Netcentric, A Cognizant Digital Business
The A To Z Of Cx Excellence

Traditional brick and mortar is all but gone from the mainstream. If not for their lack of convenience, the unfortunate and sudden pandemic has put a stop to anyone from meeting their brands face to face, at their brick and mortar outlets. It was a gradual inevitability regardless, with all the avenues that the internet and digital portals, in general, offered to all businesses. So as one gave way to the other, how did the face of modern-day business change? In the old days, it was all down to the entrance, complete with a counter, flyers, and products all around, with an ambiance to make the customer feel at home and guide them toward a purchasing decision. Now it is far subtler than that. The online customer experience, or CX, is how a customer perceives the brand through all the interactions across the customer life cycle. In essence, this digital experience forms the bedrock upon which an idea is conveyed and developed in a customer— an idea that leads the customer from the front door to the product/service before purchasing it.

With nearly a decade’s worth of CX expertise under their belt, Netcentric is a fully integrated digital partner for leading global brands. Using Adobe’s AI-powered CX solutions, Netcentric works with their clients at any stage of their CX journey—from digital strategy to solutions development to operational support. Taking an agile approach to developing adaptable and scalable solutions, Netcentric can consistently help clients deliver personalized and relevant customer experiences in real time.

From Conception to Execution, Behind the Journey of a CX Powerhouse

Founded in 2012, right when Adobe started assembling their ‘Experience Cloud,’ Netcentric was at the very frontlines of the CX revolution as it was being built. Adobe had made a series of acquisitions right around that time, one of the first being towards CX, which is now called the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)—a central piece of the Adobe Experience Cloud. With an eye on the future (great potential) of CX, Netcentric decided to focus exclusively on the Adobe technology stack.

Netcentric had started with 12 people in 2012, and true to Adobe’s prediction, the sector grew as did the company, becoming a team of 650 strong today. The company today is an Adobe Platinum Solution partner and has more than 500 certified Adobe specialists. As they grew out into the business, so did their understanding of the marketplace. For instance, the company observed a large movement of consumers, preferring online platforms to purchase any product. Netcentric realized the importance for companies to have good CX marketing plans that cater to these modern demands.

Piotr Zabiello, Head of Consulting at Netcentric, calls this the first trend accelerated by the crisis created by the COVID pandemic. “A lot of companies out there started to realize that the digital trend is here to stay. In fact, they need to accelerate their initiatives now, because that’s where you sell your offerings,” says Zabiello. This has led to an acceleration of various digital channels as well, not just in sales but in overall customer experience, delivered after-sales, and services. This is important since fostering loyalty and brand experience will bring new business. Being 100% focused on the Adobe’s platinum solution partnership helped Netcentric along on their pursuit to offer quality CX and create value for clients.

In this pursuit, the second trend that Netcentric has identified is that Adobe has made it their vision to combine content and data, the core tenets of good CX personalization. “It’s not good enough just to interact with the context of the person in front of your screen. Large scale personalization through the combination of good content, good content management, and the use of all kinds of data—first party, second party, third party, will make sure that the customer sees relevant offerings in front of their screen,” adds Zabiello.

With this deep understanding, Netcentric uses its expertise to help its clients unlock the full potential of the Adobe Experience Cloud. The company works with its clients to build state-of-the-art digital marketing solutions. Netcentric’s team of Adobe certified experts combines unmatched experience and highly specialized skills to solve their customer experience challenges with data-driven solutions.

Solving the Challenges of Modern CX

Since the Adobe products suite and the whole CX space is complex, in many cases, clients only seem to have access to lesser skilled or inexperienced partners that are not enabling the end customer or consumer to realize the full value of the product they have bought. As absolute experts in all aspects of AEM, the company makes sure that it gets implemented well and efficiently to the customer’s best interest. The guiding philosophy at Netcentric is to leverage the potential of Adobe’s products and platforms to provide real value for the client.

