DXP That More Than Pays for Itself—The Economic Value of Improved Integrations

Extending the DXP capabilities of CMS with integrations to solutions like e-commerce, HR systems, chat, etc. is vital. Learn more about the cost savings with improved integrations.

Forrester Research is considered by some as the King of ROI Analysis, and its Total Economic Impact (TEI) reports are the gold standard for objectively evaluating the benefit of specific technologies.

Recently, Forrester analyzed the economic payoff from a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP)—Progress Sitefinity. The data was not just guesswork and supposition, but based on in-depth interviews with Sitefinity customers that detailed the economic returns.

At its highest level, The Total Economic Impact of Progress Sitefinity Digital Experience Platform report found that Sitefinity offers a rather remarkable 245% Return on Investment with a 13-month payback. That is some serious payback. But in this blog, we focus on the specific value of integrations, and point to the overall report for a broader view.

First, let’s get our definitions in order. So, what is Sitefinity? To cite the paper, “Sitefinity is a digital experience platform as a service (PaaS) that allows organizations to optimize their collection, management, and delivery of content through real-time metrics, improved collaboration, and streamlined, automated content creation and distribution features. With Sitefinity, enterprises can present measurable, effective content to improve engagement in a more efficient, collaborative manner.”

Alright, so what are these integrations you are talking about? I personally would argue that integrations are what extends a Content Management Systems (CMS) into a DXP by allowing it to talk to and exchange data with key applications such as e-commerce, ERPs, HR systems, chat, etc. Let’s let Forrester take it from here and explain the productivity gains from improved DXP integrations.

“Sitefinity allows organizations to integrate with other internal applications, enabling users to update and share different types of content, including non-web, internally facing reports and documents. As an example, one interviewee mentioned that due to enhanced integrations, their organization is now able to integrate with a multilingual, machine translation application, which provides considerable efficiencies. Instead of waiting a week for the translator to turn around content, the automated integration provides the machine translation in minutes,” Forrester found. “Productivity gains from improved integrations are worth more than a risk-adjusted PV of $1.6 million over three years.”

Integrations are nearly unlimited thanks to the power of APIs. “Sitefinity’s APIs further allowed users to integrate information with external applications, allowing the composite organization to automatically standardize and share internal, non-web content that would require weeks to update, approve, and distribute in its previous environment,” Forrester noted.

Integrations allows the website to include more functionality, supporting services a basic CMS wouldn’t be able to. At the same time, it increases the productivity of those that feed content into the website. “Streamlining and centralizing the delivery of new internal, non-web content gave organizational teams a single, reliable location to upload, retrieve, and share content updates with all internal users with permissions,” Forrester noted.

One Sitefinity customer interviewed by Forrester agreed. “We now have one central place in the DXP interface where people can update information, and, with Sitefinity’s API integrations, that information is updated automatically throughout the entire organization,” commented a technical director interviewed by Forrester.

Another customer found integrations improved their content lifecycle processes. “Manually distributing documents for review and approval was no longer required due to Sitefinity’s streamlined, automated process. Web teams were able to access and work on a project in one location,” one interviewee noted. “With the integrated workflows, we can create content twice as fast.”

Sitefinity’s content templates allowed the web team to realize additional efficiencies. Team members could access, view, and update information without having to recreate entire documents.

Two Powerful Integration Customer Examples

A website that doesn't talk to anything is basically useless these days. The really cool features emerge when that website via the DXP talks with an array of useful third-party applications.

“The ability to integrate with other technologies within your company is likely to be a key success factor. Find out how easily you can connect with the rest of your MarTech stack, for example CRM, marketing automation and ecommerce platforms, and whether there are standard APIs or more complicated customization requirements,” argued the The CMS Vendor Selection Guide based on data from London Research. “Look too at how straightforward it is to connect to the systems used by other departments, such as sales, supply chain management or BI. It’s also important to see what level of integration is required with the systems used by your partners or agencies.”

Best Western GB (Great Britain)

Best Western GB (Great Britain) may be 53 years old, but its web thinking is as fresh as anyone. With over 260 hotels, Best Western GB knows success. But the hotel business is as competitive as it gets, and COVID made the fight for customers fiercer than ever. And while Best Western GB is a good size hotel chain, it is dwarfed by industry giants with deep pockets. “They have huge budgets and are moving incredibly fast. If we’re not moving forward, they’ll get ahead of us.” noted Chris Bowling, Senior Digital Manager, Best Western Hotels GB.

Today Best Western GB has a crucial advantage over rivals—a killer web site. That wasn’t always the case.

