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IBM et SAP renforcent leur partenariat afin d’aider leurs clients à migrer les applications des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud

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IBM et SAP renforcent leur partenariat afin d’aider leurs clients à migrer les applications des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud

IBM est le premier partenaire à proposer une infrastructure Cloud et des services techniques managés de manière intégrée dans le cadre de l’offre RISE with SAP

 

ARMONK, N.Y. et Walldorf, Allemagne, le 10 février 2022 : IBM (NYSE: IBM) a annoncé aujourd’hui qu’elle s’associait avec SAP (NYSE : SAP) pour fournir une expertise en matière de technologie et de conseil afin de permettre aux clients d’adopter plus facilement une approche Cloud hybride et de migrer les applications critiques des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud pour les secteurs réglementés et non réglementés.

Alors que les clients cherchent à adopter des stratégies de Cloud hybride, la migration des applications qui constituent l’épine dorsale du fonctionnement de leur entreprise nécessite un environnement Cloud hautement sécurisé et fiable. Avec le lancement aujourd’hui de l’option IBM – Premium Supplier pour RISE with SAP, les clients disposeront des outils nécessaires pour accélérer la migration de leurs applications SAP en local vers IBM Cloud, avec des capacités de sécurité de pointe[1].

IBM dévoile également un nouveau programme, BREAKTHROUGH with IBM pour RISE with SAP, un portefeuille de solutions et de services de conseil qui permettent d’accélérer et d’amplifier le passage à SAP S/4HANA® Cloud. Construits sur une plateforme flexible et évolutive, les solutions et services utilisent des processus intelligents pour rationaliser les opérations. Ils offrent un modèle d’engagement qui permet de planifier, d’exécuter et de soutenir la transformation globale de l’entreprise. Les clients ont également la flexibilité et le choix de migrer les applications des solutions SAP vers le Cloud en bénéficiant d’une expertise sectorielle approfondie.

L’annonce faite aujourd’hui qu’IBM devient un premium supplier fait de la compagnie le premier fournisseur Cloud à proposer des services d’infrastructure, de transformation métier et de gestion technique des applications de manière intégrée dans le cadre de RISE with SAP. La désignation d’IBM en tant que premium supplier s’inscrit dans la continuité des efforts de longue date déployés par SAP pour offrir un choix et des options aux clients, en soutenant davantage les clients d’IBM qui préfèrent que leur package RISE with SAP s’exécute sur IBM Cloud.

De plus, la migration vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud à partir de datacenters en local peut potentiellement apporter les avantages suivants, selon une étude d’IDC, sponsorisée par IBM[2] :

  • Retour sur investissement : selon les utilisateurs interrogés, la migration vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud a entraîné une augmentation du chiffre d’affaires pour jusqu’à 90 % des entreprises qui ont effectué la transition.
  • Réduction des coûts : Plus de 80 % des organisations ayant participé à l’étude ont déclaré avoir constaté une réduction des coûts opérationnels.
  • Une productivité accrue : 9 entreprises sur 10 interrogées dans l’étude ont déclaré avoir amélioré leur productivité après avoir migré vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud.

« Nous sommes ravis de faire progresser notre partenariat de longue date avec SAP à travers RISE », a déclaré John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. « Notre engagement commun est de répondre à nos clients, notamment ceux des secteurs hautement réglementés, là où ils en sont dans leur parcours numérique, tout en leur offrant des choix pour migrer ou moderniser leurs applications critiques avec une approche de Cloud hybride. »

« BREAKTHROUGH with IBM est un complément exceptionnel à RISE with SAP, car il jette les bases permettant à nos clients de se lancer dans la transformation de leur entreprise ou de la faire progresser. En outre, il réaffirme la valeur que les clients reconnaissent à RISE with SAP ainsi que l’impact et l’opportunité d’innovation que RISE with SAP offre aux organisations qui migrent vers le Cloud. Je suis convaincu que l’expertise et l’expérience combinées de SAP et d’IBM permettront d’accélérer l’adoption du Cloud et la croissance des activités pour les clients du monde entier », a déclaré Brian Duffy, President of Cloud, SAP.

IBM et SAP ont travaillé avec des centaines de clients dans le monde entier sur des milliers de projets individuels visant à moderniser leurs systèmes et leurs processus métier sur la base d’une approche Cloud hybride ouverte. Parmi les exemples récents, citons Coca-Cola European Partners, Parle Products, Harmont & Blaine, Puravankara Ltd et Virgin Megastore KSA.

Soulignant son engagement envers SAP S/4HANA®, à la fois en tant que client SAP et partenaire commercial depuis 50 ans, IBM a également réalisé un investissement important dans RISE with SAP en engageant la transformation de ses propres applications SAP. IBM est un nouveau Premium Supplier pour l’offre RISE with SAP et utilise le Cloud hybride d’IBM, y compris l’Infrastructure as a Service IBM Power, afin d’améliorer les performances, la disponibilité et la sécurité des déploiements d’éditions privées de SAP S/4HANA® Cloud.

Pour en savoir plus sur le programme BREAKTHROUGH with IBM pour l’offre RISE with SAP : https://www.ibm.com/services/sap/rise-with-sap.

 

À propos d’IBM

IBM est un leader mondial du Cloud hybride et de l’IA, ainsi que des services aux entreprises, qui aide ses clients dans plus de 175 pays à capitaliser sur les connaissances issues de leurs données, à rationaliser leurs processus métier, à réduire leurs coûts et à acquérir un avantage concurrentiel dans leurs secteurs d’activité. Près de 3 000 entités gouvernementales et entreprises dans des domaines d’infrastructures critiques tels que les services financiers, les télécommunications et les soins de santé font confiance à la plateforme Cloud hybride d’IBM et à Red Hat OpenShift pour impacter leurs transformations numériques rapidement, efficacement et en toute sécurité. Les innovations révolutionnaires d’IBM en matière d’IA, d’informatique quantique, de solutions Cloud spécifiques à certains secteurs et de services aux entreprises offrent des options ouvertes et flexibles à nos clients. Tout cela est soutenu par l’engagement légendaire d’IBM en matière de confiance, de transparence, de responsabilité, d’inclusivité et de service.

