LuminateCX

The ultimate DXPtransition guide.

14 things you should consider before deciding to rip and replace your DXP or CMS stack.

  • Buyer's guide
  • 14 considerations
  • For Marketing and Technology leaders

Introduction

Whilst many organisations' attitudes towards Marketing Technology (MarTech) are maturing, we are seeing a new wave of emotion-led, knee-jerk technology decision making. Bread-and-butter Content Management and DXP platforms are being thrown into the spotlight and scrutinised more than ever before.

This guide delves into practical advice for Marketing and Technology leaders. Before you make a knee-jerk, emotion-led and potentially vendor-biased decision on the future of your stack, please take the time to review all the elements in this guide.

The insights are written from the context of a leader or buyer who may have legitimate concerns about the state of their stack, but isn't completely sure what to do next.

Glossary

The following terms and phrases give context to the guide.

Migration

In the context of this guide, migration means the process of moving from one version of a DXP to another (e.g. Sitecore 9 to 10, AEM 6.3 to 6.5), or the journey of migrating from your current DXP/CMS vendor's monolithic solution to their headless and/or composable approach.

We distinctly split out “Migration” and “Rip and Replace” as there are significant differences in business impact.

Rip and replace

Similar to a “Migration”, but this strategy refers to the process and inherent complexity of removing an existing product (including the systems, tools and processes connected with it) and replacing it with a new one. This can be a significant undertaking, often requiring substantial resources and time.

ROI (Return on Investment)

A measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment. ROI is calculated by dividing the net profit from the investment by the initial cost, expressed as a percentage. This can be applied either at the campaign level or across the value stream.

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

The comprehensive assessment of all costs associated with the purchase and operation of a system, asset or process over its entire lifecycle. TCO includes direct costs like purchase price and indirect costs like maintenance, training and downtime.

WebOps (Web Operations)

The practices and technologies used to ensure the efficient and effective operation of a website or web application. This includes activities related to maintaining, monitoring and optimising web performance. Typically, DevOps, SecOps and PerfOps all fall as sub-genres within the WebOps discipline.

iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service)

Cloud-based integration is a common way for modern organisations to achieve a Service Oriented Architecture. iPaaS platforms come in many flavours, including low-code, no-code and full-code approaches targeted at different end users, all looking to achieve the same outcome: systems integration.

DXP (Digital Experience Platform)

A software framework designed to manage and optimise customer experiences across multiple digital channels. DXPs integrate various tools and capabilities like content management, analytics, personalisation and customer data management.

Major DXPs include Magnolia, Bloomreach, Sitecore XP, Adobe AEM, Acquia, Liferay and Optimizely, to name a few.

CMS (Content Management System)

An application (or feature within a DXP) used to create, manage and modify digital content. It can also allow marketing users to manage content and websites (often through WYSIWYG capabilities) without needing extensive technical knowledge.

Monolithic

A single, unified system where all functions are interconnected and interdependent. The CMS, website front end and DXP features are tightly integrated. The term is often used incorrectly by modern SaaS CMS vendors to label some solutions as “old and outdated”. In this guide, it refers to the all-in-one box approach.

Composable

Building a tailored “stack” using interchangeable, modular components that can be easily assembled, integrated and therefore replaced. For example, you may purchase a headless CMS, website search and personalisation/testing tools that are all SaaS-based, separate and independent pieces of software, from one or many vendors, and then integrate them with your self-hosted technology using an iPaaS tool.

Headless

Some DXPs and CMSs have a headless capability, which completely decouples the front end (presentation layer, HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc.) from the back end (user interface and content repository). Content is delivered via APIs to your application, which decides how to interpret that content and display it as a website, blog, store or portal.

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Business vision

If you are genuinely considering a DXP/CMS rip and replace, or transition, it's crucial to start with a clear business vision.

Many companies rush into new purchases and technology platform upgrades without aligning the program to their strategic business goals, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

A well-defined vision ensures that your people can focus on digital transformation efforts that truly move the business forward and support your long-term objectives.

The business vision should be represented in a way that allows decision makers, senior managers and key stakeholders to act with confidence, and demonstrably connect operational decisions back to key business scorecard items such as budget, timelines and performance metrics. It should also be clear to the organisation what to do if a decision cannot be made.

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Requirements and priorities

Directly descended from the vision, your prioritised list of requirements is the foundation for meeting your business goals. Overlooking this phase will be the difference between success and failure.

