Major trends in the digital experience platform market unlocked

Chief Digital Officer of SilverTech, Jeff McPherson, and Chief Technology Officer, Derek Barka, recently sat down with our CEO, Dominik Pinter to discuss the future of the digital experience platform (DXP) market and where Kentico fits in.

Watch the webinar recording and unlock the major trends that are hitting the market and their impact on Kentico’s roadmap:

Video not your thing? Here's a rundown of the hot topics that were discussed between Kentico and digital experience agency, SilverTech: 

The future of the DXP market

The conversation kicked off with Dominik sharing the major trends he sees in the DXP market in 2022 due to the difficult economic environment and what companies need to do to keep up.

1) Lack of staff is accelerating the need for artificial intelligence

With tightening budgets and resources being cut left, right, and center, organizations simply don’t have the number of employees they need to get the job done. It’s therefore imperative that the employees they do have are supported by tools that help them get more done in less time. When teams are supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), many repetitive day-to-day tasks can be handled automatically, freeing up employees time to get on with more important tasks.

Dominik says that, while almost every solution out there is busy touting their AI offering, there really are only a few use cases where it actually makes sense to bring AI into the mix, and assisting employees in doing what they need to do is one of them.

2) API-first is no longer a first concern

The emergence of headless technology was revolutionary. By building technologies to be API-first, organizations attained the unprecedented flexibility to build the exact solution they needed to support their specific and unique processes. Developers had free reign to do whatever they wanted. It’s no wonder so many companies jumped on the bandwagon.

The snag was that headless technology didn’t really empower marketers to be much more self-sufficient. Sure, they could play around with how their content looked without breaking the backend (a benefit not to be underestimated), but they couldn’t spin up landing pages or microsites with the ease or speed they desired.

Besides which, this level of flexibility came at a cost—both in terms of technology and talent. Coming out of a pandemic and heading toward a rather bleak forecast, the API-first route is simply no longer worth it.

This is not to suggest that headless is dead or that API-first isn’t a phenomenally powerful approach (especially for very large websites or organizations requiring very specific functionality), but it’s just not as accessible to the masses as perhaps it once was and the masses need a new solution to their problem.

3) Developer-less companies require more self-sufficiency tools

In many cases, developers are essential to extracting the value from an organization’s technology stack. They’re required to do everything from implementing the new platform, performing the required integrations, and assisting in-house teams with their daily jobs, like building workflows, and launching email campaigns. Requiring a developer to execute these tasks is an instant blocker to success. Especially when there is no such developer on hand. (Developers don’t come cheap, and most companies don’t have any in-house.)

Companies therefore need the tools that enable their non-technical users to do their job without having to involve developers. And this is where the low-code, no-code approach comes in. Low-code development allows everyday users without coding knowledge to address their own app development needs, while low-code development enables IT professionals with some coding skills to build custom applications.

By bringing down the level of skill a user needs to achieve their desired outcome, low-code, no-code democratizes development and puts power into the hands of key stakeholders. Is the result going to be as good as had a developer worked on it? No. But instead of the request sitting in an overwhelmed developer’s backlog for months on end, the marketing team can spin up something highly appropriate and capitalize on the kind of speed and relevance that makes a big difference.

So how will these trends impact Kentico’s roadmap?

Having laid out the trends in the DXP market, Dominik then shared how the evolving needs of organizations will be reflected in Kentico’s roadmap over the next couple of years.

1) Kentico is investing a lot of resources into developing its low-code, no-code capabilities in order to empower non-technical business users to do the things they need to do quickly, efficiently, and well. So you can expect to see many more drag-and-drop interfaces and reusable widgets.

2) We’re capturing the best of both worlds with our hybrid approach to the API-first vs. self-sufficiency conundrum. By ensuring a great API so that developers can do the things they want to do as well as the tools that empower marketers to do the things they need to do, Kentico embraces both approaches to success.

3) Our focus is also sharpening on enhanced automation of processes and finding useful and appropriate ways of wrapping real business use cases in AI, so that it actively adds value to the life of everyday business users.

4) Kentico is moving away from a web-first world and strengthening its embrace of the multichannel. We’re investing a lot of our resources into ensuring our solution is truly multi-experience—making sure we cover all channels, both from a publishing and analysis perspective, and that users really can craft meaningful multi-channel engagements.

What makes Kentico stand out in the DXP market?

When asked about Kentico’s main differentiators, Dominik listed:

1) We excel at total cost of ownership and faster time to market

Compared to the rest of the DXP market, Kentico delivers exceptional time to value thanks to our own seamlessly integrated apps, making for a much faster time to market than most other solutions—just a few months. And our total cost of ownership is much lower, too, with transparent licensing fees that come in at a fraction of the cost of other key players, especially when you factor in the cost of other platforms’ inefficiencies that mount up every step of the way.

“In three to six months, you have the project launched and you immediately see the benefit. So that's definitely something where [sic] I believe we always excel. And it's not just thanks to us—thanks to the product—it’s also because of companies like yourself [SilverTech] and because of the amazing ecosystem around Kentico.” – Dominik Pinter, CEO, Kentico

2) Kentico is not just a product, but an ecosystem

Dominik explained that while the Kentico platform is awesome, it’s not actually the best thing about us. Kentico provides a whole host of added-value services to its customers and partners, such as world-class support, consultation, training, and certifications (for developers and marketers). We hold a very popular annual conference, called Kentico Connection, which brings together our partners and clients for a period of learning, sharing, and growing, and we hold competitions for the best sites of the month and year to ensure the Kentico community is always engaged and constantly learning from the best.

“And I think that this is a really great combination. That we … deliver real value for better money than what other guys in the market do.” – Dominik Pinter, CEO, Kentico Software

The SilverTech and Kentico partnership

It was great for Dominik to be able to spend time with Jeff and Derek at SilverTech. The highly successful digital agency has grown exponentially over the past decade since partnering with Kentico and its team consists of more than a dozen certified Kentico developers and marketers who have developed and launched more than a hundred websites powered by Kentico, winning Kentico ‘Site of the Year’ and numerous ‘Sites of the Month’ for its work across multiple industries.

Interested in learning more about Kentico’s future? Check out our vision or reach out to one of our experts to talk more about what’s next and see how we can help you.