USA – Sitecore, an end-to-end digital experience software, has launched Sitecore Accelerate and XM Cloud Plus with the goal of streamlining the move to the cloud and utilising enterprise solutions for brands. These services enhance the transition to SaaS and provide a more convenient route for companies.

Sitecore is expanding the features of XM Cloud by introducing XM Cloud Plus, an expanded digital-experience solution that combines content management, AI-driven search, personalization, customer data management, and analytics.

XM Cloud Plus was created to meet the needs of Sitecore XP customers who have used the unified solution and are in the process of migrating to the cloud. It also serves brands that want to use a modular technology stack with a product combination to simplify deployment and accelerate their path to value.

Speaking about the XM Cloud Plus, Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore, said, “XM Cloud marked a significant moment in Sitecore’s journey when we launched it a year ago. Our first-to-market experience offering a cloud-based composable solution resulted in rapid adoption and was the culmination of three years of development with extensive customer input.” 

He added, “Today, we expand the XM Cloud offering with XM Cloud Plus, bringing together a proven set of products that gives brands broader capabilities to offer an unrivalled customer experience, while simplifying and accelerating their move to the cloud, and delivering a powerful solution for the thousands of Sitecore XP customers that want additional enterprise capabilities.”

Sitecore Accelerate was created in response to the common reluctance of businesses to migrate from on-premises solutions to the cloud. This dedicated program assists Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP customers in transitioning to XM Cloud or XM Cloud Plus, and XC customers in transitioning to OrderCloud. Sitecore Accelerate provides these teams with the necessary knowledge, resources, tools, and human support for achieving the potential of a SaaS-based future.

Speaking about the Sitecore Accelerate, Tzikakis said, “We are at an inflection point where mature cloud technology is combining with AI computing to empower brands like never before. To leverage this opportunity, brands need guidance, reassurance and actual step-by-step, proven assistance from knowledgeable peers and partners to make their DXP stack operate to full capacity and capability.”

“By giving brands the support they need with Sitecore Accelerate, they can tap into the full power of Sitecore’s solutions simply and easily. It is such a critical moment for online experiences, and we want to be the partner brands turn to when they want to build a better proposition,” Tzikakis added. 

Meanwhile, Dave O’Flanagan, chief product officer of Sitecore, said, “Sitecore introduced native machine learning features across our platform and composable DXP in 2019. With our ongoing focus on R&D, we are excited to bring the next level of AI to our customers. These additions accelerate the speed at which brands build content and experiences with Sitecore solutions, open new ways to empower marketing and heighten the level of insight brands get from their data.” 

“This is only the first step to embed AI deep into our SaaS DXP so our customers can continue to build better experiences for their customers. We are actively working on new ways to improve marketer workflows through automatic improvements and further down the line AI will be able to optimise the digital experience with limited manual oversight,” O’Flanagan added. 

Singapore –  Multinational computer software company Adobe has officially launched Adobe GenStudio, a new solution that harnesses the power of generative AI for the enterprise content supply chain. 

Adobe’s GenStudio integrates Creative Cloud, Firefly, Express, AEM Assets, and Workfront to enable on-brand content creation at an amazing speed. 

This new end-to-end solution is expected to transform the enterprise content supply chain by combining the best of content ideation, creation, production, and activation on top of the power of generative AI. 

GenStudio puts the power of generative AI, smart automation, and agile editing into the enterprise content supply chain, empowering teams to work in real time to collaborate on creative ideas and decisions to deliver personalisation at scale. With this, the creative-to-activation processes that typically require weeks can now be done in hours or days.

Adobe’s integration of Firefly will provide commercially safe content generation for the platform. This will help companies rapidly move from ideation to content delivery across any channel, resulting in amazing customer experiences.

Other than the commercial safety offered by Firefly in GenStudio, Adobe also plans to include custom models, access to Firefly APIs, integrated workflows, and content insights that will provide analytics on content performance across channels.

GenStudio will also leverage the integration of Express Cloud to offer organizations dramatic acceleration in speed and agility without compromising quality or brand consistency. With Experience Cloud, experienced designers and marketers, such as campaign marketers, web site managers, social media marketers, and product managers, can create, edit, and version brand-approved assets for immediate personalization.

Furthermore, Adobe’s incorporation of Workfront, Firefly, and Experience Manager will accelerate and optimise the notoriously lengthy and expensive creative and activation processes without impacting business requirements. It will also create enterprise content workflows and enable content reuse through a single enterprise portal. 

Anil Chakravarthy, president of digital experience business at Adobe, said, “Generative AI has the potential to integrate high-velocity creative expression with complex enterprise activation to deliver a modern content supply chain that can meet the promise of personalization at scale.”

He added, “Adobe GenStudio gives creative and marketing teams what they need to take full advantage of generative AI and transform the creative-to-activation process with a seamless solution.”

Hong Kong – Hong Kong-based telecommunications and technology services provider, HKBN Group, has appointed William Ho, former managing director at AI networking company Juniper Networks, to be the new CEO of Enterprise Solutions.

In his new role, Ho will be leading HKBN’s enterprise services arm, expanding and leveraging its system integration capabilities, and further consolidating and developing the blue ocean business growth strategy across Hong Kong and Mainland China.

With nearly 30 years of professional experience in the ICT industry, Ho brings many holistic dimensions having been a customer-side user and a service provider, covering network technology, internet, cloud, and big data, as well as e-commerce, amongst others. He is amongst the few senior executives with a broad range of experiences in technology R&D, sales and marketing, and business development. Aside from his previous role at Juniper Networks, Ho has also held senior executive positions at local and international companies, including Cohesity, ARRIS, Cisco, and Hong Kong Jockey Club, amongst others.

Commenting on his appointment, Ho said, “In a dynamic evolving business landscape, HKBN’s Talent-Obsession culture uniquely empowers our talents to embrace changes and do everything to help our enterprise customers to foster their digital transformation and gain their competitive edge rather than merely save money. I am thrilled to have my skin in the game as a co-owner and to achieve our goals together with our Elite Sports Team.”

Meanwhile, William Yeung and NiQ Lai, HKBN’s co-owners, said that Ho is putting his skin in the game by investing an amount equivalent to 2 years’ salary into their co-ownership scheme. 

“With William leading HKBN Enterprise Solutions, our goal is to bring digital solutions that go beyond connectivity services to our 110K corporate customers, fortifying our customer relationship, driving efficiency and business impact in Hong Kong and across mainland China, especially the Greater Bay Area. We welcome William to our Elite Sports Team,” they added.

Hong Kong – Online marketing and enterprise data solutions provider iClick has fully acquired the remaining equity interest of Changyi Information Technology Co., the independent software vendor in China that provides intelligent retail and CRM solutions. 

Through the acquisition, iClick will be accelerating the expansion of its Enterprise Solutions business, spearheaded by its newly established ‘SaaS + X’ business model which aims to help companies strengthen their productivity and enhance their private domain through effective key opinion leader (KOL) recommendations, efficient targeted marketing and e-commerce partnerships while integrating data assets and solidifying their brand profiles.

iClick said that in consideration of the acquisition, it will pay RMB6,000,000 and will issue 3,091,327 American depository shares. Upon completion of the proposed transaction, Changyi will be wholly owned by the iClick.

Jian Tang, iClick’s chairman, co-founder, and CEO, shared that the demand for private domain traffic remains strong and they are capitalising on this trend through continued investment in their Enterprise Solutions business.

“The acquisition of the remaining shares of Changyi will accelerate the evolution of our Enterprise Solutions and better help our clients to innovate through digital transformation,” said Tang.