Organisations jumping into new solutions without thoroughly assessing their needs typically find themselves with platform duplication, mismatched systems and unmet expectations.

Many core business issues and problems are not new, and often have market-agreed, proven solutions that can be adapted to meet your needs. The real issues start when you ask yourself what you have today to solve the problem. There is still a trend amongst buyers to “try something new”, or a “grass is greener on the other side” mentality.

In some cases, we have seen entire MarTech stacks, DXPs and integration platforms completely replaced, based on a refusal to accept that the features and functionality in the current platform do meet the needs of the business.

Practical approaches when defining your requirements

  1. 01Conduct a thorough needs assessment
  2. 02Build an accurate current state architecture
  3. 03Build an organisational stakeholder map
  4. 04Prioritise based on business impact
  5. 05Align decisions to your financials
  6. 06Publish the results and get feedback
  7. 07Consider a third-party, independent review

Useful frameworks and processes

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Strategic Themes, Portfolio Backlog

Pragmatic Marketing

Focus, Business and Planning streams

Lean Six Sigma

DMAIC

TOGAF

ADM, Requirements Management

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WebOps-as-a-Service

WebOps plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth operation of your digital platforms. For those looking for TCO improvements and risk mitigation, it can be a viable alternative to a rip and replace.

Outsourcing your DevOps, security and performance to a WebOps provider or platform can prevent downtime, enhance performance and streamline your deployments, allowing you to focus on core business priorities.

In the website, portal and mobile space, even in the world of SaaS, MACH and Composable, the skills required to deliver high availability, orchestrate code, manage incidents and delight customers require a very broad skill set. Organisations often cannot afford to maintain all of these in house, and where they do have the skills, those people may be busy managing other core business systems. It comes down to core focus.

  • What is your core business?

    Our experience shows that organisations need 6 core skill sets to run the Ops aspects of a DXP/website deployment. Building bespoke DevOps capability is an expensive endeavour, and many miss critical steps. Ask yourself truly: is this something you want to be responsible for internally? The answer is often no.

  • Link back to requirements

    Your requirements will include non-functionals, which determine SLAs, uptime, availability, RPO, RTO, security and compliance standards. We recommend you benchmark those against your performance to date and have an honest conversation about your ability to meet them in the future.

  • A viable alternative to a rip and replace

    Common concerns with monolithic CMSs are the raw cost of hosting, speed of deployments, and unplanned outages and downtime. The reality is, without robust processes for Dev, Sec and PerfOps, which are your responsibility, you will experience these with any other CMS, headless or otherwise. This is a truth often not shared by modern SaaS platform vendors.

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Developer experience (DevEx and DevOps)

In the DXP/MarTech space, the developer experience has often been neglected, leaving developers to either struggle with inadequate tools or repurpose existing ones that don't truly meet their needs.

This oversight can result in decreased productivity, higher turnover and suboptimal implementations. Providing developers with the right tools and support is critically important.

DevOps is a vital component of the broader WebOps discipline, encompassing a wide range of capabilities. Whether you are a SaaS company or managing a series of complex applications with a large internal development team, it's tempting to reuse or repurpose tools from within your organisation. However, web development poses unique challenges and typically operates with a significantly smaller budget. Recognising and addressing these specific needs is essential for enhancing the web developer experience and delivering websites cost-effectively.

  • Developer collaboration

    Have an open discussion with your teams and solicit feedback and recommendations, whilst also communicating the non-functional requirements (NFRs) to ensure they can deliver on them. Remember, DevEx is not just DevOps. It also includes backlogs, work management, estimation, stand-ups, time tracking, security, alerts, collaboration, peer reviews and more.

  • Cloud-based tooling and outsourcing

    Whilst it may go against the LuminateCX mantra to simply ignore your existing toolsets, our experience shows this is a major hotspot for failure in the DevEx space. Once your NFRs are clear and the tools available to you are mapped, budget accordingly, and don't underestimate. Alternatively, consider a WebOps vendor who can provide most of the capabilities in their managed stack, with SLAs included.

  • Vendor and platform alignment

    Most DXP vendors have core guidelines for the tools that align best to their product. Our experience shows those who deviate often end up wasting more time and money trying to retrofit, or worse, not automating and not achieving an outcome.

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DXP vendor fees

When considering software licence costs, it's crucial to look beyond the face value. Many buyers mistakenly view the upfront price as the primary indicator of value, neglecting total cost of ownership, industry benchmarks, budget alignment and vendor negotiation.

