Sitecore at Corona times

As most of the world at this moment, I am (together with my colleagues) stuck in a different working rhytm and momentum. And regardless of how this is impacting businesses, either through an unexpected drop in business and turnover or by creating opportunities (depending on how long this will last), I feel that it is our duty to try and turn this global pandemic in a time for opportunities.

Meaning that while we need to fill in on the amount of work we do daily in a different way, we might just be able to change this for the better.So, from a standpoint of Sitecore development, what can we actively do to aid ourselves and our customers?

Sitecore Upgrade

If there ever was a somewhat convenient time to perform Sitecore upgrades, then that time is now. Customers typically are noticicng a drop in amount of visitors, have less active campaigns and have a lower rate of activity when it comes down to creating and updating content on their various platforms.

Also, with the expected release of SaaS (Sitecore as a Service) by this summer, it would be good to prepare your customer even more for such a transition by making sure that they are not X major versions away from the most recent release.

It is still unclear whether or not the planned release for SaaS will be on track due to the current pandemic, but let's assume for now that it is. This also means you can actively engage with your customers to hint a little at what Sitecore might become and how the customer could handle this change. Also, keep in mind that Sitecore will be available in two flavors (next to XM and XP), either on SaaS or the more classic Sitecore that we know today (for a period of 3-5 years).

Coronavirus functionalities and components

Next up are the new requirements that the COVID-19 pandemic has created for some customers. Some companies have shifted business, have adopted online rather than brick&mortar. Some have even had to go all-out on refunding or providing cancellations for their services and products.
This implies that flows that were previously unexisting on the platform have had to be created, both offline as online. Talk to your customer on how you could help optimize this flow using their online platforms.

This can either be done through creating additional forms, marketing automation flows or specific campaign pages and content blocks that can help your customer's organziation cope with the current pandemic.

Be pro-active in offering services on what you could from the platform out to ameliorate their situation or that of their customers.

Sitecore Hardening

Once our world will start to return to normal again, we will be faced with again more unprecedented situations. It is safe to say that we will see unprecedented activity in various fields of business and that there could be a huge surge in transactions and visits on your digital platforms.
Therefore, if any security and/or performance tasks were still pending for your Sitecore environments.
So consider re-evaluating on your topology, the correct setup of caching or use of a CDN as well as going through a Sitecore security and performance hardening effort to further increase on the resilience of your online platform.

ContentHub

Finally, as this is a task that I've had pending for a while now, I'm going to further invest time into my understand and grasp of the ContentHub platform that is seemingly becomming an integral part of Sitecore. Having a good working and functionally strong DAM/PIM/CMP platform is proving to be invaluable for a large number of businesses.
Combine that with the possibility to offer content over an API, loosely configure and adapt the platform to your specific needs while allowing users to collaborate on content and you have gold in hands.


So, even if life is looking as if it has just been tilted upside down from the Corona pandemic, realize that this challenge is providing numerous possiblities.
Keep safe and keep busy would be my best advise. And the above list already provides quite a start at keeping busy so far.