Back in 2021, Sitecore made their biggest strategic announcement for around a decade and ushered in the era of their composable DXP. 

Up until then the key go to market message for Sitecore was the delivery of the entire DXP in a single platform. That is why you went for Sitecore - why buy separate CMS, email marketing, ecommerce, personalisation, etc. when you could get them all in a single platform? Virtually every Sitecore presentation included the duck picture 'composed' of various bits of string, wire, buttons and things - in other words not a duck and a metaphor for the competition. Next was a picture of a beautiful, one assumes Danish, mallard. 

It sounded like a strategy u-turn, but in reality was far more an acceptance of the truth. Sitecore has nearly always been part of a composable DXP, integrated with marketing automation platforms, ecommerce, etc. Now you can choose Sitecore's 'best-of-breed' CMS and follow a 'best-of-breed' approach with other parts of your Martech stack where required. Yes, tighter 'out-of-the-box' integration is potentially available with Sitecore's wider offerings but it has always been a great platform to integrate with so this wasn't a blocker in the past. 

The Sitecore DXP continues to expand, with recent announcements including the addition of Generative AI (we also offer our own version), but as either a current customers or someone on the cusp of a platform decision, what does it mean for you? 

For current customers it comes down to what within your Sitecore platform you rely on. If you are using Sitecore largely as a CMS then it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference - you already face some interesting decisions if an upgrade or rebuild is on the cards. If an upgrade or rebuild is not urgent, then you have a bit to room to let things play out and then take a view. 

Questions arise if you utilise Sitecore's native personalisation, email or commerce capabilities. If these are working well then you have a little while before you have to make decisions about migrating to the new additions in the Sitecore stable or indeed, looking elsewhere. The challenge comes if these are not working well for you, as the cost of stabilising these elements may be harder to justify given the end may be in sight for these products. If that is the case then it is almost certainly rebuild time, and moving to one of the new Sitecore acquisitions (which let's not forget all have a proven record out in the market) may appeal. You also have the wider Martech world to consider, that being the point of a composable DXP. 

If you are on the cusp of a platform decision then the single platform is irrelevant and you are looking straight into the new world of Sitecore. There is XM Cloud, Sitecore's SaaS CMS offering or the Sitecore Managed Cloud. Also many still want to manage their own hosting relationships, be it with Azure, AWS or something else. Personalisation is emerging from Gartner's 'trough of disillusionment' and finally up the 'slope of enlightenment'. It continues to be a key topic and XM Cloud's native session-based personalisation is a great way to get started. 

There were always advantages and disadvantages to the single platform approach, just as there are with the composable approach. For every 'one throat to choke' their tends to be the equivalent 'all your eggs in one basket'. However compelling the single platform approach appeared, the real news is how many organisations have struggled to realise its benefits. This is largely an organisational challenge and not a product one, which we help address through our 'Experience Engine' - not necessarily specific to Sitecore this can be applied to any mix of technologies, to any DXP, however composable.  

While we have seen success in delivering personalised experiences using Sitecore's native capabilities the challenges have been mounting up. Evolving legislation, the impending changes to cookies, disparate data sources, performance at scale... either Sitecore's Experience Database needed to evolve or it was acquisition time. Ultimately it is in the Boxever acquisition, now Sitecore Personalise/CDP, and the acceptance of the composable DXP approach, that Sitecore's customers may finally find enlightenment. 

A version of this article was first published in 2021 - this is an updated version.