BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 1 “We Accelerate Growth”
2012 Global Customer Engagement Platforms
Technology Innovation Award
2012
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 2 “We Accelerate Growth”
Technology Innovation Award
Customer Engagement Platforms
Global, 2012
Frost & Sullivan’s Global Research Platform
Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800
analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies.
The company’s research philosophy originates with the CEO’s 360-Degree Perspective™,
which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research™ methodology. This unique approach
enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth,
innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost &
Sullivan is proud to present the 2012 Global Technology Innovation Award in Customer
Engagement Platforms to Sitecore.
Significance of the Technology Innovation Award
Key Industry Challenges Addressed by Superior Engagement Platforms
Challenge #1: Web Content Management (WCM)
Companies constantly need to post or change things on websites. Marketing directors and
CMOs need to quickly position their companies to capture the hottest market opportunities
by letting the industry know that “the next big thing” is exactly what they have. An
organization’s web presence is now its front door, “the face of the company” to the world.
Organizations need their web and mobile presence to respond in real time to the needs and
demands of the business.
Some factors are undeniably human. There is no shortage of demanding customers in any
field, from programming to marketing to research & analysis, and the world of webmasters
is no exception. Another reason, however, or in some cases the primary reason why
websites and teams sometimes fail to support the business, may be the tools they are
asked to use. Sometimes the system available to them requires extensive programming
expertise to get things done. Programming, testing and debugging takes time, as does
administering a staging (preview) site where pages are viewed before going “live.” Frost &
Sullivan points out that these challenges and more are what some webmasters face on a
daily basis.
Challenge #2: Online Analytics
If companies do not know, at a granular and specific level, what their customers, prospects
and competitors are doing online, and what potentially anyone is saying about them online,
they then have a huge blind spot that will prevent them from maximizing their success and
ultimately threaten the survival of the organization. Frost & Sullivan feels that companies
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan
need to properly attain mastery of both Site analytics (how online users are interacting with
a company’s own web properties) and Social analytics (what users are doing an
anywhere else across the web).
Challenge #3: Analyze, then Act
Online analytics is extremely important, but what companies need to be able to do is
perform detailed analysis of both their own sites and other traffic that impacts them
anywhere on the web—and act upon it,
Key Benchmarking Criteria for Technology Innovation Award
For the Technology Innovation Award, the following criteria w
Sitecore’s performance against key competitors:
• Uniqueness of Technology
• Impact on New Products/Applications
• Impact on Functionality
• Impact on Customer Value
• Relevance of Innovation to Industry
Decision Support Matrix and Measurement Criteria
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple busines
Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Matrix (DSM).
analytical tool that compares companies’ performance relative to each other with an
integration of quantitative and qualitative metrics. The DSM fe
Award category and ranks importance by assigning weights to each criterion.
weighting reflects current market conditions and illustrates the associated importance of
each criterion according to Frost & Sullivan.
market and Award category.
objectively analyze each company's performance on each criterion relative to its top
competitors and assign performance ratings on t
that allows for nuances in performance evaluation; ratings guidelines are shown in Chart 2.
Chart 2: Performance
BEST PRACTICES RESEA
3 “We Accelerate Growth”
attain mastery of both Site analytics (how online users are interacting with
a company’s own web properties) and Social analytics (what users are doing an
anywhere else across the web).
Challenge #3: Analyze, then Act
Online analytics is extremely important, but what companies need to be able to do is
perform detailed analysis of both their own sites and other traffic that impacts them
and act upon it, often immediately.
Key Benchmarking Criteria for Technology Innovation Award
For the Technology Innovation Award, the following criteria were used to benchmark
’s performance against key competitors:
Technology
Impact on New Products/Applications
Impact on Functionality
Impact on Customer Value
Relevance of Innovation to Industry
Decision Support Matrix and Measurement Criteria
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance categories,
Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Matrix (DSM).
analytical tool that compares companies’ performance relative to each other with an
integration of quantitative and qualitative metrics. The DSM features criteria unique to each
Award category and ranks importance by assigning weights to each criterion.
weighting reflects current market conditions and illustrates the associated importance of
each criterion according to Frost & Sullivan. Fundamentally, each DSM is distinct for each
market and Award category. The DSM allows our research and consulting teams to
objectively analyze each company's performance on each criterion relative to its top
competitors and assign performance ratings on that basis. The DSM follows a 10
that allows for nuances in performance evaluation; ratings guidelines are shown in Chart 2.
