Articles - Page 35

What I Mean to Say: A Practitioner Perspective on AI, Semantics, and Content Evolution

msalvatierra

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It's hard to follow an act like the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/" target="_blank">Academy Awards</a>, especially after Sunday's "<a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/03/27/will-smith-chris-rock-to-work-out-slap-incident-after-oscars-2022/" target="_blank">slap heard 'round the world.</a>"
But hey, we'll give it a shot – and do it with decidedly less controversy and no long-winded speeches:
Today, we're proud to announce the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!
From our entire editorial staff, we'd like to start with a big THANK YOU to our amazing community of CMS vendors and their incredibly passionate users. We had some, shall we say, "colorful" conversations across social media during the nomination period, and we enjoyed every opportunity to engage with our readers.
It was incredible to see the outpouring of love from people around the globe for their products of choice. That kind of brand loyalty seems increasingly rare. It says a lot about the people using these technologies, and the investment that CMS and DXP platforms are making to really listen to users – and bring them together. 
Before we announce the winners, let's do a quick review of the rules so you know how we got here:
<ul>
<li>First, our annual People's Choice Awards celebrate the top platforms that YOU – our readers – select. As they say, we have no dog in this race.</li>
<li>In late December of 2020, we invited everyone to nominate their favorite platforms across a set of categories on our website. </li>
<li>The top three nominees were selected and featured for general voting in each category.</li>
<li>Participants were able to vote only once, and companies that offered incentives of any kind were disqualified (there were no such shenanigans, BTW). </li>
<li>While we don't offer any golden statues, we do feature the winners on our website for posterity. And of course, you always have bragging rights. </li>
</ul>
We had a fantastic response to the People's Choice Awards this year, and participation has been off the charts since we released the final nominee list. It's always great to see this level of community engagement, and because this is a democratized experience, you never know what to expect from voting – so be prepared for some surprises.
Enough rambling, right? Let's draw back the curtain and proudly present the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!
 
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<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Enterprise CMS: Contentstack</h2>
This year's "Best Enterprise CMS" award goes to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank">Contentstack</a>, a leader in headless and agile content management. Contentstack has huge momentum, and it's great to see emphatic support from its community of users. 
 
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<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/adobe-experience-manager-logo-1.webp" alt="Adobe Experience Manager logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best DXP: Adobe Experience Manager</h2>
Given that <a href="https://www.adobe.com/cy_en/marketing/experience-manager.html" target="_blank">Adobe</a> has been the undisputed leader in <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a> for the fifth year in a row, winning our "Best DXP" honors wasn't a shocker. The Adobe brand is ubiquitous and recognized as a top contender across multiple technology categories. It also has a deep ecosystem of tools and partners. 
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Free CMS: Joomla</h2>
Surprised that <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> carried this category? Don't be. They've cultivated an enthusiastic fan base with a rising fervor for their favorite platform. Joomla continues to have a strong community of open source users, making it one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world - and winner of our "Best Free CMS" category. 
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/grav-logo-smallsvg.webp" alt="Grav logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Flat File CMS: Grav</h2>
This was a tight race with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/" target="_blank">Kirby</a>, but in the end, <a href="https://getgrav.org/" target="_blank">Grav</a> took top honors. A consistent winner of our People's Choice Award for "Best Flat File CMS," Grav is also featured in our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/">Top Flat File CMS Platforms</a> article.
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Open Source CMS: Joomla</h2>
Despite the far-casting shadow of WordPress, <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> won big with its community – in no small part to its continued investment in innovation. In fact, 2021 saw a host of new features added to the "Best Open Source CMS" platform, including the <a href="https://www.joomla.org/4/" target="_blank">Joomla! 4.0</a> release with notable improvements. We would like to congratulate the Joomla development team on their win in two categories.
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/alfresco-logo.webp" alt="Alfresco logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best ECM (Enterprise Content Management): Alfresco</h2>
<a href="https://www.alfresco.com/" target="_blank">Alfresco</a> took home the gold for the "Best Enterprise Content Management" solution, proving its continued authority in the ECM space. Alfresco has enjoyed a successful run over the last few years, including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">an acquisition by competitor Hyland in 2020</a>. Despite being under the Hyland umbrella, the company still maintains its brand identity. 
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hikashop-logo-resized.png" alt="HikaShop logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best E-Commerce Solution: Hikashop</h2>
This was an interesting one, but the people have spoken: <a href="https://www.hikashop.com/" target="_blank">HikaShop</a>, the e-commerce solution for Joomla, was triumphant over two worthy competitors – <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-10-open-source-ecommerce-platforms/">WooCommerce</a> and PrestaShop. While the competition was tight, there were surprisingly more fans from the Joomla community throwing their support in the ring. 
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/shopify-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Shopify logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Headless Commerce: Shopify</h2>
<a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank">Shopify</a> has been giving Amazon a run for its money and earning loyal fans along the way. As the leading platform for building e-Commerce solutions – and doing it headlessly – Shopify has become one of the strongest and most trusted brands on the planet for creating online stores and digital commerce experiences.
 
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<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Headless CMS: Contentstack</h2>
We have to hand it to the Contentstack crowd: you really brought the rain! Congratulations on cleaning up in both the "Best Enterprise CMS" and "Best Headless CMS" categories! While most notably a headless platform, Contentstack is also one of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">founding members of the MACH Alliance</a>. 
 
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<img style="max-width:200px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/yootheme-logo.webp" alt="YOOTheme logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Website Builder: YOOtheme</h2>
Always a perennial fan favorite, the "Best Website Builder" category has evolved to include some amazing tools that are getting progressively easier to use. This year, the crown goes to <a href="https://yootheme.com/" target="_blank">YOOtheme</a> - the popular page builder for WordPress and Joomla. While other popular platforms like Webflow and Gantry were in the running, YOOtheme won out with a sizable margin. Congrats to the community of fans that made YOOtheme a winner!
 
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<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hugo-logo-wide.svg" alt="Hugo logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Static Site Generator: Hugo</h2>
The battle was hard-fought – and Gatsby has certainly been a fixture in our coverage over the last few years – but <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Hugo</a> brought the votes... so congratulations! As a leading static site generator, Hugo has touted its incredibly fast framework for building websites. It's clear that its community of users is continuing to grow and thrive, and showing the love for their favorite JAMstack frontend generator.  
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/uniform-logo-white-bg.webp" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Composable System: Uniform</h2>
We had a battle royale brewing in the newly minted "Best Composable System" category between <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/" target="_blank">Sitecore</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> – but there can be only one! Congratulations to Uniform for taking the throne and becoming our inaugural winner in this new and exciting segment. With big wind (and big investment dollars) at their back, Uniform is already making bold moves from a hiring and acquisition perspective, and we'll be looking for big things in 2022.  
 
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<h2>And that's a wrap for the 2021 People's Choice Awards! </h2>
<div>See that? Not a single moment of uncomfortable stage antics. That's just another benefit we have over the Oscars. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>While the pandemic threw us all for a loop, it's great to be back to a more normal and predictable cycle with our awards program. We look forward to this event every year because it gives us an opportunity to engage with our readers and learn about what platforms are scoring high in their books. At the end of the day, it's about honoring not just the winners, but our entire CMS community. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>There were some tight races going on in the year's competition, and a few surprises that gave us a moment to pause. But that's what makes the People's Choice Awards so exciting: in any given year, fans can come out of the woodwork and elevate their platform to the top echelon. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Tomorrow, we'll be posting our Editor's Choice Awards. You're bound to see some alignment in certain categories, and you might be in for a few surprises as well. Our editorial staff made their picks based on a wide range of factors, and we're excited to share them with you. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thanks again to everyone for participating in the 2021 People’s Choice Awards. See you later this year!</div>

Oscar Who? We're Celebrating the Winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards 

cms-critic-staff

Image of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards logo with the Text "2021 Winners" to the right, all against a background image of fireworks.

The hype around digital experiences, headless, MACH, customer journeys, and other buzzwords can be deafening. 
But what about content? And more specifically, managing content? 
For most people in the CMS industry, managing content is considered "core functionality" when it comes to a content management system, but also an area that hasn't really been front and center for the past few years. 
Managing content – so you can do more with it – has huge potential. But how do you tap into this? 
Let's start our quest for better content management in 2022 by looking at some of the recent analyst reports. I'll then turn to a few other key market trends, provide some inconvenient truths, and finally offer some (hopefully) helpful advice on how you can make progress. 
 
<h2>What do the industry analysts say about managing content in 2022?</h2>
I've looked at the reports, we've talked about them in our recent <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts/" target="_blank">CMS Experts group</a> meetings, and to be blunt: there's so much confusion that even industry insiders struggle to navigate this marketplace.  
If you turn to the most recent <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/webinars/4005210/the-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms" target="_blank">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, you can get a glimpse into how one of the larger industry analysts sees the marketplace. As they say in the opening of the MQ report, their focus is on:
"...the demand for platforms to manage digital experiences of customers, partners and employees…"
And the way they look at the vendors is on how well they:
"...enable the composition, management, delivery, and optimization of contextualized digital experiences across multiexperience customer journeys…"
Content is naturally a key part of digital experiences, and Gartner does consider content management a core capability of a DXP. Still, it's listed alongside 14 other core capabilities and 12 optional capabilities. 
16 vendors are included in this year's Gartner report, and content comes up directly and indirectly with a few of the vendors, such as:
<ul>
<li>CoreMedia's strengths in supporting global multisite operations provide a solid platform to ensure consistency for brands.</li>
<li>Magnolia's focus on offering an extensible DXP built from best-of-breed components from different vendors, to the point of enabling customers to replace native content management system (CMS) capabilities.</li>
<li>Oracle's offering being differentiated by content and digital asset management.</li>
</ul>
 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/gartner-mq-dxp-2022.jpg" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXP graphic 2022" />
It's also worth noting that Gartner looks at <a href="https://www.doxee.com/blog/marketing/what-is-b2e-and-why-it-is-becoming-important/" target="_blank">business-to-employee (B2E)</a> use cases (traditionally known as intranets) and with some of the tools squarely focused on external use cases like digital marketing. This impacts how well they rate in the "horse race style" evaluation approach. 
A noteworthy vendor in this analyst report: Salesforce, who has been marching towards the leader quadrant for quite some time. According to Gartner, they're still positioned as a Challenger, but they've made a few interesting acquisitions – most notably Slack – with the aim of connecting their suite more deeply as a customer experience hub. Salesforce does seem to have a clear vision for integrating its technologies to deliver a more unified digital experience with brand power. Still, where does CMS, and specifically managing content, fit in the Salesforce stack? 
Competing IT analyst firm Forrester released their Q1 2021 <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/the-forrester-wave-agile-content-management-systems-cmses-q1-2021/RES161667?objectid=RES161667" target="_blank">Agile Content Management Wave</a> a year ago, which covered 15 vendors (mostly the same as Gartner). The initial recommendation from Forrester to buyers was indeed content focused:
"Deliver on the promise of reusable omnichannel content experiences…"
 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/forrester-wave-agile-cmses-q1-2021.jpg" alt="Forrester Wave Agile CMSes Quadrant graphic Q1 2021" />
Further down they mentioned the importance of managing content and experiences centrally to drive reuse. In terms of vendors, they didn't include Salesforce in the report but instead Amplience and Contentstack. 
Forrester hasn't yet released an updated 2022 Agile CMS report, but instead a new report on "<a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/why-a-multi-cms-approach-may-be-right-for-your-brand/" target="_blank">Making The Case For A Multi-CMS Strategy</a>." That's back to the age-old discussion of best of breed vs. suites, but also a potential to focus more on where you actually manage your content. That is unless you want to manage your content in multiple systems?
Finally, there's G2, which has its "<a href="https://www.g2.com/categories/web-content-management" target="_blank">Best Web Content Management Software</a>" quarterly grid report. G2 has carved out its own niche with user-based reviews – providing an unbiased, real-world reflection of what content managers and CMS users actually think about different platforms. Interestingly (and confusingly), Hubspot is currently positioned as the Leader on the G2 Grid, but not even mentioned in the reports by Forrester and Gartner. 
We live in confusing CMS times. 
 