Pour en savoir plus : www.ibm.com

Les déclarations d’IBM concernant ses orientations et intentions futures sont sujettes à modification ou retrait sans préavis et ne représentent que des buts et des objectifs.

 

À propos de SAP

La stratégie de SAP vise à aider chaque organisation à fonctionner en « entreprise intelligente ». En tant que leader du marché des logiciels d’application d’entreprise, nous aidons les entreprises de toutes tailles et de tous secteurs à opérer au mieux : Les clients de SAP génèrent 87 % du commerce mondial total. Nos technologies de Machine Learning, d’Internet des objets (IoT) et d’analytique avancées aident nos clients à transformer leurs activités en « entreprises intelligentes ». SAP permet aux personnes et aux organisations d’avoir une vision approfondie de leur business et favorise la collaboration afin qu’elles puissent garder une longueur d’avance sur leurs concurrents. Nous simplifions la technologie afin que les entreprises puissent utiliser nos logiciels comme elles le souhaitent – sans interruption. Notre suite d’applications et de services de bout en bout permet aux clients privés et publics de 25 secteurs d’activité dans le monde de fonctionner de manière rentable, de s’adapter en permanence et de faire la différence. Avec son réseau mondial de clients, partenaires, employés et leaders d’opinion, SAP aide le monde à mieux fonctionner et à améliorer la vie de chacun.

Pour plus d’informations, visitez le site www.sap.com.

[1] Based on IBM Hyper Protect Crypto Service, the only service in the industry built on FIPS 140-2 Level 4-certified hardware. FIPS 140-2 Security Level 4 provides the highest level of security defined in this standard. At this security level, the physical security mechanisms provide a comprehensive envelope of protection around the cryptographic module with the intent of detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access.

[2]  IDC White Paper, sponsored by IBM, Business Benefits Possible by Choosing the Right Cloud Provider to Run SAP Workloads. Doc #US47166220, December 2020.

 

The post IBM et SAP renforcent leur partenariat afin d’aider leurs clients à migrer les applications des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud appeared first on SAP France News.

Source de l’article sur sap.com

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Learn to Access Java Database With Jakarta Data

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Dealing with a database is one of the biggest challenges within a software architecture. In addition to choosing one of several options on the market, it is necessary to consider the persistence integrations. The purpose of this article is to show some of these patterns and learn about a new specification proposal, Jakarta Data, which aims to make life easier for developers with Java.

Understanding the Layers That Can Make Up Software

Whenever we talk about complexity in a corporate system, we focus on the ancient Roman military strategy: divide and conquer or divide et impera. To simplify the whole, we break it down into small units.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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WordPress Website Analysis: Before & After ImageEngine

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WordPress is by far the world’s most popular CMS. Not only does it dominate the CMS market with a 64% market share, but it also powers 39.6% of all websites. It has taken the internet by storm by democratizing the web for all. Now, anyone can build, manage, and host a successful website without needing a college degree or coding expertise.

However, while WordPress is great at managing many technical aspects, it still can’t do everything for you. Built mostly on PHP, there are often concerns regarding how performant WordPress is. And, with performance impacting everything from bounce rates to SEO rankings to conversions, it’s something that should be on your radar too.

If you don’t know it yet, images are one of the main causes of slow-loading websites. In recent years, WordPress has stepped up its efforts to try and help users with image optimization out-of-the-box.

Still, as we’ll show, it’s not a total solution, and there is still plenty you can do to deliver better experiences on your WordPress website through image optimization.

What is WordPress Image Optimization? Why is it Important?

Simply put, image optimization is anything you do to make images load faster on your website pages. Almost all websites that use images can benefit from some form of image optimization, even those using WordPress.

Why?

Well, performance is a hugely significant factor when it comes to the competitiveness of your website today.

Google has also made performance an increasingly important factor when it comes to SEO rankings. In fact, performance is a direct ranking signal that carries significant weight.

Google’s Page Experience Update that went live in 2021 has been the biggest move in that direction yet. Soon, Google might even use visual indicators in SERP results to distinguish high-performing websites from the rest.

In Google’s own words, “These signals measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page and contribute to our ongoing work to ensure people get the most helpful and enjoyable experiences from the web.”

So, Why Should We Target Images For Performance Optimization?

According to Google, images are the largest contributor to page weight. Google has also singled out image optimization specifically as the factor with the most untapped potential for performance optimization.

This problem isn’t going away soon. According to data by the HTTP Archive, there are roughly 967.5 KB bytes of image data on desktop web pages and 866.3 KB of image data on mobile pages. This is an increase of 16.1% and 38.8%, respectively, over the last five years.

Thanks to popular e-commerce tools like Woocommerce, it’s estimated that up to 28% of all online sales happen on WordPress websites.

And don’t forget, images are both a key part of conveying information to the user and integral to the design of your website. If they take significantly longer to load than your text, for example, it will negatively impact the user experience in a variety of ways.

In summary, optimized images help your WordPress website by:

  • Improving user satisfaction.
  • Improving various traffic metrics, like bounce rates, time-on-page, etc.
  • Boosting your SEO rankings.
  • Contributing to higher conversions (and sales).

How Does Image Optimization in WordPress Work?

WordPress is so popular because it’s a CMS (content management system) that allows anyone to build, design, and manage a website without any coding or advanced technical experience. Advanced features can be installed with just a few clicks, thanks to plugins, and you rarely have to touch the code behind your website unless you want to make some unique modifications.

In short, using a CMS like WordPress shields you from many of the day-to-day technicalities of running a website.

WordPress Image Optimization: What It Can Do

As we mentioned, one of the main reasons WordPress is so popular is because it takes care of many of the technical aspects of running a website. With that in mind, many think that WordPress should also automatically take care of image optimization without them having to get involved at all.

Unfortunately, that’s not really the case.