Chart 2: Performance-Based Ratings for Decision Support Matrix
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
“We Accelerate Growth”
attain mastery of both Site analytics (how online users are interacting with
a company’s own web properties) and Social analytics (what users are doing and saying
Online analytics is extremely important, but what companies need to be able to do is
perform detailed analysis of both their own sites and other traffic that impacts them
ere used to benchmark
s performance categories,
Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Matrix (DSM). The DSM is an
analytical tool that compares companies’ performance relative to each other with an
atures criteria unique to each
Award category and ranks importance by assigning weights to each criterion. The relative
weighting reflects current market conditions and illustrates the associated importance of
Fundamentally, each DSM is distinct for each
The DSM allows our research and consulting teams to
objectively analyze each company's performance on each criterion relative to its top
hat basis. The DSM follows a 10-point scale
that allows for nuances in performance evaluation; ratings guidelines are shown in Chart 2.
for Decision Support Matrix
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 4 “We Accelerate Growth”
This exercise encompasses all criteria, leading to a weighted average ranking of each
company. Researchers can then easily identify the company with the highest ranking. As a
final step, the research team confirms the veracity of the model by ensuring that small
changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the
overall relative rankings of the companies.
Chart 3: Frost & Sull ivan’s 10-Step Process for Identifying Award Recipients
Best Practice Award Analysis for Sitecore
The Decision Support Matrix, shown in Chart 4, illustrates the relative importance of each
criterion for the Technology Innovation Award and the ratings for each company under
evaluation. To remain unbiased while also protecting the interests of the other
organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players as Competitor 1
and Competitor 2.
Chart 4: Decision Support Matrix for
Technology Innovation Award
Measurement of 1–10 (1 =
lowest; 10 = highest) Award Criteria
Uniqueness of
Technology
Impact on New
Products/Applications
Impact on
Functionality
Impact on Customer
Value
Relevance of
Innovation to Industry
Weighted Rating
Relative Weight (%) 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 100%
Sitecore 9 8 10 9 9 9.0
Competitor 1 7 8 7 6 7 7.0
Competitor 2 4 8 7 7 8 6.8
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 5 “We Accelerate Growth”
Criterion 1: Uniqueness of Technology
Stratecast is tracking and analyzing 85+ companies in the online analytics space, and Frost
& Sullivan has done the same for content management systems (CMSs), including web
content management systems (WCMSs), as well as digital media/marketing platforms, for
the better part of a decade. Competitor 1 is one of the better recognized WCMS providers
and is now offering analytics and digital marketing capabilities as well. Frost & Sullivan
notes that what makes Sitecore’s technology more unique is that it offers capabilities in four
areas: WCM, online analytics, digital analytics and digital marketing, pre-integrated “under
one roof,” and does it better than anyone else at a price point that is far more attainable for
a wide range of organizations to purchase than the higher-priced solutions, including those
from Competitor 1. Competitor 2 offers a certain standard of excellence, but Competitor 2
opportunistically leverages multivendor technology, with little of its own native technology,
and thus falls short of Sitecore when it comes to consideration for a Technology Innovation
Award.
Best Practice Example: By using Sitecore, a company can manage its own web properties;
be proactive rather than reactive (or caught unaware, as are many companies) when it
comes to things being said about it on social media; personalize web content ‘on the fly’ via
real-time personalization, such that a visitor from one region sees one page (or set of
content on a page) while a visitor from another region sees different content, or a different
page entirely; collect granular data and perform advanced analytics; and apply those
analytics to its very next digital marketing campaign, even one that starts within the hour.
Criterion 2: Impact on New Products/Applications
Nothing can kill the launch of a new product or application like incomplete market data,
introducing a product based on anecdotal ‘hunches’ or instinct alone, or introducing it using
the same old traditional “marketing AT you” techniques that are no longer effective when
attempting to reach today’s increasingly sophisticated, perpetually-mobile audiences and
buyers. No one launching a new product or application can afford to do so without gaining
insights into the engagement tendencies and buying behaviors of customers, not just
through sales activity and offline records, but through online behaviors and dialogues. In
this sense, what Sitecore is offering, in a single Customer Engagement Platform, and at a
competitive price point, benefits anyone launching any new product. It also raises the bar
for its competitors, such that a company not offering CEP capabilities in its own product
suite (such as Competitor 2), or offering CEP piece-parts at a higher price point (such as
Competitor 1).