<h2>Market trends driving a focus on managing content</h2>
There's always the good advice of not just looking at what someone says, but also their actual behavior.  
The recent acquisition of <a href="https://www.bynder.com/en/press-media/bynder-acquires-content-operations-platform-gathercontent/" target="_blank">GatherContent by Bynder</a> is interesting as it signals an investment in Content Operations or the more hip permutation of "ContentOps." GatherContent was initially a platform designed to "gather content" from different sources (kind of like a pre-CMS, if you will) and has since been developed into a large-scale content operations platform. 
In my analysis entitled <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2022/3/gathercontent-joins-bynder-to-take-contentops-to-the-next-level" target="_blank">GatherContent Joins Bynder To Take ContentOps To The Next Level</a>, I predict a shift in the content toolstack. Where the past decade has been mostly focused on delivery, content management is really not a solved problem. 
Looking at Google search metrics, can tell you a thing or two about intent and where the market is right now. One telling example: there are many more searches for CMS than for DXP. In fact, we have vendors who have long abandoned the term "CMS" and analysts who have stopped talking about it, evolved its definition, or completely eliminated the category. Meanwhile, there are a huge number of potential buyers that are looking for a new CMS – and using that keyword in their searches. 
There are a few lesser known but still established vendors that are benefiting from this confusion and focusing on managing content. Here's just three examples:
<ul>
<li>Norwegian <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/enonic" target="_blank">Enonic</a>, with their low friction content platform. Or as they frame it: "The ultimate back-end for your digital experiences."</li>
<li><a href="https://www.coredna.com/" target="_blank">Core dna</a> comes from Australian roots and has invested heavily in being an alternative to legacy technology. Their focus is on making it easy "to build your content the way it makes sense for your business."</li>
<li>"Your content. Better, faster, at scale." This is the positioning statement by <a href="https://kontent.ai/" target="_blank">Kontent by Kentico</a>, the headless CMS that's rapidly growing in adoption on the back of the Czech-based Kentico mothership. </li>
</ul>
Another key market trend is the success of MACH and the <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2021/10/11/whats-the-mach-alliance-all-about" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a>. This is indeed a technical focus (Microservices, APIs, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless) but also opens up different conversations in the enterprise. Historically, many have found themselves having to compromise when making technical decisions, and with MACH becoming more established, it enables customers to look for tools that manage content really well while selecting something else for different use cases. 
One final trend worth mentioning: businesses have a huge focus on building their digital presence, whether its campaigns, new stores, new brands, or introducing new digital functionality, it's always build, build, build. 
While talking about building websites, <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/wordpress">WordPress</a> remains the world’s #1 CMS. Their Gutenberg Editor was introduced in late 2018 and has made creating and managing digital content much easier. It’s not without controversy, however – one industry blogger even described Gutenberg as a “monumental hack” that is worrisome as a future foundation for WordPress. Will this affect WordPress and its mantle of leadership? Only time will tell.
On the enterprise side of the spectrum, many platforms are doubling down on growth and announcing huge investment rounds, particularly in areas like e-Commerce and headless commerce. One example is Bloomreach, which is keenly focused on being the best SaaS CMS for commerce – and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-reaches-2-2-billion-valuation-following-175-million-investment-from-goldman-sachs/" target="_blank">recently reached a $2.2 billion valuation</a> with an investment from Goldman Sachs. In the news from late February, Raj De Datta, CEO of Bloomreach, made an interesting comment:
"At Bloomreach, we believe that if the first 20 years of e-commerce have been about standing up the store or simply transacting online, then the next twenty years are about standing out from the crowd or differentiating in the face of increased digital competition and rising consumer expectation."
Besides using a tech solution that fits your needs, I would say that content and how you manage it is how you differentiate in the face of increased competition and rising expectations. That's the key market trend fueling huge investments. 
 
<h2>Inconvenient truths in the CMS marketplace</h2>
There is no "best web content management system." But there is probably a good Web CMS for what you're trying to do, and that's exactly what we focused on at a provocative session at the <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/past-conferences/2005-2009#2009">Boye Aarhus 2009 conference</a> some 13 years ago.
Much has happened since then, but unfortunately, customers still look for the best CMS. That's an inconvenient truth right there, and navigating the marketplace is not much easier these days. I wrote about that confusion in my post last year and offered some hopefully helpful advice: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/how-to-make-sense-of-the-cms-market-in-2021/" target="_blank">How to make sense of the CMS market in 2021</a>. 
A big part of the problem, and a problem that's been around for a very long time, is how many customers keep creating checklists and producing Request-for-Proposals that ask questions that achieve nothing. Specifically, on selecting a CMS, you might find the open selection process by the web standards committee, W3C, interesting – in particular as accessibility was a key selection criterion. For more read: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-w3c-cms-selection-process/" target="_blank">What can we learn from the W3C CMS selection process.</a>
Another key indicator of an immature marketplace, even though this thing has been around for 20 years, is that buyers are not talking to each other as much as they should. That's why we have peer groups; that's why conferences are so important, and that's also why CMS Critic has a big value: so that you can find balance between the vendor marketing and the real story. 
When it comes to managing content, it's interesting that many CMS vendors are also struggling to keep up with the pace. Content migration is still not an easy thing and probably the biggest inconvenient truth that still exists in this marketplace – particularly when it comes to managing content in your CMS of choice. More often than not, it's actually more of a people problem. It's the people and the team who builds your site and, in the process, makes some key decisions – and it's down to the team that designs and implements the content experience afterwards to make it work. 
A bad team without a driver's permit will navigate their CMS of choice into a wall, while a good and experienced team will make almost anything work. 
 
<h2>Manage content like a pro</h2>
Let's wrap up this 2022 post by trying to learn from the best, in particular when it comes to content. 
To a digital leader, there's actually some good news in the world right now, even though the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are both inescapable realities. Digital strategies and playbooks, which used to be gathering dust and a low-priority thing, are increasingly being put to good use. And the importance of a digital mindset is no longer questioned.
To quote Ashley Budd from Cornell: "<a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2020/4/23/we-cant-rely-of-the-content-strategy-of-the-past">We can't rely on the content strategy of the past</a>." The new approach that she advocates includes:
<ul>
<li>creating various ways for people to help and make it easy for them to contribute </li>
<li>providing content themes to showcase the breadth of what your organization can offer</li>
</ul>
There's also progress when it comes to identifying content gaps – that's content you are missing on your website as customers are searching for it or because you've designed your site to focus on health and wellness but are short on authoritative content. There are guides and tools in the marketplace to help you, including from SEO experts like <a href="https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/content-gap" target="_blank">Backlinko</a> and ahrefs that come with a <a href="https://ahrefs.com/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/site-explorer/content-gap" target="_blank">Content Gap report</a>. Website governance vendor <a href="https://littleforest.co.uk/" target="_blank">Little Forest</a> also has an interesting approach to identifying the content you need to be creating. 
There's also the term "content design." What is that, really? 
According to Melinda Belcher at Mastercard, content design focuses on the objective of driving preferences for their products and services. In other words, content design drives great customer experience through storytelling, clarity, and relevance. Still, content design is far from an established practice as compared to user experience design. Read more in this post: <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2020/11/13/content-design-drives-great-customer-experience-at-mastercard" target="_blank">Content Design Drives Great Customer Experience At Mastercard</a>. 
When it comes to managing content – and why I firmly believe this will be the year – the single biggest reason is the topic of trust. The <a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust/2021-trust-barometer" target="_blank">2021 Edelman Trust Barometer</a> speaks of a "failing trust ecosystem unable to confront the rampant infodemic, leaving the four institutions – business, government, NGOs and media – in an environment of information bankruptcy."
Content is key to addressing it. To quote <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/speakers/tim-walters" target="_blank">privacy and trust expert Tim Walters</a>, you need to: 
"Embody, demonstrate, and project trustworthiness."
It's not just about compliance. It's not just about designing a better cookie banner or protecting consumer data privacy. In fact, it's what Tim Walters calls a "Global Data Privacy Revolution" – and this also impacts how we manage content and enhance growth. It's <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2022/3/6/the-necessary-shift-from-privacy-to-trust" target="_blank">the necessary shift from privacy to trust</a>. 
In closing: the best, in my humble view, are the ones who are sharing their work openly. Whether epic successes or that project that could have gone more smoothly, those are the heroes and the stories that drive us forward. If we continue to work together, it might also remove some of the confusion we're experiencing at the moment. 
Good luck with your projects this year! Hopefully, you've learned something about change and how we aspire to manage content. And if you're evaluating a CMS, remember to think about what it means to truly manage content.

Will this be the year where CMS is finally about managing content?

janus-boye

Featured image of graphic man pulling down a curtain to reveal a large text graphic of the word "CONTENT"