We believe that in many cases, where the business requirements are being met and the business has done what it can to mitigate excessive costs (people, processes, DevOps, WebOps etc.), it is often demonstrably cheaper to stay with your current DXP provider.

If you are not challenging your current vendors in a fair and open manner (which means you need to put in the work), then you may be doing wrong by the business and your customers.

If a major change is being driven by perceived cost, consider these actions

  • Overall budget allocation

    Be clear on what percentage of your overall budget is allocated to current licence spend. In the Total Cost of Ownership section of this guide, we set expectations on what it should be.

  • Over-licensed and perceived value

    Are you paying for more than you need? In line with your contract, evaluate whether you are on the right tier. Just as energy suppliers are often obliged to ensure customers are on the best plan, we believe software vendors should be too.

    Is this a price-only issue? If your current DXP is meeting all your business requirements, then a case can be made that it is delivering value.

  • Market benchmarks and too-good-to-be-true deals

    Software vendors will lure customers away from their current vendor with “too good to be true” deals that look attractive on the face of it. Many have hidden long-term costs, ramp up over time, or are not apples-for-apples with your current contract.

    Vendors rarely want to lose a customer, so give them a chance to keep your business.

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Total cost of ownership

DXPs have costs that go beyond the licence fees, so how do you know if you are paying too little or too much? We believe a simple approach is to baseline against common metrics.

Key areas to consider

  • Platform licence fees
  • Cloud hosting costs
  • Implementation and integration
  • Customisation and development
  • Support and maintenance
  • Training and onboarding
  • Security and compliance
  • Performance monitoring and optimisation
  • Content creation and management
  • WebOps, DevOps and tooling

The table below details where and how organisations should allocate their budgets for a Digital Experience Platform, along with suggested percentage allocations for each category.

CategoryDescriptionMonolithicHeadless / composable
Software licenceLicensing the DXP software.35%25%
RenderingThe “head” part of your headless system.N/A15%
Cloud hostingExpenses for cloud hosting services.15%10%
Developer toolsTools and IDEs for developers.10%10%
IntegrationsIntegrating with systems and third-party services.20%10%
SupportOngoing support, updates and maintenance fees.10%5%
TrainingTraining programs for developers and IT staff.5%5%
SecurityImplementing and maintaining security measures.5%10%
PerformanceTools and services for monitoring and optimising.5%10%
* This table is not an exhaustive list and provides high-level working categories to allocate your budget.

For example, the “head” in a headless system is not provided by the DXP itself, but still needs to be built. It typically moves to an open-source solution (such as Next.js) which is, in essence, “free”. In practice, this means more developer time and a requirement to host these solutions on the edge, which in turn costs you.

Whilst the overall TCO may not be dissimilar, it's the way it is allocated that fundamentally makes the difference. Some existing vendors in your stack may see a reduction in their budget, others may see an increase, and you need to carefully manage this change.

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Vendor relationships

We believe strong vendor relationships will significantly improve the success of your DXP program.

It starts with determining what a successful partnership and relationship looks like. Some prefer a hands-on approach, others hands-off, and whilst there are pros and cons to both, what matters is knowing who is going to support you with the measurable, and perhaps more importantly, the immeasurable aspects of your journey.

The reality of running a business in Australia is that the vendor, support and knowledge landscape is very different to that in other regions such as the USA or Europe.

As businesses drive towards MACH and Composable, be aware that this problem multiplies exponentially. If you are struggling to manage one vendor today, then managing many more is going to require a new approach, which means more of your time and money spent.

What's really important for Aussie buyers?

More importantLeast important
  1. 01Vendor stability
  2. 02Customer support
  3. 03Market presence
  4. 04Long-term value
  5. 05References
  6. 06Proven case studies
  7. 07Security and compliance
  8. 08User experience
  9. 09Composability
  10. 10Roadmap
  11. 11Cost
  12. 12Popularity
  13. 13Hype
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ROI and performance

Do you know what your actual return on investment is for your current MarTech and DXP stack?

Evaluating ROI and performance is critical to justify any business project. Many companies embark on expensive overhauls without a clear understanding of the current performance of the stack and the real future benefits, leading to disappointing outcomes. Setting measurable performance goals ensures that investments deliver tangible results.

Best case, your team and department are hitting your business goals. Worst case, you need to spend time defining business-agreed key performance indicators upfront, and define what data you will collect to track and analyse them. At this point, most organisations quickly realise that their tech stack either has the capabilities built in, or requires only a small effort to get a decent level of transparency.

