Episerver 12 – Why upgrade?

Existing Episerver customers that are using earlier versions of the platform (prior to Episerver 11) will be restricted to on-premise solutions. Upgrading to Episerver 12 gives organisations full access to the Episerver Digital Experience Platform, a cloud-based and versatile solution that is a combination of sophisticated products and services, including:

• Episerver Content Cloud
• Episerver Commerce
• Episerver Campaign
• Episerver / Optimizely A/B testing
• Intelligence Cloud
• Episerver Customer Data Platform
• Episever / Optimizely SEO

What’s new with Episerver 12?

1. .NET Core Performance and Scalability

The first reason for upgrading to Episerver 12 is that this latest version is built on .NET 5 also called .NET Core. This gives significant performance advantages to organisations, such as it’s over 20% faster than previous versions, scalability has improved and customers can see increased performance under heavy loads.

This enhancement gives organisations several advantages:

Marketers gain:

• Faster page rendering
• A faster and more efficient authoring environment
• Latest and greatest feature enhancements

Developers gain:

• Brand new code base with access to latest technology
• Performance improvements of up to 1200% in certain part just by upgrading
• Cross platform compatibility of Windows, Linux or MacOS
• Faster build and start up times
• Improved headless support

Other benefits for organisations choosing to upgrade to Episerver 12 include:

• 4x better response times in loading
• 5-10x faster user experiences with register, login, add to cart etc.
• 3x more server request handling – more traffic, more users, more visitors

2. Headless operation

The .NET 5 rollout with Episerver 12 gives organisations the possibility of developing Headless solutions, which can be used in a variety of contexts. This means code can be written once for a variety of uses and applications making it a flexible, efficient and effective solution.

3. Streamlined content solution

The latest versions of Episerver DXC have a powerful content management solution, Episerver Content Cloud, in version 12, this has been streamlined to provide users with an even more sophisticated experience and the ability to get more from the tools available.

The CMS solution has been streamlined with:

• Extended Approval Workflows with roles, permissions or custom workflows and replies on notifications, alerts and escalations to ensure each task in a sequence is performed. Simple preview and approval links, within the multilingual context and with multiple dependencies upon different channels.
• Content Management improvements with personalised and targeted content and commerce for dynamic audience segments. Reduce time to publish with easier editing facilities
• Media Management with auto-tagging, personalisation, and fast deployment of rich media, personalisation of assets by roles etc and publish media into a high-speed Content Delivery Network to use around the world.
• Authoring and Layout improvements of a range of layouts, previews, and drag and drop functionality and on-brand content checking.

Episerver 12 is great for ROI

Episerver is a powerful technology that provides ambitious organisations with the tools they need to unlock their digital potential and achieve great results. Globally recognised market research company, Forrester was commissioned to put Episerver 12 / Optimizely Content Cloud to the test with a Total Economic Impact study. After speaking with customers who use the product the top level advantages raised were:

• The platform is more agile in responding to trends and market conditions through lack of developer involvement and ease of editors in publishing.
• Integration of content and commerce gave valuable insight into SEO rankings and attraction of new visitors to the website.
• Provision of more relevant content which leads to engagement and purchase.

The report uncovered that customers were struggling to keep digital assets fresh, relevant and engaging. They suffered from the partition of disparate content management systems and commerce systems. Now customers are finding the situation untenable with client focus and fast moving market conditions. All of this has prompted an integrated solution to be offered consisting of:

• Content management and publication
• Commerce and associated PIM and management
• Analytics showing usage of both visitor paths and purchasing patterns

Episerver 12 has provided this single stop shop with the integrated solution of Episerver 12, cloud hosted and managed and linked directly to the other commerce and analytics.

The key findings from the report

Quantifiable benefits

• Increased traffic from platform integration on average added nearly £1.4m in incremental growth over 3 years.
• Improved conversion due to better customer experience brought in almost £1.3m over 3 years.
• Simplified content deployment saved more than £88,000.
• Augmented revenue from improved site reliability avoided £262,567 loss.
• Reduced IT costs due to cloud migration £84,263.

Unquantifiable benefits

• Faster new product time to value – commercialising quicker.
• Increased confidence in site data.
• Clarification of content editor and developer roles.
• Costs
  • Licensing and support fees £714,073
  • Migration and integration totalled just over £272,119.

All of this means organisations experienced benefits of £3,938,857 over 3 years versus costs of £986,352 meaning a net present value of £2,952,505 and ROI of 299%, making Episerver 12 a very attractive investment.

Upgrade your organisation’s solution

Learn more about the latest version of Optimizely (Episerver) and how it can specifically align with your organisation by booking a demo with an accredited Optimizely Partner. We’re Ultimedia, a team of Optimizely specialists that design, build and optimise digital solutions for enterprise-level organisations. We’re proud to have the title of the UK’s first Optimizely/Episerver Implementation Partner and have been helping brands to thrive digitally since 1995 – giving our customers the assurance that their project is in safe hands.

 

Contact us today to learn more about what Optimizely is used for and to book a demo with our experts. Alternatively, find out if Optimizely is suited to your budget by using our price calculator.