We are excited to share that Contentful has been named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021. In this report, we earned the highest possible score in six criteria: Vision, Delivery Model, Partner Ecosystem, Back-End Extensibility, Customer Analytics, and Metadata and Taxonomy. We believe that our inclusion in this report validates Contentful’s mission to be the leading content platform for digital builders — and digital-first businesses.

The new digital playbook

The digital-first era demands a lot from businesses: a new set of workforce skills and technologies is required to rapidly create more meaningful engagements across digital touchpoints. The stakes have never been higher; the brands that don't make the digital-first shift risk their very survival.

Consumer demands change faster than businesses can keep up, opening the door for new, direct-to-consumer brands to start capitalizing on the lack of speed of the incumbents — and in some cases, completely redefining markets. 

According to the Forrester report, Contentful has a “well-articulated vision for helping companies become digital-first, plus the capabilities to help them get there.” We believe this is a testament to how our platform-first vision is challenging the CMS status quo.

And our customers see the potential. Abhishek Kumar, Manager for content management systems and ecommerce at Deloitte Digital for IKEA, says, “I believe that Contentful’s vision for addressing the challenges of this digital-first era sets it apart from other solutions, and is the reason we’re making their content platform a central part of our digital delivery and customer experience strategy.”

The winning approach: an API-first platform that empowers digital teams to build experiences faster 

Our API-first approach to content and digital delivery sets us apart, especially for brands with enterprise-scale applications. According to the report, “Customer references liked the headless capabilities underpinned by API management and delivery, with one reference calling the APIs ‘very strong’ on the platform.”

We are a content platform for digital builders, and this “builder ethos” is the driving force behind our product strategy. Our platform-first approach helps unify teams and enables them to work in a more collaborative and agile way. 

With our content platform, digital teams — this era’s builders — can quickly launch and scale content across a large-scale digital footprint and across stages of the customer journey. The report attests that “Contentful excels with superior back-end extensibility...” In 2020, Contentful launched the App Framework, which significantly opened up our platform, and made it faster than ever to build on our platform and integrate with modern DXPs. It all allows customers, partners — and ourselves — to quickly add capabilities for developers and editors to launch and iterate digital experiences faster. It's unprecedented agility for a CMS.

We think our 5/5 score (highest possible) in the Forrester Wave’s Delivery Model criterion also clarifies how our cloud-native architecture and portfolio of cloud deployment options meets the highest governance and regulatory standards. 

A rapidly growing partner ecosystem: “Agility is everything” 

Our 5/5 score in the partner ecosystem criterion is, in our opinion, the result of long-term efforts to partner with both global digital agencies and technology partners. To date, Contentful has 350 global partners (and counting), as well as over 60 partner service offerings. According to the report, Contentful “has been aggressively recruiting digital agencies and tech partners to expand its reach.” 

Our partners consider Contentful to be a mission-critical content platform. Holden Bale, the GVP and global head of commerce at Huge, notes that Contentful is crucial towards building good consumer relationships and amazing digital experiences. “Contentful is a core element of our digital platform work; it provides a powerful anchor in modern architectures, and gives our teams and clients the capabilities they need to innovate at scale. Bale adds, “Most importantly, Contentful serves as a key enabler for increasing digital agility in organizations — and in reacting to market and user trends, agility is everything.”

James Heise, vice president for global strategic partnerships at Appnovation, recognizes how Contentful speeds up project delivery and innovation: “As our business continually adapts to meet ever-growing digital customer demands, which were especially accelerated last year, Contentful allows us to provide the speed to market needed to deliver content at scale across platforms for our customers.” 

While we believe our performance in the Forrester Wave validates our choice to focus on building a truly modern, extensible content platform for the digital-first era, we also know we have our work cut out for us. 

Still, none of this would have been possible without our network of global partners or the amazing experiences our customers create with Contentful every day. An extra shoutout goes to the dedicated team of people behind Contentful, who are — in the midst of a global pandemic — still tirelessly committed to building the best possible product for our customers.

Official press release: Contentful recognized as a Strong Performer among Agile Content Management Systems by independent research firm

Contentful’s API-first content platform is purpose-built for creating omnichannel digital experiences. The platform helps digital teams innovate, iterate and go to market faster with an agile, modern tech stack that integrates seamlessly with ecommerce tools. Visit the Contentful Marketplace to see these integrations, and read our customer use cases to learn more about how Contentful can help your organization grow its digital footprint.

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