Building a new

digital playbook
A STR ATEG I ST’ S GU I D E

Experts share advice on emerging trends,

how to build a digital-first strategy and
signs that you’re on the right track

1 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com

 ? We spoke with industry experts about what’s next in digital,
covering content, emerging tech, changing customer
expectations and how businesses are responding.

The verdict? The digital landscape is changing fast.

Brands around the world are evolving and building a new

playbook for the digital-first era. Find out how the latest
trends will impact your business and how you can position
yourself and your brand for success.

2 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com

 Last year was the year
of the digital-first pivot
for many companies.
Some companies had to accelerate
existing digital transformation efforts and
favor action — experiment, learn, iterate,
repeat — over long-term planning.
3 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
For others, 2020 was an activator, giving teams permission to
start experimenting out of sheer necessity. The pandemic didn’t
start the digital-first era, but it dramatically accelerated the shift
to a digital-first market for both consumers and businesses.
Like digital trends of the past, this era is defined by big shifts. It started with digital natives
like Casper, Warby Parker and Dollar Shave Club; they used digital customer experiences
to disrupt established industries. By focusing on amazing digital experiences, they changed
customer preferences and raised the bar on customer experience. Some traditional brands
have seen the writing on the wall, and are also evolving to make digital a priority. Other
venerable brands, unable to pivot fast enough, have already disappeared.
Strategies that made companies successful in the past won’t always help them in the
future. To succeed in the digital-first era, brands need a new playbook that builds digital
competency and speed.
Digital is the new front door to your business. It changes the way you interact with
customers and how they engage with your brand. So how do brands evolve their digital
strategy to meet these changes? Which digital trends are most important? We spoke to
industry experts and drew on our own experience working with leading brands to bring
you the information you need to navigate digital trends and win in the digital-first era.
 Here are the trends
brands should focus on Content is king, but it no longer rules alone. Brands need an enterprise-wide content
strategy that gives consumers content that is authentic, engaging and relevant to them in

as they build their new the moment and on their channel of choice. Changes in the way users search for content
are making the stakes even higher.
digital playbook: Emerging technologies, notably machine learning and voice applications, are
changing how we build and deliver digital experiences. To succeed, companies
need to balance experimentation with a smart investment strategy that ties technology
to customers and business value. New channels continue to proliferate, and making
investments in future-proof technology solutions remains critical.

Tech stacks enable brands to build better digital experiences faster. Companies are
shifting from suites to flexible tech stacks that provide the speed, scalability and endless
integration possibilities they need to keep pace.

A customer-centric approach is the key to creating engaging digital experiences.

Customers are over the flashy one-off digital experiences that gained attention in the
past. They want experiences that deliver utility and value. Companies need to use
technology to deeply understand their customers and deliver real value, while also
maintaining a consistent brand voice and identity.

In this paper we’ll dive deeper into each of these trends and what they mean for you
and your business. Then we’ll look at the new playbook for the digital-first era. This will
be your guide to building digital competency with a focus on people, processes and
technology. Finally, we’ll show you how to measure your digital evolution to ensure that
your business is moving in the right direction.

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 The changing
face of content
Authentic brand voice
Formal tones and
gimmicks are out.
Brands are using emojis,
profanity and puns to
craft vibrant copy that
conveys their personality.
We’ve seen the
domination of crisp copy
that favors readability, all
while reflecting a strong
brand personality.
5 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
50
of the world’s searches
are now voice searches.
Live content Relevance
Brands are leaning into The challenge isn’t how
live content as users seek to produce new content,
more ways to engage and but how to show the
interact. Whether that’s most relevant content
on Instagram Stories, a at the right time in
YouTube Livestream or the customer journey.
going live on Facebook, Content strategists
this type of content is are looking at new
growing increasingly ways to make relevant
popular, according to content discoverable.
Neil Patel, co-founder Think recommendation
of NP Digital and NYT engines like those used
bestselling author. by Amazon and Netflix,
and more real-time
personalization triggered
by user data and actions.
Voice-centric
Half of the world’s
searches are now voice
searches. As people shift
from mobile to voice-
centric products like Siri,
Alexa and Google Home
to search for answers,
the stakes for top-ranked
content get higher. A voice
search only turns up one
result, or as Patel puts it,
“the winner takes it all.”
Hear more from Neil Patel
on the future of SEO.
 Use strategy, governance
and structure to form
a scalable foundation While experts agree that content is the heart of digital experiences, simply
producing great content isn’t enough. How, where and when that content is
for digital content delivered to users are increasingly important considerations for strategists who want
to maximize the value content brings to their customers and their company.

