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VShift Article

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/eric-feige">Eric Feige</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/dan-drapeau"> </a>is Managing Director, Strategy at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.vshift.com/">VShift</a> and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> Digital transformations are about business reinvention. Success requires aligned leadership, cultural adaptation, implementable strategy, and constant evolution. Disconnect between functional leaders (e.g., CFOs, CIOs, and CMOs) and their consultants, systems integrators, and agencies is a key reason why digital transformations fail.Often, we find that organizations are unable to quickly launch new sites or digital products required for growth and prioritized as urgent by leadership. Their content supply chain is bottlenecked and incapable of supporting personalized content experiences. And their customer data is just not usable despite years of marketing technology investment. If only there were a magic cure that could turn back time and ensure that strategies are implementable, digital technologies flexible, and campaigns effective – and able to drive growth at scale.Strategies created by management consultants with little to no digital program implementation experience yield “pie in the sky” roadmaps. Digital ecosystems implemented by global systems integrators and shaped by outdated IT principles deliver monolithic technologies that make business stakeholders dependent on vendor-certified consultants. Go-to-market (GTM) campaigns deployed by marketing specialists can only be launched by using non-enterprise MarTech (aka “shadow tech”) that circumvents blockers. Many organizations struggling to execute are increasingly self-aware that misalignment and lack of integration between strategy, technology, and marketing have left them with what developers call “a ball of mud” – a mess of an operating model that is hard to understand, difficult to maintain or evolve, and resistant to change.Can AI magically address organizational and third-party consultant dysfunction? Could a team of skilled AI agents, instead of humans, possess enough depth of specialized knowledge to seamlessly develop implementable strategies, flexible digital platforms, and winning GTM campaigns? No. AI will not be a magic cure – particularly if it is divorced from people, culture, and processes. That said, AI-enabled and integrated strategy, technology, and marketing will deliver business reinvention outcomes and will help course-correct transformations that have gone awry. <h3 id="ai-enabled-organizations-will-lead-the-way">AI-enabled organizations will lead the way</h3>According to IDC, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://my.idc.com/getdoc.jsp/?containerId=prUS52305724">$3.9 trillion will be spent</a> on digital transformation by 2027. Now is an opportune time to utilize AI – along with the right team of associates and consultants – to AI-enable and align key aspects of digital strategy, technology, and marketing so these four key issues are addressed:<ol><li>Lack of leadership support </li><li>Ineffective cross-functional governance</li><li>Stakeholders not being “on the same page”</li><li>Expanding the scope broadly rather than narrowing the focus</li></ol>Instead of executing a traditional management consultant strategy, AI-enabled organizations can shorten expensive multi-month strategy projects into mere days by systematically conducting competitive analysis, by ingesting stakeholder feedback and other relevant input into large language models, and by leveraging synthetic users for CX research and solution validation. Furthermore, AI tooling can render transformation roadmaps along with solution models to help stakeholders and cross-functional governance team members develop a common, aligned vision.<h3 id="the-benefits-of-a-composable-ai-approach">The benefits of a composable AI approach</h3>Rather than putting all your IT investments in a single vendor's digital technology, AI tools can help compose and intelligently assemble diverse digital experience modules. This way, the aligned vision can be progressively launched into production, with the more important aspects of the roadmap taking priority. Modularity and componentization are key in this new world of AI-supported development and integration. GTM leaders can more easily and flexibly trial-run digital technology using AI while platforms are not yet in production – a clever way of eliminating “shadow” systems.Lastly, by using AI to match customer profiles and critical needs, creative team members can more quickly fill the content supply chain with relevant copy/messages, images, videos, and tools to increase open rates, click-throughs, time-on-page engagement, and ultimately campaign conversion. AI can bridge the divide between strategy, technology, and growth, which are currently major impediments to successful digital transformation. By integrating AI enablement into these domains, sustained business reinvention is made possible while rewarding functional leadership for collaboration and for driving innovation and reinvention forward. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Aligning and Integrating Strategy, Technology, and Market Growth with AI