True, WordPress does offer some built-in image optimization. Whenever you upload an image to WordPress, it currently compresses the quality to about 82% of the original (since v4.5).

In v4.4, WordPress also introduced responsive image syntax using the srcset attribute. This creates four breakpoints for each image you upload according to the default WordPress image sizes:

  • 150px square for thumbnails
  • 300px width for medium images
  • 768px max-width for medium_large images
  • 1024px max-width for large images.

Here you can see an example of the actual responsive syntax code generated by WordPress:

<img loading="lazy" src="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-9" width="610" height="406" srcset="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-300x200.jpg 300w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-768x512.jpg 768w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px">

Depending on the screen size of the device from which a user visits your webpage, WordPress will let the browser pick the most appropriately sized image. For example, the smallest version for mobile displays or the largest for 4K Retina screens, like those of a Mac.

While this may seem impressive, it’s only a fraction of what can be achieved using a proper image optimization solution, as we’ll show later.

Lastly, WordPress implemented HTML native default lazy loading for all images starting with version 5.5.

So, in short, WordPress offers the following image optimization capabilities baked-in:

  • Quality compression (limited)
  • Responsive syntax (up to 4 breakpoints)
  • Lazy loading

WordPress Image Optimization: What it Cannot Do

There are other issues many have with both the implementation of image compression and responsive syntax as it’s used by WordPress. This leads to some users even purposefully deactivating WordPress’ built-in image optimization so they can fully take control of it themselves.

Here are some of the reasons why:

  • WordPress uses a very basic form of quality compression. It does not use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning algorithms to compress images while maintaining maximum visual quality. It’s also lossy compression, so the quality is lost for good. You can clearly see the difference between an original HD image and the compressed version created by WordPress.
  • WordPress only compresses most images by up to 20%, while advanced image optimization tools can reduce all image sizes intelligently by up to 80%.
  • Responsive syntax can provide significant performance improvements over simply uploading a single HD image to be served on all devices and screens. However, it’s still only limited to a set number of breakpoints (typically 3 or 4). Since it’s not dynamic, a whole spectrum of possible image sizes is not created or used.
  • Responsive syntax code is not scalable and can quickly lead to code that’s bloated, messy, and hard to read.
  • WordPress doesn’t accelerate image delivery by automatically caching and serving them via a global CDN, although this can be done using other tools.

Another important optimization feature that WordPress does not have is auto-conversion to next-gen image file formats. Different image formats offer different performance benefits on different devices. Some formats also enable higher levels of compression while maintaining visual fidelity.

Next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, and JPEG-2000 are considered to be the most optimal formats on compatible devices. For example, until recently, WebP would be the optimal choice on Chrome browsers, while JPEG-4000 would be optimal on Safari browsers.

However, WordPress will simply serve images in the same formats in which they were originally uploaded to all visitors.

How to Measure the Image Performance of a WordPress Website?

As the undisputed king of search engines, we’ll base most of our performance metrics on guidelines established by Google.

Along with its various performance updates, Google has released a number of guidelines for developers as well as the tools to test and improve their websites according to said guidelines.

Google introduced Core Web Vitals as the primary metrics for measuring a web page’s performance and its effect on the user experience. Thus, Core Web Vitals are referred to as “user-centric performance metrics.” They are an attempt to give developers a testable and quantifiable way to measure an elusive and abstract concept such as “user experience.”

Combined with a number of other factors, Core Web Vitals constitute a major part of the overall page experience signal:

You can find a complete introduction to Core Web Vitals here. However, they currently consist of three main metrics:

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): The time it takes the largest above-the-fold element on your page to load. This is typically a full-sized image or hero section.
  • FID (First Input Delay): The delay from the moment a user first interacts with an element on the page until it becomes responsive.
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): The visual stability with which the elements on a page load.

Here is an illustration of how these metrics are scored:

While these are the three most important metrics to optimize, they are not the only ones. Google still measures other metrics like the FCP (First Contentful Paint), SI (Speed Index), as well as the TTFB (Time to First Byte), TBT (Total Blocking Time), and TTI (Time to Interactive).

A number of these metrics are directly affected by the images used on your web pages. For example, LCP, FCP, and SI are direct indicators of how fast the content of your web page loads and depends on the overall byte size of the page. However, it can also indirectly affect FID by keeping the main thread busy with rendering large amounts of image content or the perceived CLS by delaying the time it takes large images to load.

These metrics apply to all websites, whether they are custom-made or built using a CMS like WordPress.

When using tools like Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights, you’ll also get scored based on other flags Google deems important. Some of them are specific to images, such as properly sizing images and serving images in next-gen formats.

If you only use built-in WordPress image optimization, you’ll get flagged for the following opportunities for improvement:

Some of the audits it will pass, however, are deferring offscreen images (lazy loading) and efficiently coding images (due to compression):

A Better Way to Optimize WordPress Images: ImageEngine

Billions of websites are all vying for prime real estate on Google SERPs, as well as the attention of an increasingly fussy internet-using public. Every inch matters when it comes to giving your website a competitive advantage.

So, how can you eliminate those remaining performance flags and deliver highly optimized images that will keep both your visitors and Google happy?

Sure, you could manually optimize images using software like PhotoShop or GIMP. However, that will take you hours for each new batch of images. Plus, you still won’t benefit from any automated adaptive optimization.

A more reasonable solution in today’s fast-paced climate is to use a tool developed specifically for maximum image optimization: an image CDN like ImageEngine.

ImageEngine is an automated, cloud-based image optimization service using device detection as well as intelligent image compression using the power of AI and machine learning. It can reduce image payloads by up to 80% while maintaining visual quality and accelerating delivery around the world thanks to its CDN with geographically dispersed PoPs.

Why is ImageEngine Image Optimization Better Than WordPress?