“Structured, reusable content and integrated
tools empower teams to work at speed and
in parallel across channels. A clear content
strategy and strong governance are keys to
maintaining that efficiency at scale.”
Adriana Soliz
CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
This starts with understanding what information your customers need at every stage
of the customer journey. Consider the data and information you already have that
can be fashioned into the content you need.
As you create, use content modeling and tagging to structure content for easy
discoverability and reuse. It’s critical to build a solid foundation to streamline content
maintenance and make the content creation process repeatable and scalable.

6 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com

 Strategy Governance

“Put one thing in
front of your mind:
engagement. All of
these social networks,
social platforms, and
even search platforms
are moving towards
engagement…
and they’re looking
at true forms of
engagement.”
Neil Patel
CO-FOUNDER OF NP DIGITAL
NYT BESTSELLING AUTHOR
As your content spans more channels, touching every part of
the customer journey, it’s imperative to have an enterprise-
wide content strategy with brand voice, governance, context
and reusability baked in. Content strategy, while crucial, is
something that companies pivoting to digital-first are still
trying to figure out, says Allan White, an enterprise solutions
engineer at Contentful.
This isn’t surprising. More than half of the CMS users we
surveyed in 2020 were using multiple CMSes to manage
content across different products and channels. They
have great content, but efforts to personalize, localize and
contextualize it happen in silos, resulting in duplicated efforts
and redundant workflows.
When companies move from these siloed content systems
to a unified content platform like Contentful, they often
don’t have an unified strategy for how content will actually
flow across channels, says Adriana Soliz, a customer success
manager at Contentful.
As you move towards enterprise-wide content use and
reusable components, it’s critical to think about governance.
Good governance will make a sophisticated content
strategy efficient and scalable. A central content platform
can streamline content operations and provide a single
source of truth to keep content consistent wherever it
appears, but it needs strong governance features to ensure
that the content has gone through the appropriate checks.
Look for content solutions that give you the ability to
organize and reorganize how users interact, to streamline
workflows and to adjust permissions. Granular permissions
that can be updated at the individual or team level will
make it easier to adjust access as teams change and ensure
that content governance is consistent as you scale.

The most successful companies bring developers and end

users to the table to collaborate and learn how the new
tools work. They take the time to develop a clear strategy for
how they will create, reuse and maintain content and they
designate a content strategist to oversee and iterate on the
strategy as they scale. See how Atlassian puts teamwork at
the heart of their digital strategy.

7 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com


“Websites, web apps, mobile apps,
tablets, watches, chatbots, social media,
smart cars, smart homes, smart socks,
smart everything….The challenges of
supporting unlimited and ever-changing
customer experiences and products
are among us. A structured content
platform enables content portability so
organizations can guide customers in the
experiences they interact with today, while
future-proofing their content investments
to support tomorrow’s touchpoints.”
Andrew Kumar
DIRECTOR, PLATFORM STRATEGY
8 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Structure
As demand for omnichannel experiences increases, structured content creates a strong
foundation for automating content delivery across channels.
Structured content empowers builders to deliver the exact content needed — without
having to cut and paste from one system to the next. It’s what enables you to queue up small
chunks in the sidebar or footer of other stories to make content more discoverable. And it’s
what empowers teams to spin up a new digital experience in weeks or even days, instead of
months.
A simple example is the author bio on a blog. By making the bio a separate piece of
content, you can reuse that content on multiple blog posts. And that’s just the beginning.
SumUp, a financial technology company, uses structured, modular content to create reusable
components that give content creators the freedom to spin up new pages without relying on
developers. Structuring content also makes it reusable across teams. For example, instead of
recreating content, Atlassian pulls from existing product documentation and delivers it as in-
product support.
Structured content also enables companies to make digital experiences more accessible.
Structured text allows assistive technologies to make sense of the page. Similarly, including
options for adding alt-text for images or subtitling in video players enable users to access
content in the way that best works for their needs.
“Where earlier people would create web pages, they now think of their websites as systems,
and that really helps, because if you create reusable components and you bake accessibility
into that component, every time you use it, you’re using something accessible instead of
something inaccessible,” says Hidde de Vries, a Dutch front-end developer whose clients
include the Dutch government, Mozilla, and most recently, the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). De Vries recently spoke with us about how accessibility leads to better digital
products. Watch the video.
Emerging tech means
new opportunities
91
of organizations are planning
and challenges to deploy AI by 20221

