Written by:
Expresia
101s to digital transformation
Have you ever gotten lost in tech acronyms? Rediscover the 101s of digital transformation and decipher the digital acronym letter soup.
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Stop the Confusion!
The world of Digital Transformation is filled with so many terms, acronyms and new technical concepts, that it is becoming increasingly trickier or hard to understand what is going on. Not to mention the 10 other things being juggled! Can we say information overload! This is only one area. Well, we’re here to help you out. Here are the 101’s to Digital Transformation—defining the acronyms and sharing what’s important to know.
What is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?
A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is a software application that makes it possible to create, manage, deliver, and optimize digital experiences across a wide range of touchpoints and channels. It provides businesses with comprehensive technology to encourage deep-rooted connections. A DXP easily integrates with features from several apps to achieve a smooth digital experience and a meaningful customer journey.
A DXP connects the business core with 360 degree experiences (customers, providers, employees, etc) and enables the creation, management, distribution, and optimization of digital experiences. The main features of DXPs include content management, eCommerce, display and orchestration of digital experiences, personalization, user analytics, client information management, and evident paths to integration with third parties. A DXP supports your business needs to continue growing in a digital landscape.
Expresia packs all of this into a headless architecture that frees you to compose and maintain a flexible tech stack that captures the way you do business. With best-in-class managed cloud services and a pay-as-you-go model, Expresia de-risks digital transformation, controls technical debt, accelerates development, and empowers you to manage content, commerce, data, and code in one place, becoming the Digital Transformation collaboration hub for your organization.
What is headless architecture?
As a subset of decoupled architecture, there is headless architecture. In headless architecture, the display layer is separated from the backend. To put it simply, headless encapsulates all business functions and services into API sets supported by tailored backends in order for any front-end channel to hook with it and deliver personalized customer journeys on every touchpoint.
What is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software application that enables you or your business to organize, manage, and create content for the web with minimal IT involvement needed in a friendly, easy-to-use interface. With a CMS you don't have to write code from scratch in order to manage the digital content of your website.
There are CMSs that go further with headless architecture. In headless architectures, the functional layer and the content splits, which means headless Content Management Systems separate the data management and the data orchestration. A headless CMS is made from two cores: A content management application (CMA) and a content delivery application (CDA). The CMA is the core that allows you to upload your content, modify the existing one or edit it directly without needing to write a single line of code. On the other hand, the CDA is the back-end, which makes possible content administration and supports the CMA. Together, they make a headless CMS.
Plenty of DXPs have CMSs at their core for content management. If you’re interested in knowing the differences between a DXP and CMS we’ve dissected the features and benefits of each one.
With Expresia’s headless CMS, you can now experience the freedom of creating omnichannel experiences by separating content from its front-end rendering and using it in multiple touchpoints. Expresia’s Content Playlists provide content-driven users the flexibility they’ve always dreamed of without the need to write a single code line to create beautiful, performant results.
What is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)?
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software created for developers to help in the building of new applications. By integrating functions like software editing, building, testing, and packaging in a user-friendly program, an IDE improves developer efficiency. It is well known that for writing code you only need a text editor, but IDEs offer you more than just text editing, it also encompasses a graphical user interface (GUI) which is a set of commonly used programming tools.
Among the functions an IDE offers, you'll be able to access a source code editor, compile, debug, access build automation tools, test, and refactor code.
Expresia’s IDE allows you to develop, debug, track, version and test complex web-based applications all in one place while collaborating in real time. Verify your results with confidence before anything goes live, try our seamless versioning functionality, and effortlessly expand your toolkit by integrating with GIT, creating a unique and efficient workflow.
Expresia de-risks digital transformation, controls technical debt, accelerates development, and empowers you to manage content, commerce, data, and code in one place, becoming the Digital Transformation collaboration hub for your organization.
What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?
A customer data platform (CDP) is a marketing-oriented software created to gather first-party customer data from multiple touchpoints to create profiles of each client in a user database. CDPs help marketing teams understand their potential clients and create better, user-focused and personalized experiences and campaigns.
A CDP compiles behavioral data, transactional data and demographic data. By tracking, managing, and analyzing consumer interactions marketing teams get a better understanding of the customer journey along with their preferences when purchasing a product or navigating an experience.
