Acquia Ups Their Game at 2021 Partner Summit

It’s no secret that the pace of change in the digital world is constantly accelerating. Not only is this true for the clients we serve and the expectations of their audiences, but also for the tools, systems and platforms we work with and implement for our clients every day. So we do our best to keep our teams at Genuine as up-to-date as possible on how our channel partners’ offerings are evolving.

With that spirit in mind, a number of Genuine-ites from across a range of disciplines attended Acquia’s Partner Summit last week. Our team certainly came away with energy and excitement for Acquia’s increasingly sophisticated and uniquely positioned Open DXP Platform. We asked folks who attended for their impressions of the event. And, keeping with the summit’s theme, which was “Up Your Game”, we asked attendees to share what aspects of the Acquia DXP they’re most excited to up their game with in 2021. 

Acquia’s momentum

“It’s not surprising that coming off a year like 2020 that Acquia continues to bring their A-game, “ said Greg Knoff, Genuine’s SVP, Account Services. “Their focus on continuous innovation and trailblazing mindset coupled with their commitment to partners is what leaders do. I’m looking forward to digging in deeper with the Acquia team throughout 2021 and beyond.”

Acquia had a stellar 2020. They retooled and streamlined their product architecture -- integrating a number of key acquisitions into both their Marketing Cloud and Drupal Cloud offerings. And they continued their momentum amongst the analyst community with a strong showing in both Gartner’s DXP Magic Quadrant and Forrester’s Wave™for Agile CMS.

Excitement about Acquia Marketing Cloud
Specific to Acquia’s Marketing Cloud, Brendon Buckley, Genuine’s VP, Strategy is eager to up his game with Acquia by unlocking the potential of digital communications – with context.  “If we know X about a customer, how do we tailor our communication to them to meet their needs?  Acquia’s personalization tools give us a way to present, monitor and iterate on 1 to 1 communications at scale, which is exciting.”

Personally, I’m ready to go deeper with Acquia CDP and share the solution with our clients. Virtually every one of our clients has acknowledged some sort of challenge harnessing their data – whether it’s siloed, there’s too much of it, it’s locked up in proprietary systems that don’t easily communicate, or a host of other challenges. Helping our clients build a more complete profile of their customers and derive actionable insights to optimize their digital experiences is a priority for us..

“Acquia Marketing Cloud is changing at a rapid pace,” adds Joe Ciccheto, who recently joined Genuine as VP, Technology & Development. “I’m looking to up my game with Acquia’s new unified user profiles, segments, and 360 marketing analytics all under a single UI.  I’m also super excited to learn more about how they will continue to expand Machine Learning capabilities of the platform this year and how we can harness those capabilities to improve automation, intelligence, and predictive capabilities our customers need and are asking for.”

Drupal Cloud has plenty to offer too
Our team was equally energized by what Acquia shared about their Drupal Cloud product as well. Chase Barrett, a Technical Architect specializing in Drupal/Acquia implementations was pleasantly surprised by the news that Acquia is sun-setting their Acquia cloud desktop product in lieu of remote cloud-based IDE’s. “This will allow us and our clients to develop using the same tools as remote terminals, regardless of OS. While it may not have a direct sales impact for us, it’s a really interesting concept when it comes to project hand off training and our clients’ internal centers of excellence.”

Joanna Brine, Group Account Director, added, “I’m always striving to be a trusted advisor to my clients. I learned several helpful tidbits to be able to talk more confidently with my clients about their choices when discussing potential DXP options and approaches in the market. For example, the differences, benefits, and drawbacks to traditional versus consumer versus headless CMS options, and how Drupal is a truly agile CMS that combines the best of the three types – with a flexible architecture, security protocols, and ability to scale. The fact that Acquia provides that education and enablement is part of what makes them such a great partner” 

Genuine has partnered with Acquia since its early days as a cloud-first, SaaS pioneer because we’ve always seen the value their solutions provide our clients. Eleven-plus years, and dozens of engagements later, we’re equally bullish on Acquia’s future. And we’re excited to partner with Acquia in 2021 and beyond.