AI/machine Voice No-code/ Augmented and

learning applications low-code tools virtual reality

As this technology As consumers expand “No-code/low-code While not a mainstream

becomes more their preferences to tools have become technology, expect
mainstream, expect to include voice applications, popular as a fast and easy to see more practical
see companies using brands will need to alternative to traditional applications of AR/VR,
AI to improve existing make their products and software development,” like BRP’s AR showroom
processes. We’ll see services compatible with writes Kiersten Thamm, for recreational vehicles,
technologies, such voice-activated apps managing editor of the apps that let you try
as Robotic Process and search. This shift — Contentful blog. NC/LC things on virtually, and
Automation (RPA), combined with machine tools empower people in-store experiences
perform mundane and learning strategies — will with a larger variety like those created by
redundant tasks leaving have a huge impact on of skill sets to create Chanel, which used an
people with the time and how brands design and digital products and AI to recommend lipstick
energy to complete more deliver digital experiences experiences. shades to shoppers.
impactful, higher-value and products.
creative work.

9 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com


Balance experimentation
with smart tech investments
To succeed in the digital-first era, companies
need to continually experiment with and
adopt new technologies, but this need not
be a scattered approach. Understanding the
value technology offers to your business and
your customers can help you prioritize tech
investments that are most likely to
yield higher business value.
10 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Embrace an appetite for experimentation
Be curious about how emerging tech can help you build better customer experiences.
Instead of pursuing experiments that will simply confirm an expected outcome, be open
to surprises. Think in terms of faster time to experiment and learn, even if part of that
is learning what doesn’t work. This is where you build digital skills and discover new
applications that push your brand ahead of the competition.
Kärcher, a manufacturer of user-friendly, sophisticated cleaning products since 1935,
embraced experimentation for a big win. The company wanted to be the first in its industry
to give customers the ability to ask questions via voice control. The team chose tools that
made it easy to test and iterate, which allowed them to experiment and learn unexpected
things along the way.
These experiments helped them build a better experience for Alexa Skills, launching two
skills that are available in multiple languages. The skills they gained and the content they
produced can be reused in chatbots and the Kärcher IoT-enabled machines. In this way,
experimenting with Alexa Skills created momentum for more digital firsts.
This snowball effect is the unsung hero of experimentation. Even if an experiment fails,
teams are building skills and creating assets that accelerate future experiments. They quickly
learn from what worked and what didn’t, and get to big wins faster in the next iteration.
EXPERIMENTATION BUILDS MOMENTUM MOMEMTUM MEANS FASTER WINS NEXT TIME
Tie tech investment to business value
While experimentation is important to long-term success
in the digital-first era, it’s equally important to tie tech
adoption to a larger digital strategy that supports
your business objectives.
Think about how technology can solve a business
problem, streamline processes or offer more value to your
customers. Look for places where you can use technology
to deliver the highest value to customers and achieve the
highest business value.
Mapping technology investments to customer and
business value will help you avoid investing in technology
for technology’s sake. Learn more about technology
strategy in this interview with Forrester’s Amanda LeClair.
“Every technology decision you make
should be directly attributed to a business
decision that you’re looking to solve.”
Matthew Weil
ENTERPRISE ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE
11 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Invest in technology as you need it
As you map technology adoption to customer and business value, keep in mind that
more technology is not necessarily better. Investing in a solution that comes with lots of
additional tools won’t help you deliver better digital experiences if you don’t have the
people and processes to support them.
Every business is at a different point on the digital maturity continuum. Businesses that
are further along the continuum have the structure and strategy in place to support rapid
tech adoption. Businesses that are in the early or middle stages of their journey need to
think about digital holistically — considering not just the technology, but also the skills
and processes needed to get value out of those investments.
In many cases, investing in people and developing key skills will enable you to do more
with the technology you already have and lead to better tech investments. This is one
reason we advise against mega-suites. Companies end up paying for more than they
need up front, and are then locked into tools that might not be the best fit when they are
ready to use them.
Instead, look for extensible platforms that make it easy to integrate new technologies as
you become more digitally mature. Ask how quickly capabilities can be added when you
need them. In this way you can maximize your tech investments by paying only for what
you need and what will add immediate value to your business.
 Stacks vs
suites Tech stacks offer
a clear advantage
over the digital
suites of the past.
Unlike a monolithic suite, tech stacks empower digital
teams to assemble the best tools for each project. APIs
make it easy to swap components in and out without
breaking the whole system, reducing the risk associated
with experimentation. This leads to faster iterations and
reduced time to value.