<a href="https://www.sitecore.com/blog/headless/what-is-mach-architecture#:~:text=MACH%20architecture%20is%20a%20set,independently%20developed%2C%20deployed%20and%20managed." target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a> is accelerating a bit like... well, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boeing's X-37</a> orbital spacecraft.
Just how fast can this experimental plane go? According to several sources, it can easily reach speeds of MACH 25.
MACH 25. Wow! That's fast. And it's exactly how the growth of MACH has felt: like we're heading into orbit.
What's fascinating is not just the velocity at which MACH has taken off, but the community awareness and adoption it has garnered in a relatively short period of time. The banner of MACH (which stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">Headless</a>) has become a symbolic flag across the digital industry, crystallizing the vision of a composable enterprise – one in which every component is plug-and-play, scalable, replaceable, and continuously improved to meet the evolving demands of businesses. 
And what better wingman on this meteoric flight than the <a href="https://machalliance.org/">MACH Alliance</a>: an industry organization founded by <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/commercetools-acquires-frontastic-adds-composable-frontend-capabilities-to-headless-commerce/">commercetools</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contentstack-raises-57-5-million-in-series-b-round-qa-with-ceo-neha-sampat/">Contentstack</a>, EPAM Systems, and Valtech to "future-proof enterprise technology and propel current and future digital experiences." Formed in June of 2020, the MACH Alliance has sought to bring together like-minded tech companies to push for MACH as an enterprise standard. Over the last two years, this fledgling community has exploded to 50 certified members composed of market-leading headless CMS and DXP systems, e-Commerce providers, consultants and integrators, and three major platform enablers – including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/aws-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member-reflects-growth-of-cloud-native-solutions/">AWS</a>. 
The MACH Alliance has certainly become a voice for change at an industry level, ushering in a new era for enterprise experience technology. Heck, Forrester's Joe Cicman <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/buy-an-integrated-platform-not-a-box-of-rocks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">described them</a> as the "bouncers controlling the velvet rope at the entrance of the Coolest Tech in Town Club" – a quote that would put a bit of swagger in anyone's stroll. But despite the measurable energy and chatter around MACH, there's still that eight-hundred-pound gorilla of a question:
Are companies really investing in this technology? And if not, are they planning to move to MACH?
That's what the MACH Alliance set out to determine in a recent study. The data from its report was interesting, to say the least – and we had a chance to connect with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonjakeerl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sonja Keerl</a>, President of the MACH Alliance, to inquire about the findings and help further "demystify MACH."
<h2>MACH adoption is a growing focus for tech leaders</h2>
Announced earlier this month, the <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/our-2022-research-shows-mach-adoption-is-high-on-the-agenda-for-tech-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Enterprise MACHified" 2022 study</a> – conducted by <a href="https://melresearch.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mel Research</a> –  polled IT leaders on their current adoption, readiness, and future plans for the use of MACH architecture and technologies. The study provides a snapshot of the current state of MACH adoption across several key geographies, revealing that many tech leaders have continued to progress towards MACH architectures over the past year – with a 19% increase in companies that have moved away from monolithic to best-of-breed, composable solutions. 
According to the study, these same tech leaders see MACH as the "future of architecture," with 79% planning to increase their investments over the next year and beyond. At the same time, the research highlights some challenges around speed and flexibility as it relates to the cycle of customer experience (CX) improvements. Organizations also continue to struggle with on-premises costs while focusing more budget around speed, privacy, and other CX considerations. 
For the study itself, Mel Research spoke with a range of technology decision-makers (CIO/CTOs, VP/SVP, Senior Managers) across the UK, Germany, and the US. All organizations had at least 5,000 employees and a revenue of at least $500M annually. The research sought to:
<ul>
<li>measure and monitor readiness to transition to best-of-breed</li>
<li>identify drivers behind decision making</li>
<li>reveal the barriers to MACH architecture uptake</li>
<li>understand experiences from companies in transition</li>
<li>detail who the key stakeholders are in the decision making process</li>
</ul>
The report is both optimistic and cautionary – and further codifies the MACH Alliance's agnostic mission to serve its community with meaningful knowledge and resources. The data is presented through a frank and unbiased lens while illustrating where the most significant barriers exist to MACH adoption. There's a ton of rich detail in the study itself, which can be <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/our-2022-research-shows-mach-adoption-is-high-on-the-agenda-for-tech-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">downloaded here</a>.
<h2>Q&amp;A with Sonja Keerl – President, MACH Alliance </h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with Sonja Keerl, who also serves as the Global Head of Product Marketing at Contentstack (one of the founders of the MACH Alliance). We asked for her perspective on a few key data points, and she provided some fantastic insight. We highly recommend reviewing the study and cross-referencing the answers below.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): What might account for the variance between the UK and German data when it comes to decision-makers seeing MACH as the future of architecture? It’s a fairly wide gap. Is it just the sample size – or is something else going on from a tech culture perspective?
Sonja Keerl (SK): The sample sizes are roughly the same for all intents and purposes. The data shows that generally, Germans are less “bold” than other nations. Respondents from Germany expressed more caution when it comes to being early adopters than those in the US and UK. They seem to consider more of the “rational” factors, often needing more specifics around the tech-specs of things, clearer explanations of features and benefits, and the like.
<hr />
CC: Can you expand on the data’s revelations about headless and microservices benefits not being top of mind for most respondents? What can be gleaned from this insight?
SK: It’s not so much that the benefits aren’t top of mind, but instead that many IT leaders are still in the implementation phase and are not seeing the benefits yet.
<hr />
CC: There’s been increased sensitivity around cybersecurity as of late, elevated by the crisis in Ukraine. How might this impact the importance of MACH, especially given that it’s already seen as a key factor for driving the transition?
SK: The focus on cybersecurity has never been more important, and having good digital hygiene, as we’ve called it, is crucial. MACH tools do play a part in this, as they are compartmentalized by design, which can be used to define security access rules. The “M” in MACH stands for microservices, a type of software architecture that breaks up an application (think: an e-Commerce platform) into smaller individual services (such as product information, pricing, or checkout). 
The key here is ensuring employees and contractors only have access to the information they need to do their jobs, and nothing more. A compartmentalized security approach creates zones of permissions that provide relevant parties access to the services and data they need, but access to the full scope of data is extremely tight. Stolen credentials then have a limited amount of movement and become less valuable.
The security implications have indeed been a driving force toward the increased adoption of MACH.
<hr />
CC: The research on the barriers to MACH is especially poignant, with a large majority of respondents citing a “resistance to change” as the key obstacle. That is closely followed by “vendor lock-in,” which seems to be a centerpiece of the MACH narrative. How is the MACH Alliance working to help overcome these challenges to adoption? Is this a typical technology cycle of early adopters versus late, or are we seeing something different with these trends? And how might organizations achieve greater insight around the ROI of investing in MACH solutions?
SK: To an extent, it’s a fear of newness and change. If things have been done the same way all along, even if that way is no longer the best, it’s familiar, it’s comfortable and it’s going to be an uphill battle for change. That sense of familiarity carries a high price, though, as we see with this research. MACH Alliance was formed for this very reason, to help demystify MACH and help organizations see how it could work for their own business, and we’re doing that by providing every resource possible for businesses that want to learn more. 
Some of the things we encourage companies to ask themselves as they consider the transition from monolith to MACH include: 
<ul>
<li>Does your current ecosystem make things difficult to change?</li>
<li>Are you currently operating a big monthly or longer release cycle?</li>
<li>Does it feel like you are upgrading your systems all the time?</li>
<li>Do you seem to be using 50% of a platform but paying for 100% of it?</li>
<li>Are DevOps, CI/CD, and Product-led roadmaps blocked by your current setup?</li>
<li>Would the increased revenue from a MACH ecosystem outweigh the costs and risks associated with a full re-platform?</li>
</ul>
<hr />
CC: The cost of upgrades is telling. How does this underscore the opportunity for MACH?
SK: It’s straightforward: When you break free from the release cycle, which could be likened to a hamster wheel, you can allocate time, money, and people towards other things, like innovation, that drive new revenue streams or other forms of business value. The opportunity for MACH is tremendous. I think execs see that. It’s just about getting them to make that commitment to change that can be a slower pull, but we believe we’re pulling in the right direction. 
<hr />
CC: One of the final recommendations from the research firm is to work with IT teams to convince them of the benefits of MACH. How is the MACH Alliance taking action on this? What sort of programs and resources are you providing from a community perspective to help overcome this obstacle? And if leaders are largely convinced, how can they play a bigger role?
SK: Our role is to educate IT professionals about the benefits MACH can deliver through use cases and practical sessions like <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/when-and-how-to-move-from-a-monolithic-approach-to-a-composable-platform-ecosystem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this webinar</a> discussing when and how to move from a monolithic approach to a composable platform. And <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/understanding-the-total-cost-of-ownership-and-roi-for-mach-architecture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this article</a> is about calculating the TCO and ROI of MACH. Our ambassadors are independent of our member companies, and all have first-hand experience implementing these technologies.
The leading-edge companies who could recreate their core concepts, who could restructure, reorient and reprioritize, grew three times the rate of their peers in the first two years of Covid. With an anticipated increase in IT budgets on the horizon, IT leaders first need to look at getting all the pieces they have into the cloud. By nature, MACH supports an incremental approach to digital transformation. By breaking the platform down by functionality, they can add new MACH elements which only affect a small part of a business process and meet specific business needs, so people don’t have to spend their entire way of working just to test out a new feature. The MACH approach allows for easy, incremental change without a huge investment and disruptive change.

MACH Alliance Releases Study on Adoption of MACH Technologies by Tech Leaders: Q&A with Sonja Keerl

