and after a sale� More than 4,600 customers—including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, EasyJet, and L’Oréal—trust Sitecore for context marketing to deliver the personalized interactions that delight audiences, build loyalty, and drive revenue�

http://www.sitecore.net/en/resources/white-papers/revolutionizing-commerce-experience

http://www.sitecore.net/en/resources/white-papers/revolutionizing-commerce-experience

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When content meets commerce: How to make it a perfect relationship