Infomentum on an effective DXP project
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I'm Erin Hickman. I'm a senior digital experience consultant with Infomentum. I'm Jan Schulte, head of consulting at Magnolia. Oftentimes clients come to implement them because they've kind of reached their tether with their digital experience platform. It does not work for them anymore. And that could be because the cost has become too much for them to continue to support it, that they're having to go to outside agencies constantly to support them, to make changes that should be very simple to make. And it could also be that the product that they're using has gone in a different direction, and they're not going to be making those innovations that they want to have to be able to keep up in the digital world. So we find that those people come to us and say, what is the best way that we can keep maintain the content that we have, but move on to a more modern platform. And that's where implemented and Magnolia have such a great -partnership. -Yeah, absolutely. And then sooner or later, obviously, the big question about the migration comes and of course, yeah. Then you have those scenarios where we have 25,000 pages and multiple sites and how we are going to move that content over. It's a pretty interesting journey, I have to say, most of the times, or sometimes at least all the content should just be moved one by one. And the answer is, I'm sure you can do this. No problem at all. We have wonderful APIs. You can easily extract data nowadays and you can transform them and just bring them. Bring the data straight to the platform. However, one thing that happens quite often is that, um, pretty early on in the project, there's this revelation like, wait, we have now a lot more possibilities. We could probably max out much better on the content that we are going to produce and that we have. And typically, this is also the moment where the information architecture is really just, um, changed quite a bit, huh? Why would someone just change the information architecture? Well, simply the most obvious one. The old content was maybe a little bit dated. That's one aspect, always. The second one is, um, you can also do things that are much more efficient compared to what was done before modular content, for example. Sometimes you really want to make sure that you have this interactive user journey so you don't have this one size fits all site or pages, but instead you're just going to automatically bring the content that really has a highest relevancy for each and every single user. So that can be one of the reasons on why you would maybe change your content architecture. Maybe you want to work more efficient on, um, personalization in general. Another reason why you could go into that, um, -direction. -We have organizations that come to Infomentum who have a very clear idea about what they think they need to have in their new digital experience, and oftentimes in working with them, that changes. Right? So where they were really wedded to absolutely every 12,000, every single one of these 12,000 pages has to be migrated. It opens their eyes to the opportunity, as you say, to make changes, to do something different, to look at their information architecture, which maybe was based on a user experience from ten years ago, which is changed dramatically, and then they start to see the possibilities. So what is really important? What should we move over as a priority, and how do we want to do that? Because it can be an overwhelming task and that you don't have to take a big bang approach. You know, partners like Infomentum can support you in making that plan to move your content across as quickly or as slowly as you need to do to feel comfortable. So it isn't like you have to sign up to one very scary migration plan. We fit that to your your needs and what your organization is going to thrive with. And so that that the project is going to be successful. Because each and every single time, it absolutely also depends on the details. Sometimes let's say there's another system and there's still a very pricey license. Running has to be exchanged pretty quickly. Well, those are the typical scenarios where in the first step is just a 1 to 1 migration. Those are typically quick, but um, more often than not once basically the migration is done in time. This is then when extra -potential is basically tapped into. -We've had a great relationship with Magnolia. When our clients have taken on Magnolia as a new technology, and getting them upskilled quickly to be able to use the system. Um, Magnolia offers some fantastic training, and it means that people don't have to be overwhelmed by a new system. They're really taken on this journey and and trained as they go. And that's been really, -really valuable to our clients. -Speaking about training, it's a it's an interesting take. It really is because for a long time we always had the take. If it comes to authors, the system is so easy to use and the workflow will be specific to, um, the project anyways, but obviously still. Besides that, we just have also standard recorder training. So basically help editors to understand the basics on how Magnolia really operates. My personal take is if you're able to use an iPad, if you're able to use your mobile phone, pretty sure that you're also able to use -Magnolia. -It doesn't take. Long to become an expert. Yeah. So migration isn't just a technical process. It's also a journey that your employees need to go on. And we find that oftentimes there's resistance to change, which