The hotel chain wanted to change its image from a bit stodgy and catering to older travelers to attracting a younger, hipper audience. The web site needed that cool factor. “We’re seen as a very mid-market brand catering to slightly older travelers, and that isn’t true anymore,” said Bowling. “We wanted a fresh look to appeal to a younger audience as we now have a whole suite of Best Western brands that cover lodging from economy all the way up to 5-star.”

The answer was a new website based Sitefinity from Progress.

While personalization and multichannel support were important, so was integration. The new site was deeply integrated with the main Best Western International platform to automate the booking process from within the web site. To serve valuable repeat customers, the site connects to the Best Western Rewards loyalty program, syncing the program’s discounts and benefits to Reward members’ booking experience. Finally, the website integrates all 250-plus hotels which sync their data nightly to the website, so customer offerings and hotel information are always up to date.

The business returns keep rolling in, some due to easier checkout. “When we redeveloped the checkout process, we had an improvement of 30% in conversions from redoing the UX. That is a huge change.” said Rehan.

The website is fundamentally changing Best Western GB’s business, and attracting new partners. “We’re starting to see an influx of hotels wanting to join the brand,” said Great Western’s Bowling. “We’ve crossed 300 so far, which is massive for us. And we’re starting to see more investor groups bringing 10 hotels at a time, 30 hotels at a time and that’s just something we could never done with our old brand image. This has the potential to really help grow the company.”

Dublin Airport

Airline customers are a demanding crowd. When they want information, they need it now and they don't have time to work hard to get it. An airport’s website is critical to meeting these needs. That means the website must gather and present data from array of sources, from flight information to parking lot billing, ticketing, and ticket status, online payments—the list is as long as an airport runway.

Easy mobile access was another goal. Airline customers want information from whatever device they happen to be using, such as mobile phone, PC and laptop. In fact, mobile is one of the most common ways of accessing the website and many of the transactions happen right on the phone.

Dublin Airport wanted its website to be as welcoming as the country itself. “Dublin Airport has a unique position in the hearts and minds of people in Ireland,” said Sinead Quish, Head of Consumer and Digital Marketing, Dublin Airport, “It’s often the first hello and the last goodbye. So, there are many emotional experiences happening at the Airport.”

Already a Sitefinity customer since 2010, Dublin Airport didn’t have to create an all-new website, just add integrations and other cool DXP features to the one they already had. Part of this was reigning in a gaggle of micro-sites and making them mobile-first. At the time, the airport consolidated four legacy corporate websites into one integrated, passenger-friendly experience.

In fact, going beyond mobile to full-on Omnichannel delivery is the real pinnacle. “In the context of a CMS, this means the ability to deliver your content seamlessly across different channels and devices—such as email, social, and mobile apps—via APIs. Other specific attributes here could include marketing campaign automation, the ability to schedule and deliver newsletters, the ability to embed social feed and to publish directly to social platforms,” The CMS Vendor Selection Guide said.

Third party integrations include tying to APIs managing flight information—including arrivals and departures, booking parking, and fast tracking through airport security and lounges. Meanwhile, Sitefinity tied into the airport’s multi-campaign marketing platform.

The results are in. Dublin Airport gained big page traffic increases and referrals to third-party booking systems. Mobile traffic increased from 65% of all average monthly traffic to nearly 75%, a testament to the improved mobile experience. The Airport Club for frequent fliers has grown with the new omnichannel experience, with mobile revenue nearly 40%.

“We now have an integrated digital ecosystem because of our mobile-first dublinairport.com, key marketing database and app integrations and Sitefinity. It’s revolutionized how we communicate with customers,” explained Quish.

Get the Full Sitefinity ROI Skinny

The Forrester TEI report shows Sitefinity can deliver a 245% ROI and details an array of savings and business benefits enabled by the Sitefinity Digital Experience Platform.

Digital is the new directive for businesses across the globe. In fact, according to a survey conducted among business leaders, close to 80% said they had a top-down mandate to turn digital into a competitive differentiator, and 48% even called it an “urgent” priority.

For any business under immense pressure to drive digital transformation, a digital experience platform (DXP) can be an invaluable asset. However, with many modern marketers forced to justify every expense, they also need to keep their budget in mind and choose a platform that provides a return on investment.

Progress Sitefinity offers the best of both worlds—a powerful, easy-to-use DXP that helps deliver measurable results. Forrester recently conducted a study into the total economic impact of Sitefinity and concluded that customers could see an ROI of 245%.

See how real-world businesses are using Sitefinity to drive their digital ambitions—and how you can do the same:

• Improve integration capacity with key external applications
• Drive digital delivery efficiency with a centralized platform approach
• Deliver an intuitive, marketer-friendly UI that frees IT for critical projects

Read The Total Economic Impact of Progress Sitefinity Digital Experience Platform report now.