When making a head-to-head comparison, here are the reasons why ImageEngine can deliver better performance:

  • Device Detection: ImageEngine features built-in device detection. This means it picks up what device a visitor to your website is using and tailors its optimization strategy to what’s best for that specific device.
  • Client hints: By supporting client hints, ImageEngine has access to even more information regarding the device and browser to make better optimization decisions.
  • Next-gen formats: Based on optimal settings, ImageEngine automatically converts and serves images in next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, JPEG2000, and MP4 (for GIFs).
  • Save data header: When a Chrome user has save-data mode enabled, ImageEngine will automatically compress images more aggressively to save on data transfer.
  • CDN with dedicated edge servers: ImageEngine will automatically cache and serve your optimized image assets using its global CDN. Each edge server has device awareness built-in to bring down latency and accelerate delivery. You can also choose to prioritize specific regions.

So, the key differentiator is that ImageEngine can tailor optimizing images for what’s optimal for each of your visitors. ImageEngine is particularly good at serving mobile visitors thanks to WURFL device detection, which can dynamically resize images according to most devices and screen sizes in use today. As of now, this is a completely unique capability that none of its competitors offer.

It allows for far better and more fine-tuned optimization than WordPress’ across-the-board approach to compression and responsive syntax.

If you want, you could turn off WordPress responsive syntax and compression, and you would still experience a performance increase using ImageEngine. However, ImageEngine also plays nice with responsive syntax, so it’s not completely necessary unless you want to serve the highest-fidelity/low-byte-size images possible.

How Does ImageEngine Work with WordPress?

The process ImageEngine uses to integrate with WordPress can be broken down into a few easy steps:

  • Sign up for an ImageEngine account: ImageEngine offers three pricing plans depending on the scale and features you need as well as a no-commitment 30-day free trial.
  • Specify your image origin: This tells ImageEngine where to find the original versions of your images. For a WordPress website, you can just use your domain, e.g., https://mywordpresswebsite.com. ImageEngine will then automatically pull the images you’ve uploaded to your WordPress website.

  • Copy the Delivery Address: After you create an account and specify your image origin, ImageEngine will provide you with a Delivery Address. A Delivery Address is your own unique address that will be used in your <img> tags to point back to the ImageEngine service. Delivery Addresses may be on a shared domain (imgeng.in) or customized using a domain that you own. A Delivery Address typically looks something like {random_string}.cdn.imgeng.in. If your images are uploaded to the default WordPress folder /wp-content/uploads/, you can access your optimized images from ImageEngine simply by changing your website domain. For example, by typing {imageengine_domain}.cdn.imgeng.in/wp-content/uploads/myimage.jpg into your browser, you’ll see the optimized version of that image. Just press the copy button next to the Delivery Address and use it in the next step configuring the plugin.

  • Install the ImageEngine Optimizer CDN plugin: The plugin is completely free and can be installed just like any other plugin from the WordPress repository.
  • Configure and enable ImageEngine Plugin in WordPress: Just go to the plugin under “ImageEngine” in the main navigation menu. Then, copy and paste in your ImageEngine “Delivery Address,” tick the “Enabled” checkbox, and click “Save Changes” to enable ImageEngine:

Now, all ImageEngine basically does is replace your WordPress website domain in image URLs with your new ImageEngine Delivery Address. This makes it a simple, lightweight, and non-interfering plugin that works great with most other plugins and themes. It also doesn’t add unnecessary complexity or weight to your WordPress website pages.

ImageEngine vs Built-in WordPress Image Optimization

So, now let’s get down to business by testing the performance improvement you can expect from using ImageEngine to optimize your image assets.

To do this test, we set up a basic WordPress page containing a number of high-quality images. I then used PageSpeed Insights and the Lighthouse Performance Calculator to get the performance scores before and after using ImageEngine.

Importantly, we conducted this test from a mobile-first perspective. Not only has mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic globally, but Google themselves have committed to mobile-first indexing as a result.

Here is a PageSpeed score using the Lighthouse calculator for WordPress with no image optimization:

As we can see, both Core Web Vitals and other important metrics were flagged as “needs improvement.” Specifically, the LCP, FCP, and TBT. In this case, both the LCP and FCP were a high-res featured image at the top of the page.

If we go to the opportunities for improvement highlighted by PageSpeed, we see where the issues come from. We could still save as much as 4.2s of loading time by properly resizing images and a further 2.7s by serving them in next-gen formats:

So, now let’s see how much ImageEngine can improve on that.

The same test run on my WordPress website using ImageEngine got the following results:

As you can see, we now have a 100 PageSpeed score. I saved roughly 2.5s on the SI (~86%) as well as roughly 1.7s on the LCP (~60%). There was also a slight improvement in the FCP.

Not only will you enjoy a stronger page experience signal from Google, but this represents a tangible difference to visitors regarding the speed with which your website loads. That difference will lead to lower bounce rates, increased user satisfaction, and more conversions.

There was also a 53% overall reduction in the total image payload. This is impressive, considering that it’s on top of WordPress’ built-in compression and responsive syntax.

Conclusion

So, as someone with a WordPress website, what can you take away from this?

Well, first of all, WordPress does feature some basic image optimization. And while not perfect, it should help you offer reasonable levels of performance, even if you use a lot of image content.

However, the caveat is that WordPress applies aggressive, across-the-board compression, which will lead to a noticeable reduction in visual quality. If you use WordPress for any type of website where premium quality images are important, this is a concern — for example, as a photography portfolio, exhibition, or image marketplace like Shutterstock.

By using ImageEngine, you can reduce image payloads and accelerate delivery even further without compromising too harshly on visual quality. What’s more, ImageEngine’s adaptive image optimization technology will provide greater improvements to more of your visitors, regardless of what device(s) they use to browse the web.

Whether or not you still want to use WordPress’ built-in optimizations, ImageEngine will deliver significant improvements to your user experience, traffic metrics, and even conversions.

Plus, true to the spirit of WordPress, it’s extremely simple to set up without any advanced configuration. Just sign up for ImageEngine in 3 easy steps, install the plugin, integrate ImageEngine by copy/pasting your image domain, and you’re good to go.

 

[ This is a sponsored post on behalf of ImageEngine ]

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The post WordPress Website Analysis: Before & After ImageEngine first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

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5 Creative Management Trends to Watch in 2022

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Yesterday’s creativity won’t keep pace with tomorrow’s requirements; businesses need speed and agility without sacrificing creative quality.