makes sense. People know the job that they do now, and even maybe it's not totally efficient. It's scary to think about doing something new. Yep. Um, obviously change for a lot of folks. It's at the beginning, kind of scary. However, what I also see quite often once the ball gets rolling, that this kind of changes also to some kind of excitement behind it. Yeah, this is basically this period in time where something new, basically some created and new things can be learned and can be put into action. And yeah, this is typically when the beehive starts to hum basically, and there's a lot of excitement. It's great to bring your your employees along on that journey with you instead of something being forced on them. We're going to have this new system as we're creating this, what is going to make your job easier and better and more efficient? And then once you have that buy in from your employees, like you say, you're off to the races and people will be coming up with ideas and you really, truly get a system that's going to -work for everyone. -Yeah. Then finally, those days shortly before go live, everyone is just how's it going to be? And finally the big day, DNS change boom. And the site is live and everyone is just cheering. -That's typically a beautiful thing. -Yeah that go live moment. So exciting. But that's not the case. The point at which we say goodbye with Infomentum. We really like to have long term partnerships where we can support through a managed services, or just checking in regular to see how the platform is working and see if there's any other ways that we can help that our customers innovate. Yeah, because a typical Magnolia project is not like, hey, here's your new brochure, a website that's great. Campaign ends and we're just going to pull the plug. Typical Magnolia project runs for at least five years and most times much, much, much longer. And therefore, yeah, it's pretty important that there's this constant exchange and where also new paradigms are shown, new tools are presented, new business opportunities are basically discussed and so on. And therefore, um, a close partnership can be really at for can have great value for clients, no doubt about this. One thing that I found so impressive about Magnolia is that a lot of the people who work for Magnolia used to be customers of Magnolia, and so now that they're working at Magnolia, they really do understand our customers and their needs and how when they have a specific requirement, that's something that they're going to make a priority to sort of work into the product when that's -possible. -Yeah. Um, if it comes to this, we really have some kind of unique culture, I have to say, because we have just basically the, um, freedom to be constantly in exchange with partners and just see where something can be done. And then there's also the freedom to actually do it. And, um, yeah, this is, I guess, one of the reasons why we are navigating pretty quick, uh, in comparison to a lot of different vendors. Yeah, our clients really say that Magnolia listens to the things that we need because it's important to them to for the product to always be evolving. And you get that impact from the people who are using it. 100%. Because the DXP space is really evolving so quickly. I mean, I do it for over ten years. What I've done at the beginning, yeah, it had to do something with content, but this is not what we do today. The web is just changing really, really quick. And, um, the product has to change at the same pace, otherwise it will be irrelevant. I said once a project is, um, live, this is obviously -not where it stops. -This is really important to Infomentum as well so that we can we can have these long term strategic relationships and understand what people need and help find the right partners to deliver that for them. Yeah. Because this outside view, it's, uh, from my point of view, really important as a company. Obviously, you're just focusing on your products, on your services and so on and getting those insights like, hey, look, this is a new trend. This is forming. Um, this is how you could do something else. Um, other people are doing this also in this shape and form. I think with this pattern, this could be really helpful for you. This is where partners can bring absolutely great value. -To that. -Feedback. Feedback loop is so, so valuable. Yeah. When people talk about long term engagements, they may worry that they're going to be tied into spending quite a lot of money on a consultancy long term. But what we find is actually we can play expert in your organization so that you can focus on your business. So we can make sure at Infomentum that you are on top of all of the new trends, all the new technological changes and where um implemented Magnolia, can help you to to transition to those as quickly as possible so that you can focus -on other things. -Absolutely. Good partnerships at ECC are really partnerships where also the partner understands the business pretty well from the client, because it's hands down pretty annoying. If you're just going to have a new partner. And then you have to explain again everything in detail and you have to form also this, um, personal relationship, just build everything up again. It really pays out from what we see. If you have a long term partner that understands you and that has also this good scan on the outside market, on the overall business, so we can really bring in additional, um, value by bringing in new insights into business. Because in the end, also at DXP platform truly is a business platform.