At Codehouse, we don't just upgrade Sitecore websites for the sake of it. We discuss upgrade paths with our customers and identify the business benefits associated with a Sitecore upgrade.
To give you a small taster, we’ve compiled an overview of what Sitecore’s latest versions offer, together with a short business case for upgrading to Sitecore 9.x.
Version 9 and 9.1, and all preceding Sitecore versions, are 'headless' - a mainstay feature separating content and presentation.
A glimpse into Sitecore 9
Sitecore 9 has two stand out features.
Sitecore Cortex (active in Version 9.1) harnesses machine learning technology to generate and predict actionable and optimised insights on visitor behaviour, providing recommendations to marketers on how to improve user journeys.
Sitecore’s integration feature xConnect, is an out-of-the-box service layer that exposes a web API end-point, making integration much easier. It allows developers to integrate Sitecore with a raft of third-party technologies like CRM, ERP, POS, mobile apps, store beacons, wearables, IoT devices, and more.
Updates introduce improved editing capabilities, anonymisation for GDPR compliance, integrated forms UI, enhanced marketing automation UI, additional xConnect APIs, and a new Update Centre application.
Sitecore 9 business benefits:
- Improvement of user journeys and personalisation can hasten the achievement of business and digital goals
- Full integration of email marketing, forms, and CRM can deliver a fully automated marketing programme
- Integration fluidity between Sitecore and third-party technologies streamlines data exchange and stops systems being in silos
- Marketing departments can gain greater actionable insights from real-time data and react accordingly to stay ahead of the game
- ‘Right to be forgotten’ compliance with GDPR means your business doesn’t fall foul of regulations
What about Sitecore 9.1?
Sitecore version 9.1 is on a different level. Naturally all the goodies from version 9 remain and with the additional enhancements:
- Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS)
- Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SxA)
- Improved architecture
- Enhanced ‘marchitecture’ capabilities
- Better analytics
- Single sign on (SSO) with federated authentication
- Horizon User Interface (UI)
The most visible difference is the all-new slick Horizon UI. With a new Launchpad, improved dashboards, better content editing capabilities and more goodies for marketers, Horizon heralds a new era in Sitecore usability and insights.
The business benefits of Sitecore 9.1 mirror version 9’s - but with some (tweaked) and added scenarios.
Sitecore 9.1 business benefits:
- Improved editing capabilities and dashboard with Horizon UI enables better visibility of metrics and quicker content creation
- Compliance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) gives visitors unhindered access to your website from various devices
- Efficient deployment capabilities with fewer resources can potentially save you time and money
- Greater scalability potential can reduce long-term costs and could future-proof your solution
- App development in headless environment has potential savings on development costs
If that isn't enough reason to consider an upgrade and to future-proof your Sitecore website, what about ensuring Sitecore mainstream support is maintained? Ask us about when Sitecore mainstream support for your version of Sitecore expires.
Want to talk?
Whatever your reason for upgrading to Sitecore 9.x - and we think there are a lot of good reasons - we have the experience and knowledge to guide and advise you through the upgrade process. Thinking about going to the cloud, then we can help there too be that Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS.
Why stop at Sitecore 9.1? Glance over the benefits of Sitecore 9.2, and learn what's new in Sitecore 9.3.