MACH Alliance featured image with Sonja Keerl headshot and MACH Alliance logo

<div>
While 2022 has already been unpredictable in almost every way, the one persistent trend in the CMS market is the continuous flow of investment dollars.
Speaking of investments: the latest announcement comes from <a href="https://craftercms.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CrafterCMS</a> – an open source Git-based headless platform for enterprises. The company revealed that it has closed on a second institutional round of funding from Lighter Capital, the leading fintech lender of non-dilutive financing to tech startups. 
Crafter first partnered with Lighter Capital in 2019 with an investment of revenue-based debt, which was paid off ahead of schedule thanks to CrafterCMS's faster than anticipated growth and profitable operations. According to the company, this new and larger second round of capital will fuel continued growth for the niche CMS player. 
</div>
<div>Crafter's news comes on the heels of a heated cycle of funding, including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-reaches-2-2-billion-valuation-following-175-million-investment-from-goldman-sachs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomreach's</a> $175 million round and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elastic Path's</a> securing of $60 million in financing to grow its composable commerce solutions. It appears that investment dollars are finding their way to every layer of the CMS and DXP stack in response to the continued focus on digital transformation. 
<h2>Driving value in a competitive headless CMS marketplace</h2>
CrafterCMS is a Git-based headless content management system, allowing users to work locally in teams via an API-powered Git repo. This gives developers greater control over versioning while enabling them to work in their preferred languages with their favorite tools and processes. Crafter's flexible headless architecture provides everything a user needs to create modern digital experiences and connect to a wide array of omnichannel endpoints – including websites, mobile devices, kiosk screens, email, video, and more. 
Crafter also has the distinction of being open source with an active community across a variety of channels. Developers can access a range of resources from source code to documentation and connect with the company and other users via Slack, Discord, and StackOverflow. 
The platform offers self-managed, self-managed on-premises enterprise support, and fully-managed private SaaS/PaaS operations and support. All offerings are sold as recurring, annual support subscriptions. 
<h2>Enhancing digital experiences in an omnichannel world</h2>
According to the company, Crafter appreciates high customer renewal rates, low customer churn, and strong upsell with major brands and enterprises across the globe – which has helped it achieve rapid growth. Crafter's enterprise customers range from the Fortune 500 to large government agencies to digital-native startups – all running mission-critical, highly scalable enterprise websites and various multi-channel digital experiences that include e-Commerce, OTT video, employee intranets, customer portals, interactive voice assistants, AR/VR experiences, and more.
"CrafterCMS continues to scale to meet growing customer demand, which we've seen accelerate as major enterprises and hyper-growth startups are looking for a modern content platform on which to build next-generation digital experiences," said Mike Vertal, President and CEO of CrafterCMS. "With growth comes the need for financing, and Lighter Capital has proven to be an ideal partner for us. This second round of capital will allow us to accelerate our expansion plans and do so without any of the ownership dilution of traditional venture capital financing. At the same time, it will foster the discipline to maintain both capital efficiency and a strong balance sheet for the long term, allowing us to focus entirely on driving customer success and nurturing our open source community."
Lighter Capital is the largest provider of non-dilutive debt capital to startups. It has revolutionized startup financing by making it easy for entrepreneurs to quickly access up to $4 million in non-dilutive growth and working capital through our tech-enabled lending process. With no hidden fees, warrants, or covenants, founders have full control over how to use the funds. Since 2010, Lighter has invested hundreds of millions of dollars of non-dilutive funding to hundreds of companies in the US, Canada, and Australia.
"Crafter is an ideal Lighter Capital client," said Jon Prentice, Investment Director at Lighter Capital. "We look for strong recurring revenue models and capital-efficient operators. Mike and his team have built a scaling company. Investment from Lighter allows them to immediately access capital to achieve goals and boost growth without dilution or changing the company's vision."
</div>
<h2>Q&amp;A with Mike Vertal, President and CEO, CrafterCMS</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect recently with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikevertal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Vertal</a>. He shared some of his views on the CMS market, the value of being open source, and their plans with Crafter Studio.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): The CMS and DXP markets are getting extremely dense and commoditized, and headless seems to be taking up more of the air in the room. Where do you see Crafter having its greatest strategic advantage? And how will this new funding be used to support your growth goals?
Mike Vertal (MV): Yes, headless is all the rage, but this is only one of many features needed in a modern enterprise CMS. The CMS market is, of course, dense and highly fragmented, with many of the headless-only CMSs focused on simpler use cases. In contrast, CrafterCMS focuses on the needs of larger enterprises and fast-growing startups that have more sophisticated content management needs and who are building a wide variety of new digital experience applications. To address this segment of the market, Crafter’s unique differentiators include:
1) Git-based content repository: Unlike most other CMSs that are built on top of databases (either SQL or NoSQL), Crafter is built on top of Git as its content repository. This not only provides much more extensive content versioning, auditing, branching, and rollback capabilities but also allows developers to leverage GitOps to accelerate development cycles of content-enabled apps.
2) DevContentOps processes: Headless is only about building apps on top of APIs; Crafter also streamlines developer workflows by eliminating bottlenecks of traditional database-centric CMSs, enables better collaboration among the developer teams and content authoring teams, and eases integration with enterprise DevOps and CI/CD tools via APIs. This is what we call DevContentOps – integrating content management processes into the traditional DevOps processes and tooling.
3) Powerful and user-friendly content authoring: Many of the simpler headless CMSs have crippled the content authoring teams, leaving them with primitive content creation/editing/preview/workflow/publishing capabilities. In contrast, Crafter has a sophisticated content authoring toolset (Crafter Studio) that supports in-context editing, multi-channel previews, drag/drop experience building... that content teams can use to improve productivity regardless of the front-end technology that the development uses to build the end user experience. So whether the development team has used React, Angular, Vue, HTML5, A-Frame (for AR/VR), or whatever, the content authors get a truly WYSIWYG editing capability. This is quite unique in the industry.
4) Proven in larger enterprises: our clients include Marriott, MasterCard, Penn Mutual, BNY Mellon, Papa Johns, UK Government, US Navy, among many others. The funds will be used to continue investing in CrafterCMS development, including our upcoming Version 4 release that will significantly advance Crafter Studio (content authoring platform) and will add significantly more reusable plugins available on the CrafterCMS Marketplace, along with further investments in customer success and our open source community.
<hr />
CC: What part is open source playing for buyers in 2022?
MV: Open source is slowly but surely taking over more of the enterprise, you just have to look at the tremendous success of Elastic, MongoDB, Confluent, Datastax and Gitlab to name just a few as proof. This is because savvy enterprise technology buyers realize that open source not only delivers better value over the long term, but also provides higher levels of security, agility, and innovation.
At CrafterCMS, we spend less than 20% of our revenues on sales/marketing expenses (compared with 70%-100% or more spent by proprietary and SaaS-only vendors), as our open source business model allows us to reach into enterprises much more cost effectively. Further, our open source community helps us 1) identify a wide range of new use cases and interesting new features, 2) contribute to the development efforts, 3) test and document early releases, and 4) find and resolve any security issues extremely rapidly, among a host of other benefits that are typical of open source projects.
<hr />
CC: How are you adapting to the composable revolution that’s driving more MACH-based solution selling for headless platforms?
MV: CrafterCMS fits perfectly well into composable, MACH-based architectures. We have always focused exclusively on being a best-of-breed CMS, and not building out a full-suite of DXP capabilities. Furthermore, CrafterCMS itself is a MACH-based system. How?
Micro-services: CrafterCMS is composed of several decoupled services: content authoring, content delivery, content publisher, content search, Git-based content repository, user profiles, etc..
API-first: Both Crafter’s content authoring and content delivery systems are API-first headless platforms, supporting REST, GraphQL, Javascript (Nodejs, Next js, etc.), and Java APIs. Furthermore, Crafter supports extensible APIs, allowing server side APIs to be scripted, extended, created.
Cloud-native: Crafter’s content delivery system is stateless and serverless, allowing elastic scalability in any cloud and allowing operations to be extremely simple.
Because CrafterCMS itself is based on a MACH architecture, our users can integrate Crafter easily with other MACH-like services such as e-commerce tools like commercetools, cloud-based OTT video streaming services like AWS Media Services, interactive voice assistants such as Alexa devices, to name just a few. Moreover, many of these integrations are available off the shelf in the CrafterCMS Marketplace today, allowing composability of solutions with minimal development. As mentioned above, the new funding will allow us to invest in many more of these integrations and make them available on our marketplace.
<h3>About CrafterCMS</h3>
CrafterCMS replaces the broken paradigm of traditional content management and enables a new era of fast, agile and easier development of innovative digital experiences that benefits large enterprises and fast-growing startups. As an open-source, API-first and Git-based headless platform, CrafterCMS is amazing for developers, easy for content authors, and fantastic for DevContentOps. Enterprises can choose from support options that include self-hosted/self-managed, fully-managed private SaaS/PaaS in the cloud, and community-supported open source. Learn more about the open source project at <a href="https://craftercms.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.org</a>, and enterprise solutions at <a href="https://craftercms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.com</a>.
<h3>About Lighter Capital</h3>
Lighter Capital is a fintech company revolutionizing startup finance by offering a new funding path for early-stage tech companies. We understand that an entrepreneur’s two greatest constraints are time and money, and we’ve developed technology to fund companies quickly and easily. We provide up to $4 million of non-dilutive growth capital in a fraction of the time it takes to raise from traditional sources. Based in the US and Australia, we’ve provided over 800 financings to 425+ companies across the US, Canada,

CrafterCMS Announces Second Round of Financing to Fuel Rapid Growth: Interview with CEO Mike Vertal

Featured post image of CrafterCMS logo with headshot of CEO Mike Vertal

"Headless broke the editing experience."
That was one of the many enlightening observations we heard during a press briefing yesterday with Pierre Burgy, CEO of <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi.</a> Along with a few sneak peeks of what to expect at the second annual <a href="https://conf.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StrapiConf</a>, the presentation covered some exciting announcements from one of the world's leading open-source headless content management systems (CMS).
Now in its second year, StrapiConf is the company's free annual conference, focused on its growing community of global users. One of the highlights of the two-day event has been the launch of the beta version of Strapi 4.2 – which features TypeScript support, a "dark mode" screen option, and an in-app marketplace packed with integrations. 
<h2>Enhancing the developer experience with TypeScript</h2>
<a href="https://www.typescriptlang.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TypeScript</a>, one of the most requested features on the Strapi roadmap, now makes the Strapi codebase more reliable, accessible, and easy to refactor for developers. TypeScript provides numerous features, including the addition of syntax to JavaScript – enabling users to catch errors earlier within their editor. TypeScript was also reported as being used by 78% of the <a href="https://2020.stateofjs.com/en-US/technologies/javascript-flavors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2020 State of JS</a> respondents, with 93% saying they would use it again.
"When we developed Strapi v4, we anticipated TypeScript support by introducing an internal typing system," said Alexandre Bodin, CTO, Strapi. "The new TypeScript support relies on that, but it will also be very useful for schema and data migration. This brand new version also introduces a dark mode option for those who prefer dark interfaces. This new functionality also sets the foundations for more advanced and custom themes in the future."
<h2>Growing a stronger community at StrapiConf</h2>
According to the company, StrapiConf is assembling more than 4,000 attendees and 20 sponsors from across the Strapi Community. The mission: learn, contribute, and collaborate on the future of the leading open-source headless CMS. Holding a second annual conference is a clear signal that Strapi's footprint and market position is gaining ground and should give industry watchers and investors a reason to pay attention. 
With more than 43,000 stars on <a href="https://github.com/strapi/strapi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GitHub</a>, 700 active contributors, and more than 5 million downloads, Strapi is the fastest-growing open-source Headless CMS. Strapi empowers developers to quickly build apps that enable collaboration and collective intelligence over the entire content lifecycle.
<h2>Strapi Market expands headless and composable ecosystem</h2>
Following the announcement last month of <a href="https://market.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi Market</a>, a marketplace of plugins and integrations, Strapi v4 now adds access directly in the admin panel, giving users the ability to easily find and install v4 plugins in seconds taking advantage of new features while securely accelerating time to production. 
"Imagine a world where you could pull from any device, in any format, content that is connected to various services and co-created by hundreds of people," said Burgy. "With this new release, we're moving beyond the creation of a Headless CMS and building a Composable Content Platform together with the Strapi community and ecosystem."
Strapi also shared its plan for another highly requested feature called custom fields, a powerful way to aggregate application programming interfaces (APIs), making frontend engineers' lives easier and significantly speeding up development. Custom fields enable support for new business data from external sources and improve the content editing experience by exposing new content types directly in the administration panel. 
<h2>Coming soon: Strapi Cloud</h2>
During our press briefing, Burgy pointed out that while some customers prefer on-prem, others want cloud hosting without the challenges of managing servers. 
To that end, the company shared a few details about the launch of Strapi Cloud: a new offering based on a platform-as-a-service approach. With Strapi Cloud, users will have a seamless deployment process without having to compromise on Strapi's unique customization capabilities. 
Read this <a href="https://strapi.io/blog/strapiconf-2022-announcements-recap" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a> to learn more about all the StrapiConf announcements in more detail. 
<h2>About Strapi</h2>
Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS: 100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable. Strapi enables developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use their favorite tools. Content teams use Strapi to autonomously manage all types of content and distribute it from one CMS to any channel including websites, mobile apps, or connected devices. The remote-first company has employees in six countries and is scaling its team globally. To learn more, visit <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strapi.io</a>.

Strapi Announces TypeScript Support, Makes Third-Party Plugins Directly Accessible at StrapiConf 2022

StrapiConf 2022 conference logo against a purple background

Acquia has every DAM reason to be running a victory lap right now – and its DAM has something to do with it.
Recently, the Drupal-powered DXP announced that its <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/dam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Widen Digital Asset Management (DAM)</a> solution was named a "Leader" in <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/reports/forrester-wave-digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management For Customer Experience, Q1 2022 Report</a>. The analyst firm's research evaluated the 14 most significant DAM vendors against 27 criteria grouped into three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence.
While this news comes fresh off the Forrester presses, it's augmented by the recent publishing of the <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/report/gartner-dxp-magic-quadrant?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=ppc_google_bof_mc_2022&amp;utm_content=7013a000002hl4dAAA&amp;utm_term=ppc_google_bof_mc_2022&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA95aRBhCsARIsAC2xvfwt8tHfpiJWirnXF0U4tNCgxIL4EoPamKncFewhJltgH7JITnH0kTUaAtQ7EALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)</a>, where Acquia continues to tighten the race for leadership with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-acquires-video-collaboration-platform-frame-io/">Adobe</a> and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-partners-with-google-cloud-to-take-experimentation-to-the-next-level/">Optimizely</a>. 
<h2>Broadening DXP with DAM</h2>
Last year, Acquia <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquired Widen</a> in an effort to bring its best-of-breed DAM and PIM capabilities to its expanding ecosystem. As a platform, Widen has been focused on large organizations where marketing teams required a more comprehensive <a href="https://www.widen.com/blog/digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">digital asset</a> strategy for managing rich media, product information, and marketing content into a single workflow – and all accessible via an intuitive user interface. 
With content being at the heart of digital experiences, acquiring Widen was a well-calculated move for Acquia. According to the Forrester report, Widen continues to lead the way with clear strengths around search and marketing features, rounding out Acquia's digital experience platform model and filling the critical gaps of workflow and asset management capabilities.
<h2>Scoring high marks across all Forrester criteria</h2>
Widen earned the highest possible scores across Forrester's nine DAM criteria, including AI metadata extraction, search, digital rights management, version control, content performance analytics, usability and user interface, creative toolset integration, planned enhancements, and commercial model.
The report also stated that Widen offers a "clear commercial model and transparent pricing," as well as "superior capabilities with its creative toolset integration" and "solid digital rights management capabilities including integrations into third-party DRM applications." It also concluded that Widen's roadmap of planned enhancements, which are influenced by customer feedback multiple times a year, is a key advantage. 
"We believe that Forrester's findings prove the strength of Widen's DAM technology when combined with the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)," said Jake Athey, VP of Marketing at Widen. "The addition of Widen to Acquia DXP brings our customers enhanced capabilities around rich media and product information content, providing even more opportunities to build world-class digital experiences."
You can access a complimentary copy of the report here: <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/reports/forrester-wave-digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience, Q1, 2022</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
Acquia empowers the world's most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions and help businesses stand out. Learn more at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://acquia.com</a>.

