Contentful, the global provider in headless content management announced its App Framework. A new standard for companies building a best-in-class digital experience stack, as opposed to buying a monolithic suite. This approach has been validated by Gartner, which found a 28-point preference for a stack over an integrated suite. Brands that assemble their own stacks maximise flexibility and agility to deliver digital experiences across channels while leveraging existing investments.
The App Framework builds on Contentful’s extensibility, which champions the “modern tech stack.” An approach to assembling a group of best-in-class services integrated with open APIs. This approach also enables brands to evolve their tech stacks to incorporate new tools. Thousands of brands are moving from legacy suites to modern platform architectures.
A new era for digital experiences
“We’re in a new era of digital experiences. Customers expect unique brand experiences across an increasing number of channels,” said Steve Sloan, CEO of Contentful. “Brands can’t keep up with this demand using monolithic, legacy CMS suites. Contentful’s App Framework enables businesses to build connected experiences with scalable apps on a unified content platform.”
When customers connect their growing portfolio of digital experience services such as optimisation, analytics, collaboration, translation, and deployment and delivery to Contentful’s content platform. As a result, they make more of both content and technology investments. That’s because App Framework lets businesses scale services programmatically, instead of one-off integrations that are hard to maintain and upgrade. This gives Contentful customers and its partner ecosystem more agility and flexibility, while strengthening governance for customers’ global content operations.
A new app framework
“We are happy to team up with Contentful. To enable customers to create seamless commerce experiences,” says Dirk Weckerlei, Global Head of Partner Management at Commercetools. “Our microservices approach, combined with Contentful’s API-first App Framework, enables brands to unify content across all their channels.”
A set of new API endpoints, libraries and blueprints make up the App Framework. These tools are designed to help developers quickly build custom apps and integrate existing services. Developing apps is made easier because customers use the open source code to build integrations and deliver digital experiences faster. Software vendors including Optimizely, Netlify and Commercetools, now offer apps on Contentful. This will help their customers to apply these services across their entire organisation.
The number of companies using this technology is growing. Contentful says it has the largest technology and solutions partner ecosystem among headless CMS providers. In addition to technology partners including third-party SaaS companies, Contentful partners with agencies such as EPAM, AKQA and Publicis Sapient. With the App Framework, tech partners can connect their services with the Contentful platform and equip customers with new capabilities. Meanwhile, solution partners can build richer digital experiences for brands by creating custom apps to service or resell to their clients.
“Brands need to maintain a luxury digital experience across numerous channels. This is only possible with a content platform that’s extensible and modular,” said Om Singh, Head of Engineering, Nordic at Publicis Sapient. “We recommend Contentful to clients because it will easily integrate with commerce solutions, digital displays or any future customer touchpoint.”
Enterprise Times: What this means for business?
Increasingly, headless commerce is becoming pretty much mainstream. Organisations are attracted to the concept of how an API-first content, commerce or marketing solution can enhance customer experience. Whether re-platforming, re-designing websites, or planning to go headless, many businesses are looking to pull together their digital experiences. They intend to use platforms in a more agile, decoupled front-end and better way to deliver targeted experiences faster. Contentful is in a good position in the marketplace. It’s a major player in headless content management. The company powers digital experiences for 28% of the Fortune 500 and thousands of leading global brands. This should enable enterprises to deliver omnichannel digital experiences with greater speed and scale than with a traditional CMS.
