Tag: Sitecore

Singapore – Sitecore has announced the launch of the Sitecore AI Innovation Lab, a unique program created in collaboration with Microsoft that provides a guided environment for marketing leaders looking to rapidly explore AI-driven solutions for optimising content operations. 

Furthermore, it allows marketers to clearly define their AI journey and fast track the development of solutions best suited for their specific use cases.

It is worth noting that this solution addresses concerns on whether marketers are hesitant to invest heavily in new technology without proof of ROI; as they don’t want to risk budget or reputation on AI projects that might fail and struggle to prioritise the time investment needed to figure out where AI may fit best to aid their strategies.

In response, the Sitecore AI Innovation Lab targets these specific pain points by providing a collaborative, guided environment to rapidly explore AI-driven solutions powered by Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Services. 

Participants work alongside Sitecore and Microsoft experts to prototype solutions for their unique challenges using an agile and low risk approach. The result is either a validated AI solution or invaluable learnings, that can further empower marketers to achieve their business objectives and position their brands at the forefront of digital innovation.

Some of the benefits of the program include being focused on AI innovation in marketing and best practices with minimal risk and time commitment required, with participants getting access to Sitecore and Microsoft experts to prototype solutions to address their unique challenges.

Moreover, the program aims to accelerate AI adoption and empowers marketers to position their brands at the forefront of digital innovation. In addition, AI innovations developed with customers will be integrated into Sitecore’s DXP to further enhance, improve and future-proof the platform.

Dave O’Flanagan, CEO of Sitecore, said, “The Sitecore AI Innovation Lab marks a significant milestone in our commitment to empowering marketers with cutting-edge AI solutions. By collaborating closely with Microsoft, we are providing a best in class, unique opportunity for marketers to innovate and transform their content operations and the experiences they can deliver to their customers.”

He added, “The Lab underscores our dedication to driving digital experience innovation and helping our customers achieve their objectives. We are excited to see the groundbreaking solutions and best practices that will emerge from this effort.”

Meanwhile, Mo Cherif, vice president of AI and innovation at Sitecore, commented, “Sitecore is at the forefront of digital experience, and launching the first AI Innovation Lab for marketers is exciting and underscores our commitment to marketer-first AI. For those eager to leverage AI but unsure where to start, our lab offers a fail-fast, goal-oriented experience. Successful AI solutions mean significant time and effort savings – a direct boost to productivity and the bottom line for customers.”

Lastly, Jason Graefe, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, WW ISVs and Digital Natives, stated, “Microsoft is proud to collaborate with Sitecore on this groundbreaking initiative that empowers marketing leaders to harness the full potential of AI. By providing access to expert guidance, we are enabling marketers to innovate rapidly and transform their content operations.”

He added, “The Sitecore AI Innovation Lab offers a collaborative environment that makes it easier for marketing leaders to explore and prototype AI-driven solutions with minimal risk. This partnership highlights our unwavering dedication to driving digital transformation and helping businesses thrive in a digital-first world.”

Singapore – Sitecore has announced the launch of ‘Sitecore Stream’, which leverages secure, brand-aware AI, enabling enterprise marketing teams to boost productivity and growth.

For the company, ‘ Sitecore Stream’ represents market-leading innovation and fulfillment of its vision for an Intelligent DXP (digital experience platform) that addresses the challenges and opportunities faced by enterprise marketing teams today.

‘Sitecore Stream’ leverages generative AI to simplify marketing workflows and enhance productivity through orchestration, content intelligence, and automated assistance. Sitecore Stream leverages Sitecore’s composable product architecture, enabling full interoperability across a brand’s existing martech stack, with built-in AI guardrails to help preserve brand compliance and data privacy. 

Moreover, it also includes brand-aware AI which helps align marketers’ actions, recommendations, and experiences with the organisation’s brand identity, values, and guidelines.

The platform also has AI-enhanced workflows that automates repetitive tasks to accelerate execution and boost collaboration. These workflows may be creating content, building a website page, or A/B testing a call to action to help marketers stay in a productive flow.

Lastly, it also has generative copilots dedicated for brand, brief, content, and experience creation and optimisation, which will help marketers stay true to their brand and brief as they complete their work.

Dave O’Flanagan, CEO of Sitecore, said, “Together with leading brands, we reimagined the content lifecycle from the perspective of what the customer wants and the marketer needs. Our work with brands such as Nestlé and Microsoft, in combination with Sitecore’s deep understanding of marketing workflows and digital experience best practices, has enabled the development of Sitecore Stream. With it, we’re delivering on our vision of the Intelligent DXP.”

