Is Your Sitecore Project Stuck? Here’s How to Turn It Around

A flailing Sitecore implementation that’s live or struggling to get off the ground is incredibly frustrating (not to mention financially devastating if it turns into a money pit). 

You’ve spent countless hours, dollars, and resources to get your new Sitecore digital experience platform (DXP) up and running. You’ve talked to the experts, put in the training hours, heard the sales presentations, seen the demos, but now you’re stuck, and you’re looking for answers on why your Sitecore DXP implementation isn’t going the way you thought it would. 

Really, it all boils down to this: You just want what you thought you were getting.

Before we go too far, let’s look at some of the reasons why your Sitecore implementation may fail or why it’s currently flailing (and the signs it might be time to look for a new partner).

5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Sitecore Partnership 

When choosing the best partner to support your Sitecore implementation, there’s a few things to look out for. We recommend you find a partner that…

1. Plans For Scaling

A common reason for needing a Sitecore turnaround is that your initial partner couldn’t scale up or down based on project demands. Without a plan in place to scale, this  leads to delays or budget issues. Confirm with your partner what the plan is for shifting priorities, resources, and scaling to meet new demands.

2. Collaborates With Design Firms

The right partner will prioritize collaboration with your design firm or in-house designers, ensuring pixel perfect layout across devices, consistent brand representation, and a fluent user experience. This also ensures time and money aren’t lost when implementing complex design patterns.

3. Researches Ahead Of Time

Make sure your partner  takes the time to truly understand your industry – not doing so results in inefficient or cookie cutter solutions that don’t align with your business goals. Without this crucial understanding, a project could suffer from misaligned priorities and wasted resources.

4. Builds Team Harmony 

A steady, reliable team is key for building harmony between your team and your partner’s team. If your partner’s team is constantly cycling through new members, this disrupts continuity and project momentum, leading to delays and inconsistencies in the work delivered.

5.  Is Willing To Co-Develop

Some partners refuse to engage in co-development with the client’s internal team, creating bottlenecks and preventing the client from gaining the hands-on experience they need for future success. A co-development approach accelerates implementation, enhances flexibility, and drives long-term success through continuous optimization.

Signs It’s Time To Find A New Sitecore Partner

If your current partner shows any of these signs, it’s time to consider a new partner:

Missed Deadlines And Budget Overruns

Partners may miss deadlines or underestimate costs, ultimately draining project funds and forcing a skeleton crew to stretch out timelines unnecessarily. This only worsens website performance issues and may cause integration instability.

False Promises In The Sales Cycle

During the sales process, partners often show off their top-tier team members, with the big credentials, but these experts disappear shortly after the project kicks off. As a result, you don’t get the expertise you were sold on.

Lack of DXP Expertise

Partners might not fully understand Sitecore or its capabilities as a digital experience platform (DXP), opting instead to use proprietary frameworks, unnecessary third-party tools, or insist on sticking solely to Sitecore tools even when other solutions could provide better results. It’s a balance, that comes with experience.

Not Empowering Your Team

The goal of having a DXP is to enable your marketing and business contributors to create amazing experiences for your customers. We’ve been involved in turnarounds where content and code are so deeply coupled that our customer was reliant on their partner for content delivery from the most micro perspective. This breakdown happens because:

• The content hierarchy is so complex that content authors can’t find where they need to go to change existing content, let alone add fresh new pages assembled using the “Legos” of existing modules.
• There’s not a reliable mechanism to preview content before publishing.
• Publishing breaks or takes too long, what should be done in seconds takes more than 5 minutes
• The partner hasn’t provided the necessary contextual training. While Sitecore has excellent product training, you cannot forgo training in the context of your implementation.

Not Putting Your Needs First

It’s important to be mindful of potential conflicts of interest when working with partners. While Sitecore offers a robust platform, there’s always a risk that a partner might prioritize their own financial incentives over your best interests. This could lead to recommendations for overly complex solutions with unnecessary Sitecore or third-party add-ons that increase costs and might not align with your specific needs.

To ensure your digital experience platform is optimized for your goals, it’s essential to have open and transparent communication with your partner. Discuss your specific requirements, budget constraints, and long-term vision. By doing so, you can make informed decisions and avoid potential pitfalls.

EX Squared Sets The Foundation For Success

When it comes to a successful implementation of your Sitecore experience, we prioritize your, your team and your customers in every step of the way. And that starts first with a thorough review, which includes:

• Performance testing: Using tools like Lighthouse to measure website speed and load performance while obtaining baselines. This includes API performance testing as well.
• Device Evaluation: Analyzing browser, device, UI and front-end development standards including accessibility, image rendering, preprocessing, minification, mobile rendering analysis (responsive/adaptive).
• Sitecore Implementation Review: Assessing Sitecore’s core implementation, code functionality, custom pipelines, indexing, URL management, and more. 
• Experience Platform Analysis: Evaluating custom facets and data storage within the Experience Database or CDP with or without the personalization layer. We also have deep business intelligence and AI/machine learning experience to help you make use of the data collected within XP and beyond (GA, CRM, etc.), giving you a view of the entire customer journey.
• Content and Media Organization: Ensuring the proper structure and configuration of Sitecore content and media libraries.
• Sitecore Content Delivery Model: If headless/separate front-end, review connectivity to Sitecore and implementation approach.
• Integration Checks: Review and document inbound and outbound integrations with other applications.
• Upgrade Assessment: Determining if a Sitecore upgrade is advised based on technical and functional requirements.
• Hosting Infrastructure Review: Assessing for high availability and stability.
• WCAG 2.1 AA Accessibility Review (Optional): Ensuring your site meets accessibility standards.

Ready To Implement A Successful Sitecore Experience?

If your Sitecore implementation is stuck or not meeting expectations, it’s time to take action. Our team can help you regain control, improve performance, and realize the full potential of your Sitecore investment. Contact us today to begin your Sitecore turnaround.