WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: acquisition of magento by Adobe has taken a few years to integrate but it seems that the process is over. This comparison is quite high level but provides good insights to get started. The net-net: magento ain't your open source project anymore and has moved into the corporate grade solution, with the good (support, features, integration to Adobe portfolio, ...) and the bad (pricing, inflexibility, ...) that comes with it.

WHY IT MATTERS: customer data platforms are starting to become more integrated into the web platforms. This book is a good summary of what's possible with a CDP. Just beware that there is an obvious bias towards the bloomreach solution - so do not discard the standalone version as they suggest!

WHY IT MATTERS: bear in mind that this list is pre-covid. But with so many retailers looking for solutions I felt this list to be useful. As with all WAVEs, have a big grain of salt and use the reviews , market positioning, etc. to prepare your own evaluations. And don'T discard solutions because they are not on the list. This is for B2C.

WHY IT MATTERS: sharing content across different websites, eCommerce, in-store displays and new devices (ie. Alexa, siri) is difficult. This survey provides insights into the reasons why sharing is difficult. Be aware this is biased towards headless CMS, but the conclusions appear valid IMHO.

WHY IT MATTERS: this report is by far the best reference I found to understand the pricing strategy of software as a service and subscription services. Should be mandatory reading to anyone selling online today.

WHY IT MATTERS: with customer experience journeys and omni-channel integration the primary focus of marketing teams, web content management (WCMS) solutions are growing in scope to become digital experience platforms (DXP). Or so Gartner says. My recommendation is to be very critical as the implementation of those platforms become large-scale projects with impacts across many business units, leading to easier integration but often solutions you may not need or may not implement for years. Sometimes it is better to go with a smaller solution than a full fledged platform to deliver value short term, especially in less mature organizations...