“The creativity that was needed in the past is not the creativity that is needed today,” according to Matthew Rayback, a creative director at Adobe. He’s not talking about the function of creativity but rather about the process of creative management in a marketing context. 

What is needed today? Speed and agility without sacrificing quality. 

Why? Because the pace of change has accelerated. As Rex Salisbury, a deal partner for the venture firm a16z noted early in the pandemic, “Businesses of all kinds are experiencing two years’ worth of digitization compressed into months.”

This accelerated digital transformation has put pressure on marketing teams to turn campaigns around faster. In turn, that places pressure on creative teams to generate the requisite creative for those campaigns. Leaders need to sharpen their awareness of the unfolding creative management trends to keep pace. To that end, below are five such trends to watch in 2022. 

1. In-House Creative Teams Continue to Grow

Companies have been building in-house creative teams for the better part of a decade. A 2018 study by Forrester Research and the In-House Agency Forum (IHAF) found the number of in-house teams has grown 22% in the last ten years or so. As The Wall Street Journal reported, more than half of advertisers (64%) have shifted their creative organizations to an in-house team.  

According to a more recent version of that same study, the in-housing movement didn’t stop throughout the pandemic. It revealed, “80% of respondents said they have brought more marketing assignments in-house since the onset of the pandemic, with 50% saying the increase was directly triggered by the events of the past two years.”

Businesses seem well-satisfied with the results because the urge to in-house is poised to grow beyond creative teams. For example, a recent survey by the customer intelligence company Axciom found about 50% of respondents believe the “in-housing is currently a top marketing objective, and 40% expect it will remain a top priority in the coming years.”

2. Outside Agencies Hired for Specialized Skills

Despite the in-housing trend, there is still opportunity for agencies, consultants, and freelancers, particularly those with specialized skills. Even the consumer-packaged goods giant Proctor & Gamble, a leading example of brands bringing marketing and creative teams in-house, still needs outside service providers.

Indeed, while in-house creative teams produce the lion’s share of creative work, the vast majority (86%) also continue to partner with agencies and freelancers; according to our own research, published in our 2021 Creative Management Report, which was facilitated by Lytho (formerly inMotionNow) and based on a survey of 400 creatives and marketers. 

When the survey asked creatives why they hire outside resources, the top reason was access to specialized skills (60%). That was followed in a distant second by a need for increased capacity (44%), help with developing strategy (24%), and, lastly, to get work done faster (20%). 

“It is very unusual for an in-house team to have no outside resources that they lean on,” wrote Alex Blum of Blum Consulting Partners, Inc. in a written assessment of the survey results.

He says there are two primary ways to partner with agencies. “First, for overflow capacity. There is always a need for more creative resources, and agencies can offer that flexibility without the cost of maintaining larger teams,” he wrote. “Second, in-house teams can divide areas of ownership with an agency based on the skill sets they have in-house.”

3. The Creative Process Evolves

Marketing today is dominated by an insatiable thirst for fresh content, produced and polished by creative teams. The demand for that content continues to explode. 

What does this portend for creative teams? Despite adding headcount, creative requests exceed the creative team’s capacity to produce it – even as lead times shrink. Matthew Rayback, the creative director at Adobe, suggested the creative process must evolve. 

He likens creatives to an auto factory, where “creatives used to be the assembly line to make a single car.” However, today, creatives are tasked with creating more cars, each with unique adjustments such as personalization. 

“The assembly line we built can’t accommodate that speed or volume,” he says. So the whole factory – the entire creative process – must be overhauled to adapt. 

4. Quantitative Measurement Drives Creative Priorities

Current methods for measuring the value of creative teams center on outputs. That is to say, the metrics tracked tend to quantify the number of creative projects in progress, the rounds of review, and the number of projects completed over time. 

These metrics are important, but alone they are insufficient. A complementary way to prioritize large volumes of creative requests is focusing on those tasks most likely to move the business needle. The barrier to achieving this is that most creatives aren’t kept informed as to the outcomes of marketing campaigns fueled by their creative efforts. This must change.

With the growing demand for content, the margin of error for applying creative resources to projects that don’t correlate to business results shrinks. Marketing organizations must build a feedback loop that brings quantitative results back to the creative team. In turn, creative teams must learn to use the data to drive their work priorities in collaboration with marketing. 

5. Creative Resource Management Becomes Essential

Resource management is both a leadership concept and technology (or a combination of technologies). It’s a means to plan, track, collaborate and measure creative operations, including people, processes, and budgets.  

Traditionally, planning and tracking of all things creative and marketing occurred in a spreadsheet. It works well when the future is generally predictable – yet cliché as it may be to say it – we are living in a state of uncertainty. 

Like many trends over the last 18-24 months, the global pandemic “forced virtual experiences, disrupted marketing channels and campaigns, and accelerated companies’ transition to digital marketing,” according to Forrester. The research firm calls resource management “essential” because it helps move “planning from static spreadsheets to a dynamic and real-time environment.” 

Final Thoughts

Yogi Berra paraphrased an old Danish proverb when he said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Even so, the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already underway, and these five trends are good examples. More than just watching them, creative and marketing leaders should take steps now to get ahead of them.

 

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How to Get Started with the MVP Workflow

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Few things are more important to a web designer or developer’s chances of success than having the proper workflow. The term “workflow” applies to the set of standardized steps you or your company uses to create, test, and deploy designs or products.

Over the years, as development processes have evolved, so too have the workflows experts use to bring their ideas to life. The MVP workflow, or “Minimum Viable Product” strategy, is one of the most popular options in 2022.

Here’s what you need to know about the MVP workflow and how it differs from some of the other standard workflows developers may be used to.

What is the Designer/Developer Workflow?

As mentioned above, the designer/developer workflow is a series of steps used by experts in the web design world to achieve a creative goal. The process includes the steps taken to start a project, evolve it, and finish it. Since software is never developed without tools, the technology you’ll access throughout the development process is also considered in most workflows.