eric-feige

<hr /> The digital experience landscape wouldn’t exist without <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/adobe-acquia-optimizely-top-latest-forrester-wave-for-content-management-systems">Adobe</a> – and more precisely, its <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe Experience Manager</a> (AEM) platform. AEM has long held the crown in the kingdom of DXPs (<a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/resources/reports/gartner-mq-digital-experience-platforms-2024.html">just as Gartner</a>), and leading global enterprises depend on its scale of features to power the most complex and demanding digital strategies.While ubiquitous, the Adobe name also conjures that oft-demonized word: monolith. It is an epic ecosystem of interconnected, often Frankensteined solutions that can feel overwhelming and unwieldy – and its AEM platform is no exception. Amidst the publishing and marketing automation suites snuggling under the Adobe umbrella, AEM has always enjoyed an elite (if not pricey) reputation, making it the domain of serious enterprises. However, it can also be incredibly challenging and time-consuming, requiring curated expertise from certified practitioners. All of this can impact the velocity of getting digital projects to market. And in an era where real-time responsiveness is key, any delay can translate into lost revenue or even market share. Given these pain points, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vshift.com/">VShift</a> – a customer engagement and digital experience agency and <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/jp-morgan-joins-mach-alliance-reinforcing-growth-of-composability-in-the-digital-financial-services">MACH Alliance</a> member – has developed a new <a target="_blank" href="http://vshift.com/ideas/vshift-introduces-the-aem-digital-experience-accelerator">AEM Digital Experience Accelerator</a>. The proprietary program is targeted at AEM users, helping them deliver more engaging digital experiences with Adobe and do it all faster, easier, and more cost-effectively.“In our experience with complex organizations, we kept hearing the same pain points – cost, time-to-market, internal friction,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/al-collins-255a371/">Al Collins</a>, Founder &amp; CEO of VShift. “We developed the VShift AEM Digital Experience Accelerator to make our clients’ experience with AEM better and help them get the most out of their Adobe investments. Our new program offers a streamlined process, an easier way of launching customer experiences, and an increased capacity to innovate at a fraction of the time and costs usually involved.” The accelerator program was announced at last week’s <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/clarks-kraft-heinz-take-top-honors-in-mach-impact-awards-at-mach-three">MACH THREE Conference</a> in New York City, this year's venue for the world’s leading composable technology conference. As a MACH-certified agency, VShift has cultivated deep expertise with enterprise-scale organizations in highly regulated industries like financial services, insurance, and healthcare – focusing its solutions through a composable lens. The company also has a proven track record of crafting and delivering digital platforms for companies like Freddie Mac and Prudential.<h3 id="accelerating-the-value-of-aem-with-composability">Accelerating the value of AEM with composability</h3>Accelerators are aptly named, but there are numerous benefits beyond speed. Such is the case with VShift’s AEM Digital Experience Accelerator. First and foremost, it expedites digital product or website development-to-launch programs – and according to VShift, this can effectively reduce the timeline to weeks. It can also be customized to an organization’s specific needs, helping them meet their explicit business goals.With increased velocity and less internal friction between content owners and tech teams, brands can move faster. The accelerator also provides great flexibility for changes, allowing teams to swap out components or switch directions in a snap (composable thinking at work). <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/F-1e6DPT7CE"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F-1e6DPT7CE" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> That “swapability” is what helps make VShift’s Digital Experience Accelerator a MACH-worthy solution. It also reflects those attributes by minimizing vendor lock-in and decreasing the oppressive need for specialized AEM-certified resources to execute. This is a persistent drag for many organizations when it comes to managing their AEM footprint and properly staffing for new projects and digital initiatives.  