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Making the most out of Sitecore Symposium 2019

After working on our plans for Sitecore Symposium 2019 for months, it’s hard to believe that Symposium is next week! Looking at the agenda for Sitecore’s event of the year, there are dozens of amazing learning opportunities, which could quickly lead to paralysis by analysis.

Don't get paralysis by analysis at Sitecore Symposium 2019

Never fear! After years spent honing our Sitecore craft and working with clients, our XCentium team is pretty attune to what Sitecore users are needing to learn. Our team and our clients have been putting in extra hours to create the best content to help you make the most of your time at Sitecore Symposium. I am so proud of my coworkers – and thankful for our clients - as they have literally put together content for every category of Sitecore user. In addition to speaking to these topics, we are happy to meet privately for a complimentary consultation to help you leverage your Sitecore investment. A sampling of the topics we will be speaking on include [Making the Case for your Sitecore Project]( the case for your Sitecore Project#Making), Simplifying Sitecore and Sitecore SaaS, [Digital Strategy and Personalization]( Strategy and Personalization#Digital), [DevOps]( and DevOps#Sitecore), and [Women of Sitecore: Building Your Tribe at Symposium.]( of Sitecore: Building your tribe at Symposium#Women) Prefer to meet one on one to discuss these items? Schedule a time that best fits your Symposium agenda at this link.

Making the Case for Your Sitecore Project

Putting the “R” in ROI: How the New England Biolabs exceptional customer journey pays dividends

Who’s Speaking: Steve Miller, Partner at XCentium. Tanya Waldroup, Associate Director of Marketing Technologies, New England Biolabs.

When It’s Happening: Thursday, Nov. 7, 10:45 AM, at the Southern Hemisphere 3, Dolphin

What it’s About: The New England Biolabs mission is to be the leading voice in genomic research. Join us to learn how NEB leveraged Sitecore to optimize their customer experience through the whole journey, from selection to technical support and design, which led to NEB being awarded the 2018 Life Sciences Industry Award for “Most Useful Website.” This session also explores how the byproducts of an exceptional customer journey include increased sales and enhance gross margins.

Why I am Excited: Any marketer or IT pro who wants to revamp their website solution(s) knows the biggest challenge is selling their idea upstream to senior leaders and the C-suite. This session shows you exactly how to do that by walking through practical examples of what a 1-2% increase in sales looks like both for the bottom line and the overall value of the company. Tanya Waldroup of New England Biolabs shares how she revamped NEB’s website from lackluster to award winning – and the dividends it has paid. Commerce and business expert, Steve Miller from XCentium, will also share how focusing on both the bottom line and company value will help you turn heads with senior leaders. Bonus? Steve is pretty darn funny too!

Show me the ROI at Sitecore Symposium

Simplifying Sitecore

Simplifying Sitecore for Midsize Organizations: How to achieve your digital goals

Who’s Speaking: Matt Kloss, Vice President of Client Services at XCentium. Jeff Dusing, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing and Content at  WillScot.

When It’s Happening: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 11:35 AM in the Southern Hemisphere 1, Dolphin.

What It’s About: Mid-market organizations face similar challenges as larger organizations, but they need to optimize budget, resources, and existing technology investments to achieve their goals. In this session, we will address how these organizations can leverage Sitecore to create an enterprise-class digital customer experience and stay competitive.

Why I’m excited: Sitecore is an incredibly powerful tool when leveraged correctly. However, with marketing and IT teams being asked to do more with less, it can truly feel overwhelming. I am excited for Matt and Jeff to share their battle-worn strategies on how teams can simplify Sitecore so that we can get to “stage 2” faster and unlock Sitecore’s valuable personalization engine.

Get SaaS-y with Sitecore: Building Robust front-end solutions fast and easily

Who’s Speaking: Uy Tran, Sitecore MVP and Product Development Director at XCentium. Andrew Aponte, Senior Front-End Developer at XCentium.

When It’s Happening: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1:30 PM at the Osprey in the Swan.