Acquia's Widen Named a "Leader" in Forrester Wave Report for Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience

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For many software application vendors, the cloud ecosystem has been a bit like baseball: no matter how you're planning to play, you're often forced to pick a team and stick with your bench.
But in the world of containers, the promise of a multi-cloud strategy is creating a new market of free agency – and letting organizations choose the infrastructure that best meets their needs.
While few CMS platforms can claim to be truly "cloud-first," most are providing hosting and infrastructure services that leverage one of the major public clouds. Because of the complexity and variability in service architectures, most vendors have picked either <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon Web Services (AWS)</a> or <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft Azure</a> as their "home team."
But <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_medium=press-link&amp;utm_source=prnewswire.com&amp;utm_campaign=contentstack-on-microsoft-azure-only-multi-cloud-saas-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Contentstack</a> believes you shouldn't have to compromise on which cloud you launch in. Last week, the headless CMS provider announced that it will now offer its platform on Microsoft Azure – right alongside AWS. This makes Contentstack the first multi-cloud SaaS CMS on the market, giving customers the freedom to run their omnichannel content operations on the cloud of their choice. 
Here's the real power play: whether a customer spins up on Azure or AWS, they'll receive the same functionality, pricing, and packaging structure. This gives buyers greater predictability around costs while eliminating any price-based or functional preference for a specific cloud to run their Contentstack workload. 
<h2>Expanding the value of headless CMS with Microsoft Azure</h2>
From the beginning, AWS has owned the lion's share of the cloud market. But Microsoft Azure has been steadily gaining ground – and is now the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2021/02/08/10-charts-that-will-change-your-perspective-of-microsoft-azures-growth/?sh=261f89773087" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second-largest provider</a> of cloud infrastructure services. According to Contentstack's press release, 85% of the Fortune 100 and 63% of enterprises overall are running applications on Azure.
Until now, no agile CMS has offered Azure as an option for its customers. While many organizations are managing multi-cloud strategies, one of the most compelling reasons for offering an alternative to AWS is the "Amazon Effect" and its dominance in digital commerce. Many online retailers and e-commerce brands have deeply-held competitive concerns with Amazon – and as a result, Azure has become the preferred choice for running their cloud workloads.
“Azure is continuing to grow market share as a leading cloud provider and businesses are increasingly looking for CMS solutions that run on the platform,” said Nishant Patel, chief technology officer for Contentstack. “Contentstack already has the highest flexibility of cloud infrastructure options on AWS, offering public, dedicated, and private Cloud options in both North American and European instances."
Contentstack also says that a lack of cloud choice has limited many organizations from realizing the benefits of a <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a> (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">Headless</a>) architecture. With the addition of Azure, those companies will now have access to a MACH approach, allowing them to choose the cloud provider that best suits their business needs.
"Now with added support for Azure public cloud in North America, we are meeting the high demand from retailers and consumer brands who ask for an alternative to Amazon, and large enterprises with strategic connections to Microsoft who want to replace their old-school CMS with an agile option," said Patel. "Any company looking for a future-fit CMS that allows you to run on Azure or AWS should consider Contentstack.”
<h2>Evolving CMS with SaaS and "cloud-agnostic" solutions</h2>
Unlike many monolithic CMS platforms, Contentstack is a SaaS offering that enables users to run in a cloud-agnostic manner. The company says this validates their internal architecture as being highly sophisticated and modern. 
Being cloud-agnostic also means that customers are "inoculated" against vendor lock-in, allowing them to mitigate the risk of costly replatforming. This composable nature aligns perfectly with the core values of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH Alliance</a>, of which Contentstack is a founding member. Contentstack’s platform is built on API-first principles that are developer-friendly and support a variety of content and delivery models. 
From a technical perspective, Contentstack’s Azure offering falls under ISO27001 certification and the company is working to achieve SOC2 Type II certification by mid-2022.
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<h2>Q&amp;A with Nishant Patel, CTO of Contentstack</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with Nishant Patel, CTO of Contentstack. He shared some of his views on the CMS market, the value of being headless, and what his company is excited about.
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CMS Critic (CC): How are customers able to deploy in Azure? Is this similar to an AWS Marketplace listing?
Nishant Patel (NP): There is no deployment needed. AWS and Azure is a multi-tenant cloud so when customers sign up with us they select the cloud provider and the account is auto-provisioned.
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CMS Critic (CC): You mention that there are no differences in price or functionality from AWS to Azure. Can you speak to any DevOps advantages that Azure might offer for running Contentstack? What services stand out?
Nishant Patel (NP): We have made all our micro-services cloud-agnostic by writing adapters for AWS and Azure. We were able to find comparable services on Azure so migration wasn’t much of a challenge. Azure has Kubernetes as well so our containers are ported very easily from AWS to Azure.
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CMS Critic (CC): Are there plans to expand to any other specific public, private, or autonomous cloud providers?
Nishant Patel (NP): We will consider setting up Contentstack on Azure in the Europe data center as well, similar to how we have two regions currently for AWS (Europe and North America). We are not considering any other cloud provider at the moment.
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CMS Critic (CC): AWS has joined the MACH Alliance as an Enabler. How do you see Microsoft supporting the tenants of MACH now and in the future?
Nishant Patel (NP): Azure is fully capable of hosting SaaS services so I am sure there are a few vendors already in the MACH that probably are fully deployed on Azure. If a MACH vendor is selling into retail companies then they probably will get requests to deploy on non-AWS cloud. Microsoft would be a good alternative solution here.
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<h3>About Contentstack</h3>
Contentstack – the pioneering Agile Content Management System (CMS) – empowers marketers and developers to collaborate around content like never before. Together, they can orchestrate superior customer journeys and deliver dynamic digital experiences across channels, audiences, brands and regions. Companies such as Chase, Express, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald’s, Mitsubishi, Riot Games, Sephora and Shell trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences. Famous for its Care Without Compromise™, Contentstack has the industry’s highest customer satisfaction. As a founder of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH Alliance</a>, Contentstack advocates for open and composable technology that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. Learn more at <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_medium=press-link&amp;utm_source=prnewswire.com&amp;utm_campaign=contentstack-on-microsoft-azure-only-multi-cloud-saas-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.contentstack.com</a>.
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Contentstack Offers Microsoft Azure, Becomes Only Multi-Cloud SaaS CMS: Q&A with CTO Nishant Patel

Image of Contentstack logo with headshot of Nishant Patel, CTO

Kontent.ai - Agentic CMS

Meet the world's first Agentic CMS

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It would be impossible to cover any news this month without acknowledging <a href="https://www.economist.com/ukraine-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the crisis in Ukraine</a>. 
As many CMS and DXP vendors rely on the incredible talent and resources of the people in this region, the events of the last few weeks have hit especially close to home. Even as we publish our February recap, things continue to unfold – and our hearts go out to the people of this magnificent country.
Of course, this tragedy is evolving just as many countries are emerging from the worst of the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19 pandemic</a>, with many businesses poised for a return to normalcy (what that looks like still remains to be seen). Still, the lasting impact of the omnichannel revolution is being felt across all digital transformation strategies, giving way to more headless, composable, API-driven solutions as companies plan for a more digital future.
When it comes to movers and shakers, 2022 is starting much the same way as 2021: with big investments.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-reaches-2-2-billion-valuation-following-175-million-investment-from-goldman-sachs/">Bloomreach</a>, a leading content and search platform focused on commerce, announced a $175 million round of funding – exploding its valuation to $2.2 billion. <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/">Elastic Path</a> also made waves by securing $60 million in financing to grow its composable commerce solutions. We also saw <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/acquisitions/2022/ecommerce-platform-bigcommerce-acquires-software-firm-b2b-ninja/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a> purchase B2B Ninja, an e-commerce platform, in an effort to energize quoting and other commerce services in their ecosystem. (Hint: we have more investment news below...)
As always, we try to recap some of the news you might have missed this month. There's a lot happening across our industry, and on a brighter note, we'll be announcing the winners of the CMS Critic Awards next week – both the People's Choice and Editor's Choice categories. We had a lot of great engagement over the last month across our social channels, and we're looking forward to sharing the results. 
<h2>Twilio Segment releases its 2022 CDP Report, finds CDPs booming as businesses look beyond cookies</h2>
We're all asking the same question: what happens to data in a post-cookie world?
Segment – a leading customer data platform (CDP) purchased by Twilio<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> in November of 2020</a> – is helping to shed some light on that query with the release of its third annual <a href="https://segment.com/the-cdp-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Customer Data Platform Report </a>(CDP).
Based on anonymized platform usage data of Segment's 25,000+ customers between 11/1/2020 to 11/1/2021, the report finds aggressive adoption of CDPs over the past year as businesses build digital-first customer engagement strategies and reduce their reliance on third-party data. 
Covid-19 shifted consumer behavior on a number of levels. In response, organizations changed how they interacted with their customers. As more digital engagements ensued, so too did the amount of data being generated. This spurred an explosive demand for CDP layers, particularly as it related to the broader CMS and DXP ecosystems.
Along with the unimaginable growth in data, the volume of API calls has also skyrocketed. <a href="https://www.postman.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Postman</a> – a leading application platform for API testing – conducted a <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/postman-releases-2021-state-of-the-api-report-shows-global-trend-towards-api-first-digital-era/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> last year that showed the world is moving to an "API-first era" as integrations and endpoints expand exponentially. As an example, the API calls through Segment have been growing steadily year-over-year since 2017, but 2020-2021 was an inflection point – with API calls in their system reaching over 1 trillion per month. 
Another reason CDP popularity has rapidly exploded is the impending "death" of third-party data. With increasing privacy regulations and the shift to a cookieless future across apps and browsers, businesses are embracing first-party data as a focal point. 
Segment's findings validate that customer data has become an integral part of how organizations are powering their digital experiences. The report also lists 2021's fastest-growing apps. For more details, you can access the full report at: <a href="https://segment.com/the-cdp-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://segment.com/the-cdp-report</a>.
<h2>Headless commerce provider fabric announces $140 Million Series C funding led by SoftBank</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fabric</a>, the fast-growing headless commerce platform, announced the closing of a Series C funding round of $140M led by Softbank, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Glynn Capital, and existing investors Redpoint Ventures Norwest Ventures, and Stripes. 
This latest round of funding closes a mere 219 days after its Series B – and now positions fabric's value at approximately $1.5B.
"Retailers need to meet modern consumers wherever they are – whether online, offline, mobile, social, or any future entry point. This means merchants of all sizes, and especially mid-market and enterprise, need the right commerce platform to keep pace with evolving trends," said Robert Kaplan, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers. "We believe that fabric has built the industry's best API-first modular commerce platform and accompanying commerce applications to give merchants unrivaled power and flexibility, all in a manner that reduces the pain of migrating over from legacy, outdated commerce platforms."
Funds from the Series C round will be utilized for accelerating product development largely through automation and intelligence and geographic expansion. 
<h2>Netlify announces Netlify Graph: A faster way for teams to develop web apps with APIs</h2>
Netlify, a Git-powered static site generator and headless CMS that's all the rage in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Jamstack</a> community, has <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/announcing-netlify-graph-a-faster-way-for-teams-to-develop-web-apps-with-apis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced Netlify Graph:</a> a GraphQL-powered experience designed to help developers build interactive and connected web applications faster.
The shift to API-first development has created an ecosystem where apps are modular and reusable. While the API-first approach is developer-friendly, it has also introduced new complexities such as discovering, securing, learning, and governing APIs. Netlify's Graph is designed to make this experience easier for developers, allowing them to use APIs without writing undifferentiated glue code, learning every API's unique structure, or composing endless amounts of endpoints to get data from various APIs into your app.
Netlify Graph is in public beta and available globally. It starts with a catalog that includes some of the most frequently requested APIs that development teams use, such as GitHub, Stripe, and Salesforce. The company plans to add more in the coming months. The Netlify Graph beta is available to all Netlify users and can be accessed from your <a href="https://app.netlify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify team dashboard</a>. Once logged in, simply select "Graph" from your Netlify site dashboard menu.
To learn more, head over to the <a href="https://github.com/netlify/labs/tree/main/features/graph/documentation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify Graph docs.</a>
<h2>BigCommerce acquires B2B Ninja to make online selling easier for B2B merchants</h2>
<a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/?utm_source=Business+Wire&amp;utm_medium=press+release&amp;utm_campaign=BigCommerce+Invests+in+Becoming+World%E2%80%99s+Most+Powerful+B2B+Ecommerce+Platform+with+Acquisition+of+B2B+Ninja" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a>, a leading cloud e-commerce platform, <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/press/releases/bigcommerce-invests-in-becoming-worlds-most-powerful-b2b-ecommerce-platform-with-acquisition-of-b2b-ninja/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the acquisition of <a href="https://www.b2bninja.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">B2B Ninja</a> (formerly Quote Ninja) – an enterprise software solution that provides leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce capabilities for merchants of all sizes.
<a href="https://www.forrester.com/playbook/The+B2B+eCommerce+Playbook+For+2018/-/E-PLA370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Forrester</a>, U.S. B2B e-commerce transactions are expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. This is creating a groundswell of opportunity for e-commerce platform providers to deliver focused solutions to this segment of the market. A longtime BigCommerce partner, B2B Ninja brings its best-in-class quoting solution to help streamline transactions by delivering powerful e-commerce functionality to B2B merchants.
"B2B Ninja is an excellent addition to our already strong B2B capabilities," said Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce. "Complementing our recent launch of B2B Edition, this is the next big step in providing a platform that is easier to use and faster than legacy B2B solutions and more flexible and powerful than other SaaS platforms. We continue to invest in ways that make BigCommerce the best platform for merchants of all sizes regardless of who or where their customers are or where merchants are selling."
B2B Ninja is available to any BigCommerce merchant on any plan to enhance the customer experience and easily manage quotes online.

