New Year's Resolution for MarTech Stack Owners

Happy New Year!  My colleague Jarrod already shared some predictions/trends for 2020 (see recording).  Today I'd like to urge you to make just one resolution for the coming year — indeed the coming decade.

We're all at an important transition point for MarTech and CX stacks. An old world is fading, but the new, omnichannel world has not yet fully arrived. What's a stack owner to do?

My #1 resolution for you is to apply a kind of "pilates" for your tech stack.  This means investing less in channel-specific engagement tools, where you'll create ever more monolithic customer experience silos, and instead focus on foundational enterprise services for customer data, journey orchestration, and re-usable content

Pilates for your martech stack
Strengthening your core means moving more services out of channels and lower in your stack.

So if your enterprise is considering replacing your Web Content & Digital Experience Management (WCM), Email & Social Marketing, or CRM platform in the coming year or two, consider a simpler solution — more of an order-taker than decision-maker.

This resolution could prove difficult to keep.  Your incumbent mega-vendors like Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, and SAP have invested heavily in a siloed approach to marketing and customer experience technology.  RSG's latest CDP vendor evaluation research suggests that they are doubling down on this closed tech stqck approach even for underlying customer data. 

Meanwhile, analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester are toadying to their major vendor underwriters with grand visions of "DX Platforms" that simply do not exist. For example, you would never want old-school WCM vendors like Sitecore and Episerver managing your customer data.  You'll need to push back here.

If you can keep this resolution to simplify within individual engagement silos, though, evenutally your colleagues — and your customers! — will thank you.  Transfering limited resources from your engagement tier to enterprise-wide services is no guarantee of a more coherent customer experience, but it's a crucial first step

The CX game is changing with the turn of the decade.  RSG can serve as a trusted advisor as you navigate this new world.  Feel free to reach out for a confidential exploration of your situation.

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