Best Practice Examples: A company launching any new product can use Sitecore CEP to
collect and analyze data from all relevant online sources and distill that into a savvy,
sophisticated campaign that effectively launches its new offering in digital media that will
reach prospects “where they live” (work)—thereby positioning both product and company
itself positively in the market. In addition, any company that hopes to compete with
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 6 “We Accelerate Growth”
Sitecore now has to either go to market with a full-featured CEP suite of its own, or build
one by collaborating with partners. Frost & Sullivan is of the opinion that digital analytics,
online analytics, or WCM alone will not pass muster.
Criterion 3: Impact on Functionality
Sitecore offers features most competitors do not, or not within a pre-integrated platform.
On-site Social Engagement offers the ability to build a community on a company’s own site
with Sitecore’s out-of-the-box blogs, wikis, forums, polls and email-a-friend features, plus
integration with external social media sites. Multisite Deployment enables a company to
manage all of its web properties from a single management platform to enforce brand
consistency. Real-time Personalization enables the site to automatically deliver targeted
content to each visitor based on user behaviors and preferences. Predictive Personalization
leverages the widest range of available insight from other channels, offline and online, and
is managed by business users, not IT, so that it empowers marketing teams and content
authors. Some of its products are most comfortably used by web developers; its modules
for synergizing online plus offline data are focused mainly on one vertical (retail marketing
and merchandising); and all of it comes in at a higher price point than Sitecore. So not only
does Sitecore nicely enable resources to contribute in more places, it also opens the door
for a wider range of organizations to obtain ‘enterprise-level’ CEP. Competitor 2 offers
specific solutions, but since those solutions depend on combining and building on other
vendors’ existing solutions, functionality and quality can vary from contract to contract.
Best Practice Example: on a day-to-day basis, a company uses Sitecore to leverage all
available data about all online behaviors impacting the company; places analytics-driven
insight in the hands of business users, who immediately develop web and e-marketing
content capturing the essence of what the analytics have revealed; and combines online
insights with offline (physical world) data to ensure that it is meeting its customers,
prospects, competitors, partners and (potentially) investors wherever they are, with
integrated data/message/approach.
Criterion 4: Impact on Customer Value
As referred to in Criterion 3, Sitecore offers a wider range of capabilities at a more
competitive price point than Competitor 1, thus creating more value for a broader spectrum
of customers and prospects—which may be one reason why Sitecore has 32,000+
deployments and counting. Competitor 2 is actually positioned better than Competitor 1 in
this regard, because by serving as something of a ‘broker’ of various partner solutions, it
can craft effective solutions that are not dependent on the quality and pricing of a single
vendor. Yet integrating multiple solutions together into a cohesive, unified solution is a
challenging proposition, and despite all assurances that “one call” (to Competitor 2) is all it
takes when problems inevitably occur, multivendor solutions always seem to lead to
multivendor trouble calls, which provides less value and convenience than one call to
Sitecore.
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 7 “We Accelerate Growth”
Best Practice Example: Sitecore provides a lot of functionality at an attainable price point,
so those 32,000+ customers, including many SMBs, are able to afford what are normally
considered ‘enterprise-level’ functionality. This is an encouraging market dynamic, because
the midsized organizations are usually the ones who need it the most to try to keep pace
with their large multinational competitors.
Criterion 5: Relevance of Innovation to Industry
Before Sitecore crafted its Customer Engagement Platform, most of its competitors were
mired in WCM. With the advent of many free, open source blogging platforms, many
companies began using those more widely, first for their corporate blogs, then for their
online newsrooms, and finally for their core “home base” .com websites. WCM providers
found themselves trying to compete with free or extremely low-cost alternatives on a
downward spiral, a “race to the bottom.” Sitecore saw the (free) writing on the wall and
addressed it by doubling down on WCM with an incredibly advanced lineup of site content
features; adding online and digital analytics; and adding an array of marketing and
engagement capabilities. The resulting Sitecore CEP is one of the most relevant
developments in the history of the WCM area, simply because it is exploding that space, and
because it is showing down-on-their-luck WCM providers a profitable way out of their
dilemma. Competitor 1 also offers a relatively complete lineup in these areas, but does not
offer all of the same features, and in particular, its offline-plus-online functions are limited
to retail. Competitor 2 is innovative, particularly in terms of combining online plus offline
data, but since its solutions comprise a shifting lineup of partner solutions, the successes it
achieves for customers are less its own innovation than its ability to integrate and package
its partners’ innovations.
Best Practice Example: A WCM provider that thought it was still competing with Sitecore
strictly on WCM terms, much as Barnes & Noble thought it was still competing with Amazon
on the basis of book sales, wakes up one day and realizes the WCM market is a road to
nowhere. That competitor begins aggressively developing its own digital marketing
capabilities, partners with a company that offers deep analytics functionality, and within 18
months has crafted a customer engagement platform offering—and a survival strategy for
itself.