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 Tech stacks will enable
brands to integrate new
tech and build better digital
experiences faster
New technologies and digital channels
are changing the way we build and deliver
digital experiences. And their impact extends
beyond just the tech giants. Powerful tools
like machine learning and recommendation
engines will become increasingly available for
everybody, predicts Anthony Baker, executive
technology director at R/GA. This will present
new opportunities for businesses that can
quickly integrate those technologies into
existing processes and use them to
assemble new experiences.
13 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
A microservice approach dramatically increases speed
Jim Ambras, manager of training delivery at Contentful, can’t say enough about the
advantages of microservices over monolithic suites. The bottom line, he says, is that
monolithic solutions can’t enable the speed of changes that brands need in the digital-first
era. With microservices, thousands of changes a day are possible. You can move much,
much faster in terms of rolling out new features and updates.
TUI Nordic, part of the world’s largest travel company, used a microservice approach to
transition from a monolithic platform to a speed-oriented architecture consisting of 160+
microservices. With this approach that can deploy content dozens of times per day, from
small tasks like copy edits or adding an extension, to shipping a new page.
The Danish brand Bang & Olufsen has been improving speakers, headphones, and
televisions for more than 90 years. But its old monolithic ecommerce and CMS platform
wasn’t keeping up. A microservice stack with a content platform at the core changed all that.
This deconstructed architecture gave it the necessary flexibility to design and implement
customer experiences both online and in stores, leading to a 60% increase in ecommerce
conversion rates.
Brands are competing on exceptional customer experience. To do that, you need to be
able to rapidly and safely launch new services in response to changing customer needs and
behavior. A microservices architecture gives you this ability. We’ve seen many examples of
this adaptability during the pandemic, as retailers have had to rapidly shift and find new
ways to support customers.