What It’s About: Do you want Sitecore without the worries of heavy development, infrastructure, up-time, patching, and upgrades? Join XCentium to learn how the company leveraged Flex, a framework and service built on top of Sitecore, to launch a large website with a limited budget. See how this "Software as a Service" solution can allow your company to engage in faster feedback loops and let your power users take over for expensive developers.

Why I Am Excited: Ha! I could go on forever about why I am excited about this one!! Our team has a reputation for Sitecore innovations, but this is by far and away our best work yet. Not only are Uy and Andrew going to show you the first ever Sitecore SaaS solution, but they are going to blow your mind with how simple and intuitive it now is to build pages in Sitecore using Flex. I am currently building our new XCentium.com on Flex and am amazed at the interface – and how much easier it makes it to build pages in Sitecore! LOL, stay tuned while we “eat our own dog food.” The results are going to be incredible!

Prepare to be amazed by XCentium's Sitecore SaaS solution

Sitecore SaaS: Upgrades Made Easy – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Uy Tran, Sitecore MVP and Product Development Director at XCentium. Andrew Aponte, Senior Front-End Developer at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Uy and Andrew are available for complimentary private consultations that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: If you are interested in seeing how Sitecore SaaS can benefit your business, this meeting is for you. Learn how easy it is to edit in Flex and how this turnkey solution can get you to market faster than ever. Whether you are a midsize organization or a large enterprise company with a lot of microsites, Sitecore SaaS can be the answer to your pain points.

Digital Strategy and Personalization

Delivering personalization to website visitors with powerful AI and analytics with Coveo for Sitecore

Who Is Speaking: Aaron Bickle, Architect at XCentium. Drew Campbell, Application Development Manager at Colliers International.

When It’s Happening: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 10:30 AM in the Southern Hemisphere 4, Dolphin.

What It’s About: Colliers, the leading global real estate services and investment management company, and its partner XCentium, will share how they used Sitecore and Coveo to build a more personalized website experience for a diverse audience base. Historically, Colliers tailored its website experience to a single audience, and then the company recognized a need to build more advanced features and functionalities that allowed the business to cater to a broader audience. Through actionable website analytics and powerful machine learning, Colliers transformed its website in order to reduce customer effort and increase leads.

Why I am Excited: As a marketer, the crux of my job is engaging customers and driving demand gen. I am excited to learn more on leveraging Sitecore and Coveo to drive better customer experiences, which will ultimately lead to an increase in leads and customer loyalty.

Personalization and the American Heart Association – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Sam Goble, Digital Strategy expert and Director of Client Services at XCentium. Brian Henderson, Architect at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Sam and Brian are available for complimentary rel="noopener noreferrer" private consultations rel="noopener noreferrer" that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: American Heart Association faced the same challenge so many companies face – the desire to implement personalization, but a small team that was already stretched thin with requirements. If you are looking to implement personalization, but are stuck on where to start, Sam and Brian can show you how the “crawl, walk, run” approach has worked effectively for AHA – and how it can for you as well.

Personalization meme

Sitecore xConnect: Connecting Salesforce and Sitecore – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Mike Donahue, Sitecore Architect at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Mike is available for complimentary private consultations that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: We have all heard about Sitecore xConnect and the mythical possibilities of connecting Sitecore and Salesforce to create personalization on steroids. The problem is very few, if any, Sitecore partners have had real world experience making this happen for clients. Until now. Sitecore xConnect expert, Mike Donahue, has been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud since his Exact Target days where he sent millions of emails through their system. He is also an expert on all things Sitecore. If Sitecore and Salesforce are a pain point for you, it’s worth your time to see how Mike can help you connect your systems to deliver the ultimate in personalization.

Leveraging Sitecore Experience Commerce

Nonprofit Commerce: Why commerce is important when profits are not

Who Is Speaking: Phil Bui, Vice President of Commerce at XCentium. Yassine Alahyane, Senior Sitecore Commerce Developer at XCentium.