Roger Connolly, chief product officer at Sitecore, stated, “With Sitecore Stream, we’re delivering a smarter, more strategic, and more secure way for marketers to create and manage content and deliver seamless customer experiences. Sitecore Stream leverages customers’ brand architecture to provide brand-aware AI but, critically, does not use your content to train the underlying AI models. With Sitecore Stream and our vision for an Intelligent DXP, we are addressing marketers’ pain points head-on, combining the power of AI with our deep experience helping customers with their digital transformations.”

Meanwhile, Shelley Bransten, corporate vice president of global industry solutions at Microsoft, commented, “As part of our long-standing, strategic relationship with Sitecore, we’ve collaborated closely with Nestlé and other enterprise customers to deliver entirely new AI capabilities to marketers. Leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure AI enables Sitecore Stream to understand an organisation’s brand, campaigns, content, and data – empowering marketers to do their best work.”

Lastly, Aude Gandon, global CMO at Nestlé, shared, “We have partnered with Sitecore and Microsoft innovation teams over the last year to pilot and leverage the power of generative AI with Nestlé brand guidelines and toolkits. Together, we’ve created an innovative new offering: the Sitecore Brand Assistant as part of Sitecore Content Hub with Sitecore Stream. This solution is specifically designed to facilitate brand and category knowledge within our organisation and supercharge our creative partners.”

Singapore – Sitecore, a digital experience software, has announced the appointment of Stuart O’Neill as area vice president for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and Zac Lin as area vice president for Asia. The latest appointments aim to strengthen the company’s operations in the Asia-Pacific.

Focusing on ANZ, O’Neill’s position entails ensuring and delivering high-quality digital experiences to its customers. He is responsible for spearheading the expansion of Sitecore’s digital experience platform solutions for businesses. Meanwhile, Lin’s post widens his duty to the company’s business in all of Asia. 

Both executives have previously held senior roles in other companies. O’Neill has worked with Nortel Networks, Cisco, Fujitsu, hybris, SAP, Coupa, and Digital River while Lin was with PingCAP, Lark, Tibco, Tableau, and Salesforce.

“Sitecore has long been committed to serving customers in Asia-Pacific. The region is home to many of the world’s most dynamic and fast-growing organisations. We’re rapidly innovating our DXP and continuously scaling to give these brands’ marketers the power to build digital experiences based on their evolving business needs,” Dave O’Flanagan, chief executive officer of Sitecore, said.

“Global brands trust the Sitecore digital experience platform to bring their vision to life. Stuart and Zac will work with our world-class partner ecosystem to support organizations building powerful, differentiated digital customer experiences,” Joey Lim, president for Asia Pacific and Japan at Sitecore, commented.

Sydney, Australia – Jaywing, a data, creative, and performance marketing agency, is expanding into Asia after signing numerous new contracts. This move follows Jaywing’s strengthened partnerships with existing clients, which include casual footwear brand Crocs, global end-to-end digital experience software Sitecore, and sportswear brand New Balance. 

With a focus on creative, digital media, SEO, and content, the firm will work with these customers in nations including Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. 

Jaywing has hired local talent in Hong Kong to offer customised, strategic support for its growing clientele in Asia, strengthened by its team of creative and media specialists based in Sydney. 

Speaking about the expansion, Tom Geekie, CEO of Jaywing, said, “This strategic move into Asia reinforces our commitment to delivering innovative, data-driven performance marketing and media solutions to empower brands to maximise the return on their investment. Asia has a highly developed eCommerce market and clients are looking for effective and innovative solutions to connect with consumers.” 

He added, “In addition, customers in Asia have distinctly different buying journeys, expectations and shopping experiences, so it’s important to have specialists with that expertise on the ground. We have recruited locally in Hong Kong, and as we grow our customer base we intend to add more.” 

San Francisco, USA – Sitecore, a global provider of digital experience software, has appointed Eric Stine as its new chief operating officer. In this capacity, he will be in charge of all customer-facing processes, enabling customers to create captivating digital experiences while unlocking commercial value. Stine will be based in New York City. 

In his new role as chief operating officer, Stine will oversee Sitecore’s pre-sales, sales, customer success, alliances, operations, professional services, support, and ecosystem organisations. 

The most recent position held by Stine was CEO of Elemica. He held the positions of chief revenue officer at Qualtrics and chief commercial officer at Skillsoft before that. Additionally, he has had leadership positions at SAP, Ciber, and Blackboard, among other companies. 

Speaking about the appointment, Dave O’Flanagan, CEO of Sitecore, said, “Eric joins Sitecore at one of the most exciting points in the company’s growth, as we advance an innovative and integrated suite of AI capabilities tailored for marketing teams. We view a tremendous opportunity for our composable DXP to fundamentally transform the way marketing teams create content and digital experiences. As we deliver on our strategy of leveraging AI to innovate across digital content and experiences, Eric will align our customer-facing teams to bring maximum value to our customers and partners globally.” 

