Digital technology has drastically expanded how we consume information and communicate. For brands and enterprises, proliferation of communication means sharing your message with customers faster and more effectively than ever before. However, this proliferation does not come without challenges. Larger, more mature organisations that have experienced dramatic growth prior to the digital age tend to find it especially hard to navigate the intricacies of digital transformation.

To reap the benefits of digitisation in marketing and sales, enterprises have been forced to rethink how they operate and organise their marketing and sales activities. This sometimes includes a complete renewal of the foundational tools and technologies these organisations were built on.

In 2017 Amadeus contacted Luxus to help them in their digital marketing transformation. This meant evaluating and renewing the marketing technologies and tools that were in use. Together we began by identifying the fundamental technological building blocks, planning out the renewal efforts into a long-term implementation roadmap, before setting out to implement baseline technologies as part of a minimal viable product (MVP) for the new digital ecosystem.

Fragmented technology can present a variety of challenges. Costs can be high because of duplication, communication and user experience are often not aligned across channels, and very often management stakeholders lack visibility on the performance across marketing and sales activities.

To address this type of challenge, part of our process sets out to renew and simplify the foundation of marketing technology being used across the organisation. We start by investigating and identifying the technology needs for marketing and sales. Based on these needs, we identify the technical building blocks and sketch a long-term marketing technology roadmap. We also work on identifying and acquiring the right tools to achieve an optimal mix of software and service across the business. Finally, we work on building the initial baseline for the tools in the target ecosystem, integrating them together from the ground up.

Building a highly integrated ecosystem with multiple technologies and instances of the same technology is no walk in the park. Most technologies and platforms come with in-built integrations and connector libraries supporting various point-to-point integration options. However, these often lack capabilities like integration orchestration, centralised monitoring, and citizen management capabilities required for more complex environments. Also, building a vast portfolio of custom-made, point-to-point integrations into a tech stack increases maintenance costs and introduces potential technical debt. For these reasons and several others, we often recommend using integration technologies like iPaaS (integration Platform as a Service).

Integrating digital analytics and data across touchpoints is key to achieving a 360 degree view of sales and marketing activities. This view was achieved by integrating multiple system including Tealium tag management and data layer, Adobe Analytics for digital analytics and measurement, Datorama for visualisation and dashboard creation, and Adobe Target to optimise and deliver targeted experiences to customers and prospects acorss channels.

iPaaS platforms allow companies to integrate cloud native platforms and gives “citizen integration” capabilities for technology savvy business users. It also reduces the need to go through heavy development release cycles for minor data model changes within a system and introduces other crucial features.

The most obvious benefit was the optimisation and improved performance of the Amadeus’ technical environment. There was an 80% reduction in overall hardware, licensing and maintenance costs. There was a 95% reduction of unplanned downtime. The robustness of the new technical environment led to a 70% reduction in support calls and tickets, as well as a 60% reduction in the average time it took to resolve support tickets.

While the technical results were significant, all businesses ultimately measure success based on revenue and profit. In the first year since the ecosystem launched, Amadeus already looks set to generate a significant increase in digitally driven sales. What’s more, leadership teams finally have the data to accurately forecast and identify opportunities to optimise and improve marketing activities.