The harsh reality is, if you cannot accurately measure ROI (or another business-agreed metric) for the success or failure of your current investments, then, cyber security or major risks aside, you should most likely not be contemplating a technology-led migration or rebuild.

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Security and compliance

The security and compliance posture of your website and CMS/DXP stack is completely non-negotiable.

In just 18 months, nearly 500 organisations in Australia were subject to ransomware, DDoS and full-blown data breaches. For you, it's “not if, but when”.

Source: OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches Report, July to December 2023

Overlooking security and compliance will lead to personal liabilities, data breaches, legal penalties and, of course, reputational damage to your brand.

The reality is there is security, and there is security. As a marketer or digital leader, it is not acceptable to simply rely on the certifications and information provided by software or hosting providers. Your unique security position changes immediately when you install, integrate or deploy, and it continues to change with every deployment and update you make.

In our experience, many organisations don't have the capacity to define, implement and run the overall security posture of their organisation. With so many priorities, websites and front-end applications are often down the list. Whilst every organisation should be completely in tune with its security policies and requirements, consider outsourcing the operational aspects of your website/DXP under SLA.

When talking to vendors and Ops providers, be clear on these core areas

  • Access control and authentication
  • Data encryption
  • Content security
  • Code quality and security
  • Third-party and open-source code dependencies
  • Data privacy and industry compliance
  • DDoS protection and mitigation
  • Network security
  • Incident response and monitoring
  • Backup and recovery
  • Third-party integrations
  • Regular audits and penetration tests
  • User education and training
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Software user experience

This is a difficult discussion. On the one hand, a poorly designed user interface can frustrate users, reduce adoption rates and hinder productivity. On the other hand, we can't always have everything we want, and the reality is most DXPs are good enough.

A strong investment in training, allocating appropriate time to common daily tasks and having a real talk with your end users can alleviate the bulk of concerns.

We have seen many excuses over the years. DXP vendors will often criticise their competitors and lure you in with well-prepared demos that look slick in comparison to your current platform. But the truth is, many of the factors that determine your end users' experience of the platform are within your control.

Common reasons buyers believe their current platform has a poor UX

  • Unnatural content workflow

    Content marketers and authors have a job to do. They need to get content out to market quickly, and the investment in a CMS/DXP was primarily to make their lives easier. Just like Microsoft Office, whilst you need a little proficiency in the tool, it shouldn't need skills outside your natural skill set or introduce convoluted process changes that make life difficult.

  • Unintuitive content architectures

    Many CMS implementations fail to design their content for scale. Whether you have an item-based or page-based CMS, designing your content types (e.g. articles, blogs, products, landing pages), abstractions (e.g. country and author lists) and field types (e.g. text, rich text, date pickers, dropdowns) is paramount to making your content workflow intuitive.

  • Unusable layout and WYSIWYG capabilities

    Leading DXPs, especially monolithic ones, have very powerful page layout features. But even in a headless world, your code and components need to be written correctly to adopt those features. Many complain that the overhead of editable component development in their CMS is too much, but this has been proven time and again not to be true, both in upfront development effort and long-term maintenance.

  • “It doesn't look or feel like Canva and Figma”

    There is a reason for that. Many ultra-modern SaaS products look visually beautiful, and whilst beauty is subjective, they have benefited from being able to adopt modern design trends. They often have a lot less complexity or a narrower user base, allowing investment to be directed into these areas.

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Integration dependencies

If your website and CMS don't have any integrations, we'd be very surprised. Even the most modest digital presence has front-end JavaScript tags for tagging and tracking, and mid-market and enterprise implementations typically have complex integrations that are wildly misunderstood and underestimated.

Experience shows that many CMS and DXP platforms have deeper integrations than most realise, from bespoke administration apps in the back end, through to data import and sync solutions, even plugins from your favourite SEO tools. Some DXPs have thrived on a marketplace or developer community of plugins.

These integrations are going to impact any migration you embark upon, and in many cases will become the gift that keeps on giving if you get them wrong.

Common pitfalls around integration

  • Legacy admin interfaces

    Many monolithic DXPs pitched themselves as “application development platforms”, allowing developers to build admin-style interfaces in the back end of the CMS, managing everything from custom publishing workflows to complex upstream data syncing, even CRM-level integrations. Organisations have benefited from them immensely, saving time and money. When transitioning, you need to consider a) whether the feature is still required (your requirements) and b) how it will exist in future.