Meanwhile, Stine stated, “Sitecore has a multibillion-dollar opportunity as marketing intersects with digital transformation and next-gen AI. Marketing teams at many of the most prominent global brands trust Sitecore to transform the way they work. I look forward to taking our work with customers and partners to new heights, accelerating the next phase of the company’s growth.”

San Francisco, USA – Global digital experience software company Sitecore has announced the appointment of Dave O’Flanagan as its new chief executive officer, along with a series of key leadership and board changes to drive innovation and growth. 

In his new role, O’Flanagan will continue to advance Sitecore’s DXP leadership by driving ongoing innovation and transforming customer value with AI.

O’Flanagan previously served as the company’s interim CEO after three years as chief product officer (CPO). He led the transition to Composable and the introduction of Sitecore’s SaaS DXP solutions.

Before joining Sitecore, O’Flanagan was the founder and CEO of Boxever, which was acquired by Sitecore in 2021.

Together with O’Flanagan’s appointment, the company has also announced additional leadership changes. 

After five years of leading Sitecore’s suite of content and management products, Roger Connolly has been promoted to chief product officer to drive all content lifecycle and AI innovation. 

Danny Robinson has been appointed as the new chief technology officer (CTO), having previously led the team behind Sitecore’s AI-enhanced personalisation solutions. 

Meanwhile, Rohinee Mohindroo has been appointed as the new chief digital and information officer (CDIO). Mohindroo has been the driving force behind recent advancements in security and data privacy across the product portfolio.

Alongside these leadership moves, Sitecore has also made four new board appointments to help deliver on its vision. The new board members will work alongside Darren Roos, chair of the Sitecore board. 

Among the appointees are Christian Shin Høegh Andersen, partner at private equity firm EQT Partners, and Maggie Buggie, who brings 20 years’ experience leveraging technology to transform businesses, with a focus on AI and digital customer experience. 

Also on the board are Michael Ouissi, who has spent more than 20 years specialising in enterprise go-to-market strategy, and Saleah Hassen Laher, who has more than 30 years’ experience in enterprise software delivery and customer success.

Effective immediately, the leadership and board changes are aimed at accelerating the strategy of the new CEO and driving further growth for Sitecore. 

At the recent Sitecore User Group Conference, O’Flanagan revealed a suite of generative AI capabilities as part of the company’s ‘marketer-first’ AI strategy. These capabilities are expected to dramatically transform the way marketers work to create content and deliver standout, personalised experiences.

Sitecore’s new AI features, including AI-driven recommendations for website search, advanced A/B testing, and image recognition, enhance its existing AI offerings. The AI Copilot tool is crafted to streamline marketers’ tasks throughout the content creation process, boosting efficiency and impact across various channels.

Speaking on the announcement, Roos said, “I’ve known Dave since he joined Sitecore through the acquisition of Boxever, where he was the founder and CEO. The opportunity in front of Sitecore is great, and Dave’s customer-first mindset, focus on innovation and execution, as well as his energy around the positive impact Sitecore’s solutions can have on customers and partners, will help propel Sitecore’s growth.”

Also commenting on his promotion, O’Flanagan shared, “This is an incredibly exciting moment in Sitecore’s journey as we continue to redefine the potential of the DXP. We’re bringing together the best in content, personalisation, and AI to power standout experiences for visionary brands in every industry. It’s an honour to take on this role, and I can’t wait to get started alongside our brilliant customers, team, partners, and the wider Sitecore community.”

Sydney, Australia – Large businesses in Australia that collaborate internally between marketing and technology teams and align to business objectives gain productivity benefits of an average A$110 million per year, according to data from end-to-end digital experience software Sitecore, in its latest report with Deloitte Access Economics and Deloitte Digital.

Furthermore, the data suggests that collaboration between marketing and technology functions is critical to making the most of digital investments, where businesses leading the way in collaboration forecast an additional 11% revenue growth in the next year when collaboration is centred around customer needs.

Notably, the report warned that a major challenge to success was that bad projects require more management time to course correct, resulting in diversion from other business matters. 

Sitecore’s survey found that 62% of business leaders who experienced negative impacts of technology investments saw this as a problem, with key challenges mentioned by survey respondents including integration difficulties, money wastage, and loss of innovation.

According to the report, the top two priorities for business leaders over the next five years are scaling existing digital solutions and broader digital transformation, which rank higher than traditionally important objectives like revenue generation and customer retention. Of the business leaders surveyed, 98% consider digital investment pivotal to business strategy.