An example of a standard development workflow might look like this:

  • Scaffolding: This is the stage wherein you start your new web project, creating a git repo, downloading libraries, preparing file structures, and completing other tasks to make sure your product is ready to roll out into the world.
  • Develop: This is where you’ll spend most of your time writing code for your application or website. The development process may include various specific tools and support from other staff members.
  • Test: In this stage, you examine the functionality of your code to determine if everything works as it should. If there are errors or issues, you can go back and develop fixes to the potential problems. Your code may go through the development/test process several times before you can move to the next stage.
  • Integrate: This is when you merge the code for your part of the development process with the rest of the team. You can also integrate your code into websites and existing apps at this point. If you’re working solo, you can skip this process.
  • Optimize: You prepare all your assets for use on a production server during the optimization stage. Files are generally optimized to ensure your visitors can view your site easily or access your applications with ease.
  • Deploy: In the deployment stage, developers push code and assets up into the server and allow for changes to be viewed by the public.

What is MVP? (Minimum Viable Product)

Now you know what a developer workflow looks like, you can begin to assess the concept of the “MVP” workflow. The term “MVP” stands for Minimum Viable Product.

The idea of “Minimum Viable Product” applies to a range of industries, from education to healthcare and government entities. This term comes from lean start-up practices and focuses heavily on the value of learning and changing during the development process.

When you adapt your workflow to focus on an MVP, you’re essentially adjusting your focus to a point where you can create a stripped-back version of something new – like an app or a website. The MVP is built just with the core features (the minimum), so you can bring the idea to market and test it as quickly as possible.

For instance, if your goal were to create an attractive new website for a client, an MVP would focus on implementing the crucial initial tools, and nothing else. While you may create checkout pages, product pages, and other aspects of the site, you wouldn’t populate it with content or start experimenting with bonus widgets and apps.

So, how does this offer a better alternative to the standard workflow?

Simply put, an MVP workflow is quick, agile, and easy. The idea is you can validate key concepts with speed, fail quickly, and learn just as fast. Rather than having to build an entire app and almost start over from scratch every time you find an error, you can race through the iteration and development process.

MVP workflows are also highly appealing to start-ups and entrepreneurs hoping to validate ideas without a massive amount of upfront investment.

Examples of MVP Workflows

Still confused? The easiest way to understand how an MVP workflow works is to look at an example.

Let’s start with a conceptual example. Say you were building a voice transcription service for businesses. The desired features of this product might include the ability to download transcription, translate them into different languages, and integrate them into AI analytics tools.

However, using the MVP approach, you wouldn’t try to accomplish all of your goals with your software at once. Instead, you’d focus on something simple first – like the ability to download the transcripts. Once you confirm you can do that, you can start a new workflow for the next most important feature for the app.

One excellent example of a company with an MVP approach is Airbnb. The entrepreneurs behind this unicorn company, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, didn’t have a lot of cash to build a business with at first. They had to use their own apartment to validate the idea of creating a website where people could share their available “space” in a home or apartment with the public.

To begin, Airbnb only created a very basic website, published photos of their property, and waited to see the results. After discovering people were genuinely interested in renting another person’s home, the company was able to begin experimenting with new ideas to make a site where people could list their properties for travelers.

The Pros and Cons of an MVP Workflow

There are a lot of benefits to the MVP workflow – particularly when it comes to gaining agility and developing new products quickly. However, there are downsides too.

Pros

  • With an MVP approach, you can maximize your learning opportunities and create a more innovative, successful product at speed. You get to test every step of the way.
  • You release iterations or versions of your product quickly, which means you discover problems faster, allowing you to quickly solve these issues.
  • You build on the benefits of customer fans, “evangelists” in the marketplace who are keen to help your product or service grow.
  • An MVP gives you more freedom to try out unique ideas and “risks” you might otherwise avoid with a traditional workflow.
  • Because you’re focusing on creating only the “minimum viable product,” you don’t have to spend a fortune on initially setting up your workflows.

Cons

  • Agile work with an MVP flow requires a lot of effort in collecting constant feedback from customers and releasing iterations.
  • You’ll need to dedicate yourself to releasing many small and frequent product releases on a tight schedule.
  • You might have to revise the functionality of your product or app a number of times.

Creating Your MVP Workflow

If you believe an MVP workflow might be effective for you, the first step is defining your “Minimum Viable Product.” The app, website, or product you design needs to align with your team’s strategic goals, so think about what your company is trying to achieve at this moment – before you get started. If you have limited resources, or specific purposes, like improving your reputation as a reliable company, now might not be the right time to develop a new MVP.

Ask what purpose your minimum viable product will serve and what kind of market you’re going to be targeting. You’ll need to know your target customer to help you test the quality and performance of each iteration of your MVP. Once you know what your ideal “product” is, ask yourself what the most important features will be.

You can base these decisions on things like:

  • User research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Feedback from your audience

For example, if you’re producing an AI chatbot that helps companies to sort through customer inquiries, the most important “initial feature” may be the ability to integrate that bot into existing websites and apps owned by the company.

MVP Approach Guidelines

Once you have your hierarchy of most valuable features for your minimum viable product, you can translate this into an action plan for development. Remember, although you’re focusing on the “minimum” in development, your product still needs to be “viable.” In other words, it still needs to allow your customer to achieve a specific goal.

  • Review your features: Reviewing your prioritized product requirements and the minimum level of functionality you can deliver with each of these “features.” You need to ensure you’re still providing value to your customer with anything you produce.
  • Build your solution: Build your minimum set of features for the product or service. Remember to build only what is required. You can use methodologies like the agile or waterfall method to help guide your team during this process.
  • Validate your solution: Release your offering into the market, and ensure you have tools in place to gather feedback from early adopters. Use beta programs, focus groups, and market interviews to understand how your solution works for your customers and where you can improve on your current offer.
  • Release new iterations: Based on what you learn from your target audience, release improvements to your product quickly. Use your validation strategies to collect information from your audience with each release.
  • Review again: Go back to your product requirements and desired features and start the process over again, this time focusing on the next most valuable functionality. Over time, the value of your minimum viable product will increase.

