Three weeks ago, Acquia reached a major milestone. Gartner released its annual Web Content Management Magic Quadrant, and for the first time, Acquia made the coveted Leaders quadrant. This is a huge accomplishment for Acquia, and makes everyone here extremely proud to work for such an amazing company.
Since Gartner does a Magic Quadrant report for both WCM and Commerce, commerce execs may pay little attention to the WCM report. I’m here to tell you - that’s a mistake. The lines between commerce and content are blurring, and commerce professionals need to be paying attention to what’s happening in content.
The commerce landscape is changing. New, digitally native brands like Houzz, Bonobos and Thrillist are changing customer expectations through their content-rich commerce experiences. Consumers are now expecting great brand experiences and user generated content embedded into the shopping flow, instead of simply living on separate-but-equal brand sites (what Forrester calls the “Two Site Syndrome”). Traditional B2C and B2B commerce are struggling to keep up with these evolving expectations, and every day these expectations increase, making it even more challenging to keep up.
In the weeks since the release of the Gartner report, I’ve witnessed the momentum shift among buyers who've beat a path to our door. They’re seeking to build great brand experiences, and not just for their content sites. The Web Content Management Magic Quadrant is hugely impactful to the commerce market as well as content-pure-plays.
Last month Gartner released its Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce and the stats they open with are staggering:
- By 2018, 70% of e-commerce will move from B2C and B2B models to models that focus on the individual customer experience
- By 2018, organizations that have fully invested in all types of online personalization will outsell companies that have not by more than 30%