Lastly, the report recommends that business leaders should develop co-investment strategies to overcome budget barriers, remove organisational barriers to promote collaboration, align marketing and technology teams on business strategy and priorities, and create clear, structural accountability for shared focus areas.

Talking about the report, Joey Lim, president of Sitecore APAC and Japan, said, “Challenges to collaboration can make the case for further digital investment difficult and add to executive resistance to transformational initiatives. Sitecore’s commitment to offering choice through its leadership in both on-prem and SaaS digital experience software uniquely places it as a powerful collaborator when overcoming internal resistance by offering multiple solutions that merge marketing and technology.”

Meanwhile, Troy Outtram, partner at Deloitte Digital, added, “As brands continue to invest in their digital transformation, the benefits for teams that work in harmony are becoming more apparent, with ruthless alignment to business goals serving as the key to success for major projects.”

USA – Global digital experience management platform Sitecore has recently announced the appointment of Kathie Johnson as its new chief marketing officer, wherein she will be leading marketing for the platform based out of the firm’s headquarters in San Francisco. 

Prior to her appointment, Johnson served as the chief marketing officer of Talkdesk, where she led the firm’s marketing organisation through a transformative growth period, taking the company from 66th place in the Forbes Cloud100 list in 2019 to 8th place in 2022 and 2023.

As Talkdesk’s first CMO, Kathie helped the organisation create and launch a vertical approach, expand into new countries in EMEA, APAC and Latam, and extend the product portfolio.

In her 25 years in the industry, Johnson also worked at Salesforce, where she was the senior vice president of marketing, as well as the vice president of marketing for Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud. 

Speaking on her own appointment, Johnson said, “I am excited to join Sitecore because of its innovative technology that is a true game changer for CMOs and CDOs who seek to differentiate their companies through superior digital experiences.” 

“Sitecore is a leader in its space and continues to innovate by prioritising a roadmap focused on SaaS-based, cloud native tools built on composable architecture. I am thrilled to be part of Sitecore’s journey and look forward to working with our customers, partners, and employees around the globe,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore, said, “Kathie’s track record as a marketing leader speaks for itself. Her formidable background securing brand expansion and delivering incredible digital experiences will massively contribute to Sitecore’s efforts to disrupt, accelerate and innovate digital experience delivery.”

“Sitecore’s compelling message offering SaaS-based, composable solutions will be greatly aided by this wonderful addition to our leadership. On behalf of Sitecore, we are thrilled to welcome Kathie to our team,” he concluded.

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. 

Sydney, Australia – Sitecore, a comprehensive digital experience software platform, has acknowledged its ongoing commitment to incorporating AI capabilities into its range of content and commerce solutions. This statement was announced in Sydney during the Sitecore DX (digital experience) Sydney 2023 conference. The business has already incorporated AI capabilities into its personalization and content cloud software.

A personalisation platform from Sitecore enables brands to gain insights from customers’ prior website interactions and has introduced an AI-driven Content Cloud for businesses.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has already been fully integrated into the company’s suite of fully modular software solutions. By enabling marketers to integrate Generative AI capabilities into their Sitecore-driven marketing technology stack, this new feature, powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, improves efficiency, personalization, and scalable content production across Sitecore’s broad range of modular solutions.

Marketers can adapt their solutions by integrating their AI tools through open APIs (application programming interfaces) and customizable user interfaces (UIs) using Sitecore’s fully-modular approach. Examples from the real world include integrating ChatGPT into the Sitecore XM Cloud CMS (content management system) for quick translations and using ChatGPT to edit marketing content in the content hub to better tailor it to target audiences and distribution channels.

Additionally, Sitecore customers can use Dall-E to create various image variations for omnichannel campaigns managed by Sitecore’s Content Cloud.

Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore, said, “The future of marketing technology and brand experience will be AI-fuelled due to the sheer power of machine learning tools. However, businesses will need to move away from legacy software stacks, and infuse AI systems into composable software approaches that enable true flexibility and the ability to provide their customers with personalised and rich experiences.”

In a recent survey of 400 marketers in the US, Sitecore identified generative AI as a beneficial innovation that brand marketers must implement if they want to offer quick personalization to customers looking for immersive and intuitive digital experiences.

Tzikakis also commented, “Our Generative AI offering has been created to integrate with our composable strategy. Generative AI developments are moving incredibly fast. In fact, while 77% of US marketers feel their technology can handle AI demands, 45% are concerned by the significant costs they perceive will be required to maintain growth.” 

He added, “Sitecore’s composable platform helps combat this fear by giving Sitecore customers the ability to leverage our unique, composable offering, which allows brands to control when and how much spend they can invest depending on customer needs.”