Three Fundamental Capabilities a DXP Must Offer
An agile digital experience platform is vital to stay in alignment with the demands of today’s business world. The enterprises of today must offer their end-users a flexible and secure digital experience. A DXP may be centred around different business-critical needs, such as customer service, HR, sales and marketing, or finance and accounting. A business may use different metrics to measure success of its DXP strategy as we’ve already discussed, but broadly there are three fundamental capabilities that enterprises must expect from its digital experience platform.
Data Security, Protection and Privacy
DXPs can be inclusive of different sets of technologies, such as database technology, content technology, and web technology. The fundamental attribute or capability that surrounds all is data security, protection and privacy. The loyalty and trust of the enterprise’s end user is largely determined by the security measures it takes to protect data and customer’s privacy. Customers would always look for a secure and agile environment when it comes to digital experience. This especially goes for the businesses that are operating on cloud. A powerful digital experience emerges from how well an enterprise can tackle the challenge of data security and privacy, and ultimately achieve agile digital transformation. A robust security program with strict security policies helps in adding business value.
What to Consider?
- Protection of sensitive project variables and credentials
- Streamlining development and ensuring zero-downtime deployment
- Self-healing capabilities for higher availability of applications
- Backup of document library and environment database
- Regular assessment with monitoring, detection and security threat attack mitigation
- Disaster recovery by ensuring several protection layers
- Routine security audits and assessment of websites
Service Integration across Multiple Channels
While an integrated DXP solution is a requirement for businesses today, it is also emerging as one of the greatest barriers of digital transformation for enterprises. Earlier in the year, Progress.com conducted a survey of over 100 IT professionals, digital experience leaders and marketing professionals to understand their shift of DXP investments and roadblocks in execution of digital experience strategy. Around 40% of the surveyed leaders said that in the absence of proper resources and time, integration is among the major hindrances and complex process for the organizations, when done internally. 25% leaders felt that siloed customer data in multiple sources restricts a full view of customers. Rest of the 18% felt that legacy systems are a hurdle when it comes to integration with modern applications. Inadequate integration with backend systems is among the most challenging technical barriers. A DXP must offer an integration mechanism so that these modern technical challenges are addressed.
What to Consider?
- Customization with NodeJS
- Native support for cloud messaging
- Storing business data and DXP configuration to target increasing SQL database varieties
- Wrapping SAP functions of a business as the REST APIs
- Runtime plugins for leveraging mobile devices capabilities
Content Creation and Management
Earlier we had discussed that a DXP is a by-product of the content management system and customer lifecycle stage. So the basic capability of a DXP should always be compelling content creation and management. Content has, and shall continue to remain the king, and the single-most important factor that will hold a customer to your platform. Ushering a user into a digital experience will come second. Creating and disseminating a brand message depends largely upon how it is facilitated into content creation of the platform. Gathering and presenting the entire content in a single view for the consumption of an end user will ensure a transparent and seamless experience.
A good DXP comes with a capability that empowers a business to deliver hi-speed and personalized messages to their end users. Therefore, while content management becomes the foundation, content delivery at the right time for the right people is the additional capability that a DXP needs to offer.
What to Consider?
- Multilingual support
- Google Analytics integration
- Easy editorial experience
DXPs or digital experience platforms are becoming the common topics of discussion when we speak about digital transformation. The enterprises of today are pushed to think strategically regarding the whole customer journey. The strategic focus of DXP requires time and resources. But, broadly all DXPs across multiple industries must offer the core capabilities of data security, privacy and protection, service integration across multiple channels, and finally, content creation and management.