In one instance, Netcentric were brought in to work alongside Miles & More to build their new site and implement a bespoke solution based on the Adobe Experience Cloud stack. This solution was to address several pressing challenges for Miles & More. Firstly, the organization wanted to personalize their member interactions to present the right information to the right members. Therefore, a digital marketing stack was needed that would allow them to take advantage of customer data to offer more streamlined and enjoyable user experiences by defining audiences and content too. Secondly, they sought to increase flexibility and autonomy for the client in how they projected their brand image.

When it came to constructing their new webpage, the focus was on mobile-first design, a fresh layout, and new capabilities for experience targeting. With a large volume of active members with a variety of needs, the organization needed a robust infrastructure that would allow them to access detailed customer properties and then leverage that information to tailor communications and content. This was largely achieved thanks to the integration of Adobe Target in Miles & More’s new site. Miles & More’s bespoke solution included new features, complex components, and templates. Using the Adobe Experience Cloud stack as a foundation, we also integrated various Adobe products, including Experience Manager, Analytics, Campaign, Brand Portal, and Adobe Target. Given the organization’s personalization requirements, Adobe Target was a handy addition to its infrastructure due to its capacity to optimize experience targeting. Teams were able to both model and implement targeted experiences by exchanging content pieces within the site for specific, segmented audiences. The implementation process also involved integrating several external services and navigating high-complexity interdependencies. The new site featured several pioneering integrations like Translations.com. During the implementation, performance remained a high priority.

This meant leveraging code splitting (making use of HTTP2), heavy caching for subsequent loads, minifying, Gzipping, lazy image loading, and SVGs, rather than using regular images where possible or responsive images that adapt to the user’s viewport—in accordance with their DPI and viewing on mobile devices to access the site. The implementation process has involved 36,000 lines of Java code, 70,500 lines of Javascript, and over 15,500 Jira tickets until this point. As a result, Netcentric had jointly accomplished the sizeable goal of a personalized, powerful, and independent site for Miles & More. For instance, they now have the tools to manage complex requirements, such as the need to enable a fully targeted platform that supports over ten language variations.

Furthermore, thanks to the close connection between AEM and Adobe Target, there’s no need for editors to transition between different tools to carry out experience targeting, which can now be achieved with Adobe Target. When it comes to defining both content and audiences, these processes can be done directly within AEM, saving time, streamlining workflows, and enhancing flexibility. Owing to Adobe Target and Netcentric’s expertise, Miles & More now has the solution to carry out high-level personalization within their site. Target allows Miles & More to define campaigns based on highly specified properties, boosting relevancy and driving more tailored experiences.

The result of this partnership is a future-proof, purpose-built solution based on Adobe Experience Cloud. Because of Netcentric’s expertise in unlocking the full power of Adobe’s advanced range of tools, Miles & More can now deliver delightful and personalized experiences to all their members.

The Road Ahead—Beyond the Confines of Current CX

Much like their victory with Miles & More, each step on Netcentric’s journey has been marked by the success of and intimate partnership with their customers. As it stands, the company has worked with some of the leading brands in the world, working to continue their growth in a positive direction. The company believes that as Adobe continues to move much more into the cloud, offering many more of their products as a service, the company will typically have more product capabilities and fewer customizations. As a result, Netcentric can see that more custom solution codes should, in theory, decrease over time because the product gets strong. The company is thus preparing for that eventuality and adapting the skills of its people to meet this change in the CX landscape.

Cognizant acquired Netcentric in 2017 and with their backing, the company is also producing their own “as a service” offerings to complement the need for more focused and capable CX. They are also planning to diversify into smaller projects from their typically multimillion-dollar super initiatives to have greater scalability in operations. This would mean delivering service offerings that are easy to buy in the form of recurring “as a service” subscriptions. With their role in this space, the ultimate goal for Netcentric will always be around customer experience, which they stress is never just about chance. As Zabiello states, “Customer experience is not just about selling, it’s about the whole customer experience into it. That, I think is the point that many people forget about.” The company wants to give clients that opportunity to understand that they need just one solution in place. One that is efficient and offers zero downtime in their operating procedures, and works for them. In this regard, Netcentric is leading the charge and doing a great job helping all their clients meet their future endeavors well.