22 Noteworthy Things from 2022

As 2022 comes to an end, it's a good time to step back and look at 22 noteworthy things that influenced us this year at Nishtech.

• In January Nishtech was certified as a Platinum Partner with Optimizely and was named as Optimizely's Preferred Partner for implementing Optimizely DXP and B2B Commerce integrated solutions.
• Three Nishtech team members once again earned recognition as Sitecore Most Valuable Professionals.
• Himadri Chakrabarti was once again named an Optimizely Most Valuable Professional.
• Nishtech achieved Sitecore OrderCloud specialization in July, a verification of Nishtech’s OrderCloud enablement requirements and demonstrated ability to contribute to customer success through skills and capabilities with OrderCloud and ecommerce implementations.
• Nishtech was named a Sitecore Gold Implementation Partner in September 2022 in recognition of our expertise in the areas of Sitecore ecommerce and digital experience solution implementation and development.
• In November, Nishtech announced a partnership with GO2 Partners to collaborate on delivery of FLEX Product Information Management, an innovative and powerful platform for managing and distributing product data.
• Nishtech announced a new partnership with Vercel in December, a move that will strengthen our ability to rapidly build robust applications that provide compelling solutions for businesses.
• Nishtech continued its partnership with TheUserGroup.org as a Silver Partner and a sponsor of TUG Connects, the annual conference that brings together hundreds of distribution professionals for a week of interactive networking and education.

Sitecore

• New acquisitions Boxever (Sitecore Personalize), Four51 (Sitecore OrderCloud), Moosend (Sitecore Send), and Reflektion (Sitecore Discover) were officially integrated into the Sitecore ecosystem.
• In October, Sitecore Symposium returned in-person for the first time in 3 years at McCormick Place in Chicago, and there were some significant product announcements:
  • The future is in the (composable) cloud. XM Cloud is Sitecore's new SaaS Enterprise Headless Content Management System, and with it comes new functionality, cloud hosting, and freedom from upgrades.
  • Content Hub ONE is a new headless CMS that provides basic content editing capabilities and the ability to deliver content headlessly across multiple digital channels.
  • Sitecore Search is an AI-powered search engine that provides personalized search experiences with predictive search intent and can integrate with any website.
  • Sitecore Connect enables integration of Sitecore products with other solutions through a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built connectors.

Optimizely

• Optimizely's Web Experimentation and Full Stack solutions are now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace through a partnership between the two companies, enabling data-driven marketers to benefit from industry leading experimentation platforms running on Google's secure infrastructure.
• The Optimizely content management, commerce, and personalization solutions were made available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, enabling customers to streamline deployments and platform management and take advantage of the security and scalability of the Azure cloud.
• Orchestrate, Optimzely's new solution that combines their three flagship products Content Marketing, Content Management, and Digital Asset Management into one offering. This new solution empowers marketing teams through comprehensive management of the entire content lifecycle.
• Real-Time Segmentation is Optimizely's new product that allows the segmentation of customers as they engage with brands, providing marketers with the ability to deliver the personalized experience customers demand.
• Opticon, Optimzley's flagship annual conference, was held for the first time in San Diego.

Digital Marketing

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been an emerging technology for several years, and is a vital tool for marketers to analyze customer behavior and buying patterns. While AI is already in use across many technologies, it seems that the recent launch of Open AI's ChatGPT has brought AI to the forefront. It remains to be seen how AI conversational chatbot technology will develop, but there is absolutely no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is here to stay.
• This has been an interesting year in social media, to say the least. There's no denying that social media sites are, for better or for worse, firmly entrenched in all aspects of modern society. Changes at Twitter have revealed just how much people rely on its distribution power to support journalism, arts, marketing, local events, and charitable causes, and it can literally affect financial markets in a very short period. Once thought of solely as a platform for teenage dance routines, TikTok emerged in the last year as a viable replacement for search engines and is now being outlawed on government-owned mobile devices. Clubhouse, the audio-chat social networking app, saw its popularity drop after skyrocketing in popularity in 2021. Despite all the changes, social media is not going away and will always present new opportunities and new ways to interact with people from across the globe.
• Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR): This isn't new technology, but the way it's being applied continues to change. AR & VR used to be thought of through the lens of a bulky headset, and while that's still the case in some applications, the technology can be seen in online retail. A typical scenario would be to upload a photo of a room in your house to a furniture retailer's website, and then be able to virtually place furniture pieces inside your room. Newer applications could allow car dealers to have a virtual showroom in the metaverse and interact with customers in real time. An example of this was demonstrated by Sitecore CMO Paige O'Neill during her keynote at this year's Sitecore Symposium.

It will be interesting to see how the digital landscape changes in 2023, and what new technology or platforms shape the way we live and work. We're looking forward to what's next!