CoreMedia Blog

Although many IBM customers are making the move to WebSphere Commerce v9, I've been hearing that people aren't yet utilizing everything about the new system. Because it's a big move. From optimizing servers and DevOps, to moving the code over to Java Persistence APIs (JPAs), to separating out customizations and detaching the storefront from the app server, there's a lot to do.

"Content is King" is a popular Bill Gates quote from 1996. Recently, I stumbled across an interesting article. It claimed that this quote is outdated and that you can replace content with contact: "Contact is King". The article dealt with the increasing importance of mobile communication and social media. There, the focus was clearly no longer on content.

This lesson starts with a story.Imagine you work for a medium-sized manufacturer. Your order pipeline is filled to the brim and your production department is running at full capacity for the current year. Great. There’s just one problem: When it comes to digitizing key business processes and models, your company is lagging far behind the competition, especially in the critical area of eCommerce. Problem detected!

This year I attended NRF, the National Retail Federation’s annual mega-conference in New York City. If you’ve been to NRF, you know the conference packs the Javits Center to the gills with technology companies hawking their wares to the world’s retailers. But the environment also provides an opportunity to identify trends that will define the retail landscape – and the eCommerce industry – for years to come.

Five years ago, I worked closely with CoreMedia – a company that has long been a major IBM partner – on a compelling video series to demonstrate the many integration points with IBM WebSphere Commerce. Now I'm here working at CoreMedia and I can confidently say: the integrations are still excellent and can bring new life to any eCommerce investment.

We’ve been hearing a lot of debate recently about the best way to integrate content from a CMS system into a customer-facing eCommerce system - and vice versa.Is it better to base your solution on a “dynamic” integration, where content is transferred in real-time from the source system to the head system at the exact moment it’s requested by the end user? Or is it smarter to start with a “static” integration, where all necessary content is pre-loaded from the source system to the head system on a regular schedule?

Imagine your task is this: implement a best-in-class eCommerce experience that is mobile-first, features stellar performance, and combines eCommerce functionality with inspirational content in a way that's also easy to use – enabling your marketing team to manage dozens (if not hundreds) of campaigns and promotions internationally at the same time.

I’ve been working in the eCommerce space for a while now: twice at IBM (most recently helping setting up its SmarterCommerce initiative) and also at Salmon (a specialist systems integrator that is now part of Wunderman). Now I've begun working with CoreMedia. Why? Because 1) I believe content is one of the most critical topics for 2019 (see eCommerce Trends for 2019), and 2) because I think this area is ripe for improvement.

Last month, Forrester Research released its latest Wave for Web CMS. We’re excited to be included in this year’s report: It’s a first for CoreMedia Content Cloud, and that’s reason to celebrate.We think it’s great that our strategy to deliver “The Best CMS for Commerce” is finally making an impact on the broader analyst community.

When working with customers and prospects, delivering content to different channels is always an essential requirement. So it's no surprise that when asked if they provide omnichannel channel content delivery, all vendors respond the same way: "Yes, of course. We're omnichannel out of the box".