About the Episode

I’m excited to talk with my guest today on a special episode brought to you by The Office of Experience, a design-driven, digital-first, vertically integrated and collaborative agency that believes in the power of ideas and the strength of people.

Today we’re going to talk about demystifying platform selection and how taking the right approach enables better strategic alignment, streamlined integration, and a better customer experience.

To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Bryan Jones, CTO and Cara Bourdage, Director of Product at The Office of Experience.

About Bryan Jones

With over 20 years of platform development, marketing services and global management experience, Bryan simplifies the complex into concrete actions.

His knowledge of multi-channel development and emerging technologies enables him to lead clients on best practices across multiple platforms, applications and programming languages.

Bryan’s vast content and commerce architecture and implementation experience spans many leading platforms such as AEM, Sitecore, Drupal, ATG, WCS and Magento as well as custom solutions on .NET and LAMP stack frameworks.

Prior to joining OX, Bryan led the Global Technology practice at The Marketing Store, delivering experiences for McDonald’s, Nissan and T-Mobile in addition to his previous client work on Volvo, Blizzard Entertainment, Dyson and ResMed.

About Cara Bourdage

As Director of Product, Cara digs deep to understand and gather functional requirements for projects and ensures all stakeholder needs are met.

Cara has been a product owner/business analyst and project manager for over 15 years, working at agencies large and small to strategically implement digital products for Coca-Cola, Oscar de la Renta, GM, and other Fortune 500 companies.

Specializing in full-scale B2C and B2B eCommerce builds, she helps her clients translate their current processes into standardized, modern digital solutions.

Her natural curiosity leads to asking a lot of questions. Cara believes the answers reveal opportunities to refine processes into their most simplified and scalable form.

Resources

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The Office of Experience website: https://www.officeofexperience.com

The Agile Brand podcast website: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/theagilebrandpodcast

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Synopsis

In this episode, the speakers discuss the importance of successfully adopting new platforms and how it can optimize operations and reduce maintenance time for organizations, allowing them to focus more on sales. They emphasize the significance of selecting the right platform and suggest considering key features and requirements to achieve these benefits. By identifying the most important features that drive revenue and minimize customization needs, organizations can streamline processes and enhance efficiency. This enables them to allocate more time and resources to sales and growth.

The speakers also highlight the need to consider both the end customer experience and the internal customer experience. They emphasize that if the teams using the platforms cannot effectively utilize them, it will hinder their ability to serve the end customers. Therefore, successful platform adoption should aim for a win-win situation where both internal and external customers benefit.

The episode emphasizes that digital transformation should be approached as a top-down exercise, requiring alignment and buy-in from senior executives. It is crucial for all key stakeholders to share the same vision and work towards common goals to ensure a cohesive and effective digital transformation initiative. Additionally, involving employees who will be working with the new tools or platform on a daily basis is equally important. Their feedback should be sought early and often to understand what is currently working and what improvements they would like to see.

The episode also stresses the importance of cultural fit when selecting an implementation partner. While expertise and capabilities are important, having a positive working relationship with the partner, even during disagreements and challenges, is crucial. The ability to handle tough situations professionally and respectfully is essential for a successful partnership. Collaboration and finding solutions together when things go wrong are also mentioned as important factors to consider. Cultural fit and the ability to work well together should be evaluated when choosing an implementation partner.