Is Your Tech Stack Standing In The Way Of Your Success?

Your business potential and technology needs (should) go hand in hand. 

You can plan business outcomes all you want, but if they’re not mapped strategically to the technology you need to actually make them happen, you’ll fail. Easy as that. 

Based on the size and complexity of your business you’ll have different approaches to ensuring that your capabilities match up to your ambitions. But, there are a few core steps to planning a technology strategy no matter where you’re starting from. In fact, as we begin planning for 2021, these are the key questions business leaders across the company should have top of mind, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Start with where you are...

You can’t plan for what’s possible unless you know where you stand right now. Meaningful growth simply doesn’t happen without a viable plan. Just like any journey, you need both start and endpoints based on your unique business needs and goals. A full audit is necessary to be fully aware of your current capabilities. This is where we can help you and your team evaluate, compare functionalities against business needs, and offer recommendations you can trust.

Then figure out where you want to be

What are the big, audacious goals guiding your way?  It’s critical to identify and build a deep understanding of what your business drivers are. This involves preliminary conversations that will not only highlight objectives but also align them with the best solutions to deliver results. 

What’s your competitive advantage

Have your unique advantage articulated so that you can rely on a mutual understanding, business-wide, of how you can stand apart and what that looks like to both you and your customer. 

How can technology bring your competitive advantage to life?

We talk a lot about digital disruption and how to embrace and prepare for it. In 2020, COVID-19 brought the disruption right to us – whether we were ready for it or not. With your audience’s digital expectations accelerated, this key question has never been more crucial. To maintain a truly customer-centric experience, leveling up the digital preparedness across your organization is critical.

Can the tech you’re currently using meet the challenge?

Advance warning for the end-of-life of Drupal 7 and 8 support gives us a rare opportunity to be ready and prepared for an impending digital need before it happens. Pivot planning, agile digital planning, contingencies, and simplified production processes will make sure you have the flexibility already built into your system to support rapid changes. 

With more aspects of the customer journey relying on digital touchpoints, creating valuable digital experiences is business-critical. This Drupal 9 update supports developing smarter workflows, delivering better experiences, creating a central content repository, and more. Migrating to Drupal 9 sooner rather than later will give you increased flexibility and access to all of these critical business-boosting capabilities. 

Change is already here. Are you ready?

Drupal 9 was launched in June 2020. It marks a new beginning for the platform with a host of key upgrades. Tech support for Drupal 7 will end entirely in November 2022 and Drupal 8 in November 2021. While it might feel like lots of time, it’s right around the corner from a tech adoption perspective. The benefits of migrating to Drupal 9 far outweigh remaining on the outdated versions. 

For customer-centric organizations, holding off on the switch to Drupal 9 leaves the door wide open for multiple challenges across security, integration, and more. Delaying migration today will put your customer experience at risk tomorrow. Need help evaluating your CMS? I recently published the white paper, Migrate & Exceed CXpectatons, with insights on the right questions to ask while identifying your unique needs and building migration roadmaps that fit them. Grab your copy now.