Empowering enterprises with Sitecore XM Cloud

The desire for increased marketer productivity, seamless omnichannel experiences, and cost optimisation is a constant thread across our client base. Sitecore XM Cloud is a future-proof solution designed to empower enterprises and address these critical needs.

Emmanuel Tissera

15 April 2024

6 minute read

What is Sitecore XM Cloud?

XM Cloud is Sitecore’s SaaS (Software as a Service) offering that provides clients with a headless CMS. It is the counterpart to the self-hosted Sitecore XM (Experience Manager). Clients are offered XM Cloud on a subscription model that includes hosting costs for the CMS.

XM Cloud combines the advantages of both a traditional monolithic CMS and a modern headless CMS. XM Cloud allows developers to build new web experiences based on headless architecture using modern front end frameworks for a faster time to market. But it still gives marketers the freedom to design the front end experience by utilising page layout functionality.

XM Cloud architecture

With XM Cloud, content editing is carried out on the SaaS CM (Content Management) instance provided by Sitecore. Tools such as Content Editor, Experience Editor, XM Cloud Pages and XM Cloud Explorer can be used for content design and editing.

The approved content is then published on the Experience Edge. Experience Edge for Experience Manager (XM) is an API-based service from Sitecore that gives you globally replicated, scalable access to your XM Cloud items, layout and media. 

As Experience Edge provides a Sitecore-hosted GraphQL API, the front end of the website (or the head) can be built in Next.js, ASP.NET Core, Angular, Vue, React, or any other preferred language. Sitecore currently provides SDKs for Next.js and ASP.NET Core.

Sitecore recommends hosting the front end on a platform such as Vercel or Netlify and provides support for deploying statically generated sites to these platforms. One of the key distinguishing factors of XM Cloud is the lack of a Sitecore hosted CD (Content Delivery) instance. Instead, content delivery takes place through Experience Edge. This means that content is delivered to users more efficiently and effectively, without the need for a traditional CD instance.

Sitecore XM Cloud offers the flexibility to customise the Content Management instance. XM Cloud equips developers with a suite of tools including GraphQL IDE, Sitecore Content Serialisation (SCS), Command Line Interface (CLI), and cloud-based deployment tools to streamline the customisation process.

Why XM Cloud?

When you deploy on XM Cloud, the SaaS solution gives you multiple advantages over a traditional self-hosted CMS.

  • Removes infrastructure complexity – Sitecore offers the CMS as SaaS freeing you from hosting your own infrastructure. You also pay for what you use and nothing more.
  • High availability – The uptime availability will be 99.9 percent at a service-level agreement (SLA). XM Cloud also provides disaster recovery.
  • Scalability – Globally replicate and scale your Sitecore content delivery via the Experience Edge.
  • Reaches customers across all channels – Publish Sitecore content to any device or channel (watches, phones, tablets, voice-controlled devices, and so on).
  • Integrates with any platform – All applications that are able to make API calls can pull content in from GraphQL, irrespective of the underlying technology.

XM Cloud features

XM Cloud comes packed with features to enable marketers and developers to be agile in delivering new web experiences:

The XM Cloud advantage 

Deploying websites with Sitecore XM Cloud provides an advantage to marketers, developers, infrastructure specialists, and decision makers.

Boost marketer productivity with a user-friendly platform

XM Cloud prioritises simplicity for marketers, empowering them to create, edit, and publish content easily, regardless of technical expertise. The intuitive user interface features tools like:

  • Sitecore Pages – a WYSIWYG editor that enables a visual drag-and-drop editing experience
  • XM Cloud Explorer – provides a centralised overview of all sites and templates within the environment, simplifying content organisation and management.
Sitecore Pages app

Additionally, XM Cloud offers Single Sign On (SSO) across the Sitecore Portal, allowing business users to switch between various tools like Pages and Explorer. This streamlined experience reduces training time and enables marketers to work more efficiently.

Enhance web conversions and leads with built-in personalisation

XM Cloud provides powerful personalisation tools within the platform to increase customer engagement and impact conversion rates. These tools include:

  • Over 20 pre-built audience templates – get started quickly with pre-defined audience segments based on common customer demographics and behaviours.
  • Fine-grained control over targeting rules – tailor your personalisation efforts by defining specific targeting rules based on user behaviour, demographics, and other relevant data points.
  • Assigning audiences to page variants – create personalised experiences by assigning different page variations to specific audience segments, ensuring each visitor encounters the most relevant content.

By leveraging these features, enterprises can deliver highly personalised experiences that resonate with individual customers, leading to increased website conversions and improved lead generation.

Reduce costs across operations and development

XM Cloud offers significant cost-saving advantages for enterprises, including:

  • Reduced site maintenance and technical development costs – the cloud-based infrastructure and self-service capabilities of XM Cloud minimise the need for IT involvement in routine maintenance tasks. This frees up IT resources for more strategic endeavours and enables marketing teams to take greater ownership of content management.
  • Reduced operational infrastructure costs – XM Cloud eliminates the need for on-premise infrastructure management and its associated overhead. The cloud-native architecture ensures automatic scaling and elasticity, allowing enterprises to pay only for the resources they use and eliminating the risk of overspending on underutilised infrastructure.
  • Future upgrade cost avoidance – unlike traditional CMS solutions that require periodic upgrades, XM Cloud is a full SaaS solution in which upgrades happen automatically in the background. This eliminates the need for costly upgrade cycles and ensures your platform remains constantly updated with the latest features and security patches.
Sitecore Cloud Portal

These cost-saving benefits contribute to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for enterprises, allowing them to invest their resources in other strategic initiatives.

Unleash the Power of Sitecore XM Cloud

Sitecore XM Cloud goes beyond a simple CMS solution. It empowers enterprises to increase marketer productivity, boost web conversions and leads, and reduce costs. The MACH architecture ensures agility, scalability, scalability and composability, allowing enterprises to adapt to evolving digital demands.

With XM Cloud Plus, Sitecore offers XM Cloud together with AI-powered personalisation and search, omnichannel reach, advanced analytics, and over 1000 pre-built connectors. Sitecore’s Content Hub ONE on the other hand, is a pure headless solution that allows content model creation to content creation and delivery to multiple channels. We encourage you to explore these options further and discover the perfect fit for your needs.

With Sitecore XM Cloud, enterprises can unlock a wealth of benefits and build a strong foundation for their digital success. As your Sitecore partner, we are here to guide you through every step of your journey, from implementation through to ongoing optimisation. 

Want to tap into the expertise of a Sitecore Gold Partner?

Get in touch

Keep Reading

Want more? Here are some other blog posts you might be interested in.