All these benefits add up to enhanced productivity and cost-effectiveness, enabling organizations to maximize their AEM investments and cut costs by supporting customer experiences with more affordable, composable solutions. Marketing and content teams can also realize huge benefits by harnessing more control while navigating within their organization’s security policies. <h3 id="a-complete-market-ready-solution-for-aem-success">A complete market-ready solution for AEM success</h3>VShift’s accelerator is now available as a complete package that includes a ready-to-deploy cloud-hosted environment with orchestration and integration tools. Users will have the ability to rapidly design and prototype their projects via <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/figma">Figma</a> and AEM’s headless platform and connectors. For any organization developing a website, app, or digital product, customizability is a key part of the experience. To that end, VShift’s accelerator promises a customizable prebuilt core UI component library. There’s also an AI-enhanced starter kit for a content model, complete with tags and an automated builder/loader for speeding up the content modeling and deployment process. From a connective integration perspective, VShift delivers some slick capabilities via its accelerator. This includes its own “universal” <a target="_blank" href="https://graphql.org/">GraphQL-based</a> connector. They also provide a web app structure that includes a baseline for pages and functionality. On the visual editing front, VShift provides composable choices. Organizations can leverage AEM’s <a target="_blank" href="https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/developing/universal-editor/introduction">Universal Editor </a>or use a non-Adobe visual editor to handle digital composition in a composable framework. VShift also offers value-added composable modules and services like authentication-as-a-service or search-as-a-service.To realize the full value and potential, VShift’s accelerator is accompanied by intuitive guides and documentation, as well as an expert team with deep AEM experience and composable tech.“We spend about two to three months customizing the VShift AEM Digital Experience Accelerator to a company’s needs," Collins added. "Then we turn over the reins, leaving our clients with thorough reference documentation and allowing content creators and tech teams to launch engaging customer experiences faster, easier, and cost-effectively.” <h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Accelerators have become a vital panacea for monolithic software. This new breed of pre-built frameworks provides a mature foundation and progressive architectures for building complex websites and applications faster and more efficiently. While the landscape varies, accelerators are proving invaluable as enterprises and agencies look to maximize value from platforms like AEM in an increasingly composable world. Despite its monolithic posture, Adobe continues to be an industry-leading staple across a multitude of market segments. Even with its less-than-rosy <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/cut-paste-delete-why-adobes-canceled-merger-with-figma-is-good-for-innovation">attempt to acquire Figma</a> and rule over the entire digital experience journey, the tech mammoth remains ever-relevant and persistently innovative. In fact, its skunkworks around <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-manager-evolves-franklin-launches-next-gen-composability-feature">AEM Franklin</a> (also known as Project Helix or Composability) is showing real promise by enabling AEM pages using <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google Drive</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-azure">Microsoft Office</a> via <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-sharepoint">Sharepoint</a>. Instead of components, Franklin uses “blocks” like text, images, and buttons to generate new pages quickly and even create reusable templates. Cool stuff. As a MACH-certified DX agency, VShift is reinforcing the value of Adobe for its customers and the market at large. Its new AEM Digital Experience Accelerator is bridging the best of all worlds by providing a pathway to greater composability and flexibility. The big benefits are clear: faster time to market and lower costs. But it’s also addressing the challenge of legacy software, and helping organizations continue to mine value from their AEM investments. We’ve written at length about the constant challenge of defining “composable” in a market of conflicting ideologies. In my recent coverage of the <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/clarks-kraft-heinz-take-top-honors-in-mach-impact-awards-at-mach-three">MACH THREE Impact Awards</a> – of which I participated as a judge for the second year – I go into deeper detail on this reality and how the MACH Alliance continues to maintain tacit guardrails for the industry. Regardless of how any headless CMS or enterprise DXP projects its unique flavor of “composable,” the only measure that matters is how it impacts the customer. VShift’s accelerator – and other offerings like it – focus on the most challenging layers of a digital stack, where legacy systems are still mandated or represent a significant investment. It strives to address key pain points and deliver a complete solution with a clear set of composable principles baked in. Maybe that's the “shift” in VShift. To learn more about its accelerator, <a target="_blank" href="http://vshift.com/ideas/vshift-introduces-the-aem-digital-experience-accelerator">click here. </a> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a></h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

VShift Introduces AEM Digital Experience Accelerator to Help Launch Faster on Adobe

matt-garrepy

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Aligning and Integrating Strategy, Technology, and Market Growth with AI

VShift Introduces AEM Digital Experience Accelerator to Help Launch Faster on Adobe