Using the MVP Workflow Approach

While the MVP workflow approach might not be the right solution for every development or design team, it can work very effectively in the right circumstances. The MVP approach doesn’t minimize the importance of understanding market problems and delivering value. Instead, the focus is on delivering quick value that gradually increases and evolves over time.

As many developers and designers know, the most useful form of product validation in most cases is real-world validation. When your customers have had an opportunity to use a product on a day-to-day basis, they can provide much more effective feedback.

Just keep in mind that committing to the MVP approach also means changing your workflow and committing to iterations – otherwise, other features may never be completed. You’ll need to be willing to work quickly and in small bursts without getting too heavily caught up in one feature or functionality.

 

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10 Top WordPress Themes for 2022

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If you’re looking for a WordPress theme for your 2022 projects, it never hurts to see what the experts consider to be the best of the bunch. That’s not to say that experts don’t have their favorites. They often do, and we are no different.

We’ve tried, successfully, we believe, to avoid any biases we may have in compiling what we believe to be the 10 top WordPress themes going into 2022.

Working with a WordPress theme has the advantage of giving you a great starting point. It makes it much easier to create an attractive website that will charm any visitors who stop by and convince them to linger awhile.

Another advantage of using a theme can be its cost-effectiveness. Most of the popular WordPress themes are reasonably priced, they save you time, and they can save you money as well.

The main problem you’re apt to encounter is finding the right one since many of them are out there. You could spend hours and hours making comparisons among a host of candidates that appear to be reliable and easily customizable. Or you could select from among the following 10 top WordPress themes, all of which are guaranteed to give you your money’s worth and more. 

1. BeTheme – The Biggest Multipurpose WordPress Theme with 650+ Pre-Built Websites

BeTheme justifiably lays claim to being the biggest WordPress and WooCommerce theme of all for several reasons.

  • BeTheme’s 40+ core features give its users a complete tool kit to work with that includes 650+ pre-built websites and tons of design elements, aids, and options.
  • A 240,000+ customer base also contributes to making this the biggest WordPress theme of them all.

It’s not just about size, of course. Performance is all-important, and BeTheme has it in spades thanks to:

  • The Muffin Live Builder lets users edit live content visually and create, save, and restore design elements, blocks, and sections.
  • The WooCommerce Builder helps users design engaging shop and single product layouts and is packed with customer-centric features and options.
  • Full Elementor compatibility, with 30+ unique design elements and 120+ dedicated pre-built websites.
  • Assurance that every website is 100% responsive.
  • The Muffin Builder: this old standby is more intuitive than any other page builder on the market.
  • Regular Updates, plus BeTheme purchasers also receive free lifetime updates.

Click on the banner. There’s much, much more to see.

2. Total WordPress Theme

Total is aptly named because of the tools it gives its users; tools that include a premium page builder, demo and template libraries, an assortment of design and layout options, and cool navigation features.

  • The premium page builder is an extended version of the popular WPBakery frontend drag and drop page builder. Slider Revolution, another premium design aide, also comes with the package.
  • Design options include more than 500 live customizer options and 100+ customizable builder blocks, page builder block animation capabilities, custom backgrounds, and custom title backgrounds.
  • Layout options range from boxed and full-width and dynamic layouts to page and post designs and one-page site layouts.
  • Header styles, local scroll menus, and mobile menu styles contribute to website navigation capabilities.

Total is easy to set up and work with, plus it is 100% responsive. Click on the banner to find out more.

3. WoodMart

WoodMart is a premium WordPress theme that has been designed from the ground up to enable its users to create superlative WooCommerce online stores. WoodMart doesn’t require the use of multiple plugins as the most important tools, and features users simply must have come right out of the box.

They include:

  • For starters, a supply of 70+ demo layouts, 370 premade sections, plus an extensive template library for Elementor and WP Bakery.
  • A powerful Theme Settings Panel with a graphics interface to make changes quickly and easily.
  • AJAX techniques that guarantee the super-fast loading that is so important with multi-product pages and galleries.

WoodMart-built websites are search engine friendly, multilanguage ready, 100% responsive, and RTL and retina ready, and GDPR compliant.

Click on the banner to see what your WooCommerce store could look like.

4. TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

TheGem is the best-selling theme on ThemeForest, which isn’t surprising since its multiplicity of features has led to it being called the Swiss Army Knife of WordPress themes.

Key features include –

  • 400+ beautiful websites and templates for any purpose or niche.
  • TheGem Blocks with its 300+ pre-designed section templates to speed up your workflow – a genuine game-changer.
  • Elementor and WPBakery page builders.
  • An outstanding collection of WooCommerce templates for any shop type.

5. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme 

Uncode is a pixel-perfect theme packed with dozens of advanced and unique features designed to produce a pixel-perfect website.

These features include:

  • An enhanced Page Builder with a juiced-up Frontend editor
  • A WooCommerce Custom Builder
  • A wireframes plugin for importing 550+ professionally designed section templates

Uncode has sold more than 85,000 copies to date. It is the ideal WordPress theme for building an impressive blog, portfolio, eCommerce, and magazine sites.

6. Rey Theme for WooCommerce

eCommerce is said to rest on four pillars – filtering, search, navigation, and presentation. This WooCommerce-oriented WordPress theme fully addresses each one. Rey lets you experience design, innovation, and performance in ways you could only dream of before.

There’s:

  • The powerful and popular Elementor page builder with built-in features supplemented with Rey’s extra spices.
  • Ajax navigation, including infinite loading.

Rey is multilanguage-ready, obviously responsive, SEO friendly, developer-friendly, and performance-oriented.

7. Avada Theme

One easy way to know you’ve picked the right theme is to select Avada, the #1 best-selling theme of all time, a popular theme that is loved by 450,000+ happy users.

