DITA: the silent rock star of CXM…until now!Tom Smith, Product Marketing, SDL

@thomas_smithy

Picture courtesy of: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/glastonbury-2013-rolling-stones-perform-4751694

What’s banging the drum in our world today?

OmnichannelMulti deviceSocially drivenKnowledge through visualsInformation SilosCustomer powerConsumer experiences driving business experiencesThe internet of everything

3

Vatican City, Pope announcement

20052013

Michael Sohn / AP

Luca Bruno / AP

“The way we think about the car is that it’s just a big smartphone on wheels” Randall

Stephenson, CEO, AT&T

OK, glass…how do I fix my air conditioning?

"The connected health era is giving us this completely new opportunity to get data”

Yet, only 1/3 of world population has internet access

7

What do customers expect?

What I needWhen I need itEven when I don’t know I need itIn my languageWith a consistent experience across channelsAnd a seamless transition from pre to post-sale

5 Many different silos in the organization

More Products and Brands1

Need to support multiple versions of your product3

How to create relevant & targeted

content2

Many markets with own languages &

requirements4

6 ... And we just have the same team as before

Where does the strain come from?

Why are we singing about CXM?

CXMis a

strategy and practice

for managing customer

experiences online and offline

to acquire, retain, and turn customers into satisfied, loyal

brand ‘fans’and

ambassadors

Customer experience is a collective discipline

CXM is not about breaking down silos, but working in harmony

Source: June 6, 2011, “Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer” Forrester report

Age of Manufacturing

Age of Distribution

Age of Information

Age of the Customer

Forrester sings it, too

-40%

-30%

-20%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50% CXi Leaders 43.0%

Cum

ula

tive t

ota

l re

turn

S&P 500 Index14.5%

CXi Laggards-33.9%

6-year stock performance of CXM Leaders

Source: Watermark Consulting

What are the lyrics to CXM?

Insights

Orchestration

Contextual Experience

s

Insights

Orchestration

Content

Systems Integration

Localization

Governance

Workflow

Customer Service

Research & Development

Marketing & Sales

CX centric Organizations

Your understanding of your audiences’

interests and motivations

Orchestration

Contextual Experience

Recommendations

SMSEmailWeb Content

Facebook Pages & Apps

Your ability to align your

organization across channels,

markets, languages and

teams

Contextual Experiences

Creating relevant experiences for your customers regardless of

channel

? What’s DITA and

tech docs got

to do with it?

We can’t play

this...

...without this

Let’s think about the customer journey again

3500 worldwide executives’ goals for CXM are…

* SDL CXM Survey: 3500 respondents, 6 regions and languages, Research conducted in Q2 2013

46% customer satisfaction

33% customer loyalty

28% customer retention *

1000 consumers believe that ‘high quality product information’ is…

82% Essential to good customer service

79% Improves impression of product & brand

72% More likely to recommend a brand

79% More likely to purchase another product

?Why DITA and not

what we’ve already

got?

DITA is the ‘real deal’

rock star of product content

Problem?

Flat & StaticContent

Locked inSilos

Confusing toCustomers

Not availableon all devices

The Solution: DITA

Modular Content

Stored Centrally

Formatted to Customer’s Need

Accessible toAll Departments

Sales &Marketing

Research &Development

CustomerSupport

Training &Learning

What makes DITA so powerful?

• Flat vs. Dynamic• Chunking / re-use• Future proof

DIRECT VSFLATTENED

CONTENTREUSE

FUTURE PROOF

Direct vs. Flattened

• Somehow show the flexibility of structured content vs. losing that when flattening it / publishing it to a static output

• Probably an infographic

DIRECT & DYNAMIC

FLATTENED

Ubiquitous

Formatted

Shared

Siloed

Relevant

Inconsistent

Re-use

Locked

Personalized

Generic

Content Reuse Enables Efficiency, Consistency, & Quality

• First mention of DITA• Show how re-use drives consistency AND

lowers cost (less content to manage)• Probably an infographic

Sales and Marketing

Product Development

Customer Support

Training and Learning

Channel-specific Formatting Doesn’t Scale

• Talk about multichannel customer experience (tablets, phones, pcs)

• Talk about emerging channels that we don’t even know yet (TVs, something new?)

• Traditional pub requires one-off effort for _each_ channel

• XML frees the content from the format (form vs function / page vs topic) which allows companies to address new channels more easily/cheaper

AUTHOR

CONTENT

CHANNEL

Separate Content from Format

• Talk about multichannel customer experience (tablets, phones, pcs)

• Talk about emerging channels that we don’t even know yet (TVs, something new?)

• Traditional pub requires one-off effort for _each_ channel

• XML frees the content from the format (form vs function / page vs topic) which allows companies to address new channels more easily/cheaper

CONTENT

CHANNEL

AUTHOR

DITA Adoption Hurdles

CHALLENGES TO XML ADOPTION IN THE PAST

How technical documentation typically gets reviewed

OK, but what about the ROI?

100% reduction in DTP costs

50% increase in efficiency

20% reduction in translation costs

A Customer’s Business CaseIf approx 2,000 contributing engineers

save just 1 hour per week on documentation tasks, that represents an annual productivity gain of more than 500 man months.

By involving engineering in the documentation process, it would contribute to a reduction in defect levels by making key engineering documentation more accurate and up to date - potentially saving us 50 man months a year in direct defect fixing costs

Meet the DITA Rock Stars…

DITA to help keep your kids safe online

DITA to help bring clean water to the world

DITA to help deliver technology to your life

DITA to help empower technical innovators worldwide

DITA to help drive quality trucking

We’ve made many DITA rock stars…

Are you ready to be one, too?