“Digitization has an
accelerating effect.
Everything will come at us
much quicker. We’re all
much more connected, and
things can build up critical
mass much quicker; things
can change a lot quicker”
Paolo Negri
CTO AND CONTENTFUL CO-FOUNDER
14 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
GoodRX, a provider of information on prescription drugs and other health topics, as well
as a marketplace for telehealth providers, chose a custom tech stack with a flexible content
platform. This enables rapid content creation, with coding and design built into reusable
content modules. Content creators could use these modules to quickly spin up new
experiences — without tapping developers or designers.
As a result of their early investment in speed and agility, GoodRx was able to launch a
coronavirus hub in less than two weeks. It quickly rose to the top for key Covid-19 search
queries. They also launched a telehealth marketplace and their own telehealth business,
HeyDoctor, to serve the soaring need for telehealth services early in the pandemic.
Technology advances will
lower the cost of assembling tech stacks
Typed toolchains and serverless, low-code ecosystems will change the way companies
integrate tools, predicts Contentful co-founder and CTO Paolo Negri. He writes:
I think there are two major changes happening right now. One is typed toolchains —
the GraphQL ecosystem specifically — reaching a stage of maturity in the next five
years. The second is that the serverless, low-code ecosystem will be able to process
more and more sophisticated workloads in the next few years.
“The conjunction of these will make integration work a completely different activity
than before, and it will be a significant step toward reaching the creation of true
enterprise stacks in two ways. First, by lowering the cost of these stacks to be built
and assembled from within the enterprise. Second, by having standard and expected
models of writing, running, deploying and distributing software.
Paolo says not to waste time building generic solutions; there are plenty of apps out there
which specialize in providing the fundamentals. Instead, it’s best to focus on what is specific to
your business and build custom solutions for just those components. This is why extensibility
of core platforms is so essential. When your stack is designed with clear interfaces that allow
you to build on top of it, you can consistently update and upgrade it with the best tools and
services available — or build business-specific functionality on top. Learn more from Paolo
Negri on how to architect a tech stack.
 Changing customer
47
of executives believe it is getting
expectations harder to please customers2
Utility and value
People have embraced
technology out of necessity
during the pandemic, and
many have looked to digital
to provide convenience and
value. This shift to utility
over entertaining gimmicks
is a trend experts expect to
continue. Convenience and
utility have become priorities
in consumer mindsets.
People want their digital
experiences to add value,
not just provide one-off
entertainment.
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Privacy Seamless experiences
Better connectivity and While many companies
digital experiences come are still working to create
with a tradeoff. New a seamless customer
technology, including experience across
wearable tech and voice- channels, Claire Robinson,
controlled home apps, customer experience
give companies new director at Kin+Carta,
ways to track and control sees a huge opportunity
behavior. Consumer for brands to partner
concerns around data with other brands across
protection and security the experience to deliver
may not be top of mind more value to customers.
for companies yet, but
they are worth keeping
an eye on.
 A customer-centric
approach is the key to
great digital experiences
Companies need to put the emphasis on
the specific idea that consumers need
digital experiences that give them value and
something that is beyond a one-off kind
of thing. If people are taking the time to
download an app, etc. then it better be good
and give something of value back.
Anthony Baker
EXECUTIVE TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR
16 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Customers are tired of gimmicks and experiences where the novelty
wears off with no lasting value. Too often, brands are focused on what
they want customers to do, rather than focusing on how they can
deliver value to the customer. Think about how you can help your
customer make decisions. Empower them to find solutions.
Help them save time and money.
Understand what the customer values
Digital natives disrupted industries by understanding their customers and then using
digital technologies to deliver more convenience and value to those customers. This
customer-centric approach is essential to producing great digital experiences. Ask
yourself how technology can help you better understand the customer and then use that
knowledge to build better experiences.
Data can help companies understand what is happening, but it is also important
to understand why. “I think it’s really important to blend quantitative analysis with
qualitative analysis, says Robinson. “Otherwise you don’t have the what and the why,
you only have the what.” Without the why, companies can end up making changes that
don’t answer customer needs, she explains. On the flip side, understanding the why can
lead to a new product or service that adds value.
Disparate data silos can inhibit this customer understanding and pose an obstacle to
good digital experiences. It’s critical to address these silos so that you can understand
why and how customers engage with your products and services. Then, use that
understanding to deliver more value.
 Accept a lack of control over customer preferences and behavior

In creating customer experiences, brands aren’t just competing against themselves or

industry benchmarks. They’re competing against each and every digital experience that
a customer has. Consumers interact with the digital world hundreds or even thousands of
times a day, according to research published on Statistica. Many of these experiences won’t
be noteworthy, but those few that stand out raise the bar a little higher for everyone else.

The ever-changing digital landscape and our human tendency towards adaptability mean
that companies must continually seek to understand their customers’ changing preferences
and behavior. What’s more, they must be able to adapt existing experiences and launch new
products and experiences faster to keep up with these changing customer expectations.

