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Oracle is venturing into challenging waters by going head-to-head with industry leader Adobe and several others when it comes to CX, also known as “customer experience.” Of course, challenges in numerous markets haven’t scared off Oracle in the past.
The database giant on April 26 launched its Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, a so-called “digital experience” platform that enables organizations to manage and deliver content to any digital channel in order to initiate engagements with customers, partners and employees.
The cloud-based content hub allows organizations to create and distribute content in a meaningful way to improve brand engagement and customer growth and retention.
The announcement was made at the Modern Marketing Experience conference in Las Vegas. Adobe launched its own “Experience Cloud” running on Microsoft Azure last month, also in Las Vegas.
According to the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant report (September 2016) for the web content management system sector, Adobe, Sitecore and Acquia are No. 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Oracle is ranked No. 6.
Oracle Has Been in the CMS Business for Years
While Oracle certainly is involved in a lot of markets, most people don’t think of the company as being a go-to vendor for content management, although it’s been cited in the Gartner quadrants.
“Oracle has been in the content management business for more than a decade,” David Le Strat, Oracle Senior Director of Product Management, told eWEEK. “We’ve taken our learnings from that and we are creating a cloud-native suite of capabilities under that Content and Experience Cloud Brand.”
As we’ve cited numerous times here in the pages of eWEEK, the amount of data and other types of content (documents, photos, videos, and so on) that enterprises have to use and store on a daily basis is ramping up so fast that IT people are constantly scrambling for ways to handle storage, security and access.
Companies now are using their images, video and documents in web, video, print and mobile app use cases and are seeking to make them available to customers and potential customers is the most efficient manner possible. Systems like Oracle’s and others provide this delivery method.
What Exactly Is a ‘Headless’ CMS?
“There’s a lot of talk in this business about the notion of a ‘headless CMS,’ and that can be great, but for business users, you need a head (or administrative view into the content),” Le Strat said. “So having a formational set of capabilities that enable the management and delivery of content in an endless way, combined with tools that enable the business to control the experience, is really what we’re trying to achieve here.”
A headless CMS doesn’t tie the content to any single way of doing things. It uses an API to tie the data to the CMS and releases content automatically into various channels.
As part of the Oracle Cloud Platform, Content and Experience Cloud provides a single cloud-native platform for content production, management and delivery across all lines of business. It supports a variety of business needs, from employee and customer engagement, to sales enablement and business development.
Key capabilities include:
Content Collaboration: Enables collaboration on content internally and with external teams. Users can discuss, share and annotate content with mobile access, anywhere, any time.
Centralized Content Hub: Provides a single content hub to create, share, manage and publish content to any channel, including business documents, digital assets, user-generated content and web content.
Consistent Omni-Channel Experience: Uses APIs to deliver engaging experiences across any channel.
Enhanced Enterprise Applications with Content: Manages content from within enterprise applications and enhances application experience.
The CX is a tough nut for many companies to crack, because users in general have little or no patience for a website or application that’s late for the train. They simply move on to something else that works to their satisfaction.
“Everyone expects to have a seamless experience across channels,” said IDC analyst Melissa Webster. “Enterprises need the ability to unlock content from existing systems and drive native cloud content production to publish across any channels. This helps organizations deliver consistent omni-channel experiences for their customers and build brand advocates.”
Oracle Content and Experience Cloud plugs into the Oracle Customer Experience Cloud Suite, a suite of cloud applications that enable organizations to take a more sophisticated approach to customer experience management.
The Content and Experience Cloud also integrates with a number of other Oracle Cloud Platform services, including Oracle Process Cloud, Oracle Mobile Cloud and Oracle Integration Cloud. Together this can be used for managing content operations, data integration, complex workflow management and mobile and marketing automation capabilities.
To view a YouTube video about the CE Cloud, go here.
For more information, go here.