CMS Monthly Recap: Big Investment News, Segment Releases 2022 CDP Report, Netlify Graph Launches and More

Image of Alpine village on lake in Europe with text of Monthly Recap overlayed

Nowadays, adding a shoppable storefront of plugins and third-party integrations might not seem novel for an enterprise CMS or DXP. But <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Contentstack</a> is upping the ante by embracing a more composable posture in its new Contentstack Marketplace, which just launched yesterday.
According to the company's press release, Contentstack Marketplace will feature a hub for partners and customers to contribute to its community while providing an array of apps, extensions, and Starters – including one-click integrations for AI-powered search from <a href="https://www.algolia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Algolia</a>, e-commerce solutions from <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a>, and media delivery from <a href="https://cloudinary.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cloudinary. </a>
With its Contentstack Marketplace, the company envisions an ecosystem where customers can adopt new functionality as their needs evolve, with lower investment and reduced risk.
<h2>Embracing MACH and the composable revolution</h2>
At the core of Contentstack's new Marketplace is the company's focus on composability. The headless CMS provider says that digital experience architectures require composable principles and a <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a> (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) technology approach. In their press release, the company says organizations that successfully transformed their digital technology and practices are leapfrogging the competition with outstanding digital-first customer experiences. 
Contentstack also says that the move from a single-vendor platform model to a best-of-breed, composable stack requires "connective tissue" between the various products. The key in these distributed models is to enable connectivity, ensure interoperability, and harmonize customer support across the vendor ecosystem. To address these challenges, the Contentstack Marketplace will feature a multi-vendor support program called <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-expands-customer-support-launch-industry-first-cross-vendor-service-commitment-program/?utm_medium=press-link&amp;utm_source=prnewswire.com&amp;utm_campaign=marketplace-press-release" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Care Without Compromise</a> that helps reinforce these advantages across a composable digital experience stack.
"The monolith has shattered. The creation of this co-innovation platform facilitates the interoperability of composable digital experience stacks with Contentstack's award-winning CMS at the core," said Nishant Patel, chief technology officer for Contentstack. "Our Marketplace allows customers and partners to easily set up connectivity between adjacent technologies and share extensions and solutions across the Contentstack community; something that legacy will never allow them to do."
As a founding member of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH Alliance</a>, Contentstack's Marketplace strategy appears perfectly aligned with the goals of the organization. Over the last 18 months, the MACH alliance has made a significant imprint on the CMS, DXP, and digital experience industries by trumpeting the values of composable architectures and elevating the conversation around the tenants of MACH. With over 40 members in its ranks, the MACH Alliance continues to grow its influence by adding pure-play composable vendors and market enablers that support the mission of the composable community. 
<h2>Powering a true no-code marketplace experience</h2>
Along with the monolith, Contentstack is attempting to shatter the typical CMS and DXP marketplace model by equipping users with one-click capabilities that accelerate and streamline the integration experience. 
While the concept of a "marketplace" suggests off-the-shelf simplicity, it is often an illusion. In most cases, marketplaces are just repos for code and installation guidelines that still necessitate intensive integration support from an in-house IT team. Along with the additional cost and time to implement new features, many of these integrations place the burden of security on the customer – not the platform. 
According to Contentstack, its new Marketplace will provide integrations and extensions that are pre-built and follow a no-code installation process. Additionally, developers can use Contentstack's newly released design framework Venus and its library of prefab components to quickly and easily build solutions in the native Contentstack user experience. This allows customers to accelerate their integration from weeks to days – or even minutes. 
Contentstack Marketplace and its ecosystem of apps are available to all Contentstack customers at no additional cost, enabling enterprise developers and business teams to build and deploy content across multiple channels and touchpoints in their consumer journeys. With a focus on accelerating "idea-to-life," Contentstack's built-in collaboration tools also aim to help businesses keep content and customer experiences fresh. 
<h2>About Contentstack</h2>
Contentstack – the pioneering Agile Content Management System (CMS) – empowers marketers and developers to collaborate around content like never before. Together, they can orchestrate superior customer journeys and deliver dynamic digital experiences across channels, audiences, brands, and regions. Companies such as Chase, Express, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald's, Mitsubishi, Riot Games, Sephora, and Shell trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences. Famous for its Care Without Compromise™, Contentstack has the industry's highest customer satisfaction. As a founder of the MACH Alliance, Contentstack advocates for open and composable technology that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless.

Contentstack Launches New Marketplace to Accelerate Composable Digital Experience Innovation

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Talk about a sonic "bloom."
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomreach</a>, a leading content and search platform focused on commerce, just made some big noise by <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en/news/2022/bloomreach-valuation-soars-to-usd2.2-billion-following-usd175-million-investment-led-by-goldman-sachs-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcing</a> a $175 million round of funding, skyrocketing the company's valuation to a whopping $2.2 billion. 
The investment – which follows a massive <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/26/bloomreach-raises-150m-on-900m-valuation-and-acquires-exponea/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$150 million funding round</a> in January 2021 – was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management ("Goldman Saalamogordochs"), with participation from existing Bloomreach investors Bain Capital Ventures and Sixth Street Growth. 
The size of these two infusions demonstrates some serious confidence from the street. With heavy-hitters like Goldman Sachs piling on the cash, it's clear that investors see continued opportunities in digital commerce transformation, particularly at the enterprise level. Bloomreach has made a series of smart investments along the way, giving them the heft to challenge one of the biggest e-commerce brands on the planet.
<h2>Arming brands against Amazon with personalized e-commerce</h2>
When it comes to e-commerce – or any commerce for that matter – it's impossible to ignore "The Amazon Effect." 
In the 25 years since Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com from a garage in suburban Seattle, it has grown to become the top e-commerce platform in the world. Each month, <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-statistics/#10-fascinating-amazon-statistics-sellers-need-to-know-in-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 197 million people</a> around the globe visit Amazon.com. That's more than the entire population of Russia.
Worldwide e-commerce sales <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/worldwide-ecommerce-continues-double-digit-growth-following-pandemic-push-online" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are expected</a> to reach $7.4 trillion by 2025. According to <a href="https://www.ibm.com/industries/retail" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBM's U.S. Retail Index</a> data, COVID-19 has accelerated retail trends by nearly five years. E-commerce sales <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/871/online-shopping/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were skyrocketing</a> before the pandemic, and Amazon was already monopolizing most of the air in the digital room. As contactless delivery became essential during COVID lockdowns, Amazon moved into its pole position as the uncontested leader in digital customer experiences. 
<a href="https://www.mdm.com/news/operations/amazon-business-says-company-reached-25-billion-in-2020-sales/">Amazon's grasp over the e-commerce world</a> is viewed as an existential threat to many global brands. Even giants like Walmart, Apple, and Macy’s are struggling to compete with the digital heavyweight. But according to Bloomreach, brands now have a weapon to fight Amazon – giving retailers, distributors, and manufacturers a platform for delivering highly relevant and personalized digital experiences with speed and scalability.
<h2>Moving away from monolithic</h2>
According to Raj De Datta, CEO of Bloomreach, the key to competing is the move from monolithic e-commerce platforms to microservices-based architectures that empower not just the web, but all digital touchpoints. That way, enterprises can have more control over the customer experience by making it highly personalized and innovating quickly.
"It starts in the early days of the web, with Amazon and eBay, when e-commerce was in its infancy. Twenty years later, e-commerce is exactly where we would expect a 20-year-old to be — just getting started," said De Datta. "Indeed, at Bloomreach, we believe that if the first 20 years of e-commerce have been about standing up the store or simply transacting online, then the next twenty years are about standing out from the crowd, or differentiating in the face of increased digital competition and rising consumer expectation. "
<h2>Growing its Commerce Experience Cloud</h2>
Following its latest round of funding, Bloomreach plans to invest in the development of cutting-edge personalization use cases powered by its entire <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Commerce Experience Cloud</a>, showcasing the differentiated power of its combined product suite. In addition, Bloomreach will invest in expanding its go-to-market teams to accelerate business growth worldwide.
Currently, Bloomreach's DXP for Commerce helps keep customers engaged, increases revenue per visit, and drives customer loyalty. The company says that the solution integrates with leading commerce platforms to form a complete e-commerce solution. Bloomreach further enhances its commerce offerings with AI-powered search, intelligent merchandising, and highly agile content management, which are fast becoming essential tools for shaping modern e-commerce experiences. 
Additionally, <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en/products/bloomreach-experience" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomreach Experience (brX)</a> currently drives over $200 billion in digital commerce experiences across many of the world's largest online retailers, brands, distributors, and B2B manufacturers – representing 25% of retail e-commerce in the U.S. and U.K. With Bloomreach Experience, organizations can access rich features, all powered by an API-first headless architecture. This makes it easier for brands to connect Bloomreach with their existing commerce platform and frontend technologies and avoid many of the rigors of re-platforming everything.
In 2021, Bloomreach <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-acquires-exponea-secures-150m-investment-to-power-e-commerce-saas-expansion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquired Exponea</a>, a Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP), with the goal of integrating its market-leading e-commerce capabilities with Exponea's best-in-class customer data (CDP) and marketing automation capabilities. With this combination, Bloomreach appears well-poised to accelerate the creation, personalization, and optimization of powerful commerce experiences.
<h2>About Bloomreach</h2>
Bloomreach is the world’s #1 Commerce Experience Cloud, empowering brands to deliver customer journeys so personalized, they feel like magic. It offers a suite of products that drive true personalization and digital commerce growth, including: Discovery, offering AI-driven search and merchandising; Content, offering a headless CMS; and Engagement, offering a leading CDP and marketing automation solutions. Together, these solutions combine the power of unified customer and product data with the speed and scale of AI-optimization, enabling revenue-driving digital commerce experiences that convert on any channel and every journey. Bloomreach serves over 850 global brands including Albertsons, Bosch, Puma, FC Bayern München, and Marks &amp; Spencer. For more information, visit <a href="https://bit.ly/2EfrSOZ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomreach.com</a>.