Conclusion
Commercially-developed WCMS software is still a viable business, but in recent years
companies have begun migrating in greater numbers away from their commercially-
developed websites and onto open source blogging-style platforms. WCM providers who
can function as more than mere site-builders not only improve their odds of survival, but
also give their customers the best opportunity to execute an integrated digital marketing
strategy. By incorporating features such as SEO, on-site social engagement, e-marketing
and campaign management tools, web analytics, and on-the-fly personalization—the latter
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 8 “We Accelerate Growth”
to present the optimal pages and in-page content to each visitor, to enhance
conversions—they transcend mere ‘WCMS’ to deliver what every organization needs
today: a customer engagement system.
Frost & Sullivan appreciates the fact that one of the most transcendent providers is
Sitecore, whose WCMS supports and manages more than 32,000 sites. Sitecore has now
added a digital marketing system to its product portfolio, and combining the DMS with its
existing WCMS has yielded a full-blown Customer Engagement Platform. This platform
checks every box when it comes to Stratecast’s list of both required and recommended
WCMS elements, and Frost & Sullivan particularly likes features that address today’s
hottest areas, such as community & social media, SEO, experience analytics and real-time
personalization.
Sitecore’s Customer Engagement Platform (CEP):
• Makes it possible to build, operate and maintain websites without requiring technical
knowledge of HTML code to do so. Busy webmasters now get the help they need
without that help necessarily having to come from programmers. Companies can
share the workload and eliminate the old webmaster-as-bottleneck model by
engaging employees outside the web team to contribute and publish content.
• Restricts how much impact these eager new contributors can have on the external
site, while providing an “expert layer” of functionality above what other users can
access. This functionality includes application programming interfaces (APIs)
whereby webmasters can enhance the WCMS with customized capabilities and
functionality.
• Offers what Frost & Sullivan considers WCMS “must-haves,” including Content
Management and Editing, Security, Collaboration and Workflow, Templates and
Forms, Content Syndication, Extensibility, and Mobile Sites/Front Ends.
• Offers a broad range of analytics-driven, online presence-enhancing capabilities
including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Visitor Customization/Personalization,
On-site Social Engagement, E-marketing and Online Analytics (both Site and Social).
• Offers digital marketing functionality including Engagement Automation, Engagement
Analytics and Sales Intelligence.
Bringing such a broad product portfolio to market also means Sitecore faces a wider array
of competitors. Yet Sitecore enters the fray from a superior position of strength, with a
truly global customer base to which it can upsell its newer offerings, and it is already
moving in the direction of growth. Based on the aforementioned factors as benchmarked
through Frost & Sullivan competitive analysis, Sitecore is the recipient of the 2012 Frost &
Sullivan Global Technology Innovation Award.
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© 2012 Frost & Sullivan 9 “We Accelerate Growth”
The CEO 360-Degree PerspectiveTM - Visionary Platform for Growth
Strategies
The CEO 360-Degree Perspective™ model provides a clear illustration of the complex
business universe in which CEOs and their management teams live today. It represents
the foundation of Frost & Sullivan's global research organization and provides the basis on
which companies can gain a visionary and strategic understanding of the market. The CEO
360-Degree Perspective™ is also a “must-have” requirement for the identification and
analysis of best-practice performance by industry leaders.
The CEO 360-Degree Perspective™ model enables our clients to gain a comprehensive,
action-oriented understanding of market evolution and its implications for their companies’
growth strategies. As illustrated in Chart 5 below, the following six-step process outlines
how our researchers and consultants embed the CEO 360-Degree Perspective™ into their
analyses and recommendations.
Chart 5: CEO's 360-Degree Perspective™ Model
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
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Critical Importance of TEAM Research
Frost & Sullivan’s TEAM Research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our
research process. It offers a 360-degree view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by
integrating all seven of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Our experience has
shown over the years that companies too often make important growth decisions based on
a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Frost & Sullivan contends that successful growth strategies are founded on a
thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best
practices, and demographic analyses. In that vein, the letters T, E, A and M reflect our
core technical, economic, applied (financial and best practices) and market analyses. The
integration of these research disciplines into the TEAM Research methodology provides an
evaluation platform for benchmarking industry players and for creating high-potential
growth strategies for our clients.
Chart 6: Benchmarking Performance with TEAM Research
About Frost & Sullivan
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