4 Paths to a Unified Digital Ecosystem

Bringing all your digital properties into a seamless, cohesive ecosystem has many benefits — efficiencies of scale, brand elevation and value promotion, among others. But what does the path to get there look like?

The fact is, there’s more than one way forward, and you might even use a combination of approaches, depending on your individual business case. The right roadmap depends on your organization’s prioritization of several factors, including:

• Improving customer experience
  
  
• Connecting offerings (cross-sell/upsell abilities)
  
  
• Simplifying processes and workflows
  
  
• Reducing total cost of ownership
  
  
• Stakeholder positioning

Once you have a clear understanding of why you’re embarking on this type of project, what you want to get out of it and the environment you’ll be working within, you can determine which path will work best for your company.

This is the most straightforward approach: consolidating your websites onto a single digital platform, with all aspects (technology, data, experience, etc.) shared among them. It doesn’t require any additional steps or negotiation; you select one system to rule them all, bring all sites into the fold, and you’re done.

This ecosystem approach might be right for your organization if you have one large flagship site and want to merge several smaller sites or microsites into it. It’s likely to work best if the audiences, content, and offerings are similar and all stakeholders are fully onboard with the consolidation.

If bringing everyone together under one roof isn’t a viable option, you can still achieve unification. What that will look like depends on your priorities, your business model and your environment.

The idea behind unification without consolidation is to create simple pathways that allow users to seamlessly travel through your ecosystem, regardless of the underlying technologies involved. You can leave your sites on separate platforms while unifying them in various other ways:

• Your websites share certain aspects that enable orchestrated experiences:
  
  
• Cross-linked content that enables cross-selling and upselling
  
  
• Federated search facilitated by a unified taxonomy
  
  
• Content tagging schemes that allow for contextual referencing
  
  
• Shared data and persona information to present personalized content

• Your customers are guided through a clear, recognizable information architecture:
  
  
• Consistent navigation that provides a familiar structure no matter where the user is
  
  
• Persistent placement and terminology that helps users find what they’re looking for
  
  
• Umbrella feature or page that elevates and directs users to all your organization’s capabilities

• Drive synergies between your brands and create a seamless customer experience:
  
  
• Library of components and templates to create similar interactions on different sites
  
  
• One design system that serves as the source of truth for all your sites
  
  
• Recognizable voice and tone with adaptations for specific audiences

If you’re looking to realize all the benefits of unifying your ecosystem but aren’t quite sure how to get started, an Experience Strategist like me can help you determine the right approach and the right plan.