The digital-first era requires brands to move from ad hoc digital wins to digital competency.
With the right combination of people, processes and technology, companies can produce
engaging digital experiences in a way that is scalable and repeatable, while adapting to
changing trends.

Achieving digital competency is an evolution. Companies are at different points along

a continuum. It’s not about ripping out and replacing legacy technology — although
technology is certainly a part of it. It’s about accepting that what got you here won’t get you
much further. Building a new digital playbook requires changes to the people, processes and
technologies that support digital experiences across your organization.

17 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com


The new digital playbook
“Machines aren’t replacing humans,
they are enhancing what people can do
by taking care of the more mundane
tasks. The best types of experiences use
machines for what they’re brilliant for and
use people for what they’re brilliant for.”
Claire Robinson,
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DIRECTOR
KIN+CARTA
18 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
People
First, let’s talk about people. Ask yourself, do we have the skills we need to create compelling
differentiating experiences? The digital-first era is changing the way people work and how
teams are organized. Roles are changing — digital experience designers, chief digital offers,
data scientists — and the skills sets people and businesses need are changing too.
In the past, people excelled in their careers by becoming hyper-specialized, but today we see
more and more roles that require an understanding of business, strategy, behavior and technology,
according to Anthony Baker. For example, a developer doesn’t just need to understand coding
and technology; they also need to understand how those technical components can enable new
touchpoints and interactions that in turn support larger business goals.
Skill diversification will be critical to success in many fields. Contentful product marketer
Johanna Hyde says it directly: “Marketers need to be smarter and more well-rounded — just
doing one thing well is career suicide in the changing world that we live in.” Other examples
we’ve seen are SEO experts learning how to code and content creators who must learn how
to use translation, localization, optimization and even AI-driven technologies.
Companies need people who are willing to learn these new skills, work in a different way and
have a different mindset to working and collaborating, explains Baker. At Contentful, we call
this mindset a builder ethos — a drive to create compelling digital experiences regardless of
your role in an organization. These are the people you want to bring together in progressive,
cross-functional teams where they can think ahead of the curve and set the bar for creative
digital experiences that deliver value.
One challenge companies face is finding people with these skills. This can be particularly
hard for companies that are pivoting to digital and competing against digital natives for
talent. One of our experts recommends thinking in terms of skills instead of positions.
Offer employees opportunities to gain the skills your company needs and encourage
them to use those skills across the organization. When hiring new employees, think about
what skills they bring not only to that position, but to the company as a whole. And of
course, look for that builder ethos.

“To a great extent, the software we develop
determines greater and greater portions of
enterprises. This requires some rethinking about
how departments are involved in these activities,
and how teams are structured and work.”
Paolo Negri
CTO AND CONTENTFUL CO-FOUNDER
19 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Process
When we think about the people and skills companies need in the digital-first era, it’s
also important to think about how you will bring those diverse skills together to produce
connected digital experiences. For many companies this means rethinking how teams work
together.
Organizational silos are a common challenge to producing a connected set of experiences
across the customer journey. Companies need to shift from siloed teams to business models
that support agile teams, decoupled systems and shared data, content and components.
One way to test a new business model is by creating a center of excellence that brings
people, processes and technology together in new ways and then spreads those best
practices across the company.
Other companies take an enterprise-wide approach. They expect a period of adjustment and
rapid iteration as they learn what works for them.
Some of the most successful companies we’ve seen reach out to partners to augment internal
skills and cross-pollinate new ideas. By using partners these companies — including Shiseido,
BRP, Murad and many more — are able to rapidly deliver new digital experiences for their
customers while building the digital competency they need to continue delivering more
digital products and experiences, faster.
“Most of the time we are trying to solve the problems of today. We
are not really thinking what technologies and what talent and what
business model we need for the problems of tomorrow.”
Anthony Baker
EXECUTIVE TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