Bloomreach Reaches $2.2 Billion Valuation Following $175 Million Investment from Goldman Sachs

Image of rocket flying with people on top of it, next to text that reads "$175 million investment"

In its early days, the Cloud was focused on helping businesses scale their capacity and trade CapEx for OpEx. Now, it's helping organizations leverage advanced services like AI and machine learning that enhance optimization and personalization.
On that note: <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely</a>, a leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider, <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/company/press/optimizely-and-google-cloud-partner-to-drive-joint-innovation--next-gen-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Google, which includes moving its market-leading experimentation solutions to <a href="https://cloud.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Cloud</a>. The multi-year agreement indicates a commitment by the two companies to collaborate on innovative opportunities to develop advanced, digital-first marketing solutions.
Through the new partnership, customers will benefit from Optimizely's experimentation-driven digital experience capabilities combined with Google Cloud's secure infrastructure and its AI, ML, and analytics. This includes Optimizely's <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/products/intelligence/web-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Web Experimentation</a> and <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/products/intelligence/full-stack-experimentation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Full Stack Experimentation</a> resources, which allow marketers to take the guesswork out of delivering personalized, meaningful engagements.
The alignment with Google will enable Optimizely to innovate and evolve its services with the power of the Cloud. According to the press release, Google and Optimizely will also coordinate a joint go-to-market and sales execution strategy to deliver seamless experimentation solutions to customers across the globe.
"Through this partnership, Google Cloud infrastructure will underpin Optimizely's fast-growing and widely-adopted customer experience platform," said Rob Eslin, President of Google Cloud. "It's critical that businesses deliver exceptional products and services to consumers, and this partnership will enhance their ability to do so, driven by the Optimizely platform, data and Google Cloud's capabilities in AI and ML."
<h2>Elevating "Optimization as a Service" with Google Cloud</h2>
As the name intuitively suggests, Optimizely focuses on optimization – specifically as it relates to content and digital experiences. This is a key reason why <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Episerver rebranded under the Optimizely moniker</a> following its acquisition. 
While already a Leader on the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, Episerver's acquisition of Optimizely launched a new direction for the company, elevating "Optimization as a Service" to the forefront of their product and service stack. The acquisition also gave Episerver an edge in the personalization category, allowing them to deliver on the promise of a truly complete digital experience platform for testing and optimization. 
As part of the multi-year agreement, Optimizely and Google Cloud will collaborate closely on co-innovation, developing new and expanded digital offerings that bring the best experience possible to new and existing customers. Joint Optimizely and Google Cloud customers will reap the robust benefits of the combined offering, including greater flexibility and control, unmatched security, and increased productivity and reliability. 
<h2>The critical role of experimentation in digital marketing</h2>
As marketing continues to evolve, successful programs will rely on data-driven decision-making and optimized customer experiences. Having the scalability of Google Cloud will enable Optimizely to support the growing demand for experimentation to provide more actionable insights – giving marketers greater confidence around the performance of their content and campaigns. 
In an industry plagued by rapid disruption and constant consolidation, this partnership will help ensure that Optimizely's innovative solutions are more accessible, scalable, and quickly achievable for marketers looking to gain an edge and deliver optimal digital experiences.
"I couldn't think of two tech companies that are more relevant for the data-driven growth marketer than Google Cloud and Optimizely," said Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely. "We share the same philosophy on leveraging data, AI, and experimentation to replace guesswork with certainty. By entering into this strategic partnership with Google Cloud, we're empowering marketers to unlock their digital potential, create exceptional customer experiences and deliver strong business outcomes all on a trusted, secure platform. It's a true win-win-win situation for Optimizely, Google Cloud, and the marketing industry overall."
<h2>MACH versus monoliths</h2>
Optimizely had quite an active year in 2021, acquiring both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zaius</a>, a Customer Data Platform (CDP), and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizelys-acquisition-of-welcome-signals-expanded-focus-on-marketers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Welcome</a>  – a content marketing (CMP), marketing resource management (MRM), and digital asset management (DAM) platform. 
While these strategic acquisitions demonstrate Optimizely's ambition to deliver a full stack of value to marketers, it further positions the digital experience platform as a more monolithic player in the landscape. This is in direct contrast to the more recent energy and growth in the MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-first SaaS, Headless) category, where <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uniform-raises-28m-in-series-a-funding-round-for-composable-dxp/">composable DXPs like Uniform</a> are disrupting the market. The promise of more extensible solutions – and never having to replatform – is gaining traction with users and companies as they consider the future of their digital stacks. 
Still, leading platforms like Optimizely are responding to large-scale enterprise needs from customers who crave integrated data and solutions from a single platform. As pure-play members of the MACH Alliance continue to grow, they may face opportunities to expand value with more monolithic attributes. This is a key reason why <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elastic Path</a> has chosen to forego membership in the MACH Alliance and pursue a more flexible ecosystem model to build a community of composable commerce solutions.
<h2>About Optimizely</h2>
Optimizely is on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. With its leading digital experience platform (DXP), Optimizely equips teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new and novel ways. Now, companies can operate with data-driven confidence to create hyper-personalized experiences. Building sophisticated solutions has never been simpler. Optimizely's 900+ partners and 1100+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 9,000 brands, including Toyota, Santander, eBay, KLM and Mazda, enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands. Learn more at <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">optimizely.com</a>. All third-party trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference purposes. 
For more information on how Optimizely and Google Cloud will partner together, please visit: <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/google/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.optimizely.com/google</a>.

Optimizely Partners with Google Cloud to Take Experimentation to the Next Level

The Mandalorian might have popularized the creed of "This is the Way."
But in the galaxy of composable commerce, it seems there's a new mantra: "This is the Path."
<a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/" target="_blank">Elastic Path</a>, a leader in the explosive category of composable commerce, recently <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/resources/press-releases/elastic-path-secures-60m-growth-funding" target="_blank">announced</a> a $60 million growth financing round from funds and accounts managed by <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual" target="_blank">BlackRock.</a> This included participation from existing investors led by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/sageview-capital/" target="_blank">Sageview Capital</a>.
With this new infusion of capital, Elastic Path is poised to expand its empire. With a total raise of over $120 million, the company appears well-funded and well-positioned to continue leading the market away from traditional, monolithic commerce platforms to more composable solutions.
"As digital moves from a channel to the heart of the enterprise, brands demand more: More speed. More control. More flexibility. And our strong growth is clear evidence that we are meeting that demand with a product that enables brands to manage the complexities of their business." said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamusdriscoll/" target="_blank">Jamus Driscoll</a>, CEO at Elastic Path. "I'd like to thank our new and existing investors for their continued belief in our vision of Composable Commerce, and with this capital, we look forward to accelerating market change, one successful customer at a time."
<h2>What is composable commerce?</h2>
<a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/composable-commerce" target="_blank">Composable commerce</a> is a modern approach by which e-Commerce teams are empowered to select and assemble various best-of-breed solutions from across the digital stack and compose them to meet their exact business requirements. Instead of trying to force-fit standard "out-of-the-box" e-Commerce functionality to fit specific needs, composable commerce leverages <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH</a> (Microservices, APIs, Cloud-native, Headless) and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/" target="_blank">JAMstack</a> (JavaScript, APIs, &amp; Markup) architectures to adapt to rapidly changing market dynamics  – now and in the future.
The market is rapidly moving to composable-centric solutions. Gartner predicts that by 2023, organizations that embrace composability will <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3986490/composable-commerce-must-be-adopted-for-the-future-of-ap" target="_blank">outpace the competition by 80%</a> in implementing new product features. And according to the <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/resources/ebooks-white-papers/state-composable-commerce-2021" target="_blank">2021 State of Composable Commerce Report</a>, 95% of e-Commerce practitioners believe composable commerce is the approach businesses should take. 
Elastic Path spearheaded its "Composable Commerce Movement" to make it simpler and faster for brands with complex requirements to deliver unique digital commerce experiences. The company makes this possible by providing a <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/elastic-path-commerce-cloud" target="_blank">MACH-based commerce platform</a> and what they refer to as "Pre-Composed Solutions" that make it fast and easy to migrate. It also offers <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/products/composable-commerce-xa" target="_blank">Composable Commerce XA</a>, which provides complete experience assurance for multi-vendor commerce solutions.
Elastic Path has built a clear reputation as a leader in headless e-Commerce. Its composable, API-first commerce platform is specifically targeted towards enterprise-level organizations, but the growth of the pre-composed elements may broaden its target audiences. For all these reasons (and more), Elastic Path was featured on our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/" target="_blank">Top 10 Headless Commerce Platforms</a> list. 
<h2>Banking on future growth</h2>
According to the company, the new investment will enable Elastic Path to build on strong performance in 2021 as the market accelerates its shift to composable commerce. 
Highlights from the past year include:
<ul>
<li>400+% year over year growth</li>
<li>140+ new product releases, including <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/products/catalog-composer" target="_blank">Catalog Composer™</a>, a groundbreaking advancement for brands with complex catalog and channel requirements</li>
<li>25+ new <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/blog/what-pre-composed-solution-how-does-it-accelerate-time-market" target="_blank">Pre-Composed Solutions™</a> and Accelerators added to the Composable Commerce Hub™</li>
<li>Introduced <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/products/composable-commerce-xa" target="_blank">Composable Commerce XA™</a>, the only production-support offering spanning multi-vendor Composable Commerce solutions</li>
<li>Became the first and only <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/technologies/mach-architecture" target="_blank">MACH-based</a> commerce vendor to achieve <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/resources/press-releases/elastic-path-commerce-cloud-first-and-only-composable-api-first-headless" target="_blank">SOC 2 for security</a></li>
<li>40+ new partners onboarded</li>
<li>Added new marquee enterprise customers, including Konica Minolta, HarperCollins, Orgill, and DMSI</li>
</ul>
Elastic Path also <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-acquires-moltin/" target="_blank">acquired Moltin</a> in early 2020, a fellow API-first commerce technology platform, helping to solidify its position in the headless commerce market and deploy commerce experiences faster, easier, and at a greater scale.
"We were extremely impressed with Elastic Path's team, the strength of its product offerings, and its impressive growth over the past 12 months," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkerwindoyle/" target="_blank">John Doyle,</a> Director at BlackRock. "We are pleased to partner with Elastic Path to support its continued growth into the future."
<h2>MACH... but no MACH Alliance?</h2>
With the growing awareness and interest in MACH technologies, it's impossible to ignore the efforts of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/members" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a> and its mission to "future-proof" enterprise technology for the future of digital experiences. Started by <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/commercetools-acquires-frontastic-adds-composable-frontend-capabilities-to-headless-commerce/">commercetools</a>, the fledgling organization has already amassed over 40 members in its cabal, all platforms that feature a singular, pure-play focus on the MACH attributes. The MACH Alliance recently expanded its charter to include a class of Enabler members that provide the platforms and technologies that other members utilize. This includes netlify, MongoDB, and most recently <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/aws-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member-reflects-growth-of-cloud-native-solutions/">AWS</a>.
While it offers a fully MACH-enabled solution, Elastic Path has been vocal about its lack of presence in the MACH Alliance. In a blog post, the company revealed why it has chosen not to participate in the highly-visible organization, particularly the MACH Alliance has grown its influence over the last few months. The key reason: Elastic Path's strategy to expand its breadth of offerings and include multiple products such as <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/commerce" target="_blank">Elastic Path Commerce</a> – which is not microservices-based.
This along is a key blocker for joining the MACH Alliance, but Elastic Path has instead forged its own "path" with the Composable Commerce Movement, adding its <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/hub" target="_blank">Composable Commerce Hub</a> – a library of partner resources designed to help brands reduce the risk and complexity of using MACH-based technologies and empower them to rapidly deliver business outcomes. To date, its Hub contains composable solutions from vendors such as <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-upgrades-open-dxp-capabilities-to-expand-composable-enterprise-features/">Acquia</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/andy-jassy-amazons-new-ceo-signals-bold-future-for-loud-and-digital-experiences/">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/what-contentfuls-175m-investment-round-means-for-the-future-of-cms/">Contentful</a>, and more.
<div>
<h2>About Elastic Path</h2>
</div>
<div>Elastic Path is the company powering mission-critical digital commerce for the <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/case-studies" target="_blank">world's leading brands</a>, such as Intuit, Pella, Deckers Brands, T-Mobile, and over 250 other leading brands. As relentless innovators, Elastic Path pioneered the <a href="https://www.elasticpath.com/headless-commerce" target="_blank">Headless Commerce</a> space in 2011 and spearheaded Composable Commerce in 2020. Elastic Path provides industry-leading headless commerce solutions for digitally-driven brands to rapidly build, deploy, and continuously optimize highly differentiated commerce experiences. Elastic Path is a global company with offices in Boston, Newcastle, Reading, Toronto, and Vancouver.</div>