  • Data integrations

    Every great customer experience is data driven in some way. Your DXP may be syncing PIM data, customer data or event data from the front end. This might be written in .NET and tightly coupled to the pipelines, deployments and overall architecture of your current platform. The future state may look a lot different, as SaaS platforms are less likely to allow your current code to execute the way it does, meaning you need to rewrite from the ground up.

  • Complex front-end logic

    As we charge towards Headless, MACH and Composable, there is an inherent trend to architect in a cleaner, separated, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and microservices-based way. There is also a mindset shift from .NET server-side code to JavaScript-based client-side code, which must be written and secured in completely different ways. In theory this is great, but as a legacy platform owner, it means cost and time for you, which needs to be planned well in advance.

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Team headspace and capacity

It's a reasonable assumption that you don't have an unlimited people and technology budget. You are more than likely being asked to do “more with less”.

It's also reasonable to assume that if you are reading this, you are already being bombarded with Headless, Composable, MACH and “shiny new AI toy” trends, wondering what, if any, decision you need to make. Perhaps through further investigation you have seen a clear path to saving money, or you can see business value in modernising to a new platform, dealing with technical debt and taking advantage of the new features it can bring.

Whilst we hope the rest of this guide has helped you analyse the functional aspects of any decision, it's important to discuss your team's real capacity and headspace.

  • Conduct a capacity audit

    Review current workloads and determine if your team has the bandwidth to handle a major transition. Identify any bottlenecks or resource constraints.

  • Prioritise projects

    Rank ongoing and upcoming projects by their impact on business value. Focus on high-priority initiatives that align with your strategic goals.

  • Hold team discussions

    Engage your team in conversations about their current challenges and capacity. Ask yourselves: do we really want to do this, and will it truly make a difference? Whether you are making a data-driven decision or going on gut feel, the question should be asked of the team responsible.

  • Implement a skills inventory

    Assess the skills and expertise within your team. Identify gaps that need addressing through training or hiring.

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Migration impact and change management

Finally, and perhaps one of the most important aspects of this guide, is the potential for business disruption and the impact on your most important asset: your people.

  • Business disruption

    There is no project in the history of business that doesn't introduce risk of business disruption. From rewriting content that brings customer processes into question, through to IT changes that introduce new attack vectors and compliance problems, all the way to launch day, when the risk of downtime creates reputational risk and, in the worst case, lost revenue.

    Your program needs a robust discussion about how much disruption your business can tolerate. Bottom line: plan for disruption, and manage and mitigate risk.

  • Skills, progression and opportunity

    Your employees, team members and contractors may enjoy working with you because of the systems, tools and platforms you have within the business. Equally, they may not.

    In Digital and MarTech there is a large emphasis on platform-specific skills, whether it is Braze, Sitecore, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, AWS and so on. Great leaders know that their role is to help prepare their people for the next stages of their careers, whilst extracting value for their organisation in the process.

Summary

As we look ahead, we believe the future of MarTech will be shaped by the deeper integration of AI and a maturation of the technology buying and implementation process.

We know that technology-first buying decisions lead to poorly managed expectations and misalignment with business goals.

Focusing on a clear business vision is essential. Without it, investments may fail to meet strategic objectives. Organisations must be wary of getting caught up in the allure of new AI technologies highlighted in demonstrations, which can distract from their core needs and lead to costly missteps.

Expect MarTech to foster closer collaboration between sales, marketing and service teams, using shared data to enhance the customer experience seamlessly across all touchpoints. Meanwhile, heightened concerns about data privacy will drive the development of new ethical standards and technologies, ensuring responsible data usage whilst maintaining effective marketing strategies. Immersive technologies like AR and VR are also set to become more prevalent, offering novel ways to engage customers and enrich their journey.

What should businesses do next?

  1. 01Start the conversation with your business, teams and leaders to identify if you are at risk of making poorly timed, badly planned decisions in haste about your technology stack.
  2. 02Audit and baseline your current state. Create a checklist you can objectively agree on, create the space to make an unbiased analysis, then set a new vision for a future state that meets your business goals.
  3. 03Create a roadmap that takes you from your current state to your future state. Map out the steps required, the operating model and the timing for your DXP transition program.

With increased focus on getting digital transformation right, having the correct approach to your DXP or CMS stack will save time, improve budget and help to organise business operations.