Adobe Experience Cloud

But before we dive into the present, I would like to turn back the time by about 40-50 years. Because the digital transformation that we are experiencing so closely today is not new and has taken place several times in recent decades. In doing so, it gave the companies great competitive advantages, which benefited from the digital transformation.

Back-Office transformation

In the 70s and 80s, digital transformation was primarily about the back office and the digital linking of different departments within a company. This would allow supply chains to be operated more efficiently, time-to-market to be reduced and transparency to be increased in all areas of the company. With the help of IT, warehousing, production, material planning, sales and the entire financial system could be linked together. This has resulted in ERP systems such as SAP, and massive benefits for companies that successfully use their ERP.  

Front-Office Transformation

20 years later, another digital transformation took place. This affected the front office of companies and changed the way in which sales and marketing were to operate in the future. This is how CRM systems such as Siebel were created.

The digital transformations in the back- and front-office had one thing in common: both were directed inwards and helped companies to achieve greater effectiveness and immense cost savings.  

Experience Wave

Digital transformations are usually not linear, but come in waves. A new wave of business transformation has been coming to us for some years now. This one is also about technology, but that is the only thing they have in common.  

The two previous transformations were all about us. Our business. And changes that have helped us make our jobs more efficient. The current transformation is not about us or our products. It's about our customers. It's about the experience we offer our customers when they connect with us, research about us, write about us, or buy our products.

This wave is what Adobe calls the "Experience Wave of Digital Transformation" and it's building up ahead of us right now.

The challenge is that customer expectations are growing, and companies must meet those expectations through a growing number of channels, including desktop, mobile, email, social, and of course in-store.

Today’s customers don’t want or need to follow a predefined path. They do what they want—on the channels they choose.  Across these channels they expect you to interact with them in one, single voice.

That sounds simple, but it's an incredible challenge.

How can Adobe help? How does Adobe close the gap between customers and all their touchpoints with "its" brands? The answer is the use of a professional Customer Experience Management (CXM).

A Customer Experience (CX) strategy is always based on two basic elements: Data and Content (see diagram).

Data

On the one hand, companies must make the large amounts of available data (big data) "usable". Many important data originate from our own internal systems such as CRM or ERP. BUT: The vast majority of data comes from the interaction companies have with their customers on digital channels. These are behavioral or interaction data that are 100 times greater than internal data. This behavioral or interaction data tells companies what is happening right now and they can predict what will happen. The challenge here is to consolidate internal and external data within a uniform customer profile and make it actionable in real time.

Content

The second basic element is the management and use of a large amount of content needed to deliver personalized digital experiences. This includes pictures, videos, texts and much more.....  

Adobe Experience Platform

Making data actionable and large amounts of content available is not trivial. But this is where the Adobe Experience Platform comes in. The platform organizes data from all sources, structures it into a common data model and creates a uniform profile. It also organizes the content and can deliver it within milliseconds. Data and content are therefore the basis for a successful CXM. But what are the specific tasks of each Adobe solution?  

Adobe Analytics Cloud

The Adobe Analytics Cloud enables organizations to understand behavioral and interaction data, gain insight, and segment. These findings are provided centrally in the company, used to predict business development and are the "single point of truth". In addition, the analytics tools are the common source of truth for targeting and conversion measurement.  

Adobe Advertising Cloud

The next component of CXM is brand building, awareness building and customer acquisition. The Adobe Advertisement Cloud is a platform for streamlined, programmatic ad buying across all channels to help companies find audiences and increase reach. This includes advertising measures and campaigns in the areas of paid search, display, TV, or social.  

Adobe Marketing Cloud

Once companies have attracted the attention of customers, they have to retain them. This is where Experience Management comes in. Companies get in touch with customers via all points of contact such as web, mobile, social or email and "talk" to them with one voice, i.e. with a consistent message across all channels. Regardless of whether they are B2C or B2B customers. Adobe supports with a powerful content management system and an integrated solution for marketing automation.  

Adobe Commerce Cloud

Congratulations. You have won a customer and he wants to do business with you. The Adobe Commerce Cloud takes care of order management, whether B2C, B2B or B2B2C. This can be a shopping cart transaction or the signing of a contract. In the commerce cloud, the prospect becomes the customer and post-sales activities can begin to bind the customer in the long term.  

These four pillars close the gap between data & content and the different points of contact with the customer.

Open Ecosystem

However, there is still an "empty" fifth column. The Adobe Experience Cloud is an open and extensible ecosystem that can be integrated with existing internal or third-party systems. The fifth pillar thus stands for the expandability of the platform.  

Adobe Sensei

Collecting and organizing data and content and delivering and optimizing real-time experiences is a challenging task and can occur millions of times a day in organizations. The tasks are usually designed and structured by people. However, machines can do the heavy lifting, or even take over the majority of it. To automate tasks, identify insights and proactively propose optimizations, artificial intelligence and machine learning are required. Adobe has developed an "Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning" (AI/ML) platform called Adobe Sensei especially for Experience Management, which was designed exactly for these activities (and not for chess or weather forecasts).

The interactions take place in the range of milliseconds and occur millions of times per day. Each time optimized by the findings of the last interaction. And each time, the bar is adjusted accordingly.

This is the Adobe Experience Cloud.

Summarized

 Finally, we should look at the reason why companies should invest in Adobe Experience Cloud solutions:

• Customer Experience Management is critical for the success of companies
• The correct use of the solutions has been proven to increase the conversion rate and thus the company's success.
• Customers are more satisfied, call centers are relieved
• The investment pays off and brings a rapid ROI

The bottom line

According to recent research by Gartner and Forrester, the Adobe Experience Cloud is the leading all-in-one platform for customer experience management. Each solution, such as Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manager, or Adobe Campaign, is also a leader in its category. Whether as a platform or "point solution", with Adobe (and eggs unimedia) companies are very well advised in the field of digital marketing.