When It’s Happening: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 11:35 AM, Pelican, Swan

What It’s About: Joyce Meyer Ministries’ story is the story of all non-profits that start as a small, grassroots organization and grow over time. With this growth, it is common for nonprofits to piece together their digital solutions, which eventually handcuff organizations into a process that is disjointed and non-productive. Having leveraged the Sitecore Digital Experience and Sitecore Experience Commerce platforms to deliver engaging and relevant experiences to their customer around the world, join the XCentium to learn best practices for nonprofits in the commerce space. Even for nonprofits, customer satisfaction doesn’t need to be a hard sell.

Why I Am Excited: Having worked at a nonprofit in a former life, I know all too well how easy it is to get to a point where your website and IT solutions are handicapping the business. What I really appreciate about the Joyce Meyer Ministries story is how they engaged our team to help them build a Sitecore and Sitecore Commerce website that has all the best practices and architecture needed for a world class, engaging global commerce solution – while keeping their donors in the front of their mind and honoring them in their decisions. I am looking forward to hearing Phil and Yassine share the story of how it is possible to solve for global commerce complexities while keeping your donor base happy too.

Recurring Commerce Revenue: There is no sub for subscriptions

Who is Speaking: Kautilya Prasad, Sitecore Commerce MVP and Director of Commerce at XCentium. John Montes, Senior Sitecore Commerce Developer at XCentium.

When It’s Happening: Thursday, Nov. 7, 10:45 AM, Pelican, Swan

What It’s About: With the Subscription Box Industry booming, it is more important than ever for companies to be able to leverage their ecommerce solutions to claim their share of this $2.6 billion-dollar industry. While the Subscription Box industry is a small slice of the entire retail market, 15% of shoppers have signed up for one or more subscriptions to receive products on a recurring basis, frequently through monthly boxes, according to Forbes magazine. Whether you are thinking about enabling subscriptions on your online store, or just exploring the possibility of a system that allows subscription commerce, this session will help you understand how Sitecore Experience Commerce puts you in the front of the line and enables subscription commerce with ease.

Why I Am Excited: I am looking forward to hearing Kautilya and John share about their latest Sitecore Commerce invention – subscription commerce. Clearly, subscription commerce is here to stay with it being a $2.6 billion dollar industry. I am excited for our XCentium team to help companies earn more revenue and increase their market share.

eCommerce meme

Personalize Your Commerce Shop – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Phil Bui, Vice President of Commerce, and Yassine Alahyane, Senior Sitecore Developer at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Phil and Yassine are available for complimentary private consultations that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: Another recent Sitecore Commerce innovation by XCentium is the ability to offer personalized products in your commerce store. Phil and Yassine will show companies how this can be facilitated in a private demo. If you are looking to increase your revenue through personalized product offerings, this meeting is for you.

Frictionless Payments at Scale – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Phil Bui, Vice President of Commerce, and Srikanth Kondapally, Sitecore Commerce MVP and Architect, at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Phil and Srikanth are available for complimentary private consultations that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: With the advent of digital payments and mobile ecommerce growing rapidly, it is important for companies to offer a multitude of relevant payment options to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Phil and Srikanth will share a private demo on how using XCentium’s Stripe plugin can help brands ensure payment is a relevant and friction free experience for their customers.

Subscription Commerce: Do the Math – Private Meeting

Meet with Our Experts: Kautilya Prasad, Sitecore Commerce MVP and Director of Commerce at XCentium. John Montes, Senior Sitecore Commerce Developer at XCentium.

What It’s Happening: Kautilya and John are available for complimentary private consultations that fit your schedule. Sign up at this link.

What It’s About: In addition to their breakout session, Kautilya and John are available to meet privately with companies to walk through the capabilities of offering subscriptions in their Sitecore Commerce store.

Sitecore and DevOps

Leaping into DevOps: A case studies on effecting change to improve process & agility

Who Is Speaking: Aaron Bickle, Architect at XCentium. Drew Campbell, Application Development Manager at Colliers International.