Elastic Path Secures $60M in Funding for Composable Commerce Growth

Elastic Path logo against a dark blue background

We've all heard Blue Oyster Cult's iconic rock mantra, "Don't Fear the Reaper."
But what about "Don't Fear the Omnichannel"?
(Before we proceed any further: if you're not familiar with Blue Oyster Cult – or their megahit – we strongly recommend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Will Farrell's interpretation</a> with more cowbell...)
Classic rock references aside, it seems that most enterprises are still trepidatious about investing in omnichannel content experiences, particularly when it comes to connecting with more advanced endpoints like IoT (<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-the-internet-of-things-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-iot-right-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet of Things</a>) devices. Despite the magnetic allure of distributing content to these diverse and engaging channels, it seems that many large brands and organizations are remaining on the digital sidelines, holding back their expansion.
This was codified by a compelling study conducted by <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storyblok</a>, an enterprise <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">headless CMS</a> that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform. The report, entitled <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/lp/state-of-content-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The State of Content Management 2022,</a> analyzed survey results from professionals across a wide range of industries in the United States, UK, Germany, and Sweden – focusing on how they manage content in their organizations.
The results? Well, let's just say that the Reaper was in full force: according to Storyblok's research, the percentage of enterprises interested in delivering content to IoT devices like voice-activated speakers, AR/VR, and smartwatches is in the single digits.
Shocker? Well, maybe not.
<h2>Why the slow growth for omnichannel content experiences?</h2>
Despite widespread claims that many companies have been pursuing advanced omnichannel content strategies, the data in Stoyblok's report shows that most enterprises are taking a cautious approach and continuing to focus on websites and mobile apps. 
Is this fear? Perhaps – in part. More of the current attitude may be a result of the overall market opportunity and how consumers behave with these different devices. There's certainly been significant adoption of voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home, but only <a href="https://martech.org/roughly-1-in-4-u-s-adults-now-owns-a-smart-speaker-according-to-new-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25% of U.S. adults own one</a> – and according to Pew, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/09/about-one-in-five-americans-use-a-smart-watch-or-fitness-tracker/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">only one in five people</a> own a smartwatch. 
Sure, that's still a lot. But when the majority of the market is engaging with experiences on websites and mobile apps – and nearly <a href="https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world#:~:text=According%20to%20Statista%2C%20the%20current,world's%20population%20owns%20a%20smartphone." target="_blank" rel="noopener">85% of people worldwide own a smartphone</a> – that might be why some enterprises are still dragging their feet. 
Furthermore, it seems that a lack of understanding of how a headless CMS can unlock these channels is contributing to the slow growth. Enterprises may not realize the true technical requirements and content operations needed to power these strategies, and it's clear that many are unaware of the tools available in a headless CMS for managing omnichannel content experiences.
 “This data proves that enterprise adoption of newer content platforms has a long way to go, but we’re still in the early days of advanced digital transformation projects,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikangerer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dominik Angerer</a>, Co-Founder, and CEO of Storyblok. “Once more companies understand how a headless CMS makes it possible for one content hub to easily publish content everywhere, the growth of omnichannel content experiences will accelerate at a much more rapid pace.”
We had a chance to ask Angerer a few questions about Storyblok's report, the future of headless and commerce, and the growing prevalence of MACH in the marketplace. In fact, a big part of how Storyblok and other headless CMS platforms are evolving the space is by delivering MACH-based solutions that are composable and highly extensible.
MACH stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless – all attributes that modern headless CMSes are furiously embracing. As part of its market commitment, Storyblok <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/mp/storyblok-joins-the-mach-alliance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined the MACH Alliance</a> last November, entering the velvet-roped VIP room for platforms that fully exhibit the MACH principles.
<h2>Understanding the role of headless CMS in the omnichannel ecosystem</h2>
By now, we know that consumers use a combination of devices, platforms, and channels to access digital experiences – and the buyer's journey is becoming more non-linear. While mobile will likely continue to be a key orchestrator, brands are still motivated to understand these diverse channels so they can connect with audiences whenever, wherever, and however they choose. 
Clearly, the role of the headless CMS in this expanding ecosystem is critical, and Stoyblok's research takes a keen interest in uncovering how enterprises are using their content management systems to make connections in new places – particularly across the IoT. According to the report, when asked which platforms and channels they serve with their CMS, 7.2% of respondents said voice-activated speakers, 6.6% said AR/VR and only 3.7% said smartwatches. Again, these figures appear much lower than the market zeitgeist might reflect.
That said, the enthusiasm to ride the omnichannel wave is pervasive. When asked which platforms and channels they plan to serve with their CMS in the future, 9.6% said voice-activated speakers, 6.5% said AR/VR, and 5.1% said smartwatches.
Some other noteworthy metrics gathered from respondents include:
<ul>
<li>47.96% use 2 to 3 CMSes in their organization</li>
<li>47.08% have 2 to 3 different teams use the CMS in their organization</li>
<li>35.5% said time-consuming processes were a pain point that made them move to a CMS</li>
<li>34.91% use a headless CMS</li>
<li>82.91% have seen improvements in ROI, budget, and performance since switching to a headless CMS</li>
</ul>
<h2>The rapid rise of headless commerce</h2>
While the investment in omnichannel content experiences has been slower than expected (blame the Reaper), what might accelerate its continued growth is <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">headless commerce</a>. Buyers are browsing in multiple places, and brands need to be prepared at every endpoint to engage them along their journey. Decoupling the frontend means any endpoint becomes a part of a company's digital shopping ecosystem; it also means that they won't have to re-platform from a tightly-coupled monolithic solution that limits any API-first scalability (more of the MACH action). 
One of the other big advantages of a headless commerce strategy is having an agile framework for e-commerce – giving brands the ability to test, experiment, and optimize based on different audiences. It also gives sellers the freedom to customize their various channels, from websites to apps, without impacting the backend. These experiences can be powered by a single headless commerce system, or connected to a CMS that powers the core of the omnichannel strategy. It's these capabilities that make the case for composable platforms. 
<h2>Q&amp;A with Dominik Angerer</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with the co-founder and CEO of Storyblok. He shared some of his views on headless commerce, MACH architecture, and where Storyblok sees its competitive strength.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): Based on your data, eCommerce is the third largest area served by a CMS. In your opinion, how is the rise of headless commerce impacting the trend?
Dominik Angerer (DA): The rise of headless commerce is the natural reaction of an architecture that proved itself in the CMS space to be faster to implement and easier to extend and combine. With the adoption of headless commerce now we will see an increased acceleration of the adoption of headless CMS and other API-first tools related to commerce. The education efforts for new and existing players will be less as the understanding of benefits (speed, security, ROI) is already a given. 
<hr />
CC: How do you see the increased awareness of MACH principles and composable systems impacting the future?
DA: The MACH principles are here to stay. Businesses using a composable, best-of-breed approach usually tend to perform better by creating faster, more streamlined user experiences for their clients across platforms and channels. This is because a composable architecture gives all stakeholders the best tool at hand for a respective job while allowing those systems to be well connected through an API-first approach. I believe that composable systems must provide a great developer experience and a great editor experience, as this naturally results in a better UX on the frontends.
<hr />
CC: In question 11, we see a huge shift in the measurable impact of switching to headless, a little over 82%. That said, what do you think the 17% of respondents have issues with? Where is there room for improvement? Did you inquire about this?
DA: The fact that 82% of businesses saw an immediate improvement after making the switch to a headless CMS is very exciting. Given our experience with 100,000+ projects running on Storyblok, a couple challenges the remaining percentage could have involve the following:
<ul>
<li>Education: In most cases, businesses making the switch to a headless architecture do not have previous experience with this approach. This usually brings a learning curve for everyone involved in this process.</li>
<li>Migration &amp; Enablement: Changing CMSs usually requires the development of a migration path from the old system to the new system. Storyblok does offer ways to migrate data to your new Headless CMS (see <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/07/wordpress-headless-cms-storyblok/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">example tutorial here</a>); however, migrating data, content models, etc., can be a unique challenge depending on your previous setup and systems. </li>
</ul>
While we see those challenges, we also see examples where businesses saw a massive decrease in the hidden costs of a CMS when switching to headless (think of training, maintenance, hosting, and so on).
<hr />
CC: With the largest growth among headless CMS platforms, where do headless vendors see the growth opportunities? How will they differentiate over time?
DA: We will see a split based on the groups working with the CMS. Some will dedicate more time and resources into the pure developer angle and will go the route to become more of a database with API (“content platform”), others will focus on the collaboration between the marketers and trying to enable them even more with previews, automation, content planning, and become closer to a DXP.
<hr />
CC: More specifically: where does Storyblok see its competitive strength? Where does it best compete when buyers are evaluating CMS solutions?
DA: We believe that Storyblok is the only Headless CMS for enterprises that provides the best developer experience as well as the best editor experience. Because of that, organizations such as Adidas, Marc O’Polo, and Greggs are able to build better performing digital experiences, launch new marketing campaigns faster, and manage all of their content in one central place - no matter the frontend.
<h2>About Storyblok</h2>
Storyblok is an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform. Developers create flexible components that are independently managed by content teams through a collaborative visual editor and customizable workflow. Published content is delivered through an API, so changes are made once and will appear everywhere: websites, mobile, IoT, the metaverse, and beyond. This approach reduces maintenance and makes content management more efficient. Leading brands such as Adidas, Pizza Hut, and Marc O’Polo use Storyblok to manage and share their content with the world.
 For more information, visit <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.storyblok.com</a> and follow Storyblok on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/storyblok">Twitter</a>.

Storyblok's CMS Report Shows Enterprises Are Still "Scared" of Omnichannel Content Experiences

Image of Storyblok logo icon with image of Dominik Angerer, CEO

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