“While we can guess at some of the digital
products coming our way –– VR and AI being
two big ones –– there is so much we can’t
predict. With traditional methods of working,
this uncertainty often leads to big projects
being scrapped and rebuilt. The market
changes quickly, and if you can’t be flexible and
adapt then you’re looking at a lot of wasted
work. With agile, and the right extensible tech,
you can quickly pivot and iterate. This will help
you deliver real value to customers.”
Jo Fraser
AGILE WORKFLOWS IN THE DIGITAL-FIRST ERA:
HERE’S WHY IT WORKS
20 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
Technology
Technology companies need to support the people and processes they are investing in. As
companies evolve they are breaking away from the all-in-one suites of the past and moving
to decoupled, headless systems with interchangeable components. APIs help break up
dependencies between systems and empower teams to build custom stacks for different
digital products and experiences.
Again, each company is at a different point in this evolution and many still rely on legacy
systems. They can’t simply start from scratch. The good news is that your technology
strategy doesn’t have to be a big bang. The key is to ask yourself: How can technology
connect siloed systems for quick wins while you experiment with new tools for the digital-
first era?
All-in-one suites with long term contracts don’t fit the bill. They are difficult to integrate
with existing systems and they don’t empower you to experiment with new technology. In
the short term they promise to solve your problems, but in the long run they are a brake
on innovation, according to Anthony Baker. Consider this, the average enterprise uses 91
marketing cloud services, according to Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends report. It would
be impossible for one solution to provide all of that functionality.
Extensible, cloud-based, API-first solutions empower you to build your own “suite” with
components that can easily be changed without the risk of breaking the whole system. They
can bridge the gap between legacy systems and emerging technology and allow companies
to accelerate their digital transformation.
As you add technology, think about how it can empower people within your organization.
Using technology to support people and automate routine tasks can improve processes and
free up talent to focus on higher-value projects. See how Trunk Club (Nordstrom), freed a
team of editors from maintaining content across separate systems, enabling them to focus
on creating valuable new content.

How do you know
if it’s working?
Over time, you will build digital
competency and move from measuring
success in terms of digital projects to
measuring business outcomes
Get started
21 © 2021 Contentful | contentful.com
The digital-first era requires a continuous evolution of people, process and
technology. So how do you know if your organization is moving fast enough
or even moving in the right direction? We asked a leading industry expert.
Companies that are in the earlier stages (or those that have lost their direction) should start
by assessing their business strengths and gaps and prioritize those gaps that align to the
most mission critical objectives. Think of this as your compass. Staying aligned with business
goals will make it easier to make a case with business partners and will focus your efforts on
the skills and technology you need to deliver the most business value.
As you progress, look for signs that your company is evolving. These might be small at
first, but they are indicators of building momentum. For example, you might notice that it
becomes easier to collaborate between teams and adopt agile processes. The culture might
shift from requiring lengthy business cases for new technology and channels, to a willingness
to experiment faster and use data to drive decisions.
Over time, you will build digital competency and move from measuring success in terms of
digital projects to measuring business outcomes like customer satisfaction and improved
operational efficiencies.
At Contentful, we understand that building digital competency is an often intensive process.
We offer extensive support with customer success experts and partners who can help you
build your new digital playbook and accelerate your pivot to the digital-first era.
 Jim Ambras, Paolo Negri, CTO and Matthew Weil,
End Thank manager of training Contentful co-founder enterprise account
delivery, representative, Contentful
notes you Contentful Neil Patel, co-founder
of NP Digital and NYT Allan White,
Anthony Baker, bestselling author enterprise solutions
1
Gartner - Gartner executive technology engineer,
Says the Future of Self- Hidde de Vries,
director, R/GA Contentful
Service Is Customer-Led Dutch front-end developer
Automation Andrew Kumar, whose clients include Jo Fraser,
director, platform strategy, the Dutch government, Contentful blog
2
CX Network-The Global Contentful Mozilla, and most recently, contributing writer
State of Customer the World Wide Web
Experience 2020 Johanna Hyde, Kiersten Thamm,
Consortium (W3C)
product marketing managing editor,
manager, Claire Robinson, Contentful blog
Contentful customer experience
Liz Osterloh,
director,
Amanda LeClair, new media managing
Kin+Carta
analyst, editor,
Forrester Adriana Soliz, customer Contentful
success manager,
Contentful

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