  • Avada’s Fusion Theme Options, Fusion Page Options, and Fusion Builder will give you more than enough flexibility, while its 40+ free eye-candy demos provide the inspiration.
  • Avada also gives you easy access to some of the most popular premium plugins.

And that’s just the beginning.

8. Impeka – Creative Multipurpose WordPress Theme

This simply impeccable WordPress theme is filled with potential for the advanced user and, at the same time, easy for a beginner to use. Using Impeka simply involves:

  • Selecting Elementor, Gutenberg, or an enhanced WPBakery as your page builder.
  • Using WooCommerce to build your online shop.
  • Sifting through a multitude of features that include the Mega Menu and Footer and Popup builders.

Your website will be super-attractive, lightning-fast, fully responsive, and SEO perfected.

9. Litho – Multipurpose Elementor WordPress Theme

This popular multipurpose WordPress theme is built with Elementor, the world’s #1-page builder.

  • Litho can be used to build websites of any type and for any business niche.
  • It is excellent for building portfolio, blog, and eCommerce websites.
  • There are 37+ home pages, 200+ creative elements, and 300+ templates to get you started and assist you along the way.

Litho-built websites are fast loading and deliver healthy SEO results.

10. XStore – Best Premium WordPress WooCommerce Theme for eCommerce

You can start with one of XStore’s more than 110 amazing pre-built shops, or start from scratch and let Elementor or WPBakery and more than 550 pre-built blocks help you along the way, together with:

  • $559 worth of premium plugins.
  • A Live Ajax theme option.
  • A header builder and a single product page builder.
  • A built-in WooCommerce email builder.

You can get this complete and highly customizable WooCommerce theme for an amazing $39.

One of the benefits of using WordPress is the number of great WordPress themes you can work with. Whatever your niche, your target audience, or your skill level may be, there’s a premium WordPress theme out there that looks and feels as though it was made, especially with you in mind.

If you’re planning to create a fresh and beautiful website for 2022, or you want to completely rebuild an existing one, or simply make some design changes, this roundup of the most popular and the best WordPress themes in the market is meant for you. And we really mean it!

 

This is a sponsored post.

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Data Pipeline Essentials

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Modern data-driven applications are based on various data sources and complex data stacks that require well-designed frameworks to deliver operational efficiency and business insights. Data pipelines allow organizations to automate information extraction from distributed sources while consolidating data into high-performance storage for centralized access. In this Refcard, we delve into the fundamentals of a data pipeline and the problems it solves for modern enterprises, along with its benefits and challenges.
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Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts

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The choice of typeface is one of the most critical factors in any design; it gives the text its voice. It can be desperately frustrating to find the right voice for your project, only to discover it’s outside your client’s budget.

Who doesn’t love a free font? There’s no question that something for nothing is an attractive proposition. When it comes to fonts, the problem is that high-quality fonts require months, sometimes years of work; high-quality fonts are expensive to produce; as a result, many free fonts have to cut corners.

However, decreasing costs for font design software and an open-source culture is making the industry more accessible, leading to hundreds of free fonts as good, if not better, than their premium rivals.

The challenge for designers is where to look. The solution is Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts. This tremendous, 107 page PDF covers everything you need to know to find the best, high-quality free fonts on the web.

Typewolf is one of the most trusted names in digital typography, with an excellent track record of educational guides; you can be sure the suggestions in this guide are second to none.

The guide is split into four sections:

  • Section one covers the closest free alternative to every font on Typewolf. The free alternatives list focuses on the popular, and in many cases, the most expensive fonts used by professional designers. That means you’ll have access to over 1,000 recommendations, all listed alphabetically for easy look-ups. Simply find the premium font you want, and you’ll find the closest free font available listed alongside it. In many cases, there are multiple suggestions to give you some agency.
  • Google Fonts is an excellent source of free fonts, but its own recommendations are weak. So the second section of the guide is dedicated to the ten best serif and sans-serif combinations on Google Fonts. The best serif and sans-serif combinations include visual examples, and explanations of why these typefaces complement each other, so you don’t find yourself designing in the dark. This section is excellent for anyone who’s unsure where to start with free fonts and needs to identify an effective pairing quickly.
  • As good as Google Fonts is, it’s not the only source of free fonts, and if you only look there, you’ll miss out on some real gems. That’s why section three of this guide introduces the 40 best free fonts that aren’t on Google Fonts. Each font listed is carefully presented to preview it at display and body sizes.
  • Lastly, to finish off this excellent ebook are the ten best free “hipster” fonts. You know the ones: they’re perfect for coffee shops, small-batch brewers, tattoo parlors, and anywhere Rockabilly is still in style.

All told, there are enough recommendations in this guide to last you an entire career. So no matter what you’re looking for, whether it’s a free version of a particular typographic voice or some fresh inspiration, you’ll find it in this essential ebook.

What’s more, you’ll receive lifetime updates for free. With new content added weekly, this ebook will be a source of knowledge and inspiration you return to again and again. Lifetime access means you can re-download the guide every time you have a project that needs free fonts. You’ll also get access to an exclusive section of Typewolf that showcases only free fonts, so you can see how free fonts can be used well.

Every good designer understands the value of high-quality typography, but not every project has the budget to allow you to use premium fonts from top type foundries. This guide helps you leap that hurdle by offering carefully selected, free alternatives. If you’re new to the world of typography, this helpful guide will give you some practical insight on how to locate free fonts for use in your design work.

This guide will save you hours trying to find the suitable typeface for your project, as well as introduce you to some excellent designs that you might not have considered.

You can download Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts today for the bargain price of $39. You could even gift it to the typophile in your life.

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How Do Open Data Servers and Databases Help Optimize Performance in FinTech

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Data is a piece or a large amount of information stored electronically. With so much information stored in different folders, this separation of data makes data storage inconsistent and tedious to access, edit, or replace.

That’s exactly where servers or databases come into the picture. With complex data and numbers pouring in on a daily basis, having a strong database or servers is crucial to managing it. A database is nothing but a collection of information in a structured way to allow for prompt readability, access, and editing. It is the center of the flow of data, as data flows from the database to other parts of the system.

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