Sitecore Helps Brands Speed Time to Market with XM Cloud Plus

When Sitecore announced the general availability of their cloud-based CMS, XM Cloud back in 2022, they helped brands and organizations realize the value and benefits of moving their primary content management to the cloud. Sitecore XM Cloud allows organizations to leverage the benefits of cloud hosting, such as scalability, flexibility, and reduced infrastructure management, to power their digital experiences more efficiently. With Sitecore XM Cloud, you can create, manage, and optimize your website content and deliver it to various digital channels. You can enjoy faster integrations and handle scheduled technology updates with minimal downtime.

There was only one problem. Existing clients who had grown accustomed to the monolithic on-prem platform feared that making the switch involved too much hassle, challenge, and complexity. Sitecore needed an approach aimed at removing these roadblocks and general apprehension by providing the knowledge, tools, and support that would make it easier to migrate to Sitecore’s composable, cloud-based solutions.

Enter Sitecore XM Cloud Plus. Sitecore recently announced a new bundle that offers a consolidated digital-experience solution that brings together content management, AI-powered search, personalization, customer data management, and analytics, and forms – all packaged with a partner-driven, step-by-step program to get clients from A to B without much fuss (Sitecore Accelerate).

For years, Sitecore touted the benefits of a monolithic solution where the entire suite of tools seamlessly integrated together to manage your digital ecosystem, in contrast with bolt-on solutions that required integration effort and managing parts of the process in siloes. While there was some virtue in this, not all tools in the solution could claim to be best-in-breed over time (think email management, customer data management, personalization, etc). As the industry trended towards composable, cloud-native solutions where customers could choose the finest tools for each capability, Sitecore answered with a new cloud-based CMS and acquisitions for quality tools. What was missing was a position on what recipe makes the most sense for your business objectives and requirements. Clients who enjoyed the seamlessness of the platform experience wanted to know which of these tools were “better together”, not so much to recreate the monolith but to have a pre-composed offering in a composable world of possibilities.

All this is just in time as evidence is growing that organization’s that are going to keep pace are ones that embrace the changes in the industry and best leverage the new composable tools available. A recent study from Gartner shows that 86% of marketers say they must make significant changes to how the marketing function works to achieve sustainable results. Having powerful marketing functionality at your fingertips within your CMS will help teams ensure that they are prioritizing personalization and ways to enhance the digital customer experience.

The release of XM Cloud Plus has benefits for both the marketing and IT teams so let’s take a look at what makes XM Cloud Plus a go-to solution for organizations big and small:

• Content Creation and Management: Marketer-friendly tools allow teams to efficiently produce, optimize, and deliver engaging content to the right audience at the right time. This also allows teams to refresh content regularly, ensuring experiences don’t go stale.
• AI-Powered Search and Content Recommendations: The incorporation of Sitecore search includes dynamic personalization and targeting strategies, offering omnichannel personalization, intelligent search recommendations, and access to an extensive array of personalization development tools.
• Omnichannel Content Center: We all know that centralizing content efforts is key and now teams can efficiently manage all digital customer touchpoints from a single, unified content repository that ensures brand consistency and streamlined workflows.
• Seamless Integrations and Connectivity: XM Cloud Plus can be easily implemented within an existing tech stack to create connected, immersive customer experiences across all channels. When we think about extending the shelf life of a digital experience, the ease of integrations is critical to making sure tech isn’t holding organizations back from delivering what they want and what audiences need.
• Intuitive Form Builder: This is HUGE! Sitecore has included a drag and drop form builder for XM Cloud and XM Cloud Plus, providing teams with an easy way to add data capture forms to their pages and components that can fuel deeper insights and personalized experiences.

In the end, compatibility with the Sitecore XM Cloud Plus bundle will come down to your specific business requirements, but for most organizations it represents what we believe are the core requirements of the modern digital experience platform that can be further enhanced with other products as need dictates. Whether you are migrating from Sitecore Platform DXP or starting your Sitecore journey from scratch - Sitecore XM Cloud Plus deserves serious consideration.