When It’s Happening: Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 11:35 AM, Swan 1-2, Swan

What It’s About: Colliers wanted to improve and change tools but hadn’t been able to take the risk due to the age-old “we don’t have time” reason. There was a big project delivery deadline, and retooling wasn’t in scope. As a result, they continued to use tools that were hampering delivery, causing delays and missed deadlines. XCentium joined the project to fast-forward the retooling efforts of the project. Throwing out the “we don’t have enough time” phrase, XCentium and Colliers leaped into the DevOps retooling. Within 3-weeks, we successfully retooled source control, content tracking tools, and pipelines to provide agility and a process for the project. Join us to learn how you can implement similar changes to help you meet your deadlines.

Why I Am Excited: We have all had jobs where we wanted to make improvements, but they kept getting pushed out for one reason or another – with “not enough time” being a big culprit. At work, there is not much worse than being handicapped by a lack of resources and tools. I’m looking forward to hearing how Aaron and Drew took charge of the situation and created a system of continuous improvement and continuous delivery that is a game changer for Colliers International. I’m excited to garner tips and tricks that I can use in future projects.

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Women of Sitecore: Building Your Tribe at Sitecore Symposium

Women of Sitecore: Facing Key Challenges in the Digital and Technology Industry – And Winning

Who is Speaking: Jacque Sebany, Vice President of Digital Content at the American Heart Association. Tanya Waldroup, Associate Director of Marketing Technologies at New England Biolabs. Sam Goble, Director of Client Services at XCentium. Olga Kogan, Sitecore MVP and Architect at XCentium. Moderated by Amy Macgowan, Vice President of Business Development at XCentium.

When It’s Happening: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 3:40 PM in the Southern Hemisphere 3, Dolphin.

What It’s About: Join our panel of Women of Sitecore leaders to learn about overcoming key challenges that women face in digital and technology careers. Panelists will speak about trusting your voice, being heard by the C-Suite, braving negotiations, and leading with confidence, as well as additional topics of interest to women in digital and technology. In an open and transparent conversation, these successful women will share anecdotes and advice on navigating potential project and career pitfalls, while becoming respected leaders in their fields.

Why I Am Excited: I have to tell you... This is going to be one of the best breakout sessions at Symposium. The ladies on this panel are the best combination of savvy, witty, wise and all around entertaining. I've been blessed to help drive this session behind the scenes. I can't wait to sit and listen to them as they share their experiences to help other women navigate the industry we love!

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Mentoring: Managing Expectations – Executive Panel

Who Is Speaking: Olga Kogan, Sitecore MVP and Architect at XCentium. Channa Bannis, Senior Director, Global Campaigns at Sitecore. Shareen Campbell, Global Head of Partnerships and Alliances at EPAM. Moderated by Eesha Nopany, Account Manager at Sitecore.

When It’s Happening: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 11:00 AM at the Inspiration Tent

Why I Am Excited: It’s been awesome to see the Women of Sitecore movement grow over the last couple of years. Now it has its own track with Sitecore’s Balance for Better sessions. I’m excited to hear these women give practical tips about mentoring those around you. After all, it’s more important than ever to build your tribe of trusted women.

Career and Leadership Advice for Early Success and Beyond – Executive Panel

Who Is Speaking: Samantha Goble, Digital Strategy Expert and Director of Client Services at XCentium. Mar Brandt, Vice President of Enterprise Sales in the Americas at Sitecore. Alison Sainsbury, Senior Marketing Consultant at Sitecore. Margaret Wise, Sitecore MVP and Chief Revenue Officer at Arke.

When It’s Happening: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1:00 PM at the Inspiration Tent

Why I Am Excited: It’s absolutely heartwarming to see the Women of Sitecore community build momentum over these last couple years. I am looking forward to this panel to hear what they advise for those young (and not so young) in their careers. No matter how seasoned one is, I am sure there will be gold nuggets we can tuck away and use to propel each of our careers.

Our team is hard at work this week putting the final touches on their presentation. If you would like to explore information on where XCentium will be at Symposium, please click here. We are looking forward to connecting with you in Orlando!