Connecting the dots of the 2021 Aspire CCM Leaderboard: Rendering Engines + Cloud

Tuesday, Jun 28th 2022
node and dots connection with an abstract background

Quadient has been recognized as an overall leader in the 2021 Aspire Leaderboard for CCM for the fourth year running. Aspire’s Leaderboard is the most in-depth vendor comparison in the market, full of data and insights. In addition to overall leadership, Quadient CXM solutions earned 12 market-leading scores in critical categories.

CCM is critical to your customer experience strategy. In our “Connecting the Dots” series we’re exploring how scoring criteria, key scores and their connection to data elements, and weightings can be engineered for optimal business impact.

Today we’re exploring how Rendering Engines and Cloud capabilities combine to prevent infinite cost scalability for your customer communications.  

Infinite SaaS scalability can mean increased costs with inefficient engines

When we think of cloud, we think of availability and reliability. In fact, shortly into any cloud/SaaS discussion, someone will say “infinite scalability” and earn a buzzword point. Indeed, that’s one of the leading benefits of cloud architectures, serving as the foundation upon which most SaaS offerings are built. But, while infinite scalability of available computing power is good, infinite scaling of costs is not good. That’s where the Aspire Leaderboard score for Rendering warrants a look in comparison with its scoring for Cloud.  

Why should you evaluate the rendering engine?

Quadient received the highest score ever granted from Aspire for Rendering (99). This score represents the recognition that there are several critical aspects of a rendering engine. Engine availability (i.e. start time), composition speed, channel flexibility, and resulting file size are critical metrics by which any rendering engine should be evaluated. I won’t get too deep into this, but you will see that looking a bit closer at traits will connect to significant changes in your underlying CCM costs.  

What efficient rendering means in the cloud (hint: cost savings)

So, let’s put a rendering engine into the cloud. Quadient recently did just this with the launch of Inspire Evolve. What does the efficiency of an engine matter to your bottom line? Efficient CCM engines in the cloud significantly benefit businesses and recipients with reduced file size. It’s a tangible benefit, as you don’t want to send bloated communications that take up space, render slowly or time out at critical moments. But, while the engine is processing, it's consuming cloud-based CPU. Since it’s located elsewhere, we often don’t think about this. 

But, if an inefficient engine is in the cloud, the vendor must pay for the excess compute power needed to overcome that inefficiency. That cost shows up somewhere, usually in an inflated price from the vendor or a reduced margin to the vendor. If the price is inflated, the communication costs will increase to your business. If the margin is compressed, the innovation pipeline may slow down. 

As you evaluate the connection between rendering and cloud, consider the advantages of Inspire Evolve, which recently turned the highest-rated CCM rendering engine into a SaaS CCM platform without the resource-intensive rendering engine others may be using. This delivers an improved customer experience through smaller file sizes, faster delivery and reduced operating costs. 

Here are five rendering and cloud questions to include in your RFP as you evaluate vendors. 

CCMRFP rendering cloud

Connecting the dots of the 2021 Aspire CCM Leaderboard

So, the key takeaway from connecting Quadient’s leading dots on rendering engines and cloud capabilities scoring is that we can help you transform customer communications and customer experience with industry-leading capabilities–getting you to value ahead of your competition. Our rendering engine and cloud scalability are the most efficient combination in the industry to date so you can transform customer communications overnight with reduced budgets.  

Thank you for engaging with me on this topic. Our solutions are configurable to your unique CCM and CXM needs, and we focus on the interactions between a variety of forces within business that impact the communications that drive your customer experiences. We look at the market through the lens of our customers, because connections matter.