With Expresia’s CDP you get a unified completely AI / Machine Learning driven platform that identifies the user, as well as the content and experience that is being delivered to them in real-time under simple, transparent pricing.
What is a Product Information Management (PIM) system?
A product information management (PIM) system is a software that gathers and manages the product information of a business, ensuring the quality of data.
With a PIM system, users from all departments of your company can track and order their product data. A PIM system is frequently used in eCommerce, allowing the automation and organization of the product-related data, especially when you own a wide catalog that it's classified into different groups and updated frequently. A PIM is easily integrated into a DXP so you can provide and update information more efficiently.
What is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system?
An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a software used by businesses to properly execute and track daily operations and processes. An ERP is the core of a business, its central nervous system. It is responsible for gathering information from numerous origins and organizing it into one place. This information might come from sources such as the accounting department, project management, HR, supply chain, and any other area your business might have.
For example, when used in eCommerce, an ERP system is in charge of controlling the sales process and how it's sold across channels, which means that it is in permanent contact with the Product Information Management (PIM) System and keeps the information related to the pricing, inventory amounts, location of the product and the stockroom. DXPs with elegant integrations, such as Expresia, are capable of integrating in no time with your own ERPs and PIM systems, taking off your shoulder the tedious process of re-platforming.
What is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system?
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a solution for you to boost, manage and understand your business relations with clients. Understanding the ways of interaction with users allows you to optimize, improve and promote the business growth through the customer journey.
A CRM recollects data from potential and existing clients and tracks the touchpoints with your business, so you are able to make customer-center decisions and overview their preferences to create new and better strategies.
What is a Web Experience Management (WEM) platform?
A Web Experience Management (WEM) platform is an integrated collection of basic technologies that enable the creation, administration and distribution of digital experiences. A WEM platform keeps content within a shared repository, such as CMSs, with the differentiation being that WEM platforms split the content management from its distribution.
A WEM platform is a tool for you to manage an extended digital footprint with sophisticated and demanding needs from content creation, social media and strategic planning, combining in a website, text and interactive media.
What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?
SaaS, also known as Software as a Service, is an integrated software solution that provides cloud-based apps over the internet, without the need to install and maintain software, featuring a pay-for-use model, businesses can access a set of capabilities only with a browser. The software, middleware and infrastructure are managed by the provider, guaranteeing you security and app availability at accessible pricing.
A SaaS offers you multitenant architecture, tailored processes, access from any device, an easy-to-use interface and access to top-notch technology.
Expresia SaaS-based workspace is the place for teams of any size to meet and build their wildest ideas online. As a complete set of tools, it provides businesses with everything they need to imagine and build robust digital products and customer experiences, on a single unified platform.
With a SaaS, the costs decrease and digital transformation is de-risked. Maintenance, upgrades, and installation costs are saved since a SaaS is easily downloaded and you start to use it right away in a browser with a pay-as-you-go model. A SaaS not only saves money for your business but also time since you'll only need internet access and the maintenance issues will no longer be up to you, allowing you access from anywhere and the ability to easily scale.
What is PaaS?
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud development environment with a complete set of tools for devs to create, launch and administrate apps, supporting the lifecycle of web apps, from updates to testing and compilation. PaaS is provided by a third party, you access it over an internet connection and pay only for what you use.
Going to PaaS makes the building process of applications easier and faster for developers, reducing the amount of work invested in maintenance to avoid having to manage your own infrastructure, and keeping costs controlled and predictable if you don’t have in-house experts. Your business saves time and money by utilizing PaaS as the administration of the infrastructure, the middleware, the software development tools, and the database so your team can focus on managing the apps and services you develop.
With Expresia you get a managed cloud with 24/7 monitoring, security patches, updates, backups, autoscaling, and SSL certificates.
Ready to take the next step toward digital transformation?
Business success lies at the heart of digital transformation. With specially designed tools for developers, marketers, and business decision-makers, Expresia is the true collaboration hub for everyone engaged in creating customer-facing digital processes. This makes Expresia the ultimate platform for companies looking to create, build and lead in a digital-first future.
Learn more about Expresia and explore what